Postpartum Support

Build Your New Parent Community Around You – Manuela Bakilana & Shakila Marando From Doulas By The Bay

by: Sarah TrottPosted on:

Most women in the USA do not have a community coming to support them and their new family during the first 90 days after having a baby.
Listen to this episode to learn about the advantages of building up a community of friends, family, trusted neighbors, and professional supporters (e.g. a postpartum doula, a night doula). 

Postpartum Support

What Postpartum Doulas Do

by: Sarah TrottPosted on:

If you are even remotely considering hiring a doula to help you out after you’ve had a baby, we highly recommend listening to Monique Cowan (a.k.a. Monique The Doula) share her first-hand experiences in a typical day in her job. She talks through the practical offerings of helping families prepare for a birth and thrive after baby has arrived. 
Monique was inspired to become a postpartum doula after her own birth experience. She saw the potential to help women in her Southern California locale, particularly women of color and inner city areas.  She works with all people who need postpartum doula services and her website is https://moniquethedoula.wordpress.com/

Mental Health , Postpartum Support

Pinpoint Where You Are on the Spectrum of Mental Health

by: Sarah TrottPosted on:

This is our second and brief interview with Jane Honikman, a founding member of the Postpartum Education for Parents resource (www.sbpep.org) as well as Postpartum Support International (postpartum.net) that includes a telephone support line and partner with Dr Shoshana Bennett in Postpartum Action Institute.
Jane gives us an overview and outline for finding ourselves on the spectrum of mental health. Listen to the episode to find out how to identify different parts of the continuum and better understand where you yourself might fall on that spectrum.
She talks about her time studying with Dr. James Hamilton who was interested in maternal mental health at a time when it might have seemed as if no one cared or understood, much like today in many women’s experience!