Birthing Fathers? A PRIDE Month email.
June 2021 letter to our community from our founder:
June. The month of weddings, the month of Pride, Father’s Day, and Juneteenth. During this month, I’m traveling with my 13-year-old niece who takes Pride in stride. For her, the variations in how people love and draw together are as normal and interesting as a rainbow, a common symbol for Pride month. I see her ease and consider how much “stretch” there has been since I was her age. My mother hid her copy of MS. Magazine, perhaps to avoid questions about Feminism by us kids around the public in a town where her business could be adversely affected. I babysat for two mothers of 6-year-old David who described their relationship as “roommates”. Nurturing diversity is paramount to a healthy society.
The United States now recognizes Juneteenth as a national holiday. Juneteenth arises in victory from a painful commemoration. If you don’t know, hopefully, you will be reading about the significance of June 19 to Black Americans. Enslaved Blacks in Galveston, Texas didn’t hear of their freedom for 2 ½ years after Emancipation in 1863. Does that seem long ago and unrelated to childbirth? Consider how we bring society’s values and vices to the culture of care whether caring professionals or parents in self care. Prejudices and trauma patterns restrain all of us by disconnection from social support and dignity.
Covertly, racism seeps through society sometimes into behaviors without our awareness. Any and all of us can be caught up in a behavior pattern of a society without intending any hardness of heart or unfortunately with a thought that “everyone does it.” I bring this awareness forward because, as we move closer to physiology in birth care, we will move closer to physiology in society.
Sometimes we comfort ourselves with thoughts that it isn’t so bad, we’ve come a long way. Or people just don’t see the scope of the problem. My husband was raised in St. Louis. He was reading The Broken Heart of America and found he was unaware of the tragic history of his own hometown which also has many advances over racism made by dedicated activists and regular folk. He recommends the book. You may like to listen to an interview with the author.
Participating in “power-over” and “us-and-them” delusions are dangerous to whites as well as causing heinous harm to generations of families with African heritage. From a Physiology Before Force perspective, racism is a crime against one’s own body. The body of humanity is invaded with a cancerous mental illusion that part of its own body is lesser than another. Division is a common strategy by corrupt governing tyrants who gain control over economic and political resources when the populace is busy tearing each other up. Tragically, trauma flows downstream to very real families.
Minnesota — my home state — ignited national and international conversations about equity and race from the response to George Floyd’s murder. The movement is alive. Spinning Babies® is committed to doing our part (though small) towards making birth safer and more equitable for all families and we’ve made our choice to increase access for BIPOC Birth Workers in our workshops and conferences. For our 2021 World Confluence, the deadline for application is June 21. All our four-day Aware Practitioner and Parent Educator Trainings have at least 1 equity access seat.
Black and Indigenous birth professionals, including doulas and childbirth educators, are welcome to contact the Approved Trainer for the Spinning Babies® Workshop they desire to attend to see if the spot or spots are available. When you see a workshop in town, there is at least one BIPOC seat.
Discovering the physiology of our bodies, including our nervous systems, leads us to discovering how living in our society settles (or unsettles) our bodies. Not only the birth team that supports the birthing parent(s) and baby/babies, but the entire social system. “We give birth how we live,” author Gayle Peterson said. We can do so much for birth today by matching our living to the calm in which we hope birth can be experienced.
I’m excited for Father’s Day. It’s the first Father’s Day for my oldest child (that I gave birth to) as a father himself. I’m so proud of his gentle and patient care. One of the most beneficial ways to care for a child, it’s been said, is to love their mother. I see that happening across the families of my husband and all our children, and am so grateful and joyful for my grandchildren to have such family dynamics.
Once, stepfamilies were spicy plot topics for Hollywood movies and TV shows. A show with compassion and humanity shown to a divorced parent was controversial and movies helped expand acceptance and reduce stigmatism. After Doris Day was the screen star, blended families were no longer talked about behind people’s backs. Today, trans parents, and sometimes same-sex parents, are turning heads and subject to suspicion and fiction. We highlight these photos for us to see the love and real relationships, real life journey happening with one such family.
Andie is a father who gave birth to his and his husband’s child while biologically able. I wanted to share these beautiful photos this month to bring forth images of love in families that may be outside what many see as typical. Not typical, but not unlike those of us giving and receiving love in a family we’ve formed. Love grows more love and moves outward into caring for our partners, our babies, and those needing care.
In gratitude,
Gail Tully
Founder of Spinning Babies®
In this month’s update:
New Online Course
Spinning Babies® is excited to announce a new online course: Pregnancy and Childbirth Under the PsychoNeuroEndocrine Perspective!
In this course, Italian Midwife and Spinning Babies® Approved Trainer, Anna Maria Rossetti will teach an overview of the physiology of the three trimesters of pregnancy and childbirth, and of the origins and effects of stress. At the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Identify health factors of pregnancy (adaptations, placental functions, different neuroendocrine patterns of the three trimesters) through the Psychoneuroendrocrine physiology model.
- List three aspects of the therapeutic relationship that promote health and empower the capacity of coping.
- Describe uterine anatomy and understand the physiology for signs of health and wellbeing.
- Assess pregnant person for signs of PsychoNeuroEndocrine stress during the three trimesters.
- Compare normal labor to obstructed labor by an endocrine view.
- Demonstrate a therapeutic action or technique to increase the pregnant person’s ability to cope which also brings comfort from pain in pregnancy.
Learn more and purchase the course here. We also invite you to watch a recording below of Pregnancy and Childbirth Under the PsychoNeuroEndocrine Perspective instructor, Anna Maria Rossetti, as she introduces us to her passion for PsychoNeuroEndocrine Physiology!
Continuing Education Credits
We’re thrilled to share that Spinning Babies® is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
The American College of Nurse-Midwifery has awarded contact hours for Spinning Babies® Workshops.
Some doulas certifying organizations may recognize the contact hours awarded by one or both of the above organizations. Check your organization guidelines if you are a doula.
Approved Trainers also have continuing education credits from other local certifying bodies in the USA (California for instance), The Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand. See the individual workshop event description you wish to attend for more details.
Learn Physiological Birth Practices at 2021 Conference
If you’d like to learn from an incredible lineup of speakers about important topics like preventing trauma to both birthing person and baby during labor, how to proactively prepare pregnant people for their optimal birth experience, and physiological birth practices, the Spinning Babies® 2021 World Confluence is where you’ll explore all of this—and more.
Get $50 off for a limited time. Early Bird pricing ends July 15th. Grab your ticket today!
Upcoming Trainings
LIST IS TRIMMED DOWN, SEPT 2021. Join us for a four-day exclusive training that prepares you to teach a skill-based, hands-on parent class that can transform your childbirth education and prenatal yoga teaching. Birth can be easier for pregnant parents everywhere.
Columbia, MD, USA – Spinning Babies® Certified Parent Educator Training – November 2-5
Boston, MA, USA – Spinning Babies® Certified Parent Educator Training – November 10-13
Upcoming Advanced Workshops
Become a Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner. Are you a bodyworker with pregnancy skills? Join us to learn advanced skills to promote body balance for fetal positioning and pregnancy comfort. Use skills in pregnancy, birth, and non-pregnant people. You’ll build on the Spinning Babies® Workshop skills, learn new ones. For bodyworkers.
Sydney, NSW – Australia – Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshop – September 11-14
San Diego, CA – USA – Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshop – September 21-24 *SOLD OUT!
Melbourne, VIC – Australia – Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshop – November 13-16
Minneapolis, MN – Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshop – April 25-28th, 2022 *Save the date! Registration opens soon.
Upcoming Workshops
Australia
Brazil
New Zealand
United States
See all upcoming events on our calendar here.