“how you feel changes how you birth”

Perinatal Havening

We have fully integrated mental wellness into our midwifery care. There is indisputable evidence that stress during pregnancy have long-term impacts on mother and baby.

Some women are fortunate to sail through their pregnancy with a sense of well-being. Other women can experience states of anxiety that are mild and transient, and some suffer from serious conditions such as depression and panic attacks. The anxiety may be related to a life situation, but frequently, the source of stress can also be unknown. Or, a woman can hold on to previous trauma that would become an obstacle in her next birth. Statistically, eighty percent suffer from some form of baby blues. One in five women experiences PMAD - Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders.

Traditional midwifery care
Even as midwives, our foundational training was medical and focussed solely on the body. Like doctors, our job was to refer our clients to therapists when mental health needs arose. However, the efforts to find good mental health care can be daunting when one is juggling challenges of everyday life and carrying a baby. Most therapies take time even if you find the right provider. In the end women were more likely to resign to coping by themselves.

At some stage, we as midwives became dissatisfied with the limitations of our work. We were neglecting the bodymind connection because we did not have formal training nor believed that we could potentially provide fully encompassing care.

Women come to us to be treated as a human being, rather than just a body carrying a baby. In our practice, we wanted to be able to pay attention to your psyche the same way we attend to your physical condition. Just as we check your lab-work, vitals, and baby to make sure your pregnancy is going well, we should be able to check in on your emotional state and provide a plan of care for you.

Midwives have always known that anxiety caused physical symptoms in pregnancy and can prevent labor from progressing. We encouraged meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga as a means of stress management, but we wanted to do more.

What is Havening?
Beginning in 2016, we took to heart the challenge of providing truly holistic care, and we all began almost a year of training to become Certified Havening Practitioners. Kimm Sun developed Perinatal Havening to help other birth workers learn this technique.

Havening is a form of somatic therapy and but accomplishes more - it relieves physical and emotional symptoms by moving through encoded fears caused by life experiences and emotional wounding. Consequently, Havening helps you cope better with stress. It is also a daily practice that helps cultivate resiliency, making you feel peaceful, calm and capable. Havening is particularly suited for pregnancy because of the gentle nature of its application - during the therapeutic process, the Havening touch also releases oxytocin into your body, a vital hormone of pregnancy.

Today, we are fortunate that the stigma around mental health is lifting. In our practice, we embrace the range of your feelings in pregnancy as normal. Pregnancy is a natural state of high vigilance because you are about to take on the role of the Protector. Women are supposed to be more sensitive to their environment at this time, and therefore more susceptible to stress.

Our individualized approach
We take care of our clients no matter what their needs are. Everyone will get mental wellness check-in and care. If you don’t need any special help, self-havening tools are available to you for mindfulness building. If you are already under the care of a psychiatrist or psychotherapist, we provide supplementary support. Additionally, just several minutes a day of the self-care that we will teach you, can change your biological chemistry so that your body sends messages to your baby that the world is a safe place. Messages sent to babies in utero affect the path of their brain development.

Midwives have always practiced the art of “holding space” for women by listening with compassion. We wanted to evolve our craft to do more. We wanted to clear trauma. We wanted to release phobia. We wanted to give you tools for self down-regulation during moments of stress. We wanted to bring blood pressure down. We wanted to help you sleep better. Be calmer. Feel more at peace. We are excited and thankful to able to provide this full scope care.

If you have any questions for us about this work, please contact us.

VIDEOS AND STORIES:

AMY

“Fast forward 6 years later to October 2019 I gave birth to our third child, another beautiful baby girl. I had her in a birth pool at home in our NYC apartment (we moved from the UK in 2016) , with just my husband and 2 midwives present. It was the most serene experience of my life. It was healing and redemptive on so many levels. I had started this pregnancy with old fears and sorrow resurfacing from both my previous birth stories, but I didn’t want to repeat history so I decided to look for further healing. I found some incredible pregnancy care by local midwives who were pioneering in a type of psychosensory therapy called Havening for maternity care. It combined talking, and touch therapy to remove fear and trauma while also educating me on things about pregnancy I hadn’t known before. Havening helped me heal, and increased peace in my life. I believe it permanently removed my fear and old stress triggers that were repeating on loops in my mind. During my sessions, I partnered with God, having amazing life-changing encounters with Jesus as the completion of Romans 12:2 was transforming my brain and as my fear left and “perfect love” was replaced.

The difference

I kept Isaiah 26:3 close to heart. “You will keep in perfect peace, all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you.” I had a peaceful birth, experiencing the presence of God with me all the way. I still had some repeated complications after the birth but I had a new pathway, a new foundation. It didn’t knock us, I felt resilient. I was different. So even though I ended up in hospital, it was the closure I needed, fear couldn’t stick and I didn’t experience any trauma. My old triggers had been removed. I had a new hope. I was believing the truth, and the Truth had set me free.

This time round life with a newborn looked different. I knew what my body needed and I took care of it. In the past, I’d let lies, fear and self critique rule my head and my heart and it caused me to not look after my body. This time I’ve had a “fullness of life” experience. Yes sleepless nights and baby cries were present, but anxiety, depression and self-harm were not. Just self love and sound mind remained. I combined all the tools I’d collected over the years, taking thoughts captive, prayer and worship in the spirit, and my new Havening techniques to remove stress. Today I am a new woman. And subsequently a new mother.”

LOLY

Loly came to us having suffered from severe postpartum depression the first time. We laid the groundwork for her to prevent a second episode of PPD, and Havening became a big part of it. .

SIMCHA

Simcha is a vegan. In her second pregnancy, she developed an aversion to peas, her favorite vegetable protein. She had found a bug in a frozen package and since then, the thought of peas would trigger her. We gave her a 20-minute Havening session in one of our visits.

VERONICA AND SHAWN

Veronica did not have any specific mental health need. We showed the couple simple Havening exercises they could at home. In labor, she received Havening during the most powerful contractions. “I felt you saying I LOVE YOU in the Havening touches.”

MIDWIFE LAURE

Laure describing what it feels like to receive Havening. As midwives, self-care is so necessary.