2nd Online Research Postnatal Summit
Exploring Vulnerability

Concept

The care for the mother after childbirth represents one of the most tangible black holes within our healthcare systems. Historically, across cultures, communities would gather around the mother to ensure she could restore her energy and transition into this new stage of her life. Yet, it seems that the western world has “forgotten” about the importance of caring for the new mother and the focus has been mostly on prenatal care. As Ingrid Bayot states, we lack sufficient language or concepts to articulate the transformation new mothers go through in the first weeks and months after birth. This has actual repercussions for the health and well-being of the mother and baby, and, we dare say, our society. Postpartum depression affects about 20% of mothers worldwide. Nonetheless, slowly a shift is taking place, also visible in medical studies. Postpartum care is rising on the birthcare agenda.

The Postnatal Support Network commits to generate more research which demonstrates clearly the health and societal benefits of a prolonged rest and care during the postnatal period. This is why we are organizing the Postnatal Research Summit.

Join visionaries of birth and the postpartum at this 2nd edition of the Postnatal Summit to explore the sensitive topic of vulnerability during the immediate postnatal period of the first 40 days and beyond.

In the UNIQUE format of the Summit, you are invited to participate actively, connecting with the speakers who will LIVE from the US, Canada, Europe and Bali!

The Summit is bilinguial – in English and French with simultaneous translation between the two languages.

BE THE CHANGE and join workshops and discussion panels during the Summit and participate in creating a new paradigm of the postnatal period.

Register here

Program 

Note: The times are in Central European Time. To convert to your time zone, you can click here

Each talk will be simultaneously translated into French/ English. 

March 18 

18:00 Inauguration; presentation of the Research Summit and PSN

18:30-20:00 Presentations and sharing circle of participants 

March 19

8:00-8:45 Postnatal Yoga and Meditation with Sitha Siri Brahm Kirin Kaur

9:00-10:00 Erika Kokkosis 

Supporting a refugee mother postnatally in theory and in practice: talking the truth inside an interview

[Soutenir une mère réfugiée en postnatalité en théorie et en pratique : dire la vérité dans un entretien]

10:00-11:00 Ingrid Bal Charan Kamal

Workshop Living vulnerability: Power and Sacrifice

11:00-12:30 Noémie Faure-Nguyen 

Devenir parents : une vulnérabilité psychique nécessaire ? Comprendre les mécanismes de la santé mentale périnatale chez les mères et les pères
[Becoming parents: a necessary psychological vulnerability? Understanding the mechanisms of perinatal mental health in mothers and fathers]

Lunch break

14:00-16:00 Ingrid Bayot 

Mama Sapiens ou : comment les conditions d’apparition de notre espèce nous éclairent sur les besoins des nouvelles mères 

[Mama Sapiens or: how the conditions of the appearance of our species shed light on the needs of new mothers]

16:00-17:00 Discussion groups 

17:00-18:00 Christine Eck

Vulnerability into Empowerment: Transforming guilt and fear to honor the sacred [De la vulnérabilité à la puissance : transformer la culpabilité et la peur pour honorer le sacré]

March 20

8:00-8:45 Postnatal Yoga and Meditation with Solene Satya Dasjeet Kaur

9:00-10:00 Céline Chadelat 

Le Mois d’Or, un changement de paradigme 

[The Month of Gold: a Paradigm Shift]

10-11:30 Robin Lim 

Becoming a Mother in the Era of Change and Challenges (Bali time 17-18:30)

[Devenir mère à l’ère du changement et des défis]

11:30-12:30 Marie Mahe-Poulin 

Le Mois d’Or, accueillir notre vulnérabilité et réveiller notre puissance

 [The Month of Gold: Welcome our Vulnerability and Awaken our Power]

14:00-15:00 Camille Laperle 

Vulnérabilité et humilité pour les nouveaux parents – Cultiver l’attitude de l’élève, de l’apprenant

[Vulnerability and Humility for the New Parents – Cultivating the Attitude of the Student, the Learner]

15:00-16:00 Atelier “Postnatal Manifesto” Geremia Bouquet

16:00-17:00 Lesley Everest 

Soothing the Postpartum Nervous System
[Apaiser le système nerveux du post-partum]

17:00-18:00 Naoli Vinaver 

The Power of Postpartum Openness and Vulnerability and the Mexican Postpartum Ritual

[​​Le pouvoir de l’ouverture et de la vulnérabilité post-partum et le rituel post-partum mexicain]

18:00-19:00 Closing circle [Cercle de clôture] 

Event Facebook: https://fb.me/e/YIpxFxyM 

Register here

    Speakers

    Midwife, MSc, Breastfeeding Educator

    Erika Kokkosis is a freelancer and independent Midwife, Breastfeeding Educator  and Childbirth Educator. She is a tandem nursing mother of two boys, aged 6 and 4 years old. 

