Calm & Confident Doulas, Milla Blindauer, CD(DONA) and Melinda Ferguson, AdvCD/PCD(DONA) collaborated to bring you some important information to consider when choosing an out of hospital birth. Are you considering a home birth or birthing at a free standing birth center? In our current culture, it seems that delivering your baby at a hospital is the default - but out of hospital birth can be a really great option for many people. There is a lot of misconception out there about home birth and midwives and I would love to go over some of the most common questions that people have. Katrina ..read more

A message from Calm & Confident Founder and Owner, Melinda Ferguson: We want you to know that we are monitoring the development of the COVID-19 outbreak in our area and taking safety precautions to help prevent the spread of illness to our clients, their families and the team at Calm & Confident. We understand that people are very concerned and this is a fast changing situation. Our doulas are typically taking standard health precautions, and we want to let you what these are to help you be well informed. We are also taking some additional steps to help reduce the spread of this illne ..read more

photo credit: DepositPhotos By Keli Schurman-Darby  So you are ready to find your Mary Poppins but the process seems a bit daunting or you simply don’t know where to start? Let me help you with that. The great thing is that whether you are located in the Puget Sound or beyond there is an abundance of nannies so you needn’t worry about not finding one. What you need to begin with is a solid idea of who your perfect nanny would be. What qualities do you desire in your nanny?  ● Are they a warm and affectionate type?  ● Are they more laid back or type A? ● Are you i ..read more

This week’s blog post comes Leialoha Hurwitz. She is one of our go to people for overnight postpartum support. See more about her at the end of the post. We are so happy to have her share her insights. photo courtesy of Flickr Does this sound at all familiar to you- “Oh you have to get (insert newest baby gadget here)! It’s totally made life more bearable,” or “Don’t get (same baby gadget from above)! It was totally useless.” Parents new and old will offer you their, sometimes unsolicited, advice about which baby products to invest in and which not to. The problem is that in your close group ..read more

Today’s Blog Post is written by team member Manon Banuelos. Many thanks for sharing this valuable information! Deposit Photos If you've recently found out you are expecting (or even if you are already well into your second or third trimester!), it is likely you are already inundated with many choices and options to consider for both yourself and your baby. For many, one of the first considerations soon after confirming a pregnancy is who to select as a maternity care provider and where to give birth. For some women, the choice is a simple one if they already have a good relationship with a ca ..read more

We know you want to do what you can to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby! Eating right is one piece we have some control over in the process. I recently sat down with Judy Simon, MS, RDN, CD, CHES, FAND to talk about nutrition in pregnancy and how what we eat can influence things like gestational diabetes, pregnancy induced hypertension and pre-eclampsia. Judy counsels people working to get pregnant and throughout pregnancy on nutrition and diet, as well as presenting on such topics professionally. She has lots of good, common sense answers for us to get and stay healthy. Melinda ..read more

Of course with Thanksgiving on our minds many people take a moment to reflect on the things they are grateful for. Here at Calm & Confident Doula Care, we are grateful for many things. It is an honor to be invited into the sacred space of birthing. Each time I am invited by another family to be a part of their birth or postpartum, I am so grateful for the opportunity to help make that experience of welcoming their child to be as positive as possible. Nearly every birth and postpartum time has unexpected twists and navigating through them while being vulnerable takes great strength and cou ..read more

Today's blog post strikes a more personal note than I usually strive for in my blogs. I hope you find it resonates for you as well. - Melinda   When my baby was very young and would cry, alarm bells screamed in my head. Everything in my heart, gut and soul compelled me to DO SOMETHING NOW to fix it. I had no idea this was not just normal—it was a good thing. I now refer to this response in my postpartum doula trainings as the “empathy link”. Many perinatal professionals refer to this as a Secure Attachment Bond. This phrase Empathy Link comes from Rick Riordian, author of the Percy Jackso ..read more

Today's blog post comes to us from Rebekah Gilley, one our Birth Doulas here at Calm & Confident Doula Care. Rebekah loves helping partners be excellent support during labor! Most people think of doulas as support for the person in labor, and this is very true. But another important part of a doula’s job is to support the partner of the laboring person. Birthing Day is a major life event for this person too and one they will always remember! In honor of Father’s Day, we’d like to share some key ways that doulas support dads and partners.    1.    Physical sup ..read more

For International Doula Month I thought I’d share a bit about what I and some of the doulas on our team love about this work and what brought us to being here.  I often meet expectant parents who are very anxious about their upcoming birth—the pain, the things that may be done to them, the great unknown of it all. They are so relieved to find a person who can help walk them through this uncertain new territory. As I say parent here I mean both the person giving birth who will be personally experiencing the contractions and medical aspects, and their partner bearing witness to and support ..read more