Earthen Mamma 'n Baby is proud to offer Bradley Natural Childbirth classes in Campbell, California!

My next series of classes will begin in August. Please call (408)206-9240 to sign up, or send me an email at kimberly@earthenmammanbaby.com

Classes are 12 weeks long and will cover many topics including, breastfeeding, nutrition, the mechanics of birth, exercise and relaxation.

Both my children were born using the Bradley Method and my husband will be co-teaching so there will be a lot of good information for the fathers/coaches from a father/coach perspective. The Bradley Method is also known as Husband-Coached Childbirth.

When looking for birth classes when we were pregnant with our first, we researched many of the well known methods and decided on Bradley because of the emphasis that is placed on the importance of the father/coach. From the beginning, this baby was OURS, not mine. My husband attended all the meetings with our midwife and he caught our daughter, cut the cord, was with me 100% of the way. For those of you looking for the same thing- email me!!

The cost is $250. It is negotiable though, so let's talk!

Congratulations on your soon-to-be new addition!!

The pains of childbirth were altogether different from the enveloping effects of other kinds of pain. These were pains one could follow with one's mind. Margaret Mead “Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one.” ekmckinn Gloria Steinem quotes Birthing is the most profound initiation to spirituality a woman can have. Robin Lim Anytime anyone has anything done to them by a physician, there is risk. Even a blood draw. Dr. Tim Johnson If I had my life to live over, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished ever moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle. Irma Bombeck If we are to heal the planet, we must begin by healing birthing. Agnes Sallet Von Tannenberg Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile…initially scared me to death. Betty Bender I knew how to deliver breech babies vaginally.... I knew how to keep my hands off the breech.... how to let the baby's legs and body drop and hang, suspending its weight; I knew to allow the baby's head to notch out, nape hair by nape hair, from under the mother's pubic bone.... I knew how to concentrate on watching...to observe while physics and mechanics, uninterrupted, synchronized the birth.... If it became surgically necessary to intervene, there was time, but there was time for the breech delivery, too...." Penny Armstrong ..experiences have clearly shown that an approach which "de-medicalizes" birth, restores dignity and humanity to the process of childbirth, and returns control to the mother is also the safest approach. Michel Odent, MD Treating normal labors as though they were complicated can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rooks In every country where I have seen real progress in maternity care, it was women's groups working together with midwives that made the difference. Marsden Wagner Midwifery is rooted in the natural approach. Pregnancy and birth are considered fundamentally healthy processes which have many normal variations; it is normal part of life, not a medical condition…Only when complications occur which are beyond the midwife’s expertise, is the woman transferred to obstetric care. Steiger The woman’s choice itself may influence her level of anxiety and apprehension, and in obstetrics levels of anxiety have been shown to predict obstetric complications. Wiegers study Courage allows the successful woman to fail - and to learn powerful lessons from the failure - so that in the end, she didn't fail at all. Maya Angelou The experience profoundly changed my perspective. In the hospital, I hadn't perceived the anxiety and foreboding that permeated birth until I experienced the impact of its absence among the midwives. The peace, wonder, and intimacy were infinitely greater. What a compelling difference! Heidi Rinehart We are made to do this work and its not easy...I would say that pain is part of the glory, or the tremendous mystery of life. And that if anything, it's a kind of privilege to stand so close to such an incredible miracle. Simone Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one. -Gloria Steinem Only with trust, faith and support can the woman allow the birth experience to enlighten and empower here. -Claudia Lowe It is no small thing that they, who are so fresh from God, love us. -Charles Dickens Whenever I held my newborn baby in my arms, I used to think that what I said and did to him could have an influence not only on him but on all whom he met, not only for a day or a month or a year, but for all eternity – a very challenging and exciting thought for a mother. -Rose Kennedy Babies are bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God. Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star. -Larry Barretto The power and intensity of your contractions cannot be stronger than you, because it is you. -Unknown In the sheltered simplicity of the first days after a baby is born, one sees again the magical closed circle, the miraculous sense of two people exisiting only for each other, the tranquil sky reflected on the face of the mother nursing her child. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh There was a star danced, and under that I was born. -William Shakespeare The beauty of my body is not measured by the size of the clothes it can fit into, but by the stories that it tells. I have a belly and hips that say, “We grew a child in here,” and breasts that say, “We nourished life.” My hands, with bitten nails and a writer’s callus, say, “We create amazing things,” -Sarah, from I Am Beautiful: A Celebration of Women in Their Own Words Meconium happens. -Unknown Through pain find strength Through birth find healing It is never easy to keep reaching for dreams Strength and courage can sometimes be lonely friends But those who reach, walk in stardust. -Flavia Pregnancy is the only time in a woman’s life she can help God work a miracle. -Erma Bombeck Everything in nature bespeaks the Mother. -Unknown Faith, Acceptance, Surrender. -Unknown Birth is as safe as life gets. -Harriette Hartigan My body knows just what to do. My baby grows just as it should be. -Penny Simkin There is power that comes to women when they give birth. They don’t ask for it, it simply invades them. Accumulates like clouds on the horizon and passes through, carrying the child with it. -Sheryl Feldman There is no way out of the experience except trhough it, because it is not really your experience at all but the baby’s. Your body is the child’s instrument of birth. -Penelope Leach God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers. -Jewish proverb Birth is the sudden opening of a window through which you look out upon a stupendous project. -William Dixon Once you bring life into this world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world. -Elie Weisel That most sensitive, most delicate of instruments: the mind of a