POSTPARTUM CARE
“when we centre the wellbeing of the Mothers - we are also centring the wellbeing of the children - our future generations”
- Rachelle Garcia Seliga, Innate Traditions
Prioritising postpartum care is an essential to the wellbeing of the planet. Holistic tending to mothers in this sacred window of time of the immediate postpartum is utterly crucial to a mother and her baby’s wellbeing, and thereby her family’s health and the community’s wellbeing at large.
In expansive, potent and often vulnerable time that the immediate postpartum window often is, the way in which a mother is cared for can set the tone of her own experience of mothering and also becomes woven into her child’s foundational imprinting.
As a certified Innate Postpartum Care Provider, it is my deepest honour to share this incredible body of knowledge and the many cross-cultural postpartum care practices that I’ve been immersing in through my studies and work over the last few years to support the mother’s in my community emotionally, physiologically & spiritually as they cross this initiatory terrain.
IN-HOME POSTPARTUM CARE
This work is tailored to the needs of the family and looks different for everyone. However in the last few years I have developed a framework that seems to really offer a lot of nourishment in this window of the immediate postpartum, involving home-visits once or twice weekly for up to six weeks or beyond to offer you and your family nourishment.
“Leela has tended my body so devotionally at times through pregnancy and postpartum. Investing in her integrative bodywork sessions is investing in myself and my family, truly, bodywork is just so supportive of postpartum healing.
Through the swirliness I find and hold the vital nourishment offered through hands on care of my beautiful friend Leela who strives to be in such deep service to Mothers and families. Leela is very educated, trained in & passionate about her craft of deep postpartum care.”
- Aimee Aroha (Mother & Transperson Counsellor)
This type of holistic maternal care is intended to meet many of the needs that allow a mother to have a healing and rejuvenating experience of the postpartum time, where she feels truly witnessed, nurtured and seen in the rite of passage that birth is.
The following are the core needs, that have largely been forgotten in our Western day and age, that mothers have cross-culturally received from loved ones to support their longterm health and happiness.
“Having Leela’s support in the very early stages of my postpartum experience was a true gift in so many ways. Each visit left me feeling deeply rested, calm, nourished, supported and relaxed - even amongst the most turbulent of times. Leela has a very special way of holding presence, reverence and space for the new mother. It is an experience I am finding difficult to put into words other than - I wish this for every new mother”
- Hollie (Mother & Writer)
The Pillars of Postpartum Wellness
Extended Rest
Nourishing & Warming Food
Warming Healing Therapies
Integrative & Restorative Bodywork
Emotional Support & Witnessing
Community Support
“I was blessed to receive some of Leela’s magic touch in my postpartum. What I love about her healing sessions is the alchemy of her intuitive hands, the beautiful smells she infused into the sessions and her pure intent. It’s an all round yummy experience! Mama, you deserve it!”
- Jess (Mother & Vedic Meditation Teacher)
Regardless of if I have been your birth doula or not, I offer postpartum care and packages for new mothers that include bodywork, food, rituals, and practices to support your integration process following this powerful initiation, depending on what you are in need of.
Whether you experienced an ecstatic birth at home or in the hospital, are feeling enlivened and inspired by your birth or perhaps there were moments you felt disempowered by or the overall experience left you feeling traumatised and disconnected to yourself and your baby. Whatever your experience was, postpartum support is a cross-cultural necessity, found in all traditional societies as a vital way of honouring life, by revering, exalting and nourishing the new mothers.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine it is said that women are offered golden opportunities of regeneration in their lives- the postpartum time is one of these if we allow ourselves to receive the nourishment we require on a physiological, emotional and spiritual level. The postpartum when revered as it should be can become a portal of deep personal, ancestral and collective healing.
When a woman is rightfully nourished in this time by her loved ones she can be witnessed and held in her transition from maiden to mother, and bring the many gifts from this rite of passage to her community.
“I felt so safe, loved and nurtured in each and every session with Leela. She is a true gift to postpartum Mummas!”
- Cassey (Mother & Reiki Practitioner)
As a postpartum doula, with an extensive background in bodywork & ritual, I offer support, holding and nourishment of the body, mind and soul in integrating your birth experience, allowing you a space for your cup to be filled in a time so oriented towards giving to your baby.
I have just completed the Innate Traditions Certification, an 18 month container totally oriented towards re-learning and remembering the ones in which women have tended to one another in the postpartum time and also have been being mentored by incredible teachers in this field over the last few years including Naomi Janssen into the arts of ancestral medicine, closing rituals and postpartum care and my teacher Alani Klein in the medicine of craniosacral therapy, an incredible modality of postpartum healing.
Some of the support that could look like:
integrative bodywork treatments. - full body massage is vital for keeping energy, circulation, lymph moving during the resting time that postpartum entails
craniosacral therapy - this is woven into my bodywork treatments. This modality is an ideal way of supporting the body through gentle alignments to allow the body to recalibrate and heal faster from birth
warming organic meals dropped to your house freshly for the first few days postpartum
yoni steaming, moxabustion, sitz baths and other warmth-inducing therapies to help re-ignite your inner fire
closing the bones ritual when you feel ready to close the birth portal, usually 6+ weeks after birth
uterine (womb) and pelvic bodywork when / if your body feels ready for it
emotional processing guidance to allow your integration of birth and your emergence as mother to feel supported and witnessed in this potent transformational time
support in unpacking your birth story and unravelling the gifts and lessons
assistance in creating a community meal train and other forms of community support.
rituals to support your transition into this new stage of life
