CAPPA Blog

Remembering Viola Lennon

Posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 · Permanent link to the post

Viola Lennon was one of seven remarkable women who “challenged society, changed the culture, and taught the world that babies were born to be breastfed.” In Chicago, IL in 1956, a worldwide phenomenon was born as seven women gathered together to found a mother-to-mother support organization that would become La Leche League International. Begun in one suburban living room, LLLI has grown to have a presence in over 65 countries around the world.

Viola (Vi) graduated from Mundelein College with a degree in Economics. In college, she became involved with an organization called Young Christian Workers that sparked her interest in “doing things naturally.” Vi married her husband Bill in 1951 and they welcomed ten children into their lives (all unmedicated births and all breastfed!). Later, Vi delighted in having 18 grandchildren. Vi became interested in attending the first ever LLL meeting in 1956 because it was described to her as being about “mothering”—this caught Vi’s interest because it was a new concept at the time.

After the organization extended beyond local mother-to-mother support, Vi served as Chairman of the Board of Directors and later as LLLI Funding Development Director and still later with her role in the Alumnae Association and on the Founders’ Advisory Council.

Vi spoke to the power of breastfeeding and mothering when she said, “Breastfeeding… led me to self-discovery and to a greater appreciation of the full humanity of the babies who were entrusted to me. Each woman needs to trust her own instincts, her own feelings, and her own sense of what will work for her with each baby.”

Viola Lennon was born in 1923 and passed away in January of this year. She is remembered as a woman who had a profound influence on the entire world and she left an incredible legacy.

Primary Source: The Revolutionaries Wore Pearls by Kaye Lowman, 2007.

Molly Remer

Volunteer Doulas Needed

Posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 · Permanent link to the post

CAPPA wholeheartedly supports the work of the G-CAPP program and urges you to consider volunteering to help this amazing program.—Tracy Wilson Peters, CAPPA CEO

Doulas of Georgia,

Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention’s (G-CAPP) mission is to eliminate adolescent pregnancy in Georgia by developing, establishing and supporting ideas and program innovations that build local and statewide capacity to promote the healthy development of our most vulnerable adolescents. G-CAPP’s network of Second Chance Homes helps teenage mothers become self-sufficient by providing them with a safe living environment that emphasizes high school completion, increase in parenting and life skills, a reduction of subsequent teenage pregnancies, and healthy outcomes for the children. The overarching goal of Second Chance Homes is to create self-sufficient, healthy families.

G-CAPP’s Doula Program is partnering with Second Chance Homes assisting pregnant teens with improving birth outcomes, decreasing unnecessary medical interventions, such as cesarean sections and epidurals, increasing mother-child bonding, increasing breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates and prevent rapid repeat pregnancy among teen mothers in Georgia.

G-CAPP is in the process of searching for volunteer doulas to work with our Second Chance Homes throughout Georgia. We would like to know if there are any doulas that may be interested in providing volunteer doula services to teens that are living in our Second Chance Homes or on the waiting list. There are pregnant girls located on the waiting list located in Gwinnett, Fulton, Cobb, Clayton, Dekalb, Whitfield, Bibb, Paulding, Spaulding and Sumter Counties.

Please let me know if you are interested and what county you would like to service. If you know of any other doulas that may be interested please give them my email address: tia@gcapp.org. We are not limited to servicing youth in the counties listed above, so if you live in a particular county that is not listed and you are willing to volunteer your services please let me know.

Sincerely,
Tyiska Demery
Doula Program Coordinator

OSD Offers Doulas to Military Deployed to Haiti

Posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 · Permanent link to the post

Operation Special Delivery (OSD) announced today that it is extending its free labor doula services to the wives and partners of military who are deployed to aid in the relief efforts in earthquake affected Haiti.

On 12^th January 2010, Haiti was struck by a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake that was centered approximately 16 miles (25 kilometers) from Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Several countries have responded to Haitian appeals for aid, including the United States, which has military relief efforts underway. A doula is a professional who provides various forms of non-medical and non-midwifery support (physical, emotional, educational) in the childbirth process. Based on a particular doula’s training and background, she may offer support during prenatal care, during labor and childbirth, and/or during the postpartum period. A birth doula provides support during labor. She may attend a home birth, or she can attend the parturient woman during labor at home, continue while in transport, and then complete supporting the birth at a hospital or a birth center.

