Empowering parents through the birth process with Milou van Luijk (Ep.4)
Summary:
In this episode we go all the way to the Netherlands to a town near Rotterdam and we interview Milou van Luijk.
Milou is a pregnancy, birthing, baby attachment, baby carrying and baby massage consultant and mentor. She empowers couples to take ownership of their pregnancy, birth and first days with their babies by preparing them to go through this magical process.
In this interview Milou tells us about her motivation to do the work she is doing, which mainly comes from the positive experience she had with her own births and the positive feedback she was getting from other people that heard about some of her tips. Milou tells us the story of the birth of her two baby boys, each in completely different settings. She emphasizes the importance of being prepared, informed and empowered as a couple before the birth and shares tips to starts bonding with the baby even before the birth. She takes us through women's and men's hormonal changes and gives us un understanding of all the benefits that come along with a natural birth.
Show Notes:
The births of her children inspired her to share the knowledge with others.
Milou does pregnancy courses, baby and parent attachment improvement consultations via baby and baby massage.
Importance of couples bonding with the baby. Her vision is to empower couples to have the pregancy, birth and start of the baby's life that they want.
She tells us the story of her two different and good birth experiences with her children. Hypnobirthing is the basis of her births and her practice.
Being ready before hand is very empowering. Having home births in the Netherlands is very common.
How the birth that had to go to the hospital still went the way she and her couple wanted because they had prepared.
Second birth went really well and as expected. Visualizations of her birth helped her get a birth even better that what she thought of.
Her husband helped her go back to a relaxed state after a short moment of panic.
Sharing a few techniques she practiced during her own birth were already helping other couples, encouraged her to deepen her work.
Hearing about the nagative stories also motivated her to deepen her work.
Milou empowered Elke and Allan to be prepared and to trust the natural process.
Milou's pregnancy and birithing course gave strength and confidence to Allan and Elke and gave practical tools that Allan could use to help Elke.
Milou answers, why is it not normal for couples to be empowered during birth? The transfer of knowledge around birthing has been limited in the past years.
Nowadays more people want to know more about the birthing process and this is helping.
If the couple loses control of the birth, the experience can become negative. Brasil and Bolivia has a high rate of planned cesareans.
Couples give up control because of fear. Couples are pregnant together and give birth together.
The partner can be the communicator with the outside world so the woman can stay in her bubble.
The partner can help the woman keep breathing during the surges. Milou explains how hormones play a role in the birthing process.
Men's hormones also change, less testosterone so they are more careful. Oxyticin, the love hormone, has a big role during birth. It is your friend.
Endorphine is also your friend. It is a natural pain killer. Adrenaline is not your friend. It closes the women up. The birth process stops.
What to do if adrenaline arises? Go back to the safe zone, via relaxation, breathing and the setting.
Getting in the right hormonal cycle helps have a positive-experience natural birth.
Fear creates adrenaline, fear mostly can arise because of not being prepared, because of not knowing what to expect.
The most important thing is that the woman feels the safest no matter the setting. Milou explains the benefits of natural birth.
The mom feels empowered after a natural birth. The natural birth can prevent post partum depression. The natural birth improves the chances of good breast feeding. The natural birth helps the baby be more alert and not cry that much and can easily start breastfeeding.
The natural birth stimulates the childs immune system by swallowing their first microbes from the mom's vaginal fluids and by getting the bacteria from the mom's breast.
Keeping the umbilical cord attached at least until it stops pulsing gives the baby an extra boost before he can fully start breast feeding or if she had a tough birth.
Website www.lalouz.com, www.lalouz.nl. Instagram @by_lalouz