    Since 2016, she has been providing midwifery services in the framework of humanitarian medicine for the refugee crisis to NGOs, such as SAMS GREECE (Syrian American Medical Society) and Medecins sans Frontieres. Since 2011, she has been involved in Community midwifery care either professionally or voluntarily, performing, among other things, home births in accordance with international protocols. She also does voluntary work as a Mentor of breastfeeding mothers in the “Teaching Moms program”  and as an expert member in the panel of Delphi study for Family planning and abortion care, WHO.

    Erika Kokkosis recently completed her Master of Science at the Department of Medicine of Larissa “Biomarkers in Obstetrics / Gynaecology – Perinatal Medicine” and defended her Thesis on the “Availability of contraceptive methods in refugee camps – Implementation and acceptance based on questionnaires”. She received specialized training in postgraduate programs related to breastfeeding, medical care for victims of sexual violence, termination of pregnancy, cessation of smoking during pregnancy and childbirth, natural childbirth, third trimester ultrasound and management of minor incidents of physically abuse.

    Erika Kokkosis will speak about Supporting a refugee mother postnatally in theory and in practice: talking the truth inside an interview on Saturday, March 19, at 9 am.

    Postnatal Doula, Kundalini Yoga Teacher, PSN Chair and Lead Trainer

    Charan Kamal Kaur/ Ingrid Bal (The Netherlands) is a postnatal doula, kundalini yoga teacher, chair, trainer and coordinator of the Postnatal Support Network. She advocates for a long and relaxed postpartum rest and bonding time as foundation for a healthy society. Her experience and skills have been formed by being a mother of two boys, as a postpartum doula and yoga teacher and her previous jobs as director of the PSN charity, in corporate business and hospitality. She is married, has two sons and is a passionate gardener. 

    www.ingridbal.com 

    Ingrid Bal will offer a workshop on Living vulnerability: Power and Sacrifice on Saturday, March 19, 10-11 am. 

    Vulnerability is seen as weakness rather than a strength. Our health system is based on reducing vulnerability rather than emplyfing it. But what if we turn it around and see this tender and fragile state as a powerful paradigm for change? In this workshop, we are going to redefine our personal relationship with vulnerability. Not only to understand its meaning but to live and breathe its power. 

    Perinatal Psychologist

    Noémie Faure-Nguyen is a perinatal psychologist and mother of three children. She graduated from the University of Geneva in 2009 and has worked for several years in a Univerity Hospital (Lausanne – Switzerland), in the departments of Child Psychiatry and Neonatology. She has worked both as a researcher on perinatal stress and as a clinician with infants and their families.

    Currently, she practices as a clinical psychologist at the Centre Sages-Femmes (Vevey) and at UniVers Famille (Châtel-St-Denis) in Switzerland through group workshops and personal consultations for expecting and young parents. She also collaborates with professionals and several associations in the perinatal field. Relying on recent scientific research as well as on traditional knowledge, she pleads for a perinatal psychology fully integrated within the follow-up of pregnant women, underlining the need for a special care focusing on mental health during pregnancy, birth and postpartum, for both the mother and the father. At the core of her work, she focuses on the physiology of the psychological mechanisms during the perinatal period, and to communicate this knowledge among parents and professionals.

    website : www.noemie-faure.ch
    IG : @noemie_faure.nguyen

    Midwife, researcher, lecturer, writer

    Ingrid Bayot is a midwife, graduated in Belgium in 1981; she worked in various areas of perinatal care, including the delivery room, postpartum and neonatal care, as well as comprehensive support for birth and breastfeeding. In 2004, she obtained a University Diploma in Human Lactation and Breastfeeding (DULHAM) at the Faculty of Medicine of Grenoble. She has taken various training courses in communication and psychology. Since 1991, she has provided training in perinatal and breastfeeding in French-speaking Europe and in Quebec, where she resides since 1996. She is a lecturer at the University of Quebec at Trois Rivières in the Baccalaureate in Midwifery Practice. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including Le quatrième trimestre de la naissance, Ed. ÉRES 2018 and Parents futés, bébé ravi, Ed. Robert Jauze, 2004.

