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Rhea Dempsey Birthing Wisdom

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23.01.2022 DAY 10!!! - TWELVE DAYS of CHRISTMAS Gift Giving ... to spread some oxytocin love every day for the next 12 days I would love to gift a copy of my latest book 'BEYOND THE BIRTH PLAN' to those wonderful groups where pregnant women hang out and which might find it a useful read for members: ABA groups, lending libraries of mums’ groups, baby-wearing groups, cafes, community centers, pregnancy yoga classes, toy libraries, book groups, or playgroups. Comment with your group’s na...me below and just write a couple of lines about why you love this group. The gift recipient will be chosen at random each day and notified via Facebook message. If you miss out today please keep posting ... there are 12 days and 12 books to giveaway ... 3 more to go!!! Rhea x (offer only available in Australia) See more

22.01.2022 LAST DAYS - 2 books earmarked for chosen recipients and now only 2 books left to offer for Christmas ... ... DAY 11!!! - TWELVE DAYS of CHRISTMAS to spread some oxytocin love every day for the next 12 days I would love to gift a copy of my latest book 'BEYOND THE BIRTH PLAN' to those wonderful groups where pregnant women hang out and which might find it a useful read for members: ABA groups, lending libraries of mums’ groups, baby-wearing groups, cafes, community centers, p...regnancy yoga classes, toy libraries, book groups, or playgroups. Comment with your group’s name below and just write a couple of lines about why you love this group. The gift recipient will be chosen at random each day and notified via Facebook message. If you miss out today please keep posting ... there are 12 days and 12 books to giveaway ... 2 more to go!!! Rhea x (offer only available in Australia) See more

20.01.2022 Happy Father's Day to all the soon-to-be-Fathers out there ... hopefully my article can give you some tips on how to be a 'willing and savvy' Father in the birth space. Rhea xx

20.01.2022 #Enough #BirthTraumaAwarenessWeek I'm being interviewed on ABC Sydney Evenings with Sarah MacDonald to night. At this stage they're saying it will be after the news at 8.05pm - some juicy birth chat I'm sure. Listen in! Rhea xx https://www.abc.net.au/radio/sydney/live/

18.01.2022 Such an important campaign - please support!!

18.01.2022 #homebirth The research supports homebirth - Medicare should do the same!!!

17.01.2022 #HomebirthAwarenessWeek2020 Just packing up the family’s homebirth kit foam mattress, hose, tap fittings, heat packs, plastic drop sheets, old sheets, towels, so many towels. Recently used for the fifth grandbaby and now ready to be packed away till maybe next time well at least nobody is ready to get rid of it all just yet! My three daughters, two of them born at home (as mentioned in my books and previous post) were immersed in the world of homebirth they were at th...e births of their sisters; at births as babysitters to the siblings of new babies; visited homes still aglow with birthing energy in the early hours after a baby’s birth; other women birthed at our home; they heard me talking about birth issues; they overheard me on the phone talking women through early contractions; they were exposed to the sounds of labouring women and became skilled at assessing where women were at in the labour. Not to mention their mother going to their schools doing presentations about birth and showing homebirth videos! They’ve been influenced by stories of labouring, of ecstatic birthing, of challenge, of courage, of trust, of transformation and of love. It was this context that helped them, in some ways without their even being aware of it, to trust birth and their own birthing capacity and therefore to choose homebirths for all those delicious grandbabies three in my lounge room a sacred space. What would it mean do you think if more young girls were exposed to birth in these ways? As a grandmother I feel a great urgency Hence the continued need for a homebirth ‘awareness week’ and for me to maintain my passion for promoting homebirth. Happy Homebirth Awareness Week 2020!

