Babies in Common

Join us as we talk with two moms (one with a corporate job, Marlena Shaffer, and one who works in a surgical intensive care unit as a nurse, Julie Longchamps) about preparing to go back to work and pumping at work.  We discuss their initial breastfeeding experiences, tips for approaching bosses and human resources, finding an appropriate space to pump at the office, laws about pumping at work, making sure you have all your equipment, milk storage, bottles and so much more!

On today’s show we will be discussing how birth has changed over the last 25 years.

Our guest today is Ananda Lowe, a long-time birth doula in Massachusetts who will share what she has seen and heard.  Ananda has been part of the Boston/New England and even national birth scene for a long time--since 1995.  She is co-author of The Doula Guide to Birth: Secrets Every Pregnant Woman Should Know, she’s a Lamaze-trained childbirth educator, as well as a Certified Lactation Counselor, and former Licensed Massage Therapist specializing in pregnancy.  After many years of supporting families, she became a new mother in 2010.  

During this episode, we discuss the following:

• how Ananda came to become a birth doula 
• the history of informed consent and informed refusal in birth and a better way for care providers to offer informed consent and informed refusal
• having her first baby at the age of 40
• being vulnerable and the concept of coercion during birth
• taking ownership of anger about one’s birth experience
• how for decades we have known there are health disparities and that racism is responsible
• the importance of listening to and reading birth stories
• the rise of inductions and Cesarean births over the last 25 years and why this isn’t a good thing
• how “intervention begets intervention” and our obsession with technology
• COVID restrictions and why having even a virtual doula is helpful

Resources:

https://www.bostondoulacircle.com/

https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/05/11/doula-culture-of-consent

https://www.yougoodsis.co/