Purpose of the Symposium
1) Discuss the benefits of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI) for hospitals, clinics, mothers, infants, and clinicians
2) Provide a forum for discussion among nurses, doctors, doulas, childbirth educators, midwives, administrators and others on the challenges and opportunities of implementing mother-friendly care in the clinical or hospital setting.
3) Provide a forum for dissemination of evidence-based best practices for maternity care.
4) Support clinics, hospitals and community-based programs in developing plans of action to shift the thinking in their organizations towards mother-friendly care and develop multidisciplinary coordinated networks of maternity care providers.
5) Practitioners and students of maternity care will obtain an objective understanding of the collision of worldviews and belief systems when the medical and midwifery models of maternity care intersect.
6) Participants will describe how the perinatal community as a whole can best collaborate to provide optimal care for mothers and infants based on the principals of the MFCI and the evidence-based practices available as outlined in the 10 steps of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI).
Principles of the MFCI are:
Blyss Young has been involved in the natural birth world since the birth of her first son in 1992.
In 2006 Blyss co-founded The Sanctuary Birth & Family Wellness Center. This was a culmination of all of her previous experience as a natural birth advocate, an educator and environmentalist. The Sanctuary was the first of its kind; a full spectrum center where midwives, doctors and other holistic practitioners collaborated to provide thousands of Los Angeles families care during the prenatal and postpartum periods.
Blyss closed The Sanctuary in 2015 to pursue her long held dream of becoming a midwife and is on track to receive her license in the fall of 2016.
Currently Blyss (aka Birthing Blyss) supports families on their journey as a birth doula, child birth educator, placenta encapsulator, and a natural birth and family consultant. She is also Co-Founder of Just Placentas, a company servicing all of Southern California with Placenta Encapsulation and other postpartum services.
This fall Blyss is collaborating with Wise Women Consulting to empower other individuals to create or foster thriving birth centers and midwifery options in their communities.
At the heart of all of Blyss’ work is a deeply rooted belief in the brilliant design of our bodies, the symbiotic relationship between baby and mother, the power of the human spirit and the richness that honoring birth as a rite of passage and resurrecting lost traditions can bring to our high tech low touch lives.
Blyss Young www.justplacentas.com, www.birthingblyss.com
birthingblyss.com
