Today marked the launch of Mother's Advocate, a new site from InJoy Birth & Parenting Videos, and to kick things off, InJoy partnered with Lamaze International to produce a booklet and video set based on the Six Lamaze Healthy Birth Practices. Both are freely downloadable from Mother's Advocate.

Healthy Birth Your Way: Six Steps to a Safer Birth is designed around two principles.

Common sense tells us and research confirms that there are two tried-and-true ways to make birth as safe and healthy as possible.

• First, make choices that support and assist your natural ability to give birth.
• Second, avoid practices that work against your body's natural ability, unless there is a good medical reason for them.

Print materials and video content correspond to each of Lamaze's evidence-based Healthy Birth Practices.

1. Let labor begin on its own.
2. Walk, move around, and change positions throughout labor.
3. Bring a loved one, friend, or doula for continuous support.
4. Avoid interventions that are not medically necessary.
5. Avoid giving birth on your back, and follow your body's urges to push.
6. Keep your baby with you-it's best for you, your baby, and breastfeeding.

Childbirth educators and other birth professionals, please feel free to share ideas in the comments section about how to use these materials in your classes and other interactions with expectant women.

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