I hardly know where to begin to describe the impact of The Silent Birthkeeper course…
and the deeply safe and nourishing community that comes with it – has had on my life. I just gave birth to my firstborn. Having had the immense blessing of having my pregnancy unfold in tandem with this course. Currently he is nuzzled up against my chest in our dimly lit birthing cave. He’s 5 days old. I’ve felt the calling towards becoming a traditional birthkeeper ever since I was a little girl, listening to the tales of my grandmother. Of how the women of the frozen tundra gave birth, close to the fire, safely nestled inside their tents, with their sisters and grandmothers humming outside. The men out hunting, seeking an offering for a safe passage of the new soul. Never until now though, have I actually been present in a birthing space. The arrival of my baby boy was my initiation. Both to motherhood, and to the deep deep certainty that supporting women to feel empowered, loved and safe during conception, childbearing, childbirth and beyond – is a prayer I’ll devote my life towards. I’ve experienced first hand the impact that the teachings, love, support and wisdom offered through this course and its wonderful teachers – can have on a woman journeying towards motherhood. As well as on a birthkeeper at the very beginning of her path. It has taught me why birthkeeping matters. The importance of self care as we aim to care for others. I has made me realise how common it is for women to birth without having the basic needs of a woman in labour met. It has made me ask around among my own friends, sisters, mothers – and learn of their birth stories. Listening to them has made me realise even more the extent of the unspoken trauma that so many women experience during birth. Their feeling of loneliness. Of isolation. I am so deeply grateful to Ruth, Lana, Samara and all the wonderful guest teachers coming to us from all over the world. Showing up in this deeply held container to share their stories, their work and their experience with us. Truly it is such a gift. The teachings I’ve received and the friends that I’ve made here,I will carry with me for the rest of my life. – Noo, Artist, Mother and Silent Birthkeeper 2023-2024 Welcome little one! Your magnificent Mama! For more information or to book your place on the upcoming Silent Birthkeeper one-year immersion please see...
Read MoreHolding Death as Birthkeepers
“…if you are a birth keeper, you must also be a death midwife. If you support people to enter the earth realm, you must also become a midwife for those who pass on.” – Dr Mmatshilo Motsei The first time I ever saw a dead body it was a baby. I was 9 years old and we had very recently made the move to the farm. The little girl had been born on the drive to the hospital after her mother had gone into labour on Christmas Eve. She had emerged whilst the bakkie (the pick up truck) was winding down Gydo pass, to the town of Ceres. She had lain, wet and alone, at her mother’s feet and had begun to grow cold. By the time they had reached the hospital she was no longer breathing. (You can read AN’NOOI’S BIRTH STORY here) At the funeral, which was held in the bushman graveyard on the farm, her father unscrewed her little coffin for us to all see. The coffin was no bigger than a shoe box. She was perfect. Beautiful. Angelic. I will never forget her face and her little fingers. Her little body dressed and swathed in silken white. She looked like she was asleep… There was something so pure, so innocent about this death. Her mother sobbed at her graveside whilst the rest of us looked on not knowing what to say. My mother had been asked to oversee the funeral, she wore a big sun hat and read from the Bible. The women began to sing as the tiny coffin was covered in sad and red clay soil. Assie verlossers huis toe gaan Assie verlossers huis toe gaan Oh Here help my dat ek kan saam gaan Assie verlossers huis toe gaan (When the saviours return home When the saviours return home Oh Lord help me, that I may return with them When the saviours return home) ——————————————- Birth should be about life shouldn’t it? And yet, as Mmatshilo’s quote illustrates, we cannot work in the realm of birth without knowing that death walks along this life giving force as well. “We come from spirit, come from light, shining in the stars at night” – Martyn John Taylor (SHINE) The fact that birth and death carry a similar energy became evident to me after I experienced the massive loss of having my mother, my sister and my step father wrenched from this life. Whilst I grieved, I also noticed the familiar tenderness that comes with the thinning of the veils, the sensitivity, the vulnerability, the same openness that I had carried after giving birth. BIRTH AND DEATH ARE INFINITELY INTERTWINED It is very difficult to talk about and face death when it accompanies birth. And yet it is a conversation that needs to be had. How do we hold Death as birth attendants, birthkeepers, as space holders for birth? I am not sure that I have the answers … but I do my best to initiate conversations and to create safe spaces for us to explore these topics that are so emotive and important in this work. The following True Midwifery online offerings will explore this topic in depth and from different perspectives, in a safe and held container and within a beautiful community: 25 July 2024 – STUDY SPIRAL: Holding Grief and Loss in Pregnancy and Childbirth with Nadia Maheter 4 September 2024 – 15 January 2025 – Birth First Aid for Mother and Baby 14 November 2024 – 13 November 2025 – Silent Birthkeeper: One Year Immersion into True...
