Doula work is heart work, it’s a calling that we get and there’s no turning back. For many of us though, when we do our training, we learn the ins and outs about birth, birth settings, physiology, interventions, etc. and if we’re lucky some things about starting a business, and then we launch ourselves into the world full of excitement and passion and ideas….

Doula work is heart work, it’s a calling that we get and there’s no turning back. For many of us though, when we do our training, we learn the ins and outs about birth, birth settings, physiology, interventions, etc. and if we’re lucky some things about starting a business, and then we launch ourselves into the world full of excitement and passion and ideas….

Doula work is heart work, it’s a calling that we get and there’s no turning back. For many of us though, when we do our training, we learn the ins and outs about birth, birth settings, physiology, interventions, etc. and if we’re lucky some things about starting a business, and then we launch ourselves into the world full of excitement and passion and ideas….

Doula work is heart work, it’s a calling that we get and there’s no turning back. For many of us though, when we do our training, we learn the ins and outs about birth, birth settings, physiology, interventions, etc. and if we’re lucky some things about starting a business, and then we launch ourselves into the world full of excitement and passion and ideas….

Doula work is heart work, it’s a calling that we get and there’s no turning back. For many of us though, when we do our training, we learn the ins and outs about birth, birth settings, physiology, interventions, etc. and if we’re lucky some things about starting a business, and then we launch ourselves into the world full of excitement and passion and ideas….

Doula work is heart work, it’s a calling that we get and there’s no turning back. For many of us though, when we do our training, we learn the ins and outs about birth, birth settings, physiology, interventions, etc. and if we’re lucky some things about starting a business, and then we launch ourselves into the world full of excitement and passion and ideas….

I’ve spoken to a few other birth workers lately about the way we manage being/living on call for long periods of time and how important it is to take breaks from on call life from time to time.

I thought I would share a little about what this looks like for those who may not understand, either people wondering what it’s like to be a birth-worker or even wondering what the on call fee is for in your contract…

… One of the things she had been working on, and teaching workshops in, is the art of the si’kuli (Huichol), or ojo de dios (Spanish), or god’s eye. While I was familiar with this craft, having seen it all over Mexico on my extensive and numerous visits there, and while I had even taught it to children and parents in a multicultural playgroup I used to facilitate in one of my former roles, something about the ones Irene posted about sparked an interest and curiosity in me that I hadn’t explored before.

Rebozos, shawls, traditional and/or indigenous textiles, woven fabrics and the stories they hold have fascinated me for as long as I can recall. I remember being fascinated by my mother’s woven shawls and when I was learning to sew as a young teenager I was always drawn to the delicate handwoven fabrics, even though they weren’t always the easiest ones to manage. However, my real interest in indigenous and traditional textiles really took off back in 2000 as a young 18-year-old whilst living in Mexico on a yearlong exchange program and immersion into Mexican life and culture. In many ways, that single year changed the course of my life for it was that experience that awoke in me a deep intrigue and curiosity of other cultures and ways of life and the experience of learning a new language through total immersion was one that would lead to several other similar experiences in other parts of the world in the coming years. It was also the beginning of my love affair with Latin America generally but with Mexico…

Join me as I share my personal experience with postnatal depletion. This heartfelt blog post delves into the challenges faced by new mums and the importance of self-care during the postnatal period. Gain insights and find solace in knowing you are not alone on this journey. Read on to connect and heal together.

In Australia, and in many other Western societies, it’s not uncommon for women to overlook the importance of lying in, resting, slowing right down or taking it easy for the first 6 weeks postpartum. When new mums overlook their physical health or simply don’t understand the importance of giving themselves adequate time to recover from the extraordinary effort of giving birth, they are more likely to feel overwhelmed, stressed, anxious or depressed.

An assignment I wrote some years back while doing my original doula certification course about the hormones involved in a normal physiological labour and birth. A good and easy read for anyone wanting to understand how all these hormones work in the body.

The most common medical interventions during pregnancy and labour are the induction of labour, regular vaginal examinations to determine extent of cervical dilation and the management of pain…

My daughter has a large compound infantile hemangioma on her neck at the base of her skull. Two and a half years ago I didn’t know what that was, and it's possible you might not either. As it happens, Infantile Hemangiomas are the most common type of vascular lesions, more commonly known as birthmarks, in children. You've probably seen them before and didn't know what they were called, though you might have heard them referred to as strawberry marks just like I had. Despite how common they are, I feel like calling them a birthmark is actually an anomaly because this kind of lesion is not present at birth, but appears within the first two weeks of life…

… I spent a couple of weeks slowly working on the mobiles, all the while wondering if I would finish in time before my baby arrived. It probably took me a total of about twelve hours, and although it was a bit tedious at times trying to ensure that each piece was balanced correctly, I enjoyed the creative process. I was excited to work so carefully on something that my new baby would be able to enjoy just a short time later and it gave me a sense of satisfaction to feel like I was doing something purposeful whilst waiting for her/his arrival. It’s interesting to reflect on this now as one of the things that I most liked about using the mobiles with her over the following months was similarly the purpose it gave her when I put her down to play/work on the floor. As mentioned above, Montessori materials are designed to help infants engage purposefully with materials that suit their developmental ability and this engagement is referred to as work. Observing my baby engaging in this work it was clear how much she enjoyed it.

If you’re in Australia and you’re trying to raise children to be truly bilingual or multilingual, you might think this will have purely by osmosis but this is rarely the case. In most instances, for children to acquire similar competency in the community language as they will eventually have in the dominant language (English, in this instance) it requires a consistent and intentional approach on behalf of the parents. Here I talk about some of the approaches you might consider trying on the long journey of raising children to be bilingual and multilingual.