Midwifery Today Conference – Blankenberge, Belgium

I’m such a sucker for a new training, conference, or girls trip so this little getaway to the coast of Belgium to the Midwifery Today Conference was a dream!

Here in Belgium, I’ve been able to make some wonderful friends with midwifes, doulas, and other childbirth and lactation professionals. It was so fun to carpool and stay with old friends as well as make some new ones 🙂

The first class I did was an all day session on Waterbirth Practices, Practicalities, and New Discoveries with Dianne Garland. It was great! I’ve always wanted to explore waterbirth a bit more and since we may be having another little one here in Belgium where waterbirth is much more accepted I wanted to check it out.

We had an interesting class of doctors, midwifes, and doulas from all over the world. I chatted with several of them and it was so interesting to hear what birth and motherhood was like in other countries.

I did get to chat with Dianne a little bit! It was great!

On Day 2, I attended a Rebozo workshop! I took a course from Gena Kirby back in Oklahoma and really loved it. I was curious to see the similarities and differences from teachers here in Europe.

I made some wonderful friends and really bonded with another doula from Ghent while we did a rebozo closing ceremony on another student.

I bought several rebozos and a technique book from Thea Van Tuyl. It was a fun class and a good Rebozo refresher!

Before we left to return home, I popped into the International Doula Meeting for about an hour. A room full of 50 doulas from all over the world! It was awesome! They talked about issues in their countries, how they could all come together to form a European Organization along with the challenges that might rise because of the differences in rules and regulations between countries. They brought up things I’d never even considered inside my little US bubble. I’ve LOVED my experience here in Belgium and I loved learning from them.

Unfortunately, we could only stay for 2 days so we headed home. It was SO wonderful to be with like minded people and learn from an international group. What a wonderful trip!

The next morning, we are off on our family trip to Prague! You can read about that wonderful adventure here.