Traditional Mother Support
About
Jennifer Aytman is a Birthkeeper and Birth Educator.
She currently resides in the sandhills of North Carolina where she serves local mothers in their motherhood journeys.
Jennifer and her husband are raising their 3 sons in a converted off grid school bus. They have dreams of making there way to Montana where they will start thier homestead.
Her Story and how she became passionate about birth.
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Jennifer's story began when she became pregnant with their first.
Her baby was born at 8 weeks gestion.
This early birth (miscarriage) paved the foundation of distrust in her body.
The next pregnancy she gave birth at 41 weeks.
She was induced and had a heavily medicalized and managed birth. To add to it, her husband was unfortunately not able to be there for the birth.
She walked away with birth trauma but at the time did not identify it as trauma and thought that "that's just how birth goes".
She became prgenant at 7 months postportum ending with another 8 week gestation birth. 2 months later pregnant again. This birth was also induced at 41 weeks gestation. She calls this her "redemptive birth" but her postpartum ended up being filled with postpartum anxiety and depression.
Fast forward to 9 months postpartum she found out she was pregnant yet again. They were not trying, so it came as a bit of a shock. Filled with lots of fear and anxiety, she kept repeating to God "I'm not ready". Oh, but did God have other plans for her.
The real work began almost halfway through her pregnancy where she was tired of living with the anxiety and fear. She did not want a repeat experience with PPD and PPA. She began researching. Started out looking for ways to help PPA and PPD. Then like a light bulb she asked, "how can I just avoid getting PPA and PPD?".
She started looking into the cause of it. What she discovered shocked her. She learned how the drugs such as the epidural can increase your chances of PPA and PPD. Now it was evident, natural birth was the way she wanted to birth this time.
"BUT how?" how does one give birth naturally? Back to searching. She learned about physiological birth and how birth was designed to actually WORK. Quickly she learned that medicalized birth is not supportive of physiological birth. Her mind was blown and also filled with confusion and rage. "Why did no one tell me the truth about birth?"
Now homebirth was her new direction. Researching was starting to become second nature at this point. She was on the hunt for a homebirth midwife. This whole new world was opened up to her and now she had endless questions. Now at 25 weeks pregnant, knowing it was going to be difficult finding one at this point. Finally, she had a consultation set up... but the midwife never called. This is the moment she had to really lean in and hear what God was trying to tell her. She started to dig deeper and asked herself lots of hard question.
At this point she heard about freebirth. She started to wonder why she was afraid of freebirth. Why did she feel like she needed to have a midwife? You guessed it, more research. Instead of waiting for a midwife to tell her what to do or to answer all of her question, she decided to figure out all the answers for herself. 28 weeks rolled around, and it was official she decided she was going to freebirth.
It wasn't just her researching nonstop; she came to a point where she knew she needed to stop the researching. She turned inward and started the hard work, the mental and spiritual work.
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41 weeks gestion, she experienced "going into labor" for the first time on her own. She experienced real contractions not medically induced contractions. She experienced pure bliss, peace and safety in her birth.
The winter of January 2021 she birthed her third son in her bathtub with her husband and God as her witnesses. This experience re-birthed her as a woman, mother and child of God. From that moment on it has been her passion to speak up and share the truth about birth. It has been her calling to help support women and lead them to God because ultimately, He is all you need to birth.
Listen to my full story on Birthing Outside the Box, episode 33. Link below.
MY BIRTH PHIOSOPHY AND MISSION
I believe that at its core birth is simple, but it has been twisted and turned into something complicated. We now live in a time where there is lot of fear surrounding birth and so many believe birth to be a medical event.
But the truth is, it is not a medical event. Birth is a physiological event.
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I believe in God and His beautiful and perfect design.
The truth is God designed birth to work. He did not make a mistake when designing birth.
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Because I trust in God and trust birth, I believe that all women are capable of freebirthing. I understand many women do not believe they are capable of freebirth and that is where I come in. There is nothing wrong with choosing to have support in your birth. But regardless of your choice to have support or not, you should be preparing to freebirth.
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I believe that this is the preparation all women should take, because birth happens when and wherever it wants to.
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My desire is to help women realize the simplicity of birth. To understand that it is a physiological event just like breathing and sex. I want to help women see the beauty in birth and ultimately see God in birth. Birth is one of the most spiritual events a woman can go through. I can only hope to help women discover and experience it.
What is a Birthkeeper?
A birthkeeper believes and understands the physiology of birth. Her job is to serve women in whatever capacity the mother needs. A birthkeeper knows she holds no responsibility over anyone's birth because the responsibility of birth belongs to the mother. The birthkeepers responsibility is to teach women about physiological birth, to answer question, to support, encourage and pray over the women she serves. Her responsibility to is to show mothers that they hold all the authority and autonomy over their births. She will encourage and remind them that God gave them the power to birth. Her job is to simply teach, pass wisdom on and hold space.
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A birthkeeper is often not licensed or certified, as she believes birth to not be a medical event. She also believes medical training is not necessary to hold space for mothers who are taking full responsibility for their births.
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Think of her as a wise and knowledgeable sister.
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Note: you will find different descriptions of a birthkeeper. Many who use the title wish to separate themselves from the medical side of birth and to not be associate with your typical midwife. Often times you will see Birthkeeper being interchangeable with Wholistic Midwife, Traditional Midwife or Wholistic doula.
Contact
Please Contact me to find out how I might be able to serve you.
(559) 656-3820