In this presentation, you will learn about the practice of Family Centered Cesarean, a new, exciting approach to Cesarean birth that fosters a gentler, more client focused birth experience for families who must undergo surgical birth. Jen will introduce you to the evidence-based underpinnings of the Family Centered Cesarean movement as well as discuss practical methods for incorporating family focused elements into the operating room and immediate postpartum. You will leave this presentation with an understanding of how every birth professional can contribute to healthier, more satisfying Cesarean birth experiences and improve outcomes for parents and infants.
Resources Mentioned:
Family Centered Cesarean Presentation Resouce List (PDF Download)
www.familycenteredcesarean.com
About Jen Matera
Jen Matera began her journey into the world of birth support in 2003 after the birth of her first daughter. Previous to her work with birthing families, Jen earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in education and worked as a Humanities teacher and Outdoor/Adventure Educator. Jen was previously trained as an EMT and Wilderness EMT. Birth work struck her has the ideal way to combine her loves of teaching, medicine, and working with families. Jen started a doula and childbirth education business in Idaho Springs, CO in 2004, which generated over $25000 of grant funding to provide doula and childbirth education services to underserved families in the mountain communities of Denver. The business, Cocoon Birth, grew into the largest doula agency in Colorado, providing full scale doula services and classes to the greater Denver area as well as an on call doula program at the freestanding Mountain Midwifery birth center in Englewood, CO, and Advanced Practice training for doulas.
She has completed training as an Antepartum, Labor and Birth, and Postpartum Doula through CAPPA and is certified as a Labor and Birth Doula through Childbirth International. She is also a certified Happiest Baby on the Block instructor and teaches Childbirth Education and Newborn Care classes.
Jen has experience as an RN at Mountain Midwifery Center.
She worked for four years as a doula on staff at Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge, CO, and is now an RN on the Mother/Baby/Gynecology unit and is a cross-trained Labor and Delivery RN. She is currently beginning her journey as a student Nurse Midwife at Frontier Nursing University.
Jen lives in Arvada, CO with her husband, three beautiful children, and aging border collie. She is an avid outdoorswoman and loves sharing the natural world with her children. She also enjoys DIY projects and being crafty, sampling her husband’s gourmet cooking, playing music with her kids, and reading an endless number of research studies on birth and babies. Jen thrives on being driven and having a mission. Since her experiences having all three of her children via Cesarean, with the last being a homebirth transfer, Jen has been working to improve the culture and experience of Cesarean birth for all women, championing efforts to keep families together after Cesarean, provide skin-to-skin in the operating room, and make Cesarean birth family centered on all levels.