17 Feb How we went –Online

I distinctly remember my last home visit for a couple staying in a beautiful sea facing bungalow in Juhu, just at the start of the pandemic. They had enrolled for both childbirth education and lactation support and this wasn’t the first day that I was visiting them but this time, I had to first wash and sanitize my hands in the sink outside their house next to their pool before entering. I remember appreciating them for taking precautions even though it felt a bit odd. Little did I know that that was going to be the last time I was going to be physically meeting an expecting couple for a long time.

The lockdown was announced just a few days later and the world came to a stand still. 

It would be an understatement to say I firmly believe the value that our work adds to a couple and specially mother’s experience as opposed to mothers who are not supported the same way. I have always said that while this was something that I was sort of trying while I was studying for childbirth education, which led me to graduate to lactation later-  seeing the difference it made after working with mothers real time is what solidified my decision to transition to birth work completely. I would feel so fulfilled and incredibly lucky to have truly found my calling and sense of purpose. I more than loved my job. Nothing made me feel happier than receiving a message of gratitude from a mother that I had been preparing for birth or one that had finally been able to breastfeed her baby properly.

But the lockdown, out of literally nowhere seemed like a hard stop. I was in the middle of my program with some mothers and wasn’t sure if doing it on video would really even be as effective? One of the most important elements in birth work is the faith that your client can have in you, so now how could I hope to install that, without even physically meeting them? Isn’t personal touch really what changes it all?

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that such questions dominated my thoughts majority of the times. Thankfully, since I had already met the ones I was in the middle of it with I felt it worked for them since some of the basic foundation had already been laid.

Then I had a mother I had worked with earlier for lactation, contact me to help her sister who was sitting in Singapore. The call was to help her for lactation, though she was yet to deliver. She wanted to make sure she was prepared to breastfeed her newborn soon after birth. Assuring her to take care of her as much as I could, I set up my first online video consult with someone who I had never met and who wasn’t even in the same country as me. I definitely was a bit anxious.

When I saw the young, sweet and so very nervous couple sitting on the other side of the camera, I felt a sudden rush of protectiveness for them. All the anxiety I had before the call disappeared and all I could focus on was how to alleviate their fears. The mother was a few weeks away from term, had been all prepared to receive her parents who were going to join them from India and provide the support they would have needed until they suddenly learned that not only could they not come, her own trips to the hospital were now limited. 

The conditions were unprecedented and scary to say the least for anyone but imagine a new mother and father, waiting to welcome a new life, a part of themselves, who ideally they would want to protect from every danger in the world into the same world that right now was grappling with one of the biggest threats that they had witnessed in their lifetime. I couldn’t begin to imagine how scared and alone they would have felt.

We finished the session on lactation with me assuring them that I would follow up after the birth of the baby as well and will be accessible to their doubts and queries over the phone or video whenever they would need. Before closing I also informed them that I take sessions on some other aspects of pregnancy too and saw their faces light up at the information. As if they had been offered exactly what they needed.

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that my doubts and attitude towards online sessions, their place or effect changed right from the first one. During the next few months I came in contact with several parents sitting not only in different cities but even different countries than me. When left with no choice, educating their own selves and being in the driving seat of their pregnancy gave them confidence and strength to make informed decisions and added immensely to their experience.

My experience during those months brought a big change to my perspective. I realised that if done with the right intent and way, you CAN develop the same faith with the mothers/parents. That if your purpose is clear to them, the distance does not matter. In fact, doing it online had definite advantages. The mothers had more flexibility of time: with either moving or rescheduling. Depending on how they were feeling on a certain day they could always choose how to take the session: whether while sitting on table and chair or in case of mothers who had issues, laying comfortably in bed. One of the most significant advantages is that it encouraged more fathers to be able to attend the session, after work with their wives or in some cases, online along with their wives even if they too were in different cities. 

A few months after the lockdown, I categorically remember sitting and thinking how had this not happened, I would not have had the opportunity to take childbirth education or lactation support to a mother sitting in Jalandhar as well as one sitting in California, while I myself was sitting in Bathinda. 

This is truly what gave rise to the idea of Happy Birth-day. A platform to bring the much needed support that a mother needs in various ways- whether it’s prenatal yoga, nutritional support, childbirth education, lactation support etc. right inside the comfort of her home and without her having to go back in the unknown to look for every little thing AND be able to make her partner an equal birth partner.