The Power of a Calm Birth

We are totally in love with this BEAUTIFUL viral video that shows this calm, centered mother in the precious moments before birth.  I have experienced this type of serenity in childbirth first-hand during my time as a midwife in Trinidad & Tobago where mothers gave birth in the warm island waters.  I had to figure out what their secret was and I was amazed to find out it was Hypnobirthing.  We are a huge advocate of this practice because it empowers mothers to be in control of their experience and gives them powerful methods for pain management.  I recommend taking a hypnobirthing class to all mamas!  

Viral Video Proves Childbirth Can Be Amazingly Serene

This mama looks incredibly peaceful delivering her baby in a birthing pool, giving us major labor goals.

By Zara Husaini Hanawalt

When you think about childbirth, you might imagine a woman moaning in pain, covered in sweat, tears or worse. While giving birth can be an incredibly challenging physical feat, it's also not every woman's experience. 

Need proof? This video is going viral for good reason: It shows a woman experiencing childbirth in a way that's completely unlike the depictions of it we so often see on TV and in movies. There's no screaming, no sweating, no struggle here—the mother remains completely calm and serene as she delivers her baby. 

Midwife Lisa Marie Sanchez Oxenham posted the video on Facebook, where it is getting lots of attention. Though it's not even a minute long, it gives viewers such a clear picture of how unbelievably relaxed the mother was during her delivery, which takes place in a birthing tub. 

“My client Audra’s beautiful second home birth,” Oxenham writes alongside the video, which has been shared over 86,000 times. “A midwife’s role is fluid, providing whatever is necessary for each individual birthing experience, although almost always that role is simply to offer the gift of quiet.”

This home birth looks so tranquil, doesn't it? What do you think of the video—does it make you want to deliver your baby at home or in water?

Click here to view the original article.

12th Annual RVA Peace Festival!

Join the 12th Annual RVA Peace Festival! Where diversity is celebrated and community is embraced.  Embrace Birth and Midwifery Care will have a table at this year's festival being held at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church!  This has historically been a wonderful event with a great mission:

 The mission of the annual RVA Peace Festival is to provide an opportunity for children, youth, and adults of the greater Richmond area to gather in celebration of peace and diversity.  It is our hope that this will foster a growing sense of community.  

Come by our table and sign up for our free drawing for our Embrace Botanicals, Balms for the Body, Salves for the Soul, Basket of Love!

Here is the schedule of events for all interesting in going, and you can find more information at their event page!

Schedule of Performances:

11:00 – 11:10: Opening Drumming Ceremony, Polly Lazaron

11:15 – 11:40: Sri Sai South Indian Dance Academy

11:45 – 12:10: Ebraheem Khabeer, Slam Poet

12:15 – 12:40: Prodigy Productions Music Group

12:45 – 1:00: Fire Ceremony, Greg Kelley

2:15 – 2:35: Interactive Dances of Universal Peace, Hayat Donna Bain

2:40 – 3:05: Drums No Guns, Ram Bhagat

3:10 – 3:35: Latin Ballet of Virginia

3:40 – 4:05: Falun Dafa Chinese Dancers

4:10 – 4:35: Cultural Libations Drama Production

4:45 – 5:00: Closing Ceremony

Exciting Exhibitions:

Mini Memoirs led by the Chrysalis Institute

Chalk for Peace, led by Art180

Healing Our Water

Meditation Labyrinth

Cooperative Games

Arts and Crafts

Wonderful Food:

La Milpa Mexican Cuisine – crafting in colorful Mexican food

Zainab’s – Middle Eastern Halal delicacy

Soul Ice -Premier Minority-owned and Certified Frozen Dessert Company

Ellwood Thompson’s – Locally-owned Market

MyBirth Podcast

Listen as Corina Hossle, the Founder, Clinical Director and Midwife of Embrace Birth Midwifery Care & Birth Center talks to the lovely ladies of MyBirth in this insightful, entertaining and informative Podcast.

Birth Affirmations for Pregnancy & Labor

Your mind is powerful, put it to good use with reassuring affirmations for you and your baby.

The Power of Birth Affirmations
By Rebecca Gruber


Hypnobirthing isn't for everyone, but for moms-to-be who are planning a natural childbirth, classes can provide them with tools in their tool belts to help them learn techniques to relax and cope with the intensity of labor and delivery. Instructors tend to hand out CDs remind laboring moms to focus on breathing and positive thoughts, and though it sounds a little weird, it can honestly be really helpful. One of the CDs is often filled with birth affirmations, which you've probably heard about in prenatal yoga classes. You basically say a positive statement either in your mind or out loud, and it helps dissipate fears and manifest the feelings you want to experience. Based on advice from moms who've been through it, we wanted to share some birth affirmations that have built their confidence and made them feel more prepared for childbirth.