Created following the attacks against the United States on September 11^th, 2001, OSD provides volunteer labor doulas for military families. Creator Patricia Newton, CLE, CCCE, CLD, RN realized that many women were birthing without their partners, either because they were deployed, or were killed as a result of the attacks. Newton recruited many labor doulas, and soon was receiving calls from others wanting to volunteer their services. In 2005, Newton asked the Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association (CAPPA) to take over the organization, and they were proud to do so. OSD, now under the direction of CAPPA’s MaryBeth Nance, continues to grow. OSD, with more than 600 volunteers, has met more than 840 requests for doulas since March 2005.

For information about OSD, and to find out if you qualify for labor doula services, please visit operationspecialdelivery.org or email MaryBeth Nance, Director, at osd@cappa.net.

CAPPA Introduces Two New Representative Directors

Posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 · Permanent link to the post

CAPPA announced today that Rena Koerner and Brenda Bach have accepted the position of Directors of CAPPA Regional Representatives.

Brenda Bach, RN, CCCE, HBCE, worked as a labor and delivery nurse before becoming a CAPPA certified childbirth educator, gaining her CAPPA certification in 2004. She was a CAPPA State and Regional representative for a few years before her promotion to Director of Regional Representatives, alongside Rena Koerner.

Brenda volunteers with a local birth advocacy group which seeks to improve maternity systems through evidence-based care, and she is finishing her Bachelor’s degree in nursing. She is the mom of an eight year old son, and has been married to her husband for eleven years.

Rena Koerner, CLD, CCBE, CHBI, is a CAPPA certified labor doula, childbirth educator, lactation educator and labor doula trainer. She is also certified as a Happiest Baby Instructor and Reiki Practitioner. Rena takes pride in being an excellent informational resource to newly expectant mothers, their partners, and rising doulas.

As a very active member in the childbirth community it is her goal to bring awareness about choices in childbirth, and to empower families to have the birth they deserve. Rena believes that knowledge is power, and it is her goal to educate families as they travel the path of parenthood.

Rena has been a representative of CAPPA since 2004, when she became a State Representative, then moving up to a Regional level, and now as a Director of Regional Representatives, alongside Brenda Bach.

The leadership of CAPPA is proud to have their experience and expertise available to our membership. Please direct all questions to Brenda at db2411@msn.com, and to Rena at doularena@integrativechildbirth.com.

CAPPA Introduces New Program Directors

Posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 · Permanent link to the post

Please join us in welcoming our newly appointed directors, Chelsea Eardley (Teen Support Program) and Ana Hill (Antepartum Doula and Labor Doula Programs).

Chelsea Eardley went to college with a plan to become a Spanish teacher. But after earning a BA in Foreign Languages and Literatures with an emphasis in Spanish, and leaving Chile, she had no idea what to do with it. Through a series of interesting events, she came to work in the health care field and has now been working with pregnant women and mothers (and their families), of all ages for over four years. She quickly discovered a special place in her heart for teen parents. She is a case manager for pregnant and parenting teens, as well as a CAPPA-trained volunteer labor doula and lactation educator through a community health center in the Denver metro area of Colorado. Part of her work with teens involves teaching a two-day sexual education curriculum in middle and high schools, facilitating support groups in high schools for teen parents, and staffing a teen clinic which provides confidential family planning services. Chelsea and her boyfriend are Colorado natives. She enjoys the beauty of her home state at any time of the year, with hobbies like hiking, camping, snowboarding, snowshoeing with her two black labs, and wakeboarding. Despite her love for home, she enjoys expanding her cultural and linguistic horizons by traveling. She has been to Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Germany, the Czech Republic, Ireland, England, and Spain, and all over the U.S. Next stops: more of Europe and (hopefully) Japan!

Ana Hill, CLE, CLD, CCCE, CAPPA Faculty, and conference lecturer, has been attending births and providing parent education in the Denver Metro area of Colorado since 1998. She first fell in love with CAPPA in 2000, and served as the CAPPA State Representative for Colorado for several years. She was thrilled to help bring the 2003 CAPPA conference to Denver. Being active in the doula community has always been important to Ana. After participating in the creation committee for the Colorado Doulas Association (CDA), she served behind the scenes as an advisor for several years, and is currently serving as the CDA’s President.

Ana is certified as a labor doula, lactation educator, and childbirth educator with CAPPA. She teaches breastfeeding in several hospitals and independent locations around the Denver metro area, as well as providing in-home education. She has been training labor doulas for CAPPA certification since 2005. She brings to her work a passion for serving new families and a strong commitment to excellence in the doula profession.

Ana has been happily married for more than 20 years to the most supportive and patient man on earth! She and Stephen have two grown children and four teenagers, ensuring that life in the Hill household is busy and exciting. Ana’s adult daughter Laurie frequently assists her at trainings.