Eat, Pray, Doula: “Gentle Birth Heals Mother Earth”

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by Taryn Marta Assaf

TARYN (1)There is an energy in Ubud that’s difficult to explain; it can only be felt and experienced spiritually. There is a healing power to Bali: releasing bodily toxins through sweat; meditating to the sounds of early morning prayer or letting yourself fall into the calls of night creatures; cleansing your skin in cool waters; or simply indulging in a fresh coconut or two.

This is the healing power that surrounds birth: releasing energy to help baby come smoothly, whether through movement, vocalization, or breath; meditating and/or relaxing in between surges; cleansing the mind of previous fears or anxieties that may slow birth; or simply indulging in the moment. We re-learned this in Bali, and I say re-learned because gentle birth is, in its own right, how women have always birthed; yet the her-story of birth has been largely erased from the developed and from much of the developing world. Read more


Taryn Assaf is a Certified Childbirth Educator (Dip CCE CBEd) with Childbirth International, Certified Birth Doula with DONA, native Canadian and Busanite. She is committed to delivering timely, relevant, evidence based, and easily accessible information. While training to become a CCE, she realized how nearly impossible it was for her, as an English speaker in Busan, to locate, access and use the resources related to childbirth. If this was the case for her, she thought, it could be the same for those expecting mothers who feel disadvantaged by a language and cultural barrier. Living in a foreign country can be intimidating, let alone birthing in one! She says “with a lot of hard work and a little luck, I’ve been able to begin amassing prudent information regarding your choices in childbirth. In creating this website, I hope to begin providing you with the support you need to make informed choices about your birth; to ultimately achieve the type of birth you desire.”

Busan Birth is a resource created to help English speakers in Busan find trustworthy information about pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and everything in between. It also serves as a link between parents and service providers in order to ease the search for, and increase access to, information regarding what is arguably the most important period of life – pregnancy and birth


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