We at Open Arms are thrilled to have received the Seattle Human Services Coalition award for Innovative Program!
The winners were announced today:
18th Annual Human Services Awards
The award recognizes Open Arms for its "response to an existing need in a new way, its ability to build upon an outstanding program model, its creativity in leveraging resources, and its positive program results."
I'm thrilled about this award. Today I had a wonderfully stimulating and energizing conversation with one of our current board members and a potential board member and left that conversation feeling so excited about the work we do at Open Arms, as I often do when I have a chance to step back and really look at Open Arms with fresh eyes. Our programs are innovative - and I'm pleased to see that recognized through this award.
Open Arms is a community-based organization, and all of our programs are deeply committed to working within the cultures and communities we serve - not imposing structure from the outside. Open Arms Programs - our regional birth doula services program and our White Center Early Learning Initiative (WCELI) birth doula and outreach doula programs - show results and are cost-effective.
Our clients - low-income women, refugees, immigrants and others - struggle in many ways, but one of the ways that is most apparent is in the area of health disparities. Issues such as postpartum depression, preterm birth and infant mortality disproportionally affect our clients. By removing barriers to service, increasing awareness and personal advocacy, providing education about pregnancy, birth options, breastfeeding and positive early parenting, and reducing medical interventions and the costs of perinatal care, Open Arms programs are able to fill in the gaps that are left in perinatal care and give families a healthier start - which has a great impact in terms of health care costs, early learning and future success of families.... and that affects us all.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Nonprofit provides birth kits to refugee camps and sub-Saharan Africa
I just received news (thanks Audrey!) about this interesting new nonprofit World Birth Aid. I thought Open Arms blog readers might be interested.
Their opening sentence on their website says so much:
I think that is amazing - that these items are so absent that a woman has to birth without them. We take so much for granted.
Here's an email from Yvonne Røskeland, one of the World Birth Aid team:
Hello my friends,
Good Spring to you all. As many of you know I have had an interesting year. Due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to work as a midwife this past year, which has provided me with a wonderful opportunity to spend time with my two year old son Lukas. I hope to introduce you soon to those he has yet to meet. The time I have had away from work has also allowed me to reflect on my personal and professional life.
I spent formative years of my youth in Africa with my family and shortly after receiving my midwifery education I spent two months in Afghanistan delivering babies in a devastatingly dire environment. These experiences have helped encourage me to create a non-profit organization to aid pregnant women and newborn babies in desperate circumstances in sub-Saharan Africa. My organization is called World Birth Aid. The goal of World Birth Aid is to provide a simple clean birth kit which consists of soap, a clean pad on which to deliver, clean string to tie the umbilical cord, a clean razor blade to cut the umbilical cord and illustrated instructions on how to carry out a hygienic delivery outside of a hospital environment.
It is a small organization with a simple charter but I know that if we can provide clean birth kits to women who would otherwise be forced to deliver in squalid conditions we will save lives.
I have recently finished our website. If you wish, you can learn more at www.worldbirthaid.org. If you feel inclined, please forward this email to any and all friends as the larger community we can create the more birth kits we can deliver.
Warm wishes to you all,
Yvonne
Their opening sentence on their website says so much:
All it takes to save two lives is a clean pad, soap, razor blade, a length of string and a set of illustrated instructions.
I think that is amazing - that these items are so absent that a woman has to birth without them. We take so much for granted.
Here's an email from Yvonne Røskeland, one of the World Birth Aid team:
Hello my friends,
Good Spring to you all. As many of you know I have had an interesting year. Due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to work as a midwife this past year, which has provided me with a wonderful opportunity to spend time with my two year old son Lukas. I hope to introduce you soon to those he has yet to meet. The time I have had away from work has also allowed me to reflect on my personal and professional life.
I spent formative years of my youth in Africa with my family and shortly after receiving my midwifery education I spent two months in Afghanistan delivering babies in a devastatingly dire environment. These experiences have helped encourage me to create a non-profit organization to aid pregnant women and newborn babies in desperate circumstances in sub-Saharan Africa. My organization is called World Birth Aid. The goal of World Birth Aid is to provide a simple clean birth kit which consists of soap, a clean pad on which to deliver, clean string to tie the umbilical cord, a clean razor blade to cut the umbilical cord and illustrated instructions on how to carry out a hygienic delivery outside of a hospital environment.
It is a small organization with a simple charter but I know that if we can provide clean birth kits to women who would otherwise be forced to deliver in squalid conditions we will save lives.
I have recently finished our website. If you wish, you can learn more at www.worldbirthaid.org. If you feel inclined, please forward this email to any and all friends as the larger community we can create the more birth kits we can deliver.
Warm wishes to you all,
Yvonne
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Quote of the Day
Another quote... I liked this. It made me think of Open Arms for sure!
“Although the popularly desired outcome is ‘Healthy mother, healthy baby,’ I think there is room in that equation for ‘Happy, non-traumatized, empowered and elated mother and baby.’” –Midwifery Today, Winter 2008
“Although the popularly desired outcome is ‘Healthy mother, healthy baby,’ I think there is room in that equation for ‘Happy, non-traumatized, empowered and elated mother and baby.’” –Midwifery Today, Winter 2008
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Quote of the Day
"You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think." - A. A. Milne
Friday, April 30, 2010
More on Shaken Baby Syndrome
There seems to be a lot of relevant news today - as I scanned the news one last time before going to bed tonight, this caught my eye, which is relevant to my post earlier today about postpartum depression and shaken baby syndrome. This article takes it wider, stressing that many parents are under extreme stress with the economy just as county and state funding has been decreased to programs who aim to help prevent such abuse. The children pay the price.
