The rebozo is a traditional shawl woven and used by Mexican women. Traditional Mexican midwives use the rebozo to do the manteada, a rocking massage technique that is very useful in relaxing the pregnant women and encouraging the baby into the best position for health and labor. The rebozo massage is very relaxing, it balances and relaxes the pelvis, low back, uterus, and ligaments, allowing more room for the baby to tuck his chin and rotate into the best position for labor.

There are many variations of rebozo techniques for abdominal support, pelvic support, massage, rocking, turning posterior babies, and acynclitic babies. The rebozo is also helpful for the doula, midwife, or dad to support the laboring women in different positions. The rebozo is also used to carry babies after the birth. There are traditional rebozo massages for fertility, pregnancy, labor, complications, and postpartum. In addition, the rebozo massage is wonderful for all ages, far beyond pregnancy.

Here is a slideshow of a few rebozo techniques that I teach my doula clients and at the Birth Arts Doula workshops:

Announcing....

The Co-Creative Birthing Circle

Online Natural Childbirth Education Classes for 21st Century Parents

at the Maia Institute of Co-Creative Healing

 

The Co-Creative Birthing Circle is a new, multi-media, comprehensive, online childbirth education class for expecting parents. This comprehensive class features an additional Birth Story Collection and Birth Circle Forum. The Deluxe Birth Circles includes private email and phone birth consultations, essential birth books, and a free bonus gift.

Learn to co-create the best birth possible for you and your baby with nature and spirit. Discover proven ways to natural ease labor pain. Empower yourself with traditional birthing wisdom and evidence-based maternity care research. Trust in birth, your body, and your baby.

 

The Co-Creative Birthing Circle features: 

• Natural Childbirth Education 24/7
• 7 Multi-Media Online Lessons
• Articles, Pictures, Videos, & Resource Links
  
• Over 40 videos on birth and natural parenting
• More than 150 links to the best articles and resources on natural pregnancy & birth
• Recommended Activities
• Birth Circle Discussion Forum
  
• PLUS: Birth Story Library
• PLUS: Birth Humor

The mission of Co-Creative Birthing is to create healthy mothers, babies, and families worldwide through trust and love for Birth, Nature, & Spirit.

Co-Creative Birthing Circle Facilitator Training & Sage Femme: Women's Healing Arts Circle coming soon!

Babies love to be touched by the compassionate loving hands of their parents. Immediately upon being born, newborns thrive when held in the arms of their mothers or father. Studies at the Touch Institute at the University of Miami have demonstrated the powerfully beneficial qualities of touch therapy for babies and children. They discovered that babies in the NICU who were given massage every day then left the hospital an average of 2 weeks earlier than other babies, and gained weight 50% faster.

Bodywork is a word that includes all kinds of hands-on healing therapies, including massage therapy, shiatsu, acupressure, reflexology, craniosacral therapy, energy healing, reiki, and more. I like to use the term “bodywork” in my writing and practice to encompass all the many different kinds of healing touch available beyond the well-known and loved art of massage. Massage is a wonderful universal touch therapy practiced all around the world. Energy medicine is a very gentle non-invasive touch therapy that can even be performed off the body for very sensitive babies and adults, as well as everyone.

Continuing throughout infancy, babyhood, the toddler years, and childhood, it is easy, fun, and healthy to provide loving touch, massage, or bodywork to your children. Learning to practice bodywork for your baby is fun and enhances your communication with your child. If you are interested in learning about baby massage or other kinds of bodywork you can find books and movies at your local bookstore or library, or you can seek out professional bodywork in your community.

Getting Ready for Baby Bodywork

All you need to get started are warm clean hands and a flat surface to lay your baby down. Adapt the room temperature, lights, and sounds to be soothing for baby. I recommend working on a bed or the floor, with a soft towel underneath the baby if you are going to use oil for massage. When choosing a safe massage oil, please avoid synthetic oils, such as mineral oil or chemical perfumes, such as found in common “baby oils”. Instead choose an all-natural cold-pressed vegetable oil such as coconut oil, almond oil, jojoba oil, or a natural baby massage oil blend by Mama Rose's Naturals, Weleda, Burts Bees, or other natural body care product companies.

When introducing your babies delicate skin to a new product, try testing the oil on a small patch of your babies skin, then waiting 24 hours, to make sure there is no irritation or skin reaction. You can also do gentle touch, massage, or energy work while your baby is dressed in comfy clothing. Bodywork can be integrated into your regular day. I used to massage my baby's feet when carrying him in a sling around during the day. At night time, I like to gentle massage my son's back in small circles down along each side of his spine at night to help him fall asleep. During the busy toddler years, I would massage his legs, arms, back, and head as he was playing, following him along as he played with trains, read a book, or played with a toy.

Feel free to be creative and anytime can be bodywork time! Just remember to have fun!