• Our baby's birth will occur at just the right time and just the right way.
• I trust my body to grow my baby, and I trust my body to birth my baby.
• My body is strong enough to birth this baby.
• I enjoy experiencing the power of my body as my birthing muscles bring my baby to me.
• With each amazing wave, I am letting go more easily.
• I am releasing to these sensations.
• I let these waves wash through me as I go deeper into relaxation.
• I am connected to myself. I am connected to my partner. We are connected to our baby.
• I welcome strong waves that are bringing my baby closer.
• Every contraction brings me closer to our baby.
• The stronger my contractions become, the sooner I meet my baby.
• I breathe slowly and easily, and it helps my body to let go.
• I breathe to my baby, and let my breath flow down and out my baby's birth path to show my baby the way.
• My body is so open that my baby just slides right out and into my arms.
• I am calm, I am safe, I am relaxed.

Hearing these for the first time is a little odd (or reminds you of SNL's Jack Handey), but if you can get passed feeling weird and say them to yourself, they will help replace your fears with positive feelings.

If you have any affirmations to share, we'd love to hear them as well.

To read the original article, click here.

The Birth Center Difference

We'd love to answer any and all questions you may have about what kind of care our Birth Center, Midwives, and Doulas can provide for you!  We offer tours twice a week- Tuesday afternoons at 1 pm and Saturday mornings at 9 am.  We also offer lots of classes, workshops, and opportunities to meet our talented and trained staff. Check our calendar for daily events!  We know our care can make your birth experience everything you hope it will be!

Doulas Provide Emotional, Physical and Educational Support

Our Doula interns had a great time at the Doula Speed Dating event last night, we were happy to help those couples with their questions about the benefits of a doula.  Every doula is there for educational, emotional and physical support both during and after pregnancy.  Some have backgrounds in physical therapy, others in yoga or massage, but they all share a passion for giving you the experience you want and support without judgment!

Our First Baby....! ❤❤❤

Drum Roll Please! Embrace Midwifery Care & Birth Center would like to announce our First Baby! 
Miss Willow was born after an amazing journey of strength, bravery, commitment, and love... 
I am so thankful to have a team that loves this work and is excellent at what they do!

A Woman's Right to Birth

We love this Letter to the Editor from a brave mother sent to The Washington Post.  It is our goal to inform and empower women with choice.  Articles like these feed on all of the unfounded fears of having a natural birth, frowning on "natural" as an inferior method, once again undermining a woman's right to choose.  We believe that birth is intuitive to all women and with the proper guidance from a knowledgable and well-trained midwife, mothers can be informed to make the best decision for their bodies.  We are one of the only birth centers anywhere that has a direct collaboration with a Registered Nurse, Jessica Jordan, who is able to provide medications on a consultation basis.  We have had less than a 1 percent transfer rate, a 6 percent C-section rate, and a 15 percent transfer rate for reasons such as pain management, or the baby being in a less than ideal position.  We are proud of those numbers and are thankful for modern medicine to bring healthy babies into this world under such circumstances.  There is no shame about it!

(Paul Giamou/iStock)

Women Should Be Listened to About the Childbirth Process

As a mother who has birthed two children, I found Amy Tuteur wrong on many fronts in her May 8 Outlook essay, “The natural-birth industrial complex.” Perhaps her most egregious — and tired — assertion about childbirth is the “healthy baby and mother” argument.

Implying that women should be satisfied simply with a healthy baby-healthy mom outcome is dismissive of women and their birth experiences, especially when they are grieving events that are sad, disappointing or traumatic. Of course every mother wants a healthy baby, but when women are ignored, disrespected or violated during labor and birth, then birth may not be a beautiful experience for them.

We can set the bar higher. Birth teaches us that we are not in control, but that doesn’t mean women don’t have choices. Women are absolutely right to ask for more in terms of prenatal and postnatal care and labor and birth options. This applies to home, birth center and hospital births — because women should be respected and listened to no matter what the birth setting.

Sarah Farr, Silver Spring

To read the full article, click here.