17.01.2022 #babywearing2020 Today marks the beginning of Baby Wearing Awareness Week 2020 ... it's taking me on a trip down memory lane. Here I'm baby wearing with my first baby in the late 70's. Mass produced baby slings and carriers hadn't yet become a thing so for the few of us who were carrying our babies a creative array of home made carriers emerged ... and certainly we had to defend ourselves and sometimes our babies from people concerned for our baby's wellbeing I'm loving the fact that baby wearing is becoming much more accepted ... and so are the babies! xxx

16.01.2022 #babywearing2020 Baby Wearing Awareness Week 2020 We've come a long way ... Dad's in the birth space and the rise of the nurturing father (as I write about in my new book) ... and then of course they want to stay close ... so they 'wear' they're babies as well and the babies are loving it. xxx 'One positive and far-reaching result of male partners’ participation at birth is the rise of the ‘nurturing’ father. When we understand the effects of the ‘love’ hormone oxytocin (wh...ich is so important for and so potently present in normal physiological births) we shouldn’t be surprised that when men have an opportunity to be enveloped in what I refer to as the thick oxytocin haze of birth, they bond strongly with their babies. A number of Australian studies show that fathers now are less likely to see their role as that of the traditional bread-winning father, and are instead more focussed on their role providing emotional support to their children. This is a profound generational change in men’s expectations and experiences of fathering and our children are reaping the benefits'. See more

14.01.2022 This RN Science Show about food choices got me thinking about the parallels with birth ... ... So just as contemporary industrial food production, which leads to high fat and carb diets is, according to these experts, 'subverting our biology', with major health consequences. So too does contemporary industrial birth production 'subvert our biology', with major consequences to mother & baby; to bonding & social connection and to instinctive birthing capacity!!!! Also a quote from evolutionary biologist Rob Dunn highlights another connection with birth ... 'pleasure rewards us for doing what will keep our species going' ... ... mmmm ... so surely supporting normal physiological birth (which taps all the pleasure hormones of birth and breastfeeding) is important to 'keep our species going'!!!!!

14.01.2022 As I mention in my new book 'Beyond the Birth Plan' - 'The decline in non-medical pain-relief options for birthing women is illustrated in a very practical sense by how difficult it is to access water as pain relief in labour ... ... it's far easier to get an epidural (even if your preference was to avoid one) than it is to access a tub for water immersion' ... AND this was before this ban during covid!!!!

14.01.2022 Ha ... a trip down memory lane ... a brochure for the couples relationship and parenting sessions I used to run for many years! Thank you for sharing Ronnie Moule xx

12.01.2022 #babywearing2020 Baby Wearing Awareness Week 2020 It's finishing today but I couldn't let it go until I added this inspiration of normalising babywearing for the next generation! So delicious xx

11.01.2022 LAST CHANCE to tap into this rare occation to attend Rhea's couples workshop from the comfort of you own home ~ no matter where you are. Two full days of going deep into birth with you and your support partner(s) If there is anyone here keen to attend Rhea's couples workshop online this weekend or have a family looking for an awesome online class, don't miss out. https://www.birthingwisdom.com.au/birthi/birth-preparation/

11.01.2022 I am so looking forward to chatting with @sarahjbuckley about BEYOND THE BIRTH PLAN when we officially LAUNCH it (!) at @avidreader booktore ... We have been waiting and hoping, waiting and hoping for a live launch (party!) but it seems that will have to wait a bit longer. In the meantime I'm pleased people will be able to join in from all over for this online chat and launch. JOIN US! Wednesday 23 September at 6.30pm. You can follow the link to register via the Avid event page here: https://avidreader.com.au//rhea-dempsey-beyond-the-birth-p

11.01.2022 My work is all about helping women avoid unnecessary intervention in labour through education and evidence-based birth choices. Emotional and environmental safety is key. It's what helps our bodies birth - but it is increasingly hard to come by. My new book Beyond the Birth Plan delves deep into how women can work to secure it.

11.01.2022 Go Michelle!! She's highlighting the link that I (arising from my physical education background) have been making forever ... linking birthing to other physiological peak performances. Embracing the functional physiological pain as POWER! Celebrating birthing as an experience of potency, endurance, challenge, courage and magnificence!

