As the Midwife of Spirit of Life Traditional Midwifery, I am looking forward to our future years full of possibilities and growth.
I want to take a moment to personally thank you for your support of us as we fulfill our destiny. Traditional midwifery is my life’s mission and passion and I am so honored to be a part of the wonderful tradition of midwifery; supporting, caring for and being “with woman”. Giving birth is a powerful, magical time in a woman’s life – a creative, life-affirming and life-giving experience that finds expression in a diversity of ways – ways that are right for that woman and baby. It is a time of great transformation when women are growing and maturing not only in body, but also heart and mind. I honor childbirth as a rite of passage, a celebration of life! I know that midwives make a difference.
With my new website, I seek to create a vibrant and growing community of midwives, mothers and families to share knowledge and experiences of this ancient time honored tradition of midwifery through an online forum, my blog "In My Mother's House" and by directing visitors to my site’s resources through popular social media services such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. I personally invite you to join our Spirit of Life Village community and participate in our forums, and comment on my blog. Your feedback and participation is vital to help me craft an effective, rich and educational resource for the women and families of South Florida to learn about their alternatives, to know that they have a choice and that the wonderful tradition of midwifery is a safe, joyous, and harmonious celebration of life.
As a Midwife, it is my mission and my desire to confidently continue to carry on the tradition of midwifery far into the future.
Thank you for your participation and support,
Sheila Simms Watson, LM, CPM,
Spirit Of Life Traditional Midwifery, Inc
Join Spirit of Life Traditional Midwifery's Village Forum! In our village forum connect with others with a shared commitment to traditional, natural out of hospital birth. Meet here to share your ideas, hopes, questions, and dreams. Join Us Today ⇒
Our homepage serves as the starting point and the organizational center for interacting with Spirit of Life's website. Our homepage is a portal to the rest of the site, with links to almost every area and resource available on our site.
Because our site has a lot of information, our front page is designed to get you where you need to go quickly. We know that there are often times that you don't come to the front page of websites looking for specific information, but you are looking for the "route" to the information you want. With our site being so resource rich, having every bit of information right on the front page isn't feasible. Here are some of the features that you will find links to from our homepage.
Making It Easy to Navigate:
Navigation - move your cursor over the whole page and you will find that almost every word on the page has useful links to different areas of the site:
Header Navigation:
Care and Services - Get an overview of the many services offered by Spirit of Life
Top Level Navigation Bar:
Who We Are - Learn about our guiding principles, what we believe and our philosophy
Why A Homebirth - Homebirth is the natural choice for many women. Here you will learn some reasons why.
Village Portal - Skip the welcome and go straight to the village to get started exploring our articles, resource guides for mothers, parents, partners and the entire family. Here is the help with getting the information you need to support your family, pregnancy and effectively manage your life.
Resources - Links to trusted resources, provided to help you fully explore your alternatives to traditional and out of hospital maternity services. Having access to trusted resources to help you educate yourself, your partner and family on the rights as parents is priceless.
Contacts - Gives you access to send Sheila a direct message, get a map to our office or provide us feedback about your experience on the site.
Site Search: Not sure exactly what you are looking for? Then use our site search to help you find what you are looking for within our site.
Focus on Midwifery
In the comfort of your own home surounded by your family not strangers...This is one reason that homebirths offer a superrior experience to hospital births.
Join the Miami Midwife at Shakti Rising - Panel Discussion - Racial Disparities in Infant Mortality
On September 5th, 2010 at 7:00 pm, Bellymama Midwifery & Venus Rising, in collaboration with The Healthy Start Coalition, and the Power U Center for Social Change, will present Shakti Rising at the Little Haiti Community Center in Miami, Fl. Sheila will be part of a panel discussion on racial disparity in infant mortality rates and how we as a community can reduce this following the performances. Add this date to your calendar. Ticket prices are $10 in advance and $12 at the door, kids under 12 free.
"One of our Facebook friends "Gabriela Zaviezo" shared this segment from an episode of the Oprah show with us. It was absolutely intriguing the promotion for the show read as follows..."
"For millions of sleep-deprived mothers around the world, this woman's findings could be a miracle! Priscilla Dunstan, a mom from Australia with a special gift, says she's unlocked the secret language of babies. That mysterious second language took on an astounding new meaning when Priscilla became a mother to her baby, Tom. "Because of my gift for sound, I was able to pick out certain patterns in his cries and then remember what those patterns were later on when he cried again," Priscilla says. "I realized that other babies were saying the same words."
Take a look at the video below, we are sure that you that you will have a lot to say about it, so make sure that you stop by the village "Forum Community-Help for New Mothers" and post your comments, observations and thoughts...
Video Content...If the Video is not displaying correctly? !
