Bonnie Maplestone
What's your name and role at MAMA?
Bonnie Maplestone, Osteopath and Prenatal yoga teacher (Osteopath). I have an Advanced Diploma in Yoga Teaching and have taught for over 20 years. I also work as a doula. I am a mother of two and have furthered my education in osteopathic treatment of babies and internal pelvic release and pelvic health.
What inspired you to work at MAMA?
I was teaching yoga and had the highest qualification I could get in Melbourne. I wanted to study something complementary to my yoga work, so I chose Osteopathy. Osteopathy is a five-year full-time commitment. Before doing Osteopathy, I enrolled in a Doula course to see if I could commit to five years of study as a mature student in the yoga business. I finished the doula course and completed the osteopathy qualifications in five years while I had my two children. It was a wild ride in which I had fertility issues, including a miscarriage. Pregnancy issues, including morning sickness and Pelvic instability, then I gave birth to a 4.1kg baby at 42-week gestation with no drugs. Postpartum, I had a uterine infection and an autoimmune condition. My second baby was born at 35 weeks via cesarian with a 2.5-week stay in the special care nursery for jaundice and feeding issues. At the end of those five years, with two healthy children, I had a moment where I realized I was a qualified osteopath, Doula, and Yoga teacher. I have gone through a wide range of personal experiences. This meant I was in a unique position to combine all my learning with my understanding and lived experience to help parents find some of the answers I couldn't find until after I had my babies.
What are you passionate about at MAMA?
I am very passionate about supporting parents. Becoming a parent is hard, and we don't acknowledge it enough. When parents find parenting hard, they think they have failed. Parenthood is a different set of skills you have never had to use before. You must also get to know a tiny human and everything that makes that baby them. Hard is normal. Hard work is not bad