Bodywork for Baby

Babies only need a very light touch when massaging. A newborn needs no more pressure than the amount you can press on your own eyelids without feeling uncomfortable pressure. You can use a little bit of oil to make your strokes smooth and fluid as you massage your babies belly, back, head, arms, legs, feet, and hands.

Here are a few suggestions for Baby Massage techniques:

• Wrap your hand around your babies arms or leg and glide down to the hand or foot and back up to the shoulder or hip.
• Massage your babies belly in clockwise circles to enhance digestion and relieve gas.
• Bicycle pump your babies legs to relieve gas.
• With baby on belly or across your lap, massage down their back and up. Glide your hands down and up, and then make little circles with your fingers down along each side of the spine.
• Make little circles with your fingertips on your baby's scalp.
• Massage each finger and toe.
• Massage the soles of your baby's feet.

Baby Energy Medicine suggestions:

• Hold your hands on either side of your baby's body, where ever you feel energy is needed and send love and clear light to your baby.
• For a tummy ache, hold one hand one the belly and one hand on the small of the back.
• For a headache or for excited children, do the head-hold, with one hand on the forehead and one hand on the back of the head.
• Palm both calves with your hands to calm baby, ease digestion, and sooth colic.
• Listen to your intuition and use energy medicine freely with positive intent.

Create a regular time for baby bodywork in your family. Remember that with gentle touch and attunement, no harm can be done. Offered simply and with love, massage is a powerful bodywork practice for whole family health. Energy medicine offers many tools for parents through raising babies and children, as well as self-care.

Remember to have fun and trust your intuition!

How is the internet revolutionizing childbirth today? I speak to many pregnant women who relay all the information they receive from pregnancy and baby-related community bulletin boards online, as well as the movies they see on Youtube, or the births seen on dramatized emergency childbirth television shows.

In 1999, I found myself simultaneously pregnant and living with the internet in my home for the first time. I had a deep thirst for knowledge about birth, pregnancy, and also connection to other women with my experience. I found a unique community of women at the former hipMama.com bulletin boards.

Through hipMama, I formed connections with moms from all over the country, who gave me support in making my independent childbirth and parenting choices, amidst the vast voices of the media and consumerism. My hipmama friends mailed me packages of cloth diapers and baby clothes, zines and music. I gathered with these women in Portland and Seattle, New England and Baltimore, at the legendary HipMama gathering in 2001, and these mamas inspired me to become a writer and to share my words with creativity in many forms.

In the past couple years, with the explosion of Youtube and online video streaming, there are tons of videos online of births - both hospital, birth center, waterbirth, homebirth, unassisted births, twin births - you name it! There is so much information it can be powerfully informational and yet overwhelming in volume. It can hard to sort through the scary or mundane stuff to get to the powerful nuggets of golden inspiration.  

Lamaze recently reported that less couples in the US are attending childbirth education classes, with attendance dropping in recent years. Yet, families that attend natural childbirth classes have a higher success rate of healthy unmedicated labors and births. It has been shown that attending classes is beneficial for improving the healthy outcomes of both mother and baby. Instead, more pregnant women and expecting fathers are turning online for information.

This is how I was stuck with the idea of creating an online natural childbirth education classroom and community. I receive emails all the time from women interested and motivated to learn more about natural birth from all over the US, Canada, and beyond. I am creating the Co-Creative Birthing Circle - which includes a complete natural childbirth education program online with reading, videos, links, resources, birth stories, activities, printable PDF's, and a private birth circle discussion forum.  

I've been busy at work creating this program and the website for the last month and am anticipating opening enrollment in July. The Co-Creative Birthing Circle is the first holistic healing online learning circle at the Maia Institute of Co-Creative Healing, and following the release of this circle will be a Women's Healing Arts Circle, Co-Creative Energy Healing Circle, and more ideas are awaiting the time to bloom.

I am very excited about this new online learning circle model to fit the modern women's lifestyle - accessable, intimate, independent, empowering, holistic, and networked.

You are invited to take a sneak peek at the new website here: Maia Institute of Co-Creative Healing.

Blessings! Kara 

There are still a few more spaces left in the Birth Arts International sponsored Birth Doula Training workshop in Kahului, Maui, Hawaii on February 8th, 9th, and 10th. An intensive three-day workshop plus optional doula certification.

This is a wonderful opportunity to study to be a holistic trained labor support companion, providing nurturing care and encouragement to mothers, babies, and families as a birth doula. On your off time, enjoy tropical Maui!

More info about Birth Arts Doula Training in Maui here: http://www.maiahealingarts.com/birth-arts-doula-maui/ 

More info about Birth Arts International here: http://www.birtharts.com/ - also announcing our beautiful new Birth Arts International logo, painted by artist Durga Bernhard.