    Site www.ingridbayot.com

    Ingrid Bayot will speak on the Mama Sapiens ou : comment les conditions d’apparition de notre espèce nous éclairent sur les besoins des nouvelles mères [Mama Sapiens or: how the conditions of the appearance of our species shed light on the needs of new mothers] on March 19, 14:00-16:00 CET/ 9:00-11:00 EDT.

    I would like to propose the theme of the “postpartum tribe”. From my readings on anthropology and history, I understand that our species, Sapiens, could only emerge because we lived in small organized societies with strong capacities of cooperation, mutual protection and skills in language and communication. As Sarah Blaffer-Rdhy (my favorite anthropologist) says very well, we are a “species of mothering community”. A mother needs to be able to rely on her group to 1) protect her during the vulnerable period of the immediate postpartum period, 2) allow her to maintain a social life with her baby, 3) be able to entrust her baby to people she trusts when necessary.
    These observations give us keys to understand the lacks and distresses of current women: incoherent speeches, incomplete or even contradictory modeling and learning, confinement and destruction of the social fabric, health policies oriented towards curative medicine rather than preventive behaviours, insufficient maternity “leave” (with the exception of the Nordic countries and Quebec), solitude and guilt.
    I will also consider the solutions, by asking the question: How to recreate, in the 21st century and with our modern means, stable or transitory micro-tribes, which can support “sufficiently” well the new families?

    Founder of the Center for Sacred Window Studies, Birth and Postpartum Doula

    Christine is  mother to four young children. She is an advocate for social awareness and change for post-partum care in cultures where traditions in caregiving have disappeared. She is an educator, organizer, and facilitator. Her mission with the Center for Sacred Window Studies is to empower families with information and ideas about creating the support they need during the sacred postpartum window, and training Ayurvedic Postpartum Caregivers to support families using diet, routine, herbal support and the Universal Mother Principles of caregiving: simplicity, flexibility, compassion, listening, intuition, grounding, non-judgement.

    www.sacredwindowstudies.com

    facebook.com/AyurvedaForPostpartum

    instagram.com/sacredwindowstudies

    Christine Eck will speak on Vulnerability into Empowerment: Transforming guilt and fear to honor the sacred on March 18, 17:00-18:00 CET/ 12:00-13:00 EST

    In our western culture, it is very common for women to feel afraid to ask for help, inadequate if they need to, and of course not even being aware of the ways they might need it.  I’d love to explore the mind/emotional shift that happens when people discover the science behind the sacred window, and the deep traditions in healing that exist to nurture postpartum people back to strength.  

    Journalist, author

    Céline Chadelat is a journalist specialized in religions, spirituality, health and well-being. She is the author of three books including the best-seller Le Mois d’Or [“The Month of Gold”] and creator of the instagram account @lemoisdor where she advocates for better support for young mothers and parents. She has been practicing meditation since the age of 20. 

    www.lemoisdor.com 

    IG: @lemoisdor 

    FB: Le Mois d’Or 

    Céline Chadelat will speak on the Le Mois d’Or, un changement de paradigme [The Month of Gold: a Paradigm Shift] on Sunday, March 20, at 9h CET.

    Midwife, writer, CNN Hero

    Ibu Robin Lim is a Filipina~American~Micronesian midwife and a founder of Bumi Sehat, a non-profit organization in Indonesia, and Wadah Philippines Foundation.  

    Ibu (Mother) Robin’s passion is respect for human rights in childbirth and healthcare as a human right. Along with her amazing team members, Ibu Robin works to maintain medical relief and childbirth clinics in Bali, Aceh (post 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami), Lombok, Indonesia (after devastation of 2018 earthquakes), Sentani, Papua (subject to multiple disasters, both natural and conflict related). In the Philippines, team Wadah sustains childbirth clinics in Dulag (in the aftermath of the super storm Typhoon Haiyan) and soon to open one in Palawan (highest known teen pregnancy rate on Earth). 

    In 2006, the Alexander Langer Foundation honored Ibu Robin as the Premier Alexander Langer. In 2011 Ibu Robin was chosen CNN Hero of the Year. This gave Midwife-to-Mother care a broader popular platform, worldwide. In 2012, APPPAH, The Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health gave Ibu Robin the Jeannine Parvati BirthKeeper award. 

    Ibu Robin’s best support has been her husband, Wil, eight amazing grown and growing children (ages 44 to 14) and their partners… plus six grandchildren, born gently into her hands.  

