"Black Women Do Breastfeed": Tandem Nursing!f

Five pictures of a black mama nursing her two black babies (a toddler and an infant)
are spliced together to make a square. The center picture is in a diamond shape.
Mama is smiling and making silly faces.

"Hey, just wanted to share an update picture. I was the mom that was nursing during labor in the kiddie pool in my house. Well, I'm still nursing my 1.5 year old. We are gonna self wean. And the baby I was in labor with is now 6 months old. We are silly at meal times lol."

"Black Women Do Breastfeed": Tandem Nursing!

"Texas Abortion Provider Launches Program to ‘Shift’ Abortion Stigma: A Q&A With Amy Hagstrom Miller and Amanda Williams"

photo portraits of Amy Hagstrom Miller (white) and Amanda Williams (brown)

This group, Shift, is SOOOO cool. They bought a space that used to be an abortion clinic. One of the ways they use it now is to walk people through the process of an abortion, and see where it actually happens and with which pieces of equipment (that are all still in the space).

Staff members get up on to the table. They play a patient. So when a guy gets on the table and puts his feet in the stirrups, it’s profound. I turn on the suction machine so people can hear what it sounds like... 

And this is my whole life’s work of turning lemons into lemonade. I have, as it turns out, a bunch of suction machines I don’t know what to do with. So if they can become used for show and tell? Awesome. I have all these nitrous oxide mixers. Are we going to throw them away? Or I can use them. So that’s part of this space. It’s part of a reclaiming.

"Texas Abortion Provider Launches Program to ‘Shift’ Abortion Stigma: A Q&A With Amy Hagstrom Miller and Amanda Williams"

In cahoots,
~Sasha

"Nigeria’s Outgoing President Signs Off On Banning Female Genital Mutilation"

A black person holds a sign saying "STOP FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION (FGM)".
Many other black people appear in the background. Everyone wears white tee shirts.

The new law seeks to protect women on a range of fronts. It also sets out punishments for offenses such as throwing a spouse out of their home and traditional rituals that discriminate against widows, according to local media reports this week.

"Nigeria’s Outgoing President Signs Off On Banning Female Genital Mutilation"

In cahoots,

~Sasha

"The case for starting sex education in kindergarten"

A young-looking white woman (wearing a tee-shirt that says 'Paris')
leads several kindergarten-age children in a group conversation.
Three children are visible: one is black, and two are white.

By law, all primary school students in the Netherlands must receive some form of sexuality education. The system allows for flexibility in how it’s taught. But it must address certain core principles — among them, sexual diversity and sexual assertiveness. That means encouraging respect for all sexual preferences and helping students develop skills to protect against sexual coercion, intimidation and abuse. The underlying principle is straightforward: Sexual development is a normal process that all young people experience, and they have the right to frank, trustworthy information on the subject.

"The case for starting sex education in kindergarten"

Before I got started as a doula, I was a teacher of young children, and now I'm a mama. How can I help you talk to the kids in your life?

In cahoots,
~Sasha

"Denied: How an abortion bill in Texas affected the birth, and death, of my son"

"Silver Medallion made by my mother, Semaphore Alphabet character “W”"
The author's son was named William.

We are denied the opportunity to even make a humane and doctor sanctioned medical decision by a bill that we never thought would affect us. I was there at the capitol, fighting for the rights of others. It never crossed my mind I would be fighting for my own.

"Denied: How an abortion bill in Texas affected the birth, and death, of my son"


I support all families and all pregnancy outcomes.

In cahoots,
~Sasha

"Exposing the Silence Project": Stories of birth trauma

A young-looking white woman with brown hair looks at the camera, grimacing slightly.
She is wearing a white baby in a soft carrier; the baby is facing away from the camera.

Trigger warning: references to birth trauma and callous behavior from a medical professional

"Poignant picture series captures the 'incredible healing power of a mother's touch' with images of women cradling their newborn babies in an intensive care unit"

A tiny black baby lies chest-to-chest atop their smiling black mama.
The baby is keeping warm under a couple of blankets and a crocheted hat.
There are tubes taped to baby's cheek and a band around one wrist.

'Some preemies are so fragile they can’t be held for weeks or months,' explained Myra Rolfes, the NICU Nurse Leader at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, in a post on the Dedicated to All Better blog. 'When those babies grow strong enough to snuggle, it takes a team of nurses to navigate wires and help baby safely nestle against Mom.' 

But though it's not easy to physically reunite mom with her baby, she said, the incredible payoff is always worth the effort: 'Once there, babies experience a kind of healing technology can’t provide: the power of a mother’s touch.'

"Poignant picture series captures the 'incredible healing power of a mother's touch' with images of women cradling their newborn babies in an intensive care unit"

It's my job as a doula to support all families. How can I support yours?

In cahoots,
~Sasha

"How One Hospital Brought Its C-Section Rate Down Fast"

A white newborn stares earnestly over their blonde, white mama's shoulder.
Baby is looking just below the camera, while mama looks off to the left.

Faced with the possible loss of an important insurer, one California hospital rapidly reduced excessive cesarean section rates in part by sharing each physician’s rate with everyone in the obstetrics department.

There's a conversation occurring all over the world about what constitutes a medically necessary cesarean delivery. There's a consensus that's only growing stronger around the hypothesis that the c-section rate in the US (and many other industrialized nations) is too high. What is still emerging is how to improve best practices in hospitals and birth centers in order to get that rate down. Here is the story of one hospital in California figuring it out:

"How One Hospital Brought Its C-Section Rate Down Fast"

What other best practices have you heard about for safely improving rates of vaginal delivery?

In cahoots,
~Sasha