Newborn jaundice is when a baby has a high level of bilirubin in the blood. Bilirubin is a yellow substance that the body creates when it replaces old red blood cells. The liver helps break down the substance so it can be removed from the body in the stool.
High levels of bilirubin make your baby’s skin and whites of the eyes look yellow. This is called jaundice.
National Library of Medicine
What to Do as a Doula
- Make sure both mom and baby are eating/drinking well to ensure a good supply of breastmilk.
- Assess fatigue in the mom. Provide support overnight if needed, or provide time for her to nap during the day.
- Assess breastfeeding. If there are issues, make sure the mom gets the help she needs. Look for local support groups.
- With the involvement of the care provider, try natural methods of decreasing bilirubin levels.
- Help her work through the loss of her ideal birth.
Education and Support
Make sure mom has all her questions answered and feels that she has been given enough information to make an informed decision.
Allow the mom to express any fears or anxieties she may have about the situation. Address any of these fears with more information or other ways of reducing anxiety. (Mindfulness works great in situations like these).
The mother may need extra support at home to focus on her breastfeeding relationship or if her newborn needs an extended stay in the hospital. A doula can help coordinate meals, help with housework, and childcare.
The mom may feel like she did something wrong and may need help and support understanding how she can help her infant at this time.
For more information see: http://www.uichildrens.org/childrens-content.aspx?id=233986
© 2015 Birth Inspiration, Photo used with permission. www.birthinspiration.com
A recipient for February’s monthly incentive has been selected! February’s incentive was generously sponsored by Gabriel Sanders, page administrator for the new and quickly growing Facebook page “New Dads’ Place.” Marisa of Washington state was selected as our student for February’s incentive and will be receiving two books: “Birthing from Within” and “The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth.” (This is not to be confused with Marissa from Georgia who received our incentive a couple of months back.) A warm congratulations to Marisa and an even warmer thank you to Mr. Sanders for his financial gift. In his own words, Mr. Sanders called doulas and midwifes the birth gurus or “burus!”
For the months of March and April this year, we are going to be offering a drawing each month for a rebozo birthing cloth. Read more ›
(This post originated from an assignment submitted by one of our students that is participating in our development group for postpartum doula training. It is reproduced here with her permission. )
The Five Social Structures that Are Missing from Western Culture – How a Doula Can Make a Difference
There are so many ways these five social structures overlap in the ways a doula can provide for the mother and family. Read more ›
Because we’ve created perhaps our most popular incentive to date, I felt we owed a little explanation on the delay in getting this incentive fulfilled. In January 2015, we announce that every student submitting an incentive request by the end of the month would receive a free digital copy of medication cards that serve as a quick reference for doulas and their clients on some of the most commonly used medication in the labor and delivery environment.
The challenge that we’ve had on our end has been in the time management side of things in getting these cards produced. We’re getting close, but we’re still not there yet. The set of flash-card style cards will feature some 25 to 30 of the most commonly used drugs and medication that are currently used in medicine.
In addition to the time requirements for the production of the medication cards, we’re also in the process of preparing these for same cards for release in digital format first, and later on in print format, from our newly launched online doula shop.
Moving on to February’s incentive, we received an unsolicited donation from Gabriel Sanders of the Facebook page “New Dad’s Place“. Since its creation in what appears to be less than two month, it’s already garnered quite a following of new dads and others. We’ve decided to take the donation and apply it to February’s student incentive, which will probably be another book that we will be offering to one selected student at the end of the month.
We hope to have more details on February’s student incentive and the medication cards for January’s incentive by the end of this week.
I’ve been contemplating this post for a while as I’ve thought about my previous births. With my first five children, I didn’t have a doula. Before I began working as a doula, I had heard about what a doula does, but I hadn’t thought seriously about having one. Now with the birth of my sixth child, after all my years of training and work in the birth field, I decided I wanted a doula.
That may seem strange to some. I went into this last birth more prepared than ever before. I had a feeling like I knew and understood exactly what I needed and what my body needed. My husband had always been a great support for me. So why did I want a doula, and why did I feel it was worth it? Read more ›
Congratulations to Marissa of Georgia, who’s name was drawn for December’s Incentive: a basic doula kit.
The student incentive for January 2015 will be a digital file for printing your own set of quick-reference medication cards. These cards will be good to carry with you to births or consultations with clients for the purposes of discussing medications, possible side effects, and so forth. Instead of doing a drawing this month, we are offering this in digital format (PDF) to every student who submits an incentive request (assuming that they are current on payments and assignments for the month of January 2015).
To submit your incentive request, you must be a current and progressing student of New Beginnings Doula Training. Log in to the student dashboard and click on the Incentive Request link on the lower right hand side of the screen, or at the bottom of the page on smaller screens.
Recently, we’ve enjoyed an increase in new student registrations from Australia and New Zealand. We’ve also had the same question asked by prospective students at least a handful of times, so it’s probably about time that we addressed the question in a blog post. Read more ›
Save 10% on Full Course Trainings
While we still have spaces available for the month of December for new students to sign up, we thought we’d spice it up with a 10% discount ($20 USD off) on full course registrations for the remainder of the month. As with all discounts, we actually offer rebates (in the form of partial refunds) from PayPal usually within 24 hours of when payment is made. This is not an automated refund, but is something that we go in and manually process on our end.
This offer is good only on full course registrations ( normally priced at $200 ) and while spaces are available through the end of the month of December.
December Student Incentive
This month’s student incentive is a starter kit for your doula bag. The kit will probably have stuff like: lip balm, honeysticks, lotion, a rice sock, hair ties, etc. While we’d like to offer this to every one of our students this month, unfortunately, that is not feasible on our end. So this too will be selected by a drawing after the new year.
To submit your request to be in the drawing, students must be current on their payments (for those making monthly payments) and have completed and submitted at least one assignment during the current month.
Back for the holiday season, we’re pleased to announce our Holiday Happiness Gift Certificates available for immediate purchase. We feel this is still quite possibly the perfect gift for that aspiring doula among your friends or family! Each certificate entitles one recipient to a full course registration good for two years from the date that the student/recipient begins their training (books not included).
When you order a gift registration from New Beginnings Doula Training, we will send you an electronic copy of the gift certificate in PDF format that you will be able to print or send as an email.
For more details and current costs, visit the course costs page.
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