Just Some of the Benefits of Water Birth

“Do you perform water births?” is one of the most frequently asked questions we get and what the majority of mothers that come to us are looking for.  We recommend that all our mothers at least consider laboring in water, but are happy to deliver earth babies as well! When you think about the environment your baby has spent the last 9 months in, that warm, amniotic fluid— giving birth in water seems natural.  It makes your baby’s transition from that environment into the loud and bright outside environment that much easier.  The decreased sensation of gravity also makes positioning for the mother less strenuous in water and promotes.  Some of the well-known benefits of water birth include:

— Decreasing pain 

— Decreasing length of labor

— Conservation of energy

— Reduces perineal trauma

— Relaxes and soothes mother to get in tune with her natural rhythm

Our new Birth Center will be opening this Tuesday, May 10th, with our Grand Opening Event and Open House on Sunday, May 15th!  It will feature 2 beautiful water birth suites that meet all of the American Association of Birth Center guidelines, extra deep soaking tubs, private bathrooms, showers and queen-size beds.  All of the comforts of home.

A Letter to our Midwife

We originally found this article in the Huffington Post, and we really love the way that it represents the point of view of a new mommy and her opinions about her midwife. We've talked time and time and again how this is supposed to be a beautiful experience between a mother and her child. A moment to be shared with your loved ones if that is your desire but most importantly it should be an experience that is safe, loving and comfortable. Hear what this new mom has to say about her midwife below. 

"This is my heart-felt thank you letter to the midwife who in my mind, showed the world how it could be done. I write this is in the hope that it will be shared with midwives and parents everywhere, to remind everyone how birthing is messy and painful and scary but also amazing and wonderful and sacred... and a human experience!

A Letter to our Midwife

As our daughter nears her first birthday, I want you to know something.

I don't know if you get letters like this everyday or even whether you think you deserve them.

But I have been thinking a lot about you and how you helped us safely deliver our baby into this world all those months ago and I wonder if perhaps, I could have written a letter like this for the birth of our first daughter.

I don't know if midwives like you are rare or if all share the same grace and understanding. But here is what I am truly thankful for, as a mother, as a woman and as a human being.

Thank you for speaking to me throughout the whole experience of giving birth with compassion, kindness and love. You made me feel at ease. You enabled me to feel strong and powerful. You reminded me how capable I was, how amazing my body was... how I could keep going, even though the pain was great and I was tired.

Thank for asking me if I wanted to be checked internally on our arrival. Yes, it might have been necessary but being asked made me feel relaxed and in control and that my body belonged to me.

Thank for you agreeing to a calm, peaceful and natural birth and for honouring all of our requests, even when the same music had been played on repeat for four hours and you asked, quietly, would I like to change it. And when I replied 'Nooooooo'! you simply kept playing the CD.

Thank you for taking care of my husband as he took care of me by asking him if he was ok, whether he wanted a drink and did he want a rest after rubbing my back for an hour and for you to take over.

Thank you for being in the background and leaving me and my husband to birth our baby... and for stepping in, calmly at every moment needed.

Thank you for not batting an eyelid when I asked my husband to repeat a prayer continuously during the most insanely intense part of the whole birthing experience... and for saying 'How lovely!' when I whispered a prayer into our babe's ear straight after birthing her. I felt as if you wholly respected and honoured our wishes and our faith.

Thank you for keeping the lights low, the pool warm, and the ambience calm and serene in the birthing room... I felt like we were in a unique and sacred space. Giving birth is sacred and special as well as off-the-scale painful! And you completely honoured every single need and request.

Thank you for restoring my confidence and validating my previous birthing experience where harsh words had been spoken, where I felt trapped and confined, disrespected and dishonoured.

Thank you for speaking in the calmest of tones throughout and for telling me... yes! That is supposed to happen! (on numerous occasions!)

Thank you for looking deep into my eyes and telling me... You can do it. I know you can. I believe in you.

Thank you for the aftercare... for laughing at my ramblings whilst having stitches afterwards and for laughing at my inappropriate comments when I couldn't help myself (gas and air... such fun!)

Thank for to the midwife who stepped in to join you and to rally together to realise the final moments of baby arriving into this world, for leaving the cord until it stopped pulsating to cut it without me not even asking... for offering to take photos of us all in our postnatal bliss.... thank you SO much! Thank you for enabling me to leave the birthing centre feeling in charge, feeling loved, feeling empowered and strong and able and completely wonderful!

You may not realise this but I think of this event frequently and it has left me feeling on top of the world.

This is how birthing can be... no matter how it happens, whether or not the mother has pain relief or a C-section, whether her feet are in stirrups or whether she is down on all fours... this is how it should be. A human, loving, supportive, wonderful experience.

Thank you.

Victoria shares her full birthing story on her positive parenting website Mama Baba Do.

Connect with Victoria on Facebook!"