Would you like an empowered birth?

Welcome to Empowered Birthing, a one-stop shop to serve all your birthing needs! Comprehensive birth services are provided by Jamie Crouse Gwynn, Ph.D, CD(DTI), serving families in Austin, TX and the surrounding North and East communities. I support the birthing family throughout pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period by providing educational, emotional, and physical support to help you achieve the birth experience you've been dreaming of. You can choose from an array of services to support you in the birth and postpartum period including birth and postpartum doula services, birth and newborn photography, childbirth education, breastfeeding support, and Elimination Communication consultation. I look forward to supporting your family through this exciting stage in your life!

How can Empowered Birthing Help You?

I help you prepare for birth: giving referrals to the best providers in your area, providing childbirth education, assisting you in writing a birth plan, giving you resources available in your community, showing you pain management techniques for labor, and being available whenever questions arise.
As a doula, I provide continuous labor support, from the time you call until 1-2 hours after your birth. I will be by your side the whole time, encouraging you through the unknowns of labor, helping you to release your fears and trust your intuition about your body and your birth, massaging your back, suggesting comfortable positions to labor in, guiding you in breathing and relaxation techniques to keep you comfortable and your labor progressing smoothly.
I facilitate communication with your care provider, advocating for your voice in making informed decisions about your care, and helping to reduce the risk of unnecesary medical interventions during labor and birth. Having a doula has been shown statistically to lower the need for many medical interventions, such as pain medication, Pitocin to induce or augment your labor, and lower the risk of needing an assisted delivery with vacuum or forceps or a Cesarean birth, even decreasing the length of labor.
I encourage intimacy between you and your partner during labor and birth, allowing your partner to take as active a role in the birth as you both desire, while guiding your partner in techniques to support you better. I work with birth partners to create a support team that meets all your unique needs during the birthing time.
I help to create a peaceful, family-centered birthing environment that welcomes your baby into loving arms, which has been shown to increase your satisfaction with your birth and encourage a closer attachment with your baby.
I assist in establishing your breastfeeding relationship, helping to get that first latch right, educating you on positions and normal infant feeding behaviors, and troubleshooting any problems you may be having. Research shows mothers who use a doula have better success with breastfeeding.
As a birth photographer, I preserve these memories of your labor and birth, and immediate postpartum so you can see for yourself your immense strength as you bring your baby into the world as well as the love and support of your partner and family, and capture those first cuddles with your new baby. The images from these special moments will be treasured forever.
I help ease you through the early postpartum period: troubleshooting any breastfeeding problems you may have, teaching you how to care for your new baby, helping your family adjust to its newest member, making sure you have adequate support, directing you to community resources for any difficulties you may be facing. You also have access to a cloth diaper and baby carrier rental library so you can try out products to see what suits you before making important purchases.