Red Bridge resident codevelops functional birthing attire and video series

By Michelle Halferty

A woman who lives in the Red Bridge area is co-founder of a business/movement on its way to revolutionizing what women wear while giving birth. She also offers a series of 21 free online videos featuring highly respected experts on the topic Birthing with Dignity.

VIDEO SERIES

The Birthing With Dignity video series, which begins February 26, covers a wide range of topics focused more on mom than on baby.  Topics range from influencing your baby’s taste for foods in the womb, to preparing a nursery, to recalibrating your body with a 6-week diet that supports lactation, to experiencing postpartum depression while in the military. It also offers a new idea to help prevent birth from triggering trauma.  The videos can be viewed at www.birthingwithdignity.com. (The series has expired, and these links are no longer live - contact us if you would like to access this series.)

The  series is produced by Twirl, a woman-owned business committed to high quality apparel and gift items focused on “health returning to the healthcare industry “. It was co-founded by Red Bridge resident Linda Putthoff, owner of the Plaza Wellspring Studio in Leawood, and former south Kansas City resident Pam Fleischer, an attorney who also founded an organization for women with postpartum depression.

Putthoff, who has been a mindfulness coach for several years and assisted at many births, is one of the experts featured in the Birthing With Dignity video series. In it, she focuses on bringing mindfulness to the birthing experience and training the mother to release her anxieties during the birthing process.  As Putthoff notes, “a positive birth experience imprints a positive energy on a newborn baby.”

CLOTHING FOR LABOR

At the heart of the Birthing With Dignity movement is Putthoff and Fleischer’s desire to ensure that women feel beautiful and strong during their pregnancies and birth experiences.

This desire led to the design of Twirl’s innovative labor and delivery apparel. This comfortable and functional design is an alternative to traditional back-opening hospital gowns worn by pregnant women during labor. A traditional hospital gown must be covered with a front-opening gown or robe when out in the hallway of the hospital. Additionally, a traditional hospital gown can carry a connotation of trauma, illness or injury.

Twirl’s line of labor and delivery skirts, tops and front-closure gowns were designed with the comfort of the  mother in mind. Featuring high-end athletic fabric, the labor and delivery skirts (available in sizes extra small through 2x) and coordinating petal tops  provide easier access for exams and hold fetal monitors in place. It also provides maximum coverage during labor, while easily adjusting for skin-to-skin contact with baby, including while nursing.  

Twirl’s labor and delivery apparel can be purchased online. Putthoff and Fleischer have been meeting with hospitals about replacing their patient gowns with Twirl’s designs.  

Information about Twirl, its origins, visions, and gift and apparel products are available at the website www.twirlconnect.com.