yogahub - Blog

The Toronto Birth Centre

9/27/2015

If you live in Toronto or the GTA and are expecting a baby I highly recommend a visit to The Toronto Birth Centre. Even if you are planning a hospital or home birth it is still worth a visit as it is a fantastic resource.

The Toronto Birth Centre is cost free for any pregnant woman to use for labour and birth as long as she has a registered midwife and is having an unmedicated uncomplicated birth. It is one of two pilot centres (the other is in Ottawa) that will test a third viable option for labour and birth other than hospital or home. If the demand is seen to be there we may see more Birth Centres like this open in other Cities.

There are three birthing rooms at the centre, they all have a shower and bathroom, large tubs, an adjustable bed and the beautiful painted mural on the wall. The tub can be used to relax and can also be used for water births. They each have a yoga ball available to use as well as TENS machines for pain relief.
There is a fully stocked kitchen which can be used by the mother, midwives and family.

A prenatal yoga client of mine recently had her baby girl at the centre and this is what she had to say about her experience;

"I found the Toronto Birth Centre to be wonderful and accommodating. It was like a home birth but if my home were a penthouse plus the bonus of not having to worry about cleaning up. Super luxurious.
I particularly enjoyed the self-serve kitchen, stocked with mostly organic food which proved to be greatly useful post-labour to refuel my energies and also for the midwife's team and my family which takes stress off leaving the labour to go hunt for a snack.
The on-site amenities were amazing as well and I got great use of the tub, the shower, the remote-controlled bed, etc. And! They even had an audio output for a birthing playlist provided you made one. When I gave birth there, there was no one else using the facility; I felt more at ease.
It was an amazing experience. Even though throughout my pregnancy, I got apprehensive about the facility not having on-site medical care in case of emergency, once I got there I felt safe and reassured that everything would be alright. The hospital was close-by if need be.
I feel honoured to be able to have given birth in a facility available to diverse families especially Aboriginals. The artwork was gorgeous! It helped to tap into my primal instincts."

Above is the family waiting area with fireplace and TV (they have Netflix)! In the cabinet there are healing and clearing herbs and plants sacred for Aboriginal ceremony; Sage for smudging and Sweet Grass for blessing. Families of non Aboriginal origin are welcome to use the sacred herbs if they wish.

The incredibly powerful and beautiful mural art in each birthing room is a big hit with the moms, many of whom say it has helped them to breath through powerful surges by focusing on the flowers.

Each family is invited to tie a ribbon on a branch of the American Sycamore tree as a way to honour the ceremony of birth and the gift of life. For more information here is their website www.torontobirthcentre.ca

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Postpartum care for the new mom

8/27/2015

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The first few weeks after childbirth can often be a time when everything is about the baby; caring for a new baby’s needs, the feeding, changing, sleeping, plus a revolving door of visitors make it a busy time for a new mom and often the importance of her own need for rest can be severely neglected.

In some cultures, postpartum is more about providing a specific period of time after the birth for the new mom to rest and recover.
In traditional Chinese culture this period of time is known as zueo yuezi or 'Sitting the Month'. Carrying or lifting anything is prohibited, the new mom is waited on and expected to rest, being well looked after so she can focus on breastfeeding and nourishing the baby in comfort and without distractions.

For new immigrant women living in Canada, often their mother's will travel from China to come and take care of them from the last month of pregnancy and throughout the postpartum period ( the fourth trimester) because they are familiar with how to prepare the correct warming foods and specific herbal baths. The new mom is not allowed to walk barefoot and must stay dressed warmly to keep the postpartum body warm. Because the emphasis is on warmth, cold foods are prohibited, as they are believed to weaken the physical health of the new mom, warm foods are given to rebuild strength after the hard work of labour and birth.

‘Sitting the month’ may not be perfect as being confined indoors may become frustrating and get a bit ‘cabin feverish’ for a new mother.
As one new mom who has lived in Canada for a while told me that she found ‘sitting the month’ too long to stay indoors and found it hard, (it can last anywhere from 30 to 45 days). However, the hot foods, the soups and porridge, as well as staying warm, she told me, were of benefit and she believed this did give her strength.

In Mexico and Guatemala, some postpartum traditions include receiving a full body massage and a warm herbal steam bath. Traditionally the midwife takes care of the new mother after childbirth and will use her Rebozo shawl in a special massage to ‘close the body’. The Rebozo is a traditional woven cloth used ceremoniously throughout a woman’s life, often used as a baby carrier it is particularly useful during labour to massage a woman and is a favourite ‘tool’ for midwives and birth doulas.
Used in the postpartum period by the midwife, the ritual of ‘closing the body’ by gently massaging with the Rebozo shawl is given one to three times during the period of forty days postpartum, it is nurturing, containing and grounding for the new mom, and brings her back into her body and herself.

Women in France are in the desirable position of having access to free pelvic floor physiotherapy after childbirth and in the UK a woman will be visited by an NHS health visitor after the birth and the new mom will be given as much support and care as she needs. Good free or affordable supports such as this are something that is missing in Canadian health care, there is a huge gap here in postpartum care.

There is something to be said about taking good care of mom directly after the birth for a few weeks, to ‘mother the mother’, giving her time to rest, time with her new baby to bond and to breastfeed without too many distractions. Perhaps not to the same extreme of zueo yuezi, never the less there is much we can learn from other cultures in the care of women postpartum.
As Christiane Northrup, M.D. says, “If I was running the country, I’d make sure that every postpartum woman had full-time help for cooking and cleaning for at least two months after the baby was born and that she had time for a nap or two every single day.” “hear, hear” to that!

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The Toronto Birth Centre

Postpartum care for the new mom

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