10.01.2022 DAY 12 - LAST DAY!!! ... ... which deserving group will receive an early Christmas present? Comment below to be in the mix ... TWELVE DAYS of CHRISTMAS 2020 to spread some oxytocin love every day for the next 12 days I would love to gift a copy of my latest book 'BEYOND THE BIRTH PLAN' to those wonderful groups where pregnant women hang out and which might find it a useful read for members: ABA groups, lending libraries of mums’ groups, baby-wearing groups, cafes, community c...enters, pregnancy yoga classes, toy libraries, book groups, or playgroups. Comment with your group’s name below and just write a couple of lines about why you love this group. The gift recipient will be chosen at random each day and notified via Facebook message. If you miss out today please keep posting ... there are 12 days and 12 books to giveaway ... final book to be given away today!!! Rhea xx (offer only available in Australia) See more

10.01.2022 2020 MIDDLE CHILD DAY Celebrating all Middle Children today Yay that’s me - second of four siblings! First child, middle children, youngest ‘family placement’.... In my new book ‘Beyond the Birth Plan’ I touch upon the influence of family placement as a potential wild card in a birth experience. Here’s an excerpt - Family placement No doubt you are aware of the concept of family placement and birth order and the idea that some aspects of your personality can be attributed to where you were born among any siblings. You know the stereotypesfirst born (stable, risk-averse, responsible, academic, privileged, CEOs), middle born (mediator, risk-taker, avoids conflict, empathetic, resilient, altruistic, championer of causes), or last born (outgoing, emotional, creative, cute and charming) and so on. You might see some truth in these ideas when you reflect on your personality, or perhaps not, but there is no denying that the way parents respond to children is based on factors beyond the child’s controlparents’ responses are affected by the family as a whole, not just the personality of the individual child. Family of origin ‘roles’ can be assigned regardless of the unique qualities of the particular child; they are an unconscious mix of the birth order and the situation of the family at the time of each child’s birth. By the time children are three, four or five years old their identity, based on their assigned family role, is firmly in place. So who are you birthing? Are you birthing yourself, or completing the family system that you grew up in? Or are you entering new ground? What about your partner? What about their birth order or family system? What might spark in their unconscious? Are there any family stories that might mean you are more fearful about your second baby’s birth, after having sailed through your first labour? Or are there any other family patterns that you can see might be problematic for you emotionally as you approach birth?

10.01.2022 The silver lining of the Victorian COVID19 restrictions is that we are able to also offer Rhea's birth preparation workshop to those not in the vacinity of Melbourne. Come and join this incredible weekend workshop from the comfort of where you are for a reduced fee. Book now @ https://tinyurl.com/y26osdmp

09.01.2022 Olympics Nostalgia! My Dad carried the torch for the Melbourne Olympics - to be selected as part of this torch relay runners had to be able to run a mile within a specific time. My brother carried the torch for the Sydney Olympics - to carry the torch in this relay runners were chosen for their contribution to community life. Proud of both of them!! rhea xx

