Flourishing Families

Tara from Empowering Mothers talks to us about the importance of providing support to new families.  Support can come from many sources in many different ways: partners, family and friends helping with meals, laundry and holding bubba while mum takes a shower.  Sometimes though it is awesome to have someone not too close, who can be asked to do anything - and that someone could be a post-partum doula.

Tara's goal as a post-partum doula is to help a new mum enjoy the fourth trimester by providing  emotional, physical, informative, and practical support. This is to ensure that mama feels supported, cared about, rested, fed and empowered.

Rochelle is a Certified Infant Massage Instructor (CIMI) in Newcastle. She sees massage as the perfect way facilitate the loving relationship between infant and parent. Bonding is enhanced through massage as it includes the sense of soothing touch, hearing the parent's gentle voice, the loving eye connection and even the beautiful smell of baby. Rochelle believes that all new parents have an innate wisdom when it comes to meeting the needs of their new baby and when supported by their community, secure attachment can be nurtured.

Rochelle is a Certified Infant Massage Instructor (CIMI) in Newcastle.

Sarah is a specialised yoga teacher and experienced birth doula. She offers weekly prenatal and postnatal yoga classes at Family Chiropractic Charlestown. Sarah speaks about how pregnancy yoga can be a form of birth preparation as well as a foundation for building your postpartum village. She holds quarterly mamas circles in our garden and provides postnatal yoga as an extension of community and support founded in pregnancy.

Helen has years and years experience with childbirth. She has worked as a nurse and midwife in a hospital setting and more recently as a private midwife supporting families who want to have their baby at home.

In this podcast she shares with us important insights into the

Helen can be found at 'Homebirth with Helen'.

Heather Foord is passionate about educating women about the health of their pelvic floor.   There is an important dynamic relationship between the abdominal muscles, our breath and the pelvic floor. She shares with us some valuable pointers on how we can strengthen these at home.  Heather also explains the science behind some amazing equipment she has in her studio which can help improve incontinence and diastasis recti in just a few weeks. 

Jess Hastings is an actuary risk analyst, and has been juggling and assessing risks for a living for many years. Since having a challenging pregnancy and birth with her first child, she has been passionate about helping pregnant couples making sense of the information provided at this time, and making the most best decisions for their situation.

Joanne Macintosh is a pregnancy and post-partum massage therapist, doula and yoga instructor. She shares with us about the healing that happens at both physical and emotional levels throughout pregnancy and how intuitive massage can help.

Joanne can be contacted via https://joannemassagedoula.au/