SERVICES FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES

Pregnancy, Birth, and Post-partum

Holistic Health

Pediatrics

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 Pregnancy, Birth, and Post-partum

Midwifery Model of Care:
   · Prenatal Care and Childbirth Preparation
   · Births
   · Post-partum care
   · Breastfeeding Consultations and Support
 

Saber Nacer:
   · Prenatal Yoga
   · Pregnancy Celebration
   · Family Therapy
   · Prenatal Massage Courses
   ·Playing with Children

   · Yoga for Children

At Luna Maya we believe that women birth as they live. Therefore, we work throughout the life cycle to provide holistic midwifery care and help women take their bodies and their health -both physical and emotional - into their own hands. Our midwives work as a team with prenatal educators, psychotherapists, yoga teachers, a physical therapist, and certified masseuses. We also work within a network of providers that refer women to us and where we can refer women in specific cases. Our network includes a gynecologist, homeopath, acupuncturist, holographer and medicine woman.

Our midwifery model of care for women and families in the stages of pregnancy, labor, and postpartum is the central pillar of our service.  Through our progam Q'anil Nacer we provide additional support and education for families in these stages through activities related to self-care, healing, and joyful experience.

· Prenatal Care and Childbirth Preparation

We offer holistic prenatal care for pregnant women. Our midwives offer individual consultations to monitor pregnancy progress and to respond to the questions and needs of women, as well as to work with each woman to achieve the birth that she desires.

· Births

For millions of years women, as mammals and primates, have given birth vaginally. Over the last 20 years we have lost that profound knowledge. At Luna Maya we remember that the body of a woman is perfectly designed to give birth; and it is the brain-not the baby's but the mother's- so full of fear and social programming that inhibits this process. No mammal can give birth while in the grips of fear, and hence it is logical that we are gradually losing this ability.

Through quality prenatal care we hope that women can reconnect with their primal brain, disconnecting themselves from fear, from the perception of pain, and from the drama of the feminine mystery. We know that our ability to birth comes from thousands of years of biological perfection and that it will be activated by the woman who has confidence in herself and who is in an environment in which she is supported without fear and without doubts.

In Luna Maya we attend births at home because scientific study after study has shown that nature is wise - that birth at home is as safe as birth at a hospital, with two important differences: women's satisfaction is much greater in the case of home births, and home births evidence fewer interventions than hospital births.

· Post-partum care

After a birth, we continue accompanying new families in order to help facilitate their transition process. We visit new mothers 24 hours, 3 and 5 days after her birth to ensure that all is well. 1, 2, 4 and 6 weeks after the birth we give post-partum care at Luna Maya. At the 6 week mark care is taken over by our pediatrician.

In Luna Maya we have no doubt that breastfeeding is the best practice for baby and mother. We offer breastfeeding consultancy and support, including for mothers who have not given birth with us.

· Breastfeeding Consultations and Support

For new moms we offer consultations (at Luna Maya and at home) in which our team of midwives works individually with the new mother to encounter the breastfeeding practice that is most nutritive -physically and emotionally -for mother and child.

We also offer a 3 hour workshop that helps pregnant women and new moms understand the different aspects of breastfeeding and especially how to approach breastfeeding as a beautiful experience.

Both the individual consultations and the workshop offer practical information in regards to the first feeding, the importance of position and various breastfeeding positions, the baby's suction process, breastfeeding physiology, healthy milk production, and how to avoid problems such as obstructions and chapping.

Saber Crecer

Our program Saber Crecer offers you courses and services that support your physical and emotional process in the pregnancy and post-partum and partenting stages.  The program´s activities are facilitated by Anna Artigas (social educator, clinical and family systems psychologist, baby massage instructor, prenatal, mother baby and child yoga teacher, child games instructor).  In Saber Crecer we work in a holistic and loving way to help you live these stages of your life in a healthy, integrated and full way. 

· Prenatal Yoga

Prenatal yoga is designed to prepare women physically and mentally for childbirth and post-partum. The practice of postures and breathing has important benefits for the pregnant woman, including: strengthening and developing the muscles necessary to maintain a vertical and active birth, using breath to center oneself and to open the body, and developing the ability to maintain a deep connection with emotion while the body is in physical stress. Moreover, yoga class is a place where women can meet and share the changes they are living in the gestational period.

· Pregnancy Celebration

Our pregnancy celebration is a day dedicated to conmemorating your pregnancy through art.  We work with introspective exercises and various artistic modalities, including: belly molds, sculpture, song, drawing, curative storytelling, and henna tattoos.  Creative exploration inspires you to profoundly contemplate this transformative experience in ways that allow you to discover new meanings, thereby honoring your fertility, your life, and your child with greater awareness.  Come celebrate the beauty of this moment of your life! 

