January 2015 saw the birth of a new series on Science & Sensibility – “Brilliant Activities for Birth Educators.” The purpose of the monthly series has been to offer fun, interactive, creative ideas for childbirth educators and others to use in birth classes and with clients. The topics are based on best practice and evidence, are typical topics for a childbirth class and suggest teaching methods that are memorable and provide opportunities for families to actively participate in learning and build community with each other during the class.
With each Brilliant Activities for Birth Educators post, educators are provided with a list of materials (and where to source them if necessary) and suggestions on when the topic might be covered in a typical class. The “how to’s” of the exercise are shared and details about the experiences of families who have participated are also covered. I feel that someone could read one of our Brilliant Activities for Birth Educators posts, do a bit of prep and be ready to run with the activity fairly soon.
I am looking for educators who are interested in writing a Brilliant Activities for Birth Educators post in 2016! New ideas and new faces benefit all of us. If you are an active educator who has an engaging and interactive activity that you enjoy teaching and is a hit with the families you work with – please consider getting in touch with me and we can get you lined up for a post in 2016. I promise to help and support you through the process.
And in a similar vein, I would like to continue to add to the “Welcoming All Families” series that discusses how to welcome diverse families to our classes. We have had wonderful posts on welcoming people of size, different ethnicities and religions. I am actively looking for a Muslim childbirth educator who can share the richness of birth from the Islamic perspective. I have many other ideas as well for this series, so if you work with an interesting and unique population (older women, after loss, English as a second language, physically handicapped and more) please reach out to me so that we can discuss sharing your information with a wider audience in this “Welcoming All Families” series.
Finally – if you just love to write on research topics, review recently published research papers, books, films and programs, and cover new and exciting news in the field of maternal infant health – I invite you to contact me so that we can talk about your contributions to Science & Sensibility. This blog is for birth professionals and is so much richer when a variety of experts participate. I would love to collaborate with you on some projects – so let me hear from you! I can be reached by email at sharon@sharonmuza.com.