Help Me, Help Support Local Pregnant Mamas!

I'm Sarah! I'm an apprentice midwife, trained doula, herbalist, thai massage practitioner, nutrition counselor, conscious conception counselor etc. I run Sacred Journey Birth and am currently an apprentice midwife with Harvest Moon Women's Health!

I have this incredibly opportunity to go to Washington State and train with bio-mechanist Katy Bowman who runs Nutritious Movement. The training, Movement Ecology During Pregnancy is for birth workers to learn to help their clients understand movement ecology for better births! A lot of this work I have implemented into my life over the years and have taken all of her online classes. This will be a good training to have to prepare me to teach in my community, Asheville, and bring this work into my practice as a student midwife. Part of the model of care we use to serve women includes some discussion around movement, though when I complete this workshop I will offer full sessions directed towards pregnant women in the community. Though we have many amazing holistic models of care in our town we can always use more skilled holistic folks to serve and bring positive birth experiences to our clients. As well as supporting new moms with their babies through movement & and helping their babies experience movement from the beginning of their lives.

Movement is as important in pregnancy as nutrition. Movement is part of the nutrition that we must give our bodies. I'm not talking about the kind of movement that we do when we go to the gym for 30 minutes a day and then spend the rest of the day sedentary. I'm talking about moving the way our ancestors would move for 8 hours or more a day. Gardening, labor work, tending to kids, walking long distances, squatting throughout the day, cutting wood, etc. Our lives have changed drastically since then and we have outsourced so much of our movement to technology, devices and furniture. A lot of our bodies are suffering as a result of the ways we outsource our movement every single day. This often leads to aches and pains then add a pregnancy on top of that. Pain is not a natural state of being pregnant, it is a sign of mis-alignment and lack of movement nutrition.

Adding variety and frequency of movement nutrition throughout the day will significantly improve the health of your pregnancy. While taking classes in yoga, pilates, going to the gym etc are very good for our bodies we also need to think about the time in between. What kinds of shoes are you wearing? Are you inadvertently wearing "heels" when you workout or when you go for a hike? How much of the day is spent sitting? How much do you tuck your pelvis? Did you know that tight psoas can make it more likely to have a breech baby? Did you now that doing kegels actually weakens your pelvic floor? These are all really important questions that I will help our community answer!

I just need help! I am a single mama working on training as a midwife full time. I also take on a few doula clients here and there. I am pretty much paycheck to paycheck at the moment and don't have money put away for experiences like this. (Hello credit cards!) Since this is work that I will be bringing back to my community and doing for not only the moms I work with but anyone with a pelvis!

I chose this platform gogetfunding because In can add rewards! And every single person who donates is essentially paying in advance for a discounted session! Everyone wins and gets to benefit from this work. Otherwise I'd have to work with dozens of people before I had the money saved to go on this trip!

The costs are $530 for the training workshop itself, airfare to the other side of the country, transportation (car pooling of course!) and accommodation (roomsharing) Got to conserve resources! this habit we tend to have as a culture of traveling alone not only is more expensive but it also costs more in fossil fuels!

Check out the lovely rewards below! I will start scheduling movement rewards for for the second week of September and they will be one on one sessions if you live in Buncombe county! Or we can meet closer! If you have chosen a massage reward then you can begin redeeming them anytime. Everyone gets a handwritten postcard from lovely Sequim, WA!

Here is a short breakdown of each of the rewards!

---- A one on one 1-hour session for movement for a healthy pelvis! ****** This will be showing you moves you can do for optimal pelvic alignment. We will; also talk about ways you can incoporate movement into your day habitually for a healthy aligned pain free pelvis!

----A one on one 1-hour session with you and your baby! To learn about ways to enhance the amount of movement you and your baby get throughout the day! ********* I will not only show you moves for a healthy pelvis but also ways you can set up an optimal movement environment for your baby (how to occupy baby without movement impeding devices), show you different ways to carry your baby pain free (baby carrying vs baby wearing vs stroller etc) , and talk about the long term benefits of all of these movements including breastfeeding!

----A one on one 1-hour movement session hiking together! I'll help you find the right alignment for your body in the context of a hike! ******We will meet on the trail, I will show you exercises for healthy alignment and watch you walk while giving alignment support and helping you walk to your most optimum capacity!

----75 minute thai massage. *****This will be a dynamic thai floor massage that I typically do at clients homes.

----I will personally guide you on your journey to transitioning to minimal footwear! ****I will help you to find the right shoe for your foot and guide you through learning about minimal footwear and the value of being able to use all of your ligaments in your feet, toes and ankles. Switching to minimal footwear can take a little time but helps to alleviate body pains! Our misalignment and body pains can start in our feet! Healthy feet are very important!

----Will guide you on your journey to minimal footwear, two 75 minute thai massages, 3 movement sessions of your choice!

https://nutritiousmovement.pike13.com/courses/1655...

https://nutritiousmovement.com/