    Robin’s published books include: 

    After the Baby’s Birth, Wellness for Mothers, Ecology of Gentle Birth, Awakening Birth, Eating for Two… Recipes for Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women, Placenta the Forgotten Chakra (since 2022 also published in French!), Eat Pray Doula, The Geometry of Splitting Souls (poetry, Blue Light Press), The Natural Family Planning Workbook… a lifestyle of nonviolence (with Marie Elena), Butterfly People (a novel), and many more Health Booklets in Bahasa Indonesia are available on-line. www.iburobin.com 

    In 2009 Robin’s daughter, Déjà Bernhardt released two award winning documentary films about Lim’s work and the essential importance of gentle birth for a more peaceful planet, “Guerrilla Midwife” and “Tsunami Notebook.”  

    To see and support the work of Ibu Robin: www.bumisehatfoundation.org      

    Visit also

    http://iburobin.com

    http://awakeningbirth.org

    https://bumisehat.org   

    Psychologist, rebozo practitioner, author

    Marie Mahé-Poulin is a clinical psychologist, practitioner of rebozo, yoga and meditation. She accompanies, in her office in Nantes and Pornic or online, women and couples on the path of childbirth in pre and post-natal. She is also the author, with Céline Chadelat, of the book Le Mois d’Or, bien vivre le premier mois après l’accouchement (The Golden Month, living well the first month after childbirth) and Cahier d’exercice pour préparer en couple sur postpartum (Exercise book to prepare as a couple for the postpartum) both published by Presses du Châtelet.

    Site internet : https://lemoisdor.fr

    Marie Mahé-Poulin will speak on Le Mois d’Or, accueillir notre vulnérabilité et réveiller notre puissance [The Month of Gold: Welcome our Vulnerability and Awaken our Power] on Sunday, March 20, at 11h30 CET. 

    Founder of Maternité Sacrée, Trainer, Ritualist of life passages

    Camille Laperle founded the company Maternité Sacrée in 2012, in response to an important quest for meaning that has transformed her in its entirety. Working in the field of knowledge transmission for nearly 20 years, it is with excitement and deep joy that she works to transform the paradigms surrounding birth and postpartum with new families and those who accompany this transition. Her approach is practical and rooted in the foundations of naturopathy, personal transformation and spiritual growth. For some time now, her passions for Ayurveda and breathwork have been inspiring her to challenge herself in new ways in the realm of wellness. The wisdom and depth of these approaches allow her to work towards the elevation and transformation of those who cross her path. 

    Liens Maternité Sacrée inc. : 

    https://maternitesacree.ca 

    https://www.facebook.com/maternitesacree 

    https://www.instagram.com/maternitesacree 

     Liens Onde mutable par Camille Laperle :  

    https://www.ondemutable.ca  

    https://www.instagram.com/ondemutable

    Camille Laperle will speak on Vulnérabilité et humilité pour les nouveaux parents – Cultiver l’attitude de l’élève, de l’apprenant  on Sunday, March 20, at 14h CET/ 9h EST.

    Artisan Doula

    Gérémia is a Doula’ Artisane whose creative universe draws its inspiration from maternity, from the representation of bodies as well as from our relationship to nature and life. Her work mixes different techniques: linocut, embroidery, ceramics, painting, in soft and poetic tones. Over the years her practice has been refined, her universe drawn and her passion has continued to grow. She accompanies women in their pregnancy journey, stands by them when they give birth to their babies and takes care of them during this very important period of time that is the post-partum. Particularly touched by the vulnerability of women, she works to demonstrate how this fragility turns out to be a strength, how resilient, authentic and amazing women are. As a mother of three children and particularly sensitive to the particularity of the postpartum period, she created the Little Manifesto for the Newborn Mother, a small, freely available booklet that sows seeds among parents.

    Geremia Bouquet is the artist who created the visual representing this year’s Summit. 

    https://www.instagram.com/mothering_mother_doula/ 
    https://deliou7.wixsite.com/motheringmother 

    Gérémia Bouquet will offer a workshop called “Postnatal Manifesto” on Sunday, March 20, at 15h CET. Gérémia Bouquet will be offering a workshop entitled Little Manifesto for the Woman Who Has Just Given Birth on Sunday, March 20, at 3pm CET.
    This workshop will be an opportunity to present the Manifesto that I created and to share with you my post-partum experience. It will also be an opportunity for me to address with simplicity the basic needs of a woman who has just given birth. My greatest wish in creating these pages was that women would come away from this reading inspired and ready to compose their own post-partum recipe. Women have the wisdom to know what is right for them, and our job as supporters is simply to remind them of their confidence in their ability to accompany these new lives.