Shaken baby injuries rose in recession: Grim child abuse spiked; a third of kids older than 1
Seattle Children's was one of the medical centers citing a rise in numbers of babies and children (some up to age 6) presenting with shaken baby syndrome, or abusive head trauma.
Shaken baby injuries rose in recession: Grim child abuse spiked; a third of kids older than 1
Seattle Children's was one of the medical centers citing a rise in numbers of babies and children (some up to age 6) presenting with shaken baby syndrome, or abusive head trauma.
The number of babies and young children suffering abusive head trauma climbed by 55 percent in the months after the recession began in December 2007, according to a review of 511 cases at four children’s hospitals across the U.S.
The spike came during a period of rising unemployment, falling home prices and cuts to state and county budgets, including those that fund safety net programs to prevent child abuse.
Crying it out harms babies' brains
Here's a link on crying it out, and why leaving your baby to cry isn't a great idea:
BBC News: Crying-it-out 'harms baby brains'
I really hesitated to post this because honestly, parents can be blamed for a lot. There are times when it feels the entire weight of the world rests on our shoulders... oh and speaking of rest, we aren't getting any. There's certainly the temptation to let a baby cry it out a little if that means that we'll get some sleep - and our baby will get some sleep! I had triplets, and believe me, I couldn't physically answer each baby's cry immediately - there were two others to attend to. So news like this can honestly wear me down and make me think no matter what I did, it wasn't going to be good enough.
But the reason I'm posting this isn't just about that sleep technique of crying it out. I do believe that babies cry for a reason and that babies become emotionally and physically healthy when we respond to them in a timely way and with loving, nurturing care. And when we leave our babies to cry - not once or twice, but regularly, and hard, and for long periods of time, it isn't good for the baby.
It says in the article:
I am interested in this news because again there is scientific evidence that we must nurture our babies and respond to them. If a parent regularly chooses not to respond to a baby's cries, a baby's brain chemistry changes from the neglect and there are well-documented, lifelong effects.
Why would parents not respond to their baby? Some parents don't know it's important, some are emotionally unable to respond because of depression or other factors, some are too self-absorbed to attend to someone else's needs, some are purposefully abusive/neglectful and some are unable due to factors such as alcohol or drug abuse. One can see how such patterns can repeat through generations, however - with each generation leaving the next with additional challenges caused by early neglect and abuse.
In closing on this last day of April, I'd like to share this article with you: Blue Ribbon Campaign Means April is Child Abuse Awareness Month. We've seen this information before, but it's a really good write-up of the issues, and again says home visiting programs (such as Open Arms) work at reducing childhood abuse and neglect.
BBC News: Crying-it-out 'harms baby brains'
I really hesitated to post this because honestly, parents can be blamed for a lot. There are times when it feels the entire weight of the world rests on our shoulders... oh and speaking of rest, we aren't getting any. There's certainly the temptation to let a baby cry it out a little if that means that we'll get some sleep - and our baby will get some sleep! I had triplets, and believe me, I couldn't physically answer each baby's cry immediately - there were two others to attend to. So news like this can honestly wear me down and make me think no matter what I did, it wasn't going to be good enough.
But the reason I'm posting this isn't just about that sleep technique of crying it out. I do believe that babies cry for a reason and that babies become emotionally and physically healthy when we respond to them in a timely way and with loving, nurturing care. And when we leave our babies to cry - not once or twice, but regularly, and hard, and for long periods of time, it isn't good for the baby.
It says in the article:
Recent scientific tests show high levels of the stress hormone cortisol develop in babies when no one answers their cries... Dr Leach suggested unattended extreme crying bouts of 30 minutes or more could be damaging to babies... Dr Leach told the BBC News website: "We are talking about the release of stress chemicals. The best known of them is cortisol, which is produced under extreme stress."
"One is not talking about a wakeful baby lying there gurgling, one is talking about a baby that is crying hard and nobody is responding. When that happens, and particularly if it happens over a long period, the brain chemical system releases cortisol and that is very bad for brain development. Some neuroscientists describe it as toxic."
I am interested in this news because again there is scientific evidence that we must nurture our babies and respond to them. If a parent regularly chooses not to respond to a baby's cries, a baby's brain chemistry changes from the neglect and there are well-documented, lifelong effects.
Why would parents not respond to their baby? Some parents don't know it's important, some are emotionally unable to respond because of depression or other factors, some are too self-absorbed to attend to someone else's needs, some are purposefully abusive/neglectful and some are unable due to factors such as alcohol or drug abuse. One can see how such patterns can repeat through generations, however - with each generation leaving the next with additional challenges caused by early neglect and abuse.
In closing on this last day of April, I'd like to share this article with you: Blue Ribbon Campaign Means April is Child Abuse Awareness Month. We've seen this information before, but it's a really good write-up of the issues, and again says home visiting programs (such as Open Arms) work at reducing childhood abuse and neglect.
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