What's Your Birth Story?

How does birth affect your life, business, or community? What do you need to know about the American maternity care system? I love to share what I know about birth!

Would you like to learn how to get your pregnancy, health, physical, and emotional needs met throughout your journey to parenthood? Maybe you’re more interested to hear how your business could improve employee health and save money by supporting evidence-based maternity practices through your benefits packages, wellness programs, and community engagement. Or, you’d like to hear more about the experiences of patients in order to improve the services you offer. If you are in the non-profit sector, I might have some useful insights to share from my experiences leading a national consumer advocacy organization that provides information and support to pregnant women to help them access Mother-Friendly maternity care.  

What other topics might be of interest to you?

How our American maternity care system has the worst outcomes in the industrialized world and we pay twice as much as other countries do for birth-related services? How limiting access to birth control or care for unwanted pregnancies affects the care that women with desired pregnancies receive? How corporate decision-making by non-medical entities like formula manufacturers affects women’s and children’s health, at a cost of billions of healthcare dollars each year, but other industries could change that? Birth as a feminist issue? Birth as a human rights issue? The birth experience as a tool for finding your power and your voice? 

How we give birth in our culture and society touches many different facets of our lives, and I've spent almost two decades exploring the issues surrounding this peak life experience. My learning began before I became a mother. It has continued through the births of three children, and three step-grandchildren. It led me to work as an activist and community organizer around birth issues, and informed my work as a board member and leader of BirthNetwork National. Some of the education was more formal, such as my training to become a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator. The learning continues to this day as I pursue Masters Degrees in Public Health and Social Work to support my current work as The Birth Lady, creating educational programs to help people navigate our complicated maternity care system.

Some people might say that I am obsessed with birth. I prefer to say that I am highly motivated to help people have safer, healthier, more empowering birth experiences – the kind that create a great start to parenthood, and make women feel they can achieve anything! My experiences giving birth to my children rocked my world, and I want every mother and father to have the opportunity for achieving their full potential on the Hero’s Journey of nurturing new life in this world.

  

Everyone has some kind of birth story to tell. Birth affects every one of us. Our future depends on us getting it right.

  
What’s your birth story? Leave a comment below! 

Michal Klau-Stevens, The Birth Lady, is a maternity consultant and the creator of the Mastering Maternity™ system, a program that helps childbearing women confidently approach pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, early parenting, and navigating the maternity healthcare system.  To receive a FREE mini-guide by email and receive more tools and information on mastering maternity, visit www.TheBirthLady.INFO. Find her on Facebook at The Birth Lady page!