Read MoreWhy Birth First Aid?
The First Time I Ever Resuscitated a Baby on my own I remember the first time I had to resuscitate a baby on my own. It had been a fairly average first labour. It started in the middle of the night and trotted along into the new day. The mother was surprised at the intensity of the surges but she rode them quietly and stoically. The emergence of the baby was slow and as her mother crouched, she was born gently onto the floor onto a soft pile of towels. Some mothers scoop their babies up immediately, while others take their time, looking, smelling, and touching. Still, others need to take their time, first processing the enormity of the event before being able to look and engage. As long as the space is warm and the mother and baby are left undisturbed all are variations of normal. In this case, the mother was slow to interact with her baby, I believe she was initially taken aback at the sight of her newborn. It became evident that this baby was not responding after being born, not showing much muscle tone and not breathing. Helping Babies Breathe I had recently been trained in the Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) programme as a facilitator through Operation Smile and worked as a volunteer for some of their educational missions in Africa. What I love about this programme is its simplicity: its focus on normal birth, preparedness, its understanding for working in low-resourced and out-of-hospital settings, as well as the all important MotherBaby needs like skin-to-skin and not cutting the umbilical cord. As a skilled birth attendant, you make a difference In the HBB programme, we are taught that the majority of babies are totally fine at birth and require little more than skin-to-skin contact with their mother – but that around 10% require gentle assistance in transitioning from womb life. These are some of the skills we will be focusing on in the upcoming Birth First Aid series of workshops that I will be offering for the month of November. Extreme neonatal resuscitation is rare in healthy pregnancies and births and usually is an indicator of some other underlying issue. Why Birth First Aid? If we are attending births on a regular basis, especially when a birth is left to unfold as it should, we come into contact with the beauty and simplicity that is birth and we receive the regular imprint that birth works and that birth is safe. But every once in a while, nature throws us a curve ball, and in the same way as we expect someone who works with children to be prepared if a child chokes, we want to be prepared for those rare times when a mother or baby does require assistance. In the case of the birth I was describing at the beginning of this post/letter – it felt clear that this baby was struggling. Muscle memory from my HBB training kicked in, and with her cord still attached and intact, between her mother’s legs on the floor, we worked together to gently remind her that she needed to breathe. And she did… I invite you to join us We will be gathering weekly for the month of November on these dates: 2, 9, 16, and 23 November 2022 via zoom from 11am – 2pm SAST (GMT+2) COST: 130 Euro / 130 USD / 1250 ZAR All sessions will be recorded and made available to you for one month after the call For more information or to book your place please email me at truemidwife@gmail.com What we will cover over...
