Lana Peterson – The Softer Sex

A Home Birth Gathering
Cape Town, September 2015

I attended my second Home Birth Gathering, hosted by Lana Petersen and Ruth Ehrhardt of Home Birth South Africa at the end of September.
It was attended by 22 guests, and again in the beautiful old villa in Muizenberg which I think is open to hosting many different kinds of events.

The gathering covered a number of different topics, predominantly brought up by the guests after they had each made an introduction.
Most of the couples who attended were really looking at their birthing options in South Africa, and many commented about how little they knew or how hard it was to get diverse info about their birth options here.

Three other doulas/midwives were also in attendance, including Marianne Littlejohn of Mtwana Birth Centre and Spiritual Birth, based in Muizenberg. Between the birthing professionals at the gathering there was much under discussion and a lot of information shared from these women.
Topics covered included:

Normalising natural birth again
Birthing complications
The task of the birth professionals
Medical aids and their effects on birthing in South Africa
Safe atmospheres for birthing

I definitely went away with much more information than when I had arrived and I feel that it must have been very informative for the expecting parents who had attended.
More info on upcoming events on their Facebook page or on Ruth and Lana’s great resource website Home Birth South Africa.

A Home Birth Gathering
Cape Town, November 2014

Birth and pregnancy have pretty much always interested and fascinated me. The body’s ability to house, create and nourish as well as birth another perfect being is a marvel.
The first time I really read or looked into birth was through a book by Dr Christiane Northrup called Women’s Bodies Women’s Wisdom when I was at school (amazing birth stories as well as attitudes towards the body and birth) and I also count myself lucky that I was surrounded by the kind of people, teachers, friends and parents alike, that were open to a more natural way of being (probably because it was a Waldorf School).

I heard about the Home Birth Gathering through Facebook and followed links to the event and other connected websites. The gathering was held in a beautiful old mansion in Muizenberg with about 22 guests and two hosting midwives/doulas Lana and Ruth. The gathering was relaxed and basically an open conversation with questions, answers and discussions about a mix of things related to birth.
Questions raised by other attendees ranged from concerns about what the most common problems one could face during labour, how midwives are equipped, how long it would take to get to a hospital should the situation arise and the subject of when to cut the umbilical cord if at all (see Lotus Birth).

Ive started doing a lot more research online into birth, clinics, midwifery, etc as I’m really excited to shoot more on this subject, in fact, attending a natural birth is on my “bucket list”.

I noticed how people looked quizzically at me when I said I was attending a home birth gathering and realised how I felt I had to defend myself about going which is bizarre.
Ive been reading so much about the taboos associated with the subject as well as how women have such differing ideas and experiences of the pregnancy and the birth process.

More on home birth on Lana & Ruths great resource website here.