little child. -Henry Handel Richardson Let us make pregnancy an occasion when we appreciate our female bodies. -Merete Leonhardt-Lupa Happy is he that is happy in his children. -Thomas Fuller It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness. -Eric Hoffer The sweetest flowers in all the world – a baby’s hands. -Swinburne Pregnancy is getting company inside one’s skin. -Maggie Scarf If there is a measure of good parenthood, it could be when your children exceed your own achievements. -Tom Haggai Each child is an adventure into a better life, an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new. -Hubert H. Humphrey A baby is someone just the size of a hug. -Anonymous I imagine the moment of quickening as a sudden awakening of my own being, which never before had life. -Evelyn Scott What’s done to children, they will do to society. -Karl Menninger Babies are such a nice way to start people. -Don Herold Pregnancy is a process that invites you to surrender to the unseen force behind all life. -Judy Ford Now my belly is as noble as my heart. -Gabriela Mistral When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments: tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become. -Louis Pasteur The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day. -O.A. Battista Children…they string our joys, like jewels bright, upon the thread of years. -Edward A. Guest Children are the purpose of life. We were once children and someone took care of us. Now it is our turn to care. -Cree elder We can’t give our children the future, strive though we may to make it secure. But we can give them the present. -Kathleen Norris Every birth is a getting to know. -Paul Claudel A woman with a child rediscovers the world. All is changed – politics, loyalties, needs. For now all is judged byt eh life of the child…and of all children. -Pam Brown A mother laughs our laughter Sheds our tears, Returns our love, Fears our fears. She lives our joys, Cares our cares, And all our hopes and dreams she shares. -Julie Summers Mothers have as powerful an influence over the welfare of future generations as all other earthly causes combined. -John S. C. Abbott Women as the guardians of children possess a great power. They are the moulders of their children’s personalities and the arbiters of their development. -Ann Oakley Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. -Elizabeth Stone Bitter are the tears of a child: Sweeten them. Deep are the thoughts of a child: Quiet them. Sharp is the grief of a child: Take it from him. Soft is the heart of a child: Do not harden it. -Pamela Glenconner Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate. -Charlotte Gray There is in all this world no fount of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within a mother’s heart. -Felicia Hemans I saw pure love when my son looked at me, and I knew that I had to make a good life for the two of us… -Suzanne Somers Before becoming a mother I had a hundred theories on how to bring up children. Now I have seven children and only one theory: love them, especially when they least deserve to be loved. -Kate Samperi Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction. -Annie Sullivan The family is the nucleus of civilization. -Ariel and Will Durant A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. -Tenneva Jordan Before you were conveived I wanted you Before you were born I loved you Before you were here an hour I would die for you This is the miracle of life. -Maureen Hawkins Having a highly trained obstetrical surgeon at a normal birth is analogous to having a pediatric surgeon babysit a healthy 2year old. M. Wagner Birth is an experience that demonstrates that life is not merely function and utility, but form and beauty. Christopher Largen We have a secret in our culture, it's not that birth is painful, but that women are strong. Laura Stavoe Harm Treating normal labors as though they were complicated can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rooks "Being a mother, as far as I can tell, is a constantly evolving process of adapting to the needs of your child while also changing and growing as a person in your own right." ~ Deborah Insel "Giving birth is not a matter of pushing, expelling the baby, but of yielding, surrendering to birth energy." ~ Marie Reid "Light flared through every limb, a force far too great to be contained in any human frame; but for that moment she was the Great Mother, giving birth to the world." ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley "Here's to wise women May we be them May we know them May we raise them!" Women's bodies have near-perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong. PEGGY VINCENT, Baby Catcher In the best of all possible worlds, childbirth enriches a marriage. In the worst, it harms it. No matter how good their marriage is, most couples find that having a baby challenges their relationship. JEAN MARZOLLO, Your Maternity Leave Many women have described their experiences of childbirth as being associated with a spiritual uplifting, the power of which they have never previously been aware ... To such a woman childbirth is a monument of joy within her memory. She turns to it in thought to seek again an ecstasy which passed too soon. GRANTLY DICK-READ, Childbirth Without Fear Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one. GLORIA STEINEM, Ms. Magazine, April 1981 Natural childbirth allows the hormones that have been working for women for thousands of years to fulfill their functions. This is more important than just helping a woman through labor and delivery. Birth-related hormones also affect well-being much later in life. JANET SCHWEGEL, Adventures in Natural Childbirth In achieving the depersonalization of childbirth and at the same time solving the problem of pain, our society may have lost more than it has gained. We are left with the physical husk; the transcending significance has been drained away. In doing so, we have reached the goal which is perhaps implicit in all highly developed technological cultures, mechanized control of the human body and the complete obliteration of all disturbing sensations. SHEILA KITZINGER, Women as Mothers Because they've either conveniently forgotten with time or they're trying to be supportive, most mothers won't tell you how hard pregnancy (and then childbirth) can be. Let me tell you, it is. It's brutal sometimes! But, if I did it, ANYONE can do it. I mean, I always knew I was meant to do something really BIG in life, and now I know that this was it. Screw winning an Academy Award someday ... I GAVE BIRTH! JENNY MCCARTHY, Belly Laughs Childbirth is a time when a woman's power and strength emerge full force, but it is also a vulnerable time, and a time of many changes presenting opportunities for personal growth. ANNEMARIE VAN OPLOO, Janet Schwegel's Adventures in Natural Childbirth Childbirth provided the drama I craved, the thrill of peeking over the primal edge of creation, the rush of the unexpected. PEGGY VINCENT, Baby Catcher