Read MoreThere is hope…
Two weeks ago I came back home to South Africa after a full and busy tour of teaching and presenting in various countries in Europe. I don’t think I quite realised what I had signed myself up for when I said yes to all the commitments I had made but for three weeks I ended up either teaching or travelling every single day. This was my itinerary: 14-15 May, Additional Skills and Information Session Weekend for Doulas at DO-UM in Istanbul, Turkey 17-18 May, Helping Babies Breathe and other obstetric emergencies for home birth at Da a Luz, in the Alpujarras, Spain 20-24 May, An Introductory Course to Midwifery at Vale dos Homens, Portugal 26-31 May, book launch of Italian translation of my book, The Basic Needs of a Woman in Labour, in Rome and various towns on the island of Sardinia. I flew to Istanbul mid May to teach doulas and student doulas at DO-UM, a space run by Nur (the first ever doula in Turkey) and Sima. These two doulas are pioneering and bearing the torch of birth through education and birth attendance in Turkey. Turkey has a rising caesarian rate which matches our own here in the private sector in South Africa. The majority of births are attended by doctors and most end in caesarans. But DO-UM and other places are trying to shift this by offering doula courses, as well as childbirth classes for expectant couples. Then I went on to Spain where I spent two days teaching the last workshop of Da a Luz Midwifery School’s second year in operation. The school, is the vision and idea of Vanessa Brooks, a British home birth midwife residing in Spain. It is still a work in progress but what I have seen in visiting the place twice in the last two years, is that it is coming together very nicely, and growing as a course which supports women in choosing the path to true midwifery. Students sign up for a year’s apprenticeship and have the added challenge of having to provide completely for themselves in terms of accommodation (living in tents, vans, yurts, caravans, and one student even building herself a little cob hut), living off the grid and living communally. The school building, is slowly being built and has gone from being a pile of stones to taking on a majestic presence of its own. I look forward to seeing it when it is done but for now, classes still take place mainly outdoors, on rugs, on the grass, under the olive tree. I am very inspired by what Vanessa is doing at Da a Luz because we all know that there is something lacking in midwifery training nowadays, and that is often a lack of trust of the birthing process. Da a Luz aims to instil a sense of confidence and faith in birth. Last year I taught the Helping Babies Breathe course to a group of doulas in Portugal. After that course, there were numerous requests to build on that and for me to provide a longer, more detailed course, exploring some of the skills of midwifery. Hence,An Introductory Course to Midwifery was born. At the beautiful venue at Vale dos Homens we spent five days discussing, exploring and mostly laughing our way through basic midwifery skills, sharing birth stories and discussing what birth and midwifery meant to us. You can see more pictures from the course on the True Midwifery FaceBook page. After the course in Portugal I had to catch a plane to Rome where the Italian translation of my book, The Basic Needs of a Woman...
Read MoreMy Mother was the First one to Touch my Baby
Thursday 11 October 2001 I fell pregnant when I was 20 after returning from a hitchhiking session through Europe with my younger sister, Kate. I came back home to pack up and move to Ireland to study drama but when I realised the constant nausea was morning sickness, I made plans to move to a nearby farm community. I wanted my child to be born into the world in a natural setting. I had grown up on a farm North West of Ceres and my mother while not trained to, had fallen into the role of being the farm labourers’ midwife. When I was expecting my first baby, I saw no reason why my mother should not be the person to support and assist me. I wrote the following two years later when I was expecting my second child. * I woke up with a desperate urge to shit at about one in the morning. I went to the toilet, came back to bed again and lay down again. I tried to sleep. Again, I wanted to poo, so again I went to the toilet, relieved myself and came back to bed. I tried to snuggle up to Nolan but my boep* was in the way, so I turned around and tried to sleep. Again, I needed to poo, so off I went, but this time only dribbles of shit came out. My abdomen cramped. I went back to bed. The cramps kept on coming. Building up…building up…building up…ebbing away…ebbing away…ebbing away… I sat up. I put on the bedside light. I sat and felt the pains come and go…not sure. Scared to wake Nolan up. Eventually I did. He sat up immediately… I phoned my mother. She was at a friend’s house. She told me to time the contractions. If they were less than a minute apart, she said, I would have to go into hospital because she wouldn’t able to get to me on time. My mother was going to go and fetch my sister Kate and then would be on her way. I timed the contractions. 1 minute and 35 seconds apart. 1 minute and 20 seconds apart. 1 minute and 40 seconds apart. They felt fast and hard. I panicked. I didn’t want to go into hospital. I was set on a home birth. The night before I had read (funnily enough) that to relax and slow down labour, a warm bath would help. Nolan ran a bath while I tried desperately to breathe through the rushes of pain. Breathing was impossible and painful, unbearable. Easier to grit my teeth, not breathe and bear it. Once in the bath, great relief flooded my body. I relaxed in the pink hue of the candlelight. I could begin to breathe with the pain. I phoned my best friend Nikki (who was studying in Jo´burg) from the bath. Nikki phoned me back from her dad’s cell phone. So good to speak to her, wished she was there, so far away. Nolan had been instructed by my mother to line the bed with black bags. To get all our towels and sheets together. To put a pot of water, with a pair of scissors and a string in it, on to boil I ate a paw-paw in the bath. After an hour in the bath, I got out, wrapped in a white towelling bathrobe. The starkness of the light in the kitchen brought on the pain tenfold. It slammed into me. At that moment, my mother arrived in a rented car. I hung on her. Hello Mom. Back in the...
Read More