Nurturing the Inner Midwifery Journey
Essential Tools and Practices for Sustaining Wellness in Midwifery Care
Nurturing the Inner Midwifery Journey
Four 90 minute sessions
June 3, 10, 17, and 24, 2024
11:00 am Eastern Time
Cost: $225
Managing hospital rotations, maintaining a healthy work pace, balancing home life, dealing with external stressors, and ensuring basic needs like regular, nourishing meals all take their toll. It is no wonder that midwives, inherently driven by a spirit of giving and supporting others, can find themselves stretched thin.
My perspective as a trained medical doctor, working extensively in hospitals and alongside birthing professionals, has allowed me to recognize the impact of our fast-paced training, survival mode, and the challenges of managing life and death situations, all while lacking proper debriefing and navigating rigid protocols. The prevailing fear of litigation and a sense of not being heard further affect the mental and physical health of midwives. Medical and supportive structures, in my observation, often fall short in delving into the emotional and psychological well-being of midwives. Consequently, many surface-level solutions lead midwives to seek their own resources or leave the system altogether.
I want to help reignite the heart and soul of this noble profession and address the disconnection from the original love and passion for women's well-being that drew us to this work. Drawing from my medical and midwifery background, this course provide practical tools that midwives can integrate into their busy lives to ground themselves and release the stressors inherent in their work. This group course fosters a safe and supportive community, offering a space for sharing, growth, and rejuvenation, ultimately enabling midwives to continue their work with pregnant and laboring women in a manner that feels balanced, aligned, and complete.
This course is for women working as midwives in a hospital, birth centre or as an independent, as well as birthworkers who are also working in the same way.
- Trauma integration theory and how it shows up for us
- Somatic integration / role of movement
- Breathwork
- Processing grief in the workplace
- Balancing and supporting nervous system
- Staying true to you
- Importance of debriefing
Course Contents:
Module 1: The Role of the Midwife - Integrating Sacred Wisdom into Clinical Practice
Module 2: The Daily Midwife - a thorough exploration of the intricate web of interconnected factors that contribute to burnout and stress within the realm of midwifery and how this affects us.
Module 3: Sustainable Solutions for Midwifery Well-being - finding real life and practical solutions for sustained support for midwives to effectively do a very important job with the resources they need (mind, body and soul) (including boundaries, advocacy, self care, support, nutrition and supplements)
Module 4: Cultivating Resilient Midwifery Practices - integration and Planning forward.
Handouts and other material will be integrated into the classes.
Your Instructor
Dr. Gauri Lowe, a medical doctor and natural birth specialist, draws on over two decades of experience supporting women. After her own homebirth during studies, she became an advocate for physiological birth, later apprenticing with a homebirth midwife to learn how to support homebirths.
Since her second son's birth (in water, at home), Dr. Gauri divides her time between South Africa and rural India, passionately supporting homebirths, teaching midwifery, and consulting in integrative women's health. Now based in South Africa with her family, she offers transformative courses, focusing on postpartum care, the Sacred Model of Birth, and reframing women's healthcare.
Dr. Lowe emphasizes holistic approaches, weaving in natural remedies and ancient healing traditions with a sound clinical background too. With 12+ years as a birth advocate, she creates safe spaces for women during childbirth.