Tag: sarah meder

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Interviews & Conversations Projects Women I've Shot

Positive Birth in South Africa: This is Charlene Yared-West


The Gate-Keepers: A Portraiture Project

This is a portraiture project, documenting the “gatekeepers” of a growing movement regarding positive birth experiences in our country.  My aim: to promote those who are enabling women to identify with their power and femininity and therefore normalize birth and the body.

These are their stories / anecdotes / opinions about what they do and how they see it…accompanied by my portraits and some general information on each sitter.

–

Charlene Yared-West is a doula and founder of the Cape Town based Relax Into Birth programme which focuses on deep relaxation techniques and hypnobirthing.
She comes from a journalism background and since the birth of her son, has been passionate about mothers and pregnancy, labour and birth.

Charlene Yared-West -Birth South Africa - Portraits by Leah Hawker

“I want women to know that they have options, that they can trust their bodies to birth their babies and that free of fear, birth can be a better experience, no matter what turn it takes.”

• (I invite more participants to join the project, you are welcome to email me for more information).

Categories
Interviews & Conversations Projects Women I've Shot

Positive Birth in South Africa: This is Jackie Downs


The Gate-Keepers: A Portraiture Project

This is a portraiture project, documenting the “gatekeepers” of a growing movement regarding positive birth experiences in our country.  My aim: to promote those who are enabling women to identify with their power and femininity and therefore normalize birth and the body.

These are their stories / anecdotes / opinions about what they do and how they see it…accompanied by my portraits and some general information on each sitter.

–

Jackie Downs is a student Midwife studying at Wits University, she works mostly in Hilbrow Johannesburg and has been in the birthing profession for three years now.

Jackie Downs Doula Midwife south africa photographed by Leah Hawker

“As a midwife I would like to offer all women a more caring, and a safer experience when they are giving birth. In labour they seem to me to be at their most vulnerable. They deserve much more care and love than what I see them currently getting at the public institutions where I work. “

• (I invite more participants to join the project, you are welcome to email me for more information).

Categories
Interviews & Conversations Projects Women I've Shot

Positive Birth in South Africa: This is Daphne Lyell


The Gate-Keepers: A Portraiture Project

This is a portraiture project, documenting the “gatekeepers” of a growing movement regarding positive birth experiences in our country.  My aim: to promote those who are enabling women to identify with their power and femininity and therefore normalize birth and the body.

These are their stories / anecdotes / opinions about what they do and how they see it…accompanied by my portraits and some general information on each sitter.

–

Daphne  Lyell is a doctor and homeopath but a midwife at heart. She’s based in Woodstock Cape Town where she shares suites with other pregnancy and birthing professionals Caitlyn Collins (midwife) and Lynne Groenewald (antennal yoga).

Daphne has been doing what she terms as “the real birth work”  since April 2015 but has worked in the medical model of care from 2008 onwards.

 

Daphne Lyell -Birth South Africa - Portraits by Leah Hawker

“The beauty of seeing a women become a mother as her labour unfolds and she’s brought to the brink of her control and that moment when she lets herself go and fall into the abyss where nature takes over.  The realisation that the control was an illusion.”

“Us doctors are never taught to trust mothers, to trust normal..we’re exposed to abnormal with such a strong emphasis on emergency and pathology and therefore fear driven.  We’re taught to trust machines, clocks, scalpels..not mothers….I think it’s important that women understand how our system is built and why it is important for them to search for and opt for midwife led care.”

” In South Africa’s private system there is Only the care equivalent to tertiary care.  Hence all women, low and high risk, get monitored by an obstetrician, that was trained in the system that handled high risk women.”

• (I invite more participants to join the project, you are welcome to email me for more information).

Categories
Interviews & Conversations Projects Women I've Shot

Positive Birth in South Africa: This is Catherine Brown


The Gate-Keepers: A Portraiture Project

This is a portraiture project, documenting the “gatekeepers” of a growing movement regarding positive birth experiences in our country.  My aim: to promote those who are enabling women to identify with their power and femininity and therefore normalize birth and the body.

These are their stories / anecdotes / opinions about what they do and how they see it…accompanied by my portraits and some general information on each sitter.

–

Catherine Brown is a doula with a past in the film industry. She’s been working professionally in the birthing world in South Africa for almost two years now. She works mostly on in the peninsula area.

Catherine Brown Doula Midwife south africa photographed by Leah Hawker

“Stigmas around so many natural, normal occurrences of life, such as defecating, sexual arousal, nudity so often shuts a woman off from the exact process that facilitates birth. These stigmas, and the high rate of abuse, in our society stop women from opening up, in every way…”

“Lets move away from the fear-based emergency care model of birth we currently into the profound, everyday empowering process that birth is,”

• (I invite more participants to join the project, you are welcome to email me for more information).