Click here to see the date of the next Pregnancy Celebration.

· Family Therapy 

Every pregnancy and birth requires a ready supply of energy!  These phases are characterized by changes--sometimes intense, sometimes unexpected, always evolutionary.  This constant internal and external movement moves our energies; it revives us, connects us with our family history and also tires and wears us out!  The family-in-creation requires that biopsychosocial protection of its members is guaranteed, along with identity construction, belonging, and the location and transmission of culture... 

There are behaviors, standards, and events that tend to repeat themselves in different generations of families.  If we have pending issues--many times unconscious and unresolved--with our family of origin, it can be difficult for us to act and address in the presence of our children all the responsibilities associated with the role of mother and father.  In Luna Maya, through personalized and/or family sessions, we accompany you in the process of disentangling family blocks in the construction of a synthesis of your family reality to channel relationship standards in a healthy way and the type of family that you will form in the following generation on its way or that is now in your hands. 

Inspire yourself to walk this path of awareness, in order to be able to provide the emotional space of comfort, warmth, security, and educational coherency that your children need.      

· Massage Courses

Prenatal Massage Course for Couples

Click here to see the date of the next Prenatal Massage Course, or Contact us to organize a course.

Baby Massage Course

• Attachment and communication: through the massage parents get to know their baby better and establish a new form of communication.
• Relaxation: A child will learn to manage his or her tension better, which facilitates deeper sleep.
• Relief: The massage relieves emotional tension, colic, constipation, and pains and aches related to growth, teething, etc.
• Stimulation: The massage stimulates the newborn's senses as well as his or her nervous, lymphatic, digestive respiratory, and circulation systems.

Click here to see the date of the next Baby Massage Course, or Contact us to organize a course.

·  Playing with Children

We offer a games course on wednesdays from 4.30 yo 5.30 for parents and children ages 1 to 4 to learn how to play with their kids and improve developmental skills.  

· Yoga for Children

In our yoga classes for girls and boys we do yoga in a playful way, following the children´s rhythm.  Yoga as a discipline from a young age favors harmonious development.  It helps kids become aware of their bodies, their breathing, and their possibilities.  It helps them make contact with their bodies in a non-aggressive manner and develop their sensitivity and abilities not only on a physical but also on an emotional level.  Yoga postures, acting directly on the muscles,  also help annul the harmful effects of bad posture and accumulated tensions.  It stimulates breathing and improves circulation of energy throughout the body.  The techniques that we use support relaxation and well-being, maintain flexibility, health, and dynamism, and help develop the ability to concentrate.   

Yoga for children is held Mondays and Wednesdays 5 to 6pm 

Other courses and Activities:

Mother Baby Yoga:  Thursdays from 4 to 5pm

 Yoga for Women: Saturdays 10 to 11am

 Mothers Group: Tuesdays 4 to 5 pm

Fathers Group:  every second Friday of the month from 5 to 7pm

Parenting Workshops: the last friday of every month from 5 to 7pm

Reflexology: Tuesdays from 5 to 7pm 

Holistic health

In Luna Maya we offer a range of services to women and men in all stages of life to help them take the responsibility for their health into their own hands, to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and to get to know their bodies more intimately.

Our care provided by midwives includes:

· Education and counseling on women's health issues

· Well woman check-ups

· Pap smears

· Pregnancy tests

· Natural and artificial contraception methods
(fertility consciousness, emergency contraception, male and female condoms, IUDs)

· Mayan Abdominal Massage and Herbal Care
(for sexual and reproductive health problems) 
 

Pediatrics

Our pediatrics service allows parents to construct--in the way that best suits them--a new way of relating with a doctor in which parent and child are at the center of care. In this type of relationship, families can make the best decisions for themselves, entering into a horizontal dialogue that lets them feel at home amongst the wise women of family and community.

Luna Maya Shop

We sell various items in our shop, including:

· Vitamins and Herbs
· Tinctures and microdosis
· Natural soaps, creams, ointments, and oils
· Organic food items
· Maternity and baby clothes
· Slings for carrying babies
· Toys, books, and ornaments for babies and children
· Ecological and cloth diapers
· Breastfeeding pillows
· Informative books on pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding
· Handmade candles and other decorative items

Our goal is to offer useful items that are, to the degree possible, made with natural ingredients. Many of our products are made locally, in many cases by women's cooperatives, hence supporting sustainable development in Chiapas. Our providers include Mujeres de Maíz en Resistencia (Women of the Corn in Resistance), Hogar Comunitario (Community Shelter), Mujeres para Hoy (Women for Today) and other groups of Mexican women and individual women, in addition to international companies such as Nature´s Sunshine.

In our shop we also have a solidarity library where for a minimal sign-up fee members can borrow books. Our collection includes a wide range of informative, educational, and fiction and literature titles.