09.01.2022 Recap on Birth Trauma Awareness Week 2020 Last week 7th-13th September was Birth Trauma Awareness Week an issue we surely need to raise awareness about. Along with other distressing life issues, when we raise awareness around the experiences we can reveal, reawaken or amplify the distress anew.... My new book Beyond the Birth Plan, among other issues, explores birth trauma and in particular any previous life traumas that maybe reawakened through an experience of birth trauma. Acknowledgement and attuned support however can offer some healing to the experience. Here are some words from my new book 'Beyond the Birth Plan: getting real about pain and power' on honouring all births, on re-imagining ways to reflect on difficult birth experiences and perhaps find some healing ... ... ... I’ve come to use the metaphor of the ‘perfect pot’ to express the essence of my understanding of the mystery of birth. Many anthropologists see the development of storage vesselsthe potas pivotal in human civilisation. Many years ago I heard Australian potter Peter Rushforth describing influences on his work. He explained his early training was in the Western mode where ceramics had moved from the workshop to mass production, with the idea of what made a good pot coming out of industrial ideas of producing replicable pots. So if the pot didn’t fulfil the plan it was considered a failure. But later Rushforth had been exposed to Eastern influences, particularly raku firing. The word raku means ‘happiness in the accident’. Chance and process are the key elements of the raku aesthetic. The unpredictability, the beauty in the process, is the result of the hand-moulded creations subjected to the raku firing process, in which the variability within the materials available (clay, wood, glaze) combine with the unpredictable alchemy of fire and ash. As I see it, we might describe what emerges when all the unique elements come together as the ‘perfect pot’. And this is a powerful metaphor for birth. The ‘perfect birth’ is, ideally, not the standard industrial-style one-size-fits-all birth. No, the perfect birth, like the perfect pot, arises from honouring the beauty of the process and the tempering of the individual elements that gave rise to this particular birth. The perfect birth is the one that arises from the unique elements of the woman in her unique situationthe conscious intention she brings to holistic preparation, the choices she is able to make, the wellbeing of her baby and herself and the unpredictable alchemy of the birth fire.

08.01.2022 World Breastfeeding Week 2020 Celebrating World Breastfeeding Week a trip down memory lane breastfeeding my second baby in the late 70s... and by sharing a section from my new book, ‘Beyond the Birth Plan’, exploring some of the challenges impacting breastfeeding rates - in this case the issue of ‘contested territory’. ‘During pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding parts of the mother’s bodyparticularly her vagina and breastschange their usually expected function from sexual territory to birthing and breastfeeding territory. This idea of changing territory can probably be easily understood when it comes to breasts. Across her adult life, a woman’s breasts are generally considered sexual territory shared with her sexual partner. However, maybe her partner feels they own her breasts as their exclusive sexual territory. Then comes the birth, and the baby knows that they own the breasts, and that their function is nourishment and nurtureso now the breasts can become ‘contested territory’. This is made even more complex by the cultural ‘ownership’ of breasts as sexual territory, hence the discomfort and heated battle over public breastfeeding. So, in simple terms we are left with the questioncan the baby have the breasts? Looking at any factors that might affect a woman’s willingness to breastfeed is important because, while the World Health Organisation recommends exclusive breastfeeding for six months for a baby’s best thriving, in Australia for a whole range of reasons, only 19% of babies are now exclusively breastfed at six months'.

08.01.2022 Grandmother Delights - Ahh workers these days ... sleeping on the job! Granddaughter after offering to help me collect books from my storage decided a little rest was a better idea! xxxx

07.01.2022 Dont forget to sign up to join me and many other great speakers at the free online Better Birth 360 World Summit for 2020 going live on July 23, 2020 at 8am PST...! My interview will be aired on 29th July (8am US PST) Get your free full access pass here: https://www.betterbirth360.com/Rhea_Dempsey See my intro here: https://youtu.be/GVDX-fkdQuA Over 14+ Amazing Birth Experts From around the World Will Be There Sharing Their Insights on How to Promote a Natural, Easier, More Comfortable, Empowering, and Positive Birth Super Exciting! #childbirth #pregnancy #birth #doula #childbirtheducation #pregnant #motherhood #midwife #birthdoula #empoweredbirth #homebirth #naturalbirth #doulalife #laboranddelivery #midwifery #naturalchildbirth #expecting #prenatal #pregnantlife #midwifelife #birthsupport #labor