    Doula, Trainer, Reverend, Facilitator

    Lesley Everest is a mother of four mostly grown children.  She is the founder and director of MotherWit Doula Care and MotherWit Doula Trainings.  She has been serving her community in Montreal, Canada as a birth and postpartum doula and educator for almost three decades.  With a background in psychosynthesis, biodynamic craniosacral therapy, transformational coaching, evidence-based infant sleep education, pregnancy/infant loss/end of life support, and interspiritual ministry, Lesley seeks to nourish the internal and external resources of pregnant, birthing, and new families so that they may know and own the power of their inherent magnificence.

    Lesley loves to write, laugh, walk, and dance, all preferably in Nature.  Lesley is a survivor of advanced cancer, and knows well how healing the discovery of our ‘inner expert” can be.

    info@MotherWit.ca 

    www.MotherWit.ca

    Lesley Everest will speak on Soothing the Postpartum Nervous System on Sunday, March 20, at 16h CET. 

    Most people become parents through the vehicle of birth.  This means that becoming a parent generally happens at the intersection where our greatest power and our greatest vulnerability meet.  Oxytocin is a two sided coin, providing us with some life’s greatest pleasures as well as some of life’s most intense pain.  How can we as postpartum care practitioners nourish vulnerability so that it translates into empowerment rather than prolonged rawness and trauma?  In this presentation Lesley will talk about the impact of technocratic birth, modern western cultural values of achievement and indepence, and isolation upon the nervous system of the postpartum family.  We will learn practical measures to support families in grounding through oxytocin promoting relational medicine and reclaiming the need for the ceremonial honouring of new motherhood.

    Mexican Midwife, Speaker, Educator

    Naoli Vinaver is a Mexican midwife who combines traditional Mexican and contemporary home birth practices, with a profound respect for the physiology of natural birth,  attending over 1700 home births in both Mexico and Brazil.  A passionate speaker and educator, Naoli has taught hundreds of seminars and workshops in over 30 countries around the world.  She has taught the art of the Mexican Rebozo since 1992, becoming a world-wide reference and promoter in this area, and also contributing to the birth world with her original invention of 7 main original Rebozo Manoeuvres, now known as Naoli’s Rebozo Manoeuvres for Birth. She invented and developed the Natural Ultrasound technique in 1992 and many other useful birth related tools, techniques and birth support elements (see tabs below for each of her specialties and contributions).  She is the author of many birth-related articles and books, published in 6 languages. In 2014  she co-founded AMA NASCER, a home birth midwifery group practice in Florianópolis, Brazil with whom she currently accompanies births and all care from pregnancy through the postpartum period.    

    Naoli has recently created the Midwifery Workshops Online “The Art of Birth” program, currently being offered in 4 languages.

    Website:https://www.naolivinaver.com/

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naoli.vinaver.oficial/

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nvinaver/

    Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NaoliVinaver

    “The Art of Birth Online” course: https://www.naolivinaver.com/art-of-birth-online.html

    Naoli Vinaver will speak on The Power of Postpartum Openness and Vulnerability and the Mexican Postpartum Ritual on Sunday, March 20, at 17:00 CET/ 13:00 BRT.

    Contact our National Coordinators

    Name

    Country

    Email

    Vesela Genadieva

    Bulgaria

    vessy@positivepostpartum.eu 

    Yanitsa Karamarkova

    Bulgaria

    info@moiatadula.com 

    Agnieszka Bera

    Denmark

    info@shaktidoula.dk 

    Sofiya H. Angelina Bonde

    Denmark

    mail@sofiyahenrietta.com 

    Pauline Dubromez

    France

    pauline.dubromez@gmail.com 

    Ingrid Bal

    Netherlands

    charankamalkaur@ingridbal.com 

    Milagros Virasoro

    Portugal

    milivira@gmail.com 

    Catherine Tuchschmid

    Switzerland

    catherine@gaiaom.ch 

    Magalie Beantpal Kaur

    Switzerland

    info@beantpal.ch 

    Patsy Gormley-Steele

    UK

    satprakashk@gmail.com 

    The Postnatal Support Network (PSN) addresses the importance of a well-prepared and relaxing 40 day postnatal period. It is an international organisation with a non-medical and social network, informing families and especially mothers about this special and delicate time after birth.