Archive for the ‘conference proceedings’ Category

BirthKeeper Summit: CliffsNotes for You

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I’m still savoring the wonderful moments & memories from the recent BirthKeeper Summit. From points around the globe, renowned midwives, physicians, doulas, childbirth educators, lactation consultants, human development educators, myriad cultural and human rights leaders, environmental activists, medical ethicists and a neonatologist came together in Northern California with a single unified intention.

We were there to discuss and promote our most precious birthright: being born healthy and loved into a flourishing and just world, which honors women and protects the life-giving relationships of MotherBaby & MotherEarth.

{Read more about it — including a QUIZ for you! — in my quantum, time-bending CliffsNotes BKSummit Diary at mothering.com}

 

Are Humans Losing Our Capacity to Give Birth?

Breaking news from Michel Odent’s conference on Birth & Primal Health Research*: data is clear that we humans are losing the capacity to give birth! How can that be? It is pure evolution in action: when we do not use certain functions of our physiology, the “message” to our always-changing bodymind system — a message that becomes passed down to future generations through changes in DNA expression — is, “That function is no longer needed.” {read rest of post at mothering.com}

“Light on Parenting” Conference Gems — Pt. II (Photojournal added 5/24!)

NAOMI STADLEN

This author of What Mothers Do — Especially When It Looks Like Nothing changed the tone from the statistical, socio-biological, and clinical bent of the morning session to the immediacy of direct experience and the narrative of mothers about the “special time” in the early months after baby’s arrival. She highlights the importance of a parent’s sense-making of the early months, marked by such themes as an “extraordinary mixture of chaos and love,” “…like being inside a bubble…” “…like having a thin skin enclosing themselves and their babies buffering them from the rest of the world…” (more…)

“Light on Parenting” Conference Gems — Pt. I

I had the privilege of participating in a unique London conference a few days ago, with some folks who may not be so well known in the U.S., but should be! Consider this my introduction of some of them to you. This was written in present tense as the conference took place:

I’m sitting in a lovely auditorium at the Institute of Child Health at University College London where the “Light on Parenting: Conception Through the Early Years” conference has just begun. I’m realizing that the best way for me to share the gems from this conference is to do it pretty much in real time. Highlights. Things that pop for me (and hopefully pop for you). So here goes! (more…)