07.01.2022 #HomebirthAwarenessWeek2020 I’m a homebirth mother myself of two babies and to this point the grandmother of five home born grandchildren. My awareness of homebirth was awakened after the traumatic hospital birth of my first baby in the 1970s (see photo). Her distressing birth led me into the work of supporting mothers and babies in the ways I wish I had been able to be supported when I birthed her. ... Two years after her birth our second daughter arrived a homebirth this time was the obvious consequence of all the knowledge I had gained and the changes I had made within myself. What a wonderful time we had on that Saturday a great welcoming party a 70s’ style ‘house party’ homebirth, ten of us there in a loving circle to welcome her with my parents and youngest sister arriving during the golden afterglow (see photo). Then two years later our third daughter made her way into the world, another beautiful homebirth a more intimate family affair with the GP just making it at the end a mid-morning work-a-day Wednesday birth then tucked up with my three girls for an afternoon nap (see photo). At that time homebirths were attended by birth attendants/lay midwives with particular GPs offering medical support. Trained midwives were yet to make their appearance in the homebirth scene. And it was later still before all our activist efforts resulted in midwives being able to practice autonomously within their own code of practice as they do now. Ahh still so much work to be done to make homebirth more accessible and for homebirth midwives to be truly acknowledged and supported in their important roles. Hence the continued need for an ‘awareness week’ and for me to maintain my passion for promoting homebirth. Happy Homebirth Awareness Week 2020!

06.01.2022 Brilliant to hear Birth for Humankind getting some well deserved exposure on ABC RN Life Matters this morning. A wonderful organisation doing such important work ... Donate if you can!

05.01.2022 DAY 9! - TWELVE DAYS of CHRISTMAS... to spread some oxytocin love every day for the next 12 days I would love to gift a copy of my latest book 'BEYOND THE BIRTH PLAN' to those wonderful groups where pregnant women hang out and which might find it a useful read for members: ABA groups, lending libraries of mums’ groups, baby-wearing groups, cafes, community centers, pregnancy yoga classes, toy libraries, book groups, or playgroups. Comment with your group’s name below and just... write a couple of lines about why you love this group. The gift recipient will be chosen at random each day and notified via Facebook message. If you miss out today please keep posting ... there are 12 days and 12 books to giveaway ... 4 more to go!!! Rhea x (offer only available in Australia) See more

05.01.2022 Hi Everyone, I'm excited to be discussing a key theme - 'the impact of adult attachment styles on birth' - from my new book 'Beyond the Birth Plan' on the free online Better Birth 360 World Summit for 2020. The interview will be aired US 29/7 8am (Pacific Standard Time) which means Australia 30/7 1am!!! No you don't have to stay up or get up then!!!!!... You can sign up for the Summit through my custom registration link - https://www.betterbirth360.com/Rhea_Dempsey then you can access the session anytime over the next week for free - you also get access to lots of other great speakers.

04.01.2022 Rhea's couples workshop is available LIVE ONLINE this month to all pregnant couples, support people and observers. Here is your opportunity, no matter where you are located, to tap into this weekend of birthing wisdom. $440 reduced online cost $80 additional support people $250 other observers Secure your booking here:https://www.birthingwisdom.com.au/birthi/birth-preparation/

03.01.2022 I’m so looking forward to chatting to Sarah Buckley about ‘Beyond the Birth Plan: getting real about pain and power’ when we officially LAUNCH it (Yay!!) at the Avid Reader Bookstore. We have been waiting and hoping, waiting and hoping for a live launch (Party!) but it seems that will have to wait a bit longer. In the meantime I’m pleased you can all, from wherever you are, join in this online chat and launch.... PLEASE JOIN US! - Wednesday 23 September at 6.30pm You can follow the link to register via the Avid Reader event page here: https://avidreader.com.au//rhea-dempsey-beyond-the-birth-p

03.01.2022 #homebirth Another plus for homebirth!!

02.01.2022 Just sharing and wondering if you have already or would be willing to sign and share this ePetition that will be tabled to the Legislative Council on 27/11/20 I’d love to have minimum of 500 signatures. Cannot believe that we are still restricting birthing women their right to the support they need. https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au//view-e-/details/12/264