Birth, Baby & Beyond Blog
Meet Your Doula: Ashenia Haydel
Ashenia Haydel is a Labor Doula in DC, and Southern Maryland. We’re thrilled to have her on our team! Get to know her below. How long have you lived in the DC area? I've lived here for 20 years and currently live in Temple Hills Maryland. What do you...
What Does a Placenta Look Like?
“Do you want to see your placenta?” the midwife asks. We let our birth clients know that this is an option, and even that they can often take their placenta home with them (barring infection or other illness). But still, there’s sometimes a moment of indecision when...
What Exactly is Safe Sleep for Infants?
As postpartum and infant care doulas, we often help parents figure out ways to help their babies get to sleep. Parents want help for a couple of reasons: When babies don’t sleep, nobody sleeps. And sleep is essential! Sometimes even when babies sleep, parents worry....
Garlic Goes Where?! Group B Strep and Your Options in Labor
When most people think of strep, they’re imagining a sore throat and staying home until you’re no longer contagious. But being a doula can give you a different context for a lot of things. And when I talk about strep, I’m usually referring to Group B Strep (GBS) that...
Dear Doula, Sterilizing Bottles and Breast Pump Parts is Taking Over My Life
Dear Doula, I’m an exclusively pumping mom. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted my baby to have breastmilk, but I didn’t want to nurse. The idea of a baby being on me constantly for months didn’t spark joy in me the way it does in some women. Truthfully,...
Postpartum Recovery After a Cesarean (C-Section) Birth
Recovering after a cesarean birth (often called a c-section) is a little bit different than if you have your baby vaginally. Many of our clients are unaware of what to expect, whether they have a scheduled cesarean or the birth plan changed. Granted, this could be...
6 Tips for Visiting a New Baby
Yay! Your friend, sister or nephew just had a new baby. As the loving person you are, you want to go and welcome that little person and let the new parents know that you’re excited for them. I love your enthusiasm, and that family will absolutely benefit from...
An Ode to My Mom, the Glue Gun Lady
I have memories of glue gun strings. There were also pom-pom balls, pipe cleaners and silk flowers from Michael’s. But more than anything, the wisps of glue that inevitably trailed behind stick with me. You see, before Pinterest Moms were a thing, my mother was...
What’s Your Parenting Philosophy? Do You Need One?
With the rise of the internet, there are more opinions than ever on how we raise our babies. Once upon a time, in some mythical land, a parenting philosophy probably wasn’t a thing. You simply raised your child the way that your parents raised you, and the way...
5 Ways to Be Body Positive
Pregnancy and the postpartum period is a time of change. Mentally, emotionally and physically, having a baby can rearrange everything that you thought you knew about yourself. (Literally, a baby grows inside you and pushes your organs out of the way. Pregnancy is...
In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within oursleves.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn