A Long-Awaited Arrival

Welcome Gabriel Archange Toperosky-Trombla
Born November 16th at Puget Sound Birth Center
with the help of Heike and Traci
Weighing 6# 7.5oz

I am sitting at the computer sleep deprived and blissed out, with my 6 day old babe in my lap.  He has just finished a bottle of breast milk donated by a birth center mom and he has that milk drunk look in his eyes. He is a healthy, mellow chap who only cries when hungry or poopy and then is easily consoled when we start to tend to him. We are so grateful and amazed by people's willingness to share their milk with him. Being an adopted baby, breast milk is so key to his health and we are at the mercy of others to provide it for him.

If you have any extra milk or are willing to pump a bit for us we deeply and humbly thank you. There are boxes of milk storage bags at the birth center that you can pick up. If you are unable to deliver the frozen milk to the birth center I can try to do a pick up. Thank you all so very much for your prayers and kind
words during this very long journey to motherhood!

Blessings,
Ali
 

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Departure...

Kyndal May began volunteering at PSBC two weeks before its Grand Opening in 1996. She has been a co-owner of the Puget Sound Midwives & Birth Center since 2000, and threw her heart and soul into building the birth center community in her role as Director of Outreach and Education. Through Birth & Bodywork she has provided doula services and facilitated parenting classes for many Puget Sound Birth Center families over the past decade. Ready for a change, she has decided to seek a new pace of life, moving to Boise, Idaho with her husband and two young sons. The Puget Sound Region is losing a valuable resource, but she will continue as Doula and Childbirth Educator in her new community. Here are some words from Kyndal:

Dear Friends,

It is with much excitement (and more sadness than I am allowing myself to feel at the moment) that I announce that I am moving with my family to Boise, Idaho this January.

To be honest, while this is a huge lifestyle change for us, the decision to move was quick and came quite easily: I simply must spend more time with my children while they still want to spend time with me, (and I would like an extended quiet moment or two with my husband now and then as well). While I can easily imagine myself living where the sun shines nearly 300 days a year, I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around the reality of not living and working in Seattle. But that is the truth of it--my life here has mostly been about my work here and while I greatly anticipate working significantly less when we move, I will miss that work and the women and families who were my reason for doing it with the passion I have for the past 10 years.

The Puget Sound Birth Center was my home away from home for many years. It is where I learned the about the midwifery model of care and why I became so passionate in educating women and their families about choices. Every woman deserves this kind of care and I am proud to have been a part of providing Puget Sound Families with the opportunity to find and experience it.

In 1996, I founded Birth & Bodywork to serve the needs of expectant and new parents through therapeutic bodywork, doula services and childbirth education. I believe that happened. I cannot count the number of women who have spent time on my massage table, but by January of 2006, over 250 families will have taken the Confident Birthing Class and I will have attended over 120 births. I have learned something new and exciting in every class and been moved and inspired at every birth. I will never cease to marvel at women’s strength and capacity to surrender so deeply and love so fully.

Finally, while living here, I personally experienced the remarkable gift of midwifery care with my own pregnancies and births. I am forever changed by those experiences.

It is interesting to me: I believe it is what I have learned from the midwives I have worked with--continuity of care--that calls me to embrace this move. As my practice grew larger and larger here, I found that continuity of care harder and harder to provide~ most especially to my own family. It is that very continuity of care that I hope to provide to my own family when we move to Boise.

I will miss my colleagues, clients and friends tremendously. Thank you for your contribution to my life and work here. I wish each of you the very best life has to offer.

Warmly,

Kyndal May

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PSBC Classes

With Kyndal's departure, you may wonder what will happen to the classes offered by her. Here's what we know so far:

Confident Birthing: Kyndal's childbirth classes will now be taught by PSBC Executive Director Liz Chalmers through Birth Zone. For more information, visit www.birthzone.com or for Kyndal's endorsement, visit www.birthandbodywork.com and click on "Confident Birthing--Seattle"

Basics of Breastfeeding: Wendy Dean will continue to teach Basics of Breastfeeding. The classes will now be held at the birth center. Contact Wendy at wdddvm@hotmail.com for more information.

4th Trimester: The 4th trimester support group for new parents will now operate from the birth center. Contact Ann Gugat:anngugat@msn.com  or Kat Byrne: storychick@earthlink.net for more information.

All other classes are currently on hold. We'll update you once we know more!

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Pacifiers, co-sleeping, and SIDS

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently came out with a new statement regarding best practices for preventing SIDS. Among their recommendations was the use of pacifiers while sleeping (once breastfeeding is established) and the placement of babies in their own cribs rather than co-sleeping.

Like the myriad other difficult choices we have to make as parents (circumcision, vaccination, schooling choices, and on and on....) the choice of how best to set up a baby's sleeping arrangements is one where many experts will assert their opinions, some based on good research, some based on bad research, some based on culture or belief. If we don't already have strong beliefs on any particular choice, the best we can do is sift through others' opinions and make as informed a decision as we can.

One important element in the co-sleeping issue is that there is no good research on the risks of SIDS, primarily because no-one knows the ratio of time spent co-sleeping vs time spent in a crib. So the advice against co-sleeping is based on anecdotal evidence rather than solid research.

If you want to read some differing opinions on this subject, here are some links to get you started:

Full text of the AAP statement: http://www.aap.org/ncepr/sids.htm

More from the AAP: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/102/3/662/a 

La Leche League response:
http://www.lalecheleague.org/Release/sids.html

International Lactation Consultants Association response: http://www.waba.org.my/ilca_sids_response.htm

Attachment Parenting International response: http://www.attachmentparenting.org/aappp.shtml

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C-Section Rate

The CDC has just published the 2004 c-section statistics for the United States. 29.1% of women now have their babies surgically. That's a 6% jump from 2003, and a 40% increase since 1996. The rapidly dwindling availability of VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) is one reason. Midwifery care is one of the best ways to reduce your risk of having an unnecessary surgical birth. For more information, visit MaternityWise.org at http://www.maternitywise.org/cesarean_response.html

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Birth Center Wish List

If you are considering including Puget Sound Birth Center in your gift-giving this holiday season, here are some ideas.

We are in need of the following items:

• New white bath towels

• New white washable cotton blankets

• Movies on DVD suitable for the family waiting area

• Music CDs for laboring to....relaxing music, classical, new age, nature sounds, etc.

We have also started renovating the rooms, beginning with Room 1. The funds raised during the tag sale are being used for repainting that room. We also need to buy new linens, so cash contributions would be very welcome. One way you can help to contribute financially is by purchasing your holiday gifts through iGive and Amazon. We receive between 1 and 5% of most sales. Please use these special links when ordering:

You can also support the birth center by spreading the word about us on the internet. Here are two options:

• If you have a personal website, add a link to www.birthcenter.com. When I look at the web logs periodically, I'm thrilled to see how often people visit the birth center website by clicking through clients' websites. Thank you to each of you that has linked to us already!

• Post a review of Puget Sound Birth Center on local web directories. One example I have just found is Judysbook. Click on the following link to go straight to the page where the birth center is currently listed. If you're quick, you might even be the first reviewer! Seattle Judy's Book

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A Beautiful Keepsake with Added Benefits

Former PSBC client Leanne Norby has offered to donate 15% of PSBC-sourced sales of her baby handprint ceramics. Her products are absolutely beautiful--check them out at www.pitterpatsnw.com. In order for us to receive this donation, please  pick up a coupon at the birth center.

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Did You Have a Waterbirth?

If so, you might want to add your name to the registry of waterbirths at Waterbirth.org. Click here for more info: http://www.waterbirth.org/spa/content/view/102/135/

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Well Woman Care

We are working hard to find a new Well Woman Care provider at PSBC. We are hopeful we will have specific news in the next newsletter.

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