Creating a warm, caring environment for a new baby
The dream:
As new parents, you hope that life with your baby will be exciting - a fun, new adventure and a chance to get to know a new member of your family. You want to create a warm, nurturing home for your children. You want time and space and support to bond with your baby. You want a peaceful postpartum. You want to instill positive values in your children. And if you have a partner, you want your relationship to be happy and connected. Ultimately, you want to raise a kind, positive human being that contributes to society when they are older.
The challenge:
Bringing a new member into the family is exciting and wonderful. It’s also challenging, stressful and can increase hostility between partners and even with extended family and friends. The dynamics of the new addition changes everyone’s lives and everyone is affected. Your identity changes. You shift from being a couple to being a family. You take on the identity of “mother” or “father” or “parent”, and you even deal with your parents as they take on the title of “grandparent” (whether for the first time or not). And if you have other children, they have to adjust to sharing their parents’ attention, affection, and time.
It is critical that new parents feel nurtured and supported, so that they can nurture and support their babies. Knowing that they are loved and safe is a crucial foundation for babies’ learning and development.
The solution:
There are 3 types of support that new families need to thrive: physical support, relationship tools, and financial support.
Physical support
In a perfect world, every birthing family would receive three kinds of physical support: a birth doula, a postpartum doula, and a pelvic floor physical therapist. Here’s why.
BIRTH DOULAS
A birth doula provides physical, informational, and emotional support during labor. They help birthing parents with comfort, suggestions, reassurance, and advocacy. Doulas may provide massage, relaxation techniques, and other types of emotional and physical support their clients need. And birth doulas can help partners to know what to expect during labor, as well as how they can best support the birthing parent.
According to Evidence Based Birth, “Overall, people who received continuous support were more likely to have spontaneous vaginal births and less likely to have any pain medication, epidurals, negative feelings about childbirth, vacuum or forceps-assisted births, and Cesareans. In addition, their labors were shorter… and their babies were less likely to have low Apgar scores at birth. There is a smaller amount of evidence that doula support in labor can lower postpartum depression in mothers. There is no evidence for negative consequences to continuous labor support.”
During COVID, some birth doulas have worked completely virtually. Other birth doulas have supported families in person in their homes until it was time to go to the hospital and then switch to a virtual model if needed after that. Gemma Mrizo, at Doula Gemma says, “For me, …I think that the virtual model completely works. … I think every woman should still have a doula… The doula and the remote model almost feels like that's your expert to call when it's hitting the fan and you're panicking. And I think a lot of people like that, that they have somebody to back them up if they need it. And then if they don't, they're cool.”.
POSTPARTUM DOULAS
A postpartum doula’s role is to support you to get your needs met as a new parent, whether that is taking care of the baby so that you can get a nap or snuggle with your partner for a few minutes, getting you a warm bath to soak your feet as you feed your baby, pulling up a good breastfeeding meditation on YouTube, or making sure that your water bottle stays full. Postpartum doulas also provide a listening ear as you process your birth experience and learn to be a parent. A postpartum doula will encourage and support you in gaining confidence as a parent. DONA, one of the agencies that certifies doulas, says that a postpartum doula’s job is to be NEAR: nurturing, educating, assessing, and referring to additional resources.
PELVIC FLOOR PHYSICAL THERAPY
Pelvic floor physical therapy can decrease your chance of injury and help new birthing parents to heal after birth. “I recommend a visit with a pelvic physical therapist before or during pregnancy week 30. [Parents] need to start doing the exercises I prescribe daily 6-8 weeks before delivery for them to get maximum benefit.” Dr. Romy Havard of Peregrine Physical Therapy.
Julie Kwong of LadyBits PT puts it this way, “"Why wouldn't you (see a pelvic floor physical therapist)?" You've been through so much. This is the least you deserve--to heal after birth, be put back together. It's the very least you deserve.”
2. Relationship tools
During pregnancy, most couples don’t know what to expect and don’t know what important conversations to have. As a result, they often feel resentful when their expectations don’t match with reality after the baby arrives. That’s why I love to teach the Gottman Bringing Baby Home program to expectant and new parents.
Bringing Baby Home educators give parents the tools that they need to express their needs clearly and respectfully, using research-based tools included in the Gottman Bringing Baby Home program.
Not only is the Gottman Bringing Baby Home program research-based, it’s also research-tested to increase relationship satisfaction. Babies of parents who have taken the class have been shown to cry less, smile more, and develop higher language and cognitive scores at one year of age than babies of parents who did not take the class. And that’s what new parents want!
3. Financial support
You probably noticed that the support options above are expensive. There are a few insurance companies that will cover a birth doula but most insurance companies don’t. What if we can get the support that we need anyway?
Some hospitals have volunteer doula programs for doulas who are in the process of getting their certification, or want to donate their time. Ask the hospital where you are birthing if they have a doula program, and encourage them to develop one if they don’t.
Your friends and family can help support you. Let’s change the way that we do baby showers! Instead of receiving a zillion newborn onesies that will never be used, you can ask for a nesting party, where your close family and friends come over to help you to cook and clean and prepare your home for your baby.
You can also use a registry such as behervillage.com to ask for the specific support that you need to thrive. Be Her Village is a gift registry for services, not stuff. Expectant and new parents can register for either physical support, such as a birth doula, postpartum doula, or pelvic floor physical therapist, or relationship support such as a Gottman Bringing Baby Home class.
So now what?
You want to create a family that is safe, healthy, calm, and strong. Don’t be under-prepared for the amount of support that you will need. Start your journey to parenting with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to do just that.
Join us at www.pregnancydatenight.com for a fun (FREE!) pregnancy date night, and start your registry today at www.behervillage.com!
