Announce a pregnancy and the word around you erupts. The focus becomes centered around the beautiful new soul growing within your body. Friends and family are ecstatic, they celebrate a child to complete or add to a family. You research what to eat, how to exercise, what supplements to take, all in an effort to provide the perfect living conditions for this equally perfect new being growing inside of you. The modern tradition of a baby shower see’s all manner of battery operated baby related accessories coming your way. People focus solely on the new baby, as do you. You research birth relentlessly, you plan each part of the process even outlining how and when you would prefer the placenta to be released from your uterus.
After the birth you receive beautiful gifts for the baby. People come to visit and hold your newborn. Your house is filled with pink or blue and your Facebook feed is filled with beautiful images of your perfect new addition. You on the other hand are exhausted. Who is celebrating you? Crossing the threshold into motherhood for the first and every time is something so sacred and something that should be celebrated for the miracle that it is, but you hadn’t planned past the placenta. You find that the shiny baby accessories remain in their shiny boxes and are rather useless for sleep deprivation, sore nipples and a sore bottom and they certainly can’t cook for you! You feel the pressure to ‘get on with things’, to go grocery shopping, clean the house, get back to work and pull on those hideous gym clothes, all the while proving to everyone around you how amazing you are because you can do it all. Your body, once celebrated for creating and housing a miracle, is now something that needs to be fixed. Its soft womanly exterior now immediately needs to firm and flatten. At what point did you or anyone around you take a moment to appreciate and nurture YOU during the sacred days and weeks after the birth of your baby? To rest, recover, appreciate, love, connect and heal physically, emotionally and spiritually from the life changing process of birth. Honoring the sacred postpartum is not difficult. It does not require expensive shiny accessories. It requires connecting with your baby and thanking your body. It involves nourishing and healing food from the earth, warm nurturing people and rest. Lots of rest. It does not involve exercise or grocery shopping. During the sacred weeks after birth many cultures honor women in beautiful ways. In non-western cultures the focus is on healing the mother and on restoring her energy and life-force. The avoidance of ‘cold’ such as cold drinks, water and wind is common as it is believed that during birth the woman loses blood, therefore losing warmth from her body. The postpartum period is seen as a time to restore warmth and in doing so restoring energy and vitality. How ever you choose to spend your postpartum weeks, ensure that you do think about it and plan for it. Give your body time to recover, appreciate and honor it for all it has achieved, surround yourself with people who will nurture and love you and allow you to just ‘be’. Xx Clare
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We are so excited to launch our new website & offer you a range of services to support and nurture you during your pregnancy. Here we will be regularly updating you on our journey and our latest offerings. Archives
October 2018
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