Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Nurture welcomes Lena Wood

We would like to warmly welcome Lena Wood to Nurture. Lena is a doula with Cascadia Birth Services, and she has a special interest in supporting families who are adopting. Lena is also involved in many other projects and organizations; read more about all of her activities below! Welcome, Lena!


Cascadia Birth Services, LLC

lena@cascadiabirth.com
503.307.8614

Welcome!

I am thrilled to be a part of the Nurture community. As a doula and Montessori-trained educator, I love collaborating with families to support the full potential of human development.

I offer labor and postpartum doula services, with a specialization in adoption support. I am available to attend births for women who are considering or planning on placing for adoption, and for adult adoptees who may be processing emotions around the experience of pregnancy and birth. I also provide post-placement support for adoptive families in both domestic and international adoption. As a trans-national adoptee, I believe strongly that all members of the adoption constellation benefit from compassionate, non-judgmental support as they move through their experiences around adoption.

I came to doula work through several close friends who are midwives. Their excitement and passion for serving women’s birth needs resonated deeply for me. The more I learned about their work, the more I considered how I might be able to use my skills and experience as a Montessori teacher to give individualized support to new families. I completed my postpartum doula training with CAPPA, and my labor doula training at Birthingway College of Midwifery, in Portland, OR. I am also completing the Certified Lactation Educator program through CAPPA, to better serve the needs of my breastfeeding postpartum clients. It is an honor and privilege for me to be able to provide support to women and their families during such an intense and intimate transition of their lives.

Aside from my own practice, I am the Portland coordinator for Full Spectrum Doulas, which will provide abortion doula services based on the model of the Doula Project, in NYC. Currently I am collaborating with Adoption Mosaic to develop training opportunities for doulas interested in working with birthparents and adoptive families. I also volunteer as an advocate for Backline, a locally-based nation-wide pregnancy options counseling phone line.

When I am not doing doula work, I train in an Indonesian martial art form, Poekoelan Tjimindi Tulen, and instruct in the transported after-school and summer youth programs at One With Heart Tulen Center in SE Portland.

For more information, visit my website [www.cascadiabirth.com], or email me at lena@cascadiabirth.com

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