Rite VIII Birth
Birth & New Routines
Here starts the beginning of a new story and journey to motherhood.
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The seventh Rite is the birth of a baby also consecrating the beginning of a mother's life.
Birth Rite K Sea Ya presents a series of images from birth to three months of age including birth preparation, birth, and post-partum.
The preparation for birth included a series of care and daily routine with midwives.
The delivery happened with the midwife's support, in a totally human and natural way. It was a long birth taking 44 hrs from beginning to the end.
Following birth, a liminal space, a 40 days postpartum confinement with rest and healing in bed, at home.
During the first week of postpartum, the new mother received a series of purification herbal baths to heal and relax the body. The bath was also an opportunity to bond with the child, as the child received the first contact with water. She also did experimental work getting to know the Placenta, which is an organ newly formed and expelled after birth that offers nutrition from mother to baby during gestation. The quarantine care was provided either by the partner and new father and a postpartum doula. Friends offered daily meals with nutritious food during the first month of confinement. Family care wasn't a choice, since both parents have families remotely. At end of quarantine and separation, a re-integration with the new mother into her community with a circle of friends for K Sea Ya 36th birthday celebration.
Lactation support, the adaptation of a new routine of sleep, exercises to support the pelvic region were part of the routine that followed. Routine... a long way to find a new supportive routine for this beautiful rite of life.
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A dance of gratitude: At the end of the first trimester, K Sea Ya returned to her place of birth with her family and made her first dance ritual connecting with her environment of Origen, praying in gratitude for the safe arrival into motherhood and to a new body.
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" Rituals and Routines have a lot in common. Both help us to delineate space and time. Rituals and routine means repetition. Repetition through which we create a predictable structure, a sense of anticipation, and predictability. A grounding rhythm. Rituals and routines are reassuring, they can be grounding and bring a stabilizing effect. What makes them different? Rituals create excitement, while routine creates familiarity. Rituals Elevate us, creating a special feeling, routines ground us. Routine can be concrete and repetitive actions that help to develop skills, continuity, and order. But Rituals are routinely elevated by creativity, driven by intention, and imbued by meaning. Rituals guide us through transitions. We know about rituals at birth, transitions from childhood to adulthood, partnership, marriage, end of a relationship, and end of life. Most of the important transitions of our lives are marked by rituals. " (Esther Perel)
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