We wish to help you find your own path in recovering from pregnancy and birth and entering successful  breastfeeding and parenting. Our midwife appointments are there to assist you after birth in areas you wish to be helped. We also offer acupuncture as a holistic form of care, that we use in our midwifery treatments.

The puerperium and early discharge from the hospital (6-36h)

The childbed period at home. If you’re getting discharged early as an outpatient (when you stay in the hospital for only about 6 hurs after the birth) or are discharged the following day after birth, we can come and attend you at home.

The services we offer during this time can be:

• support and encouragement during hormonal upheaval
  
• physical care: checking the uterus, breasts, sutures, bloodpressure and monitoring general health, also instructions on how to care for yourself after birth
  
• discussing the birth
  
• monitoring the baby’s condition
  
• teaching practical baby care skills: bathing, positioning and massage during tummy trouble, following growth (weighing)
  
• guidance in breastfeeding and pumping or milking by hand as well as helping the milk to come in
  

Breastfeeding

Can you see what you’re already good at? What disturbs your peace during breastfeeding? Can something be done?

If you’re concerned about breastfeeding, caring for the baby, the changes in your body or other issues related to motherhood, we’re here for you. We, the midwives at the House of Midwives, want to help you find your own path in breastfeeding and motherhood.

The sooner you get help for issues with breastfeeding, the less likely they are to turn into real problems. Many things affect the success of breastfeeding. It’s typical that the snowballing effect of problems only creates more problems. This is why it’s better to seek help early on rather than later when the probelms have gone deeper.

7 tips for breastfeeding
You’ll get far at home, when you’ve made sure you know these:

1. How the baby communicates hunger
2. At least 3 good breast feeding positions for you
3. Good positioning of the baby at the breast and a good latch
4. How often the baby should feed
5. How to tell when the baby has a good latch and is sucking well
6. How to tell that the baby is getting enough to eat
7. 3 ways to wake up a sleepy baby to eat

The safety signs of breastfeeding:

1. The baby is feeding at least 8 times per day efficiently.
2. The baby is producing at least 5 pee-diapers per 24 hours from the fourth day of life.
3. The baby poops at least once a day while under six weeks of age.
4. The baby gains at least 20g a day or 140g a week.

When birth doesn’t go as planned

We will help and guide you, so that your experience will be as you want it. Birth doesn’t always go as planned and we are here for you when you need help and someone to talk to. Everyone’s journey with every birth is different.

If you have not been able to enjoy a full dose of oxytocin during birth there are many ways to increase it after birth. Keeping the baby in skin-to-skin contact as much as possible is one of the most important things, that increases the pleasure and calming hormones and decreases stress hormones of both mother and baby.

Birthing Experience

The experience of birth affects a woman’s life for better and for worse. At best a woman is empowered by giving birth, both as a mother and as a woman. At its worst and without support afterwards, birth can sap the strength of a woman for a long time afterwards. There are often many questions about the birth: why, what and how things were done. Primarily the midwife attending the birth can answer these questions.

Based on the birth report that you receive (or later request from archives) from the hospital and your own telling of the event, we can as midwives answer a lot of questions and bring clarity and meaning to things that may be foggy or unclear.

Discussion can be explaning medical procedures or dig deeper into the challenging events of the birth. The Birth Story Listener ® can help you to see your birth in a new light. This can be one possible way to opening up trauma and fear stemming from the birth.

It is not therapy, but a tool with which the birther can herself find the difficult spots in her birth and possibly reasons for why she experiences them strongly. The idea behind this is that the birth happened to you and you create meaning for different events. What is traumatic for one person can represent safety for someone else.

With the Birth Art ®-method you can draw feelings and dig into what the process brings to the surface. Sometimes physical care is needed and acupuncture, gua-sha, reflexology or metamorphosismassage can then help to start the process.