Listen up. The leading group of obstetricians in this country now says it's quite all right for most women who've given birth by cesarean section to try a vaginal birth the next time around. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/07/22/128693036/vaginal-birth-ok-for-most-women-after-cesarean
Guidelines just put out by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say a vaginal birth after cesarean, or VBAC, is the most appropriate and safe choice for the majority of women. Read More
A Healthy Approach!
Spirit of Life - Village Resources: Holistic Nutrition uses various combinations of food and nutrients to help individuals achieve optimal mental, physical and spiritual health. It can be used as a preventative health approach for the average person without any ailments or as a modality for healing or symptom management for people living with chronic illness or other medical conditions.
Establishing healthy routines early in the mother's development helps her to achieve optimal mental, physical and spiritual health
Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the world.
A woman dies in childbirth every 29 minutes, one in four children die before age 5.
In Kabul, dozens of women are now studying to become midwives to help save lives.
Video Content...If the Video is not displaying correctly?Click Here
Home Birth is Right for You!
Choosing the appropriate place to birth your child is an important decision. In the United States the vast majority of women choose to birth in a hospital setting. Most Americans consider the hospital to be the safer place to birth. Many believe that it is the only legal place to birth. This is not true. For many women, birthing at home with a qualified and experienced care provider is a safe and legal option.
A home birth gives you more control over who is present and involved with your birth. Many families choose to have their children, siblings, or family or friends present and part of the birth experience. Read More »
A peaceful journey of a home waterbirth. Photos courtesy of Stephanie Anders Photography:
My Journey into Traditional Midwifery - "Carrying on the Art & Tradition of Midwifery"
A friend planted the seed of midwifery...
which was the seed of change in my life, in 1980. I was pregnant with my first child and my friend said, “Why don’t you choose a midwife?” Midwife?
I knew nothing about whom or what that was. So, my journey began! I got a book from the library and contacted the midwifery service at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and on March 29, 1981 I had my first child with help of Midwives...
We are now on Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and Twitter! Ok, so many of you are already friends on my facebook page, and are likely wondering what is the big deal. Well, you are right it is not new, but what I believe is that it is more deliberate.
In working over the past few months to pull together the everything we needed for my website project, I had to really think about what I wanted for my mothers, families, collogues, and community. I even had to look at how my role as a midwife was impacting you all.
One of the brightest spots in this process was the live, engaged, happy and loving community that we have already built on Facebook.
In many ways this was one of the inspirations for taking the new website in the direction that was chosen. My many dear friends who share with me the greatest parts of themselves everyday on Facebook by posting pictures of their growing families, where they are, what they are doing and the many activities and events that we are posting back and forth on our walls.
In creating the Spirit of Life's Facebook page, we worked to tie it into the overall theme of the website. Education! I get so many excellent posts and links about trends, activities, politics, health and midwifery in general from everyone. With the new Facebook page we are pulling those things into this new page. I have also taken many great posts and included them on my blog "In My Mother's House" and also posted them in our village forums.
So If you have not done so already, please stop by our social media pages and add Spirit of Life to your friend list by "Like" us on Facebook, "Follow Us" on Twitter, "Subscribe" to our YouTube Channel and "Follow" us on Blogger...ok, so you get it, here is your official invitation to Join Our Conversation!
We are helping our mothers, families, and community "Our Village" through practicing traditional midwifery. Women have been helping, supporting and teaching women since the beginning of time. Pregnancy and birth are normal, natural parts of a woman's life. Share in our celebration of life...
If you have experienced a home birth or water birth with us, we invite you to share with our village your personal and unique birth story. Please click here to share your birth story and celebrate life with us...
Telling your story provides a rare opportunity for women and families who are starting their journey to bring a baby into the world to learn about these wondrous experiences of giving birth at home and with a midwife.
Our homebirth community celebrates each new baby born with us and deeply feels the joy that our mothers feel. For many women thinking about becoming pregnant or currently expecting, reading your birth story could be just the exposure they need to understand what an out of hospital birth would be like for them. We all have experienced hospital births either first hand, or through a relative, or even by watching TV or movies. For our mothers who have experienced home and water birth, you may not realize just how powerful an impact your story may have on a woman new to traditional midwifery, home and water births.
One of the driving goals of the Spirit of Life Traditional Midwifery's Village is educating woman, families and our community as a whole on the advantages of home and water births. By contributing your birth story, you are truly helping to carry on the tradition. Please click here to share your birth story and celebrate life with us...
Our homepage serves as the starting point and the organizational center for interacting with Spirit of Life's website. Our homepage is a portal to the rest of the site, with links to almost every area and resource available on our site. 
On September 5th, 2010 at 7:00 pm, Bellymama Midwifery & Venus Rising, in collaboration with The Healthy Start Coalition, and the Power U Center for Social Change, will present Shakti Rising at the Little Haiti Community Center in Miami, Fl. Sheila will be part of a panel discussion on racial disparity in infant mortality rates and how we as a community can reduce this following the performances. Add this date to your calendar. Ticket prices are $10 in advance and $12 at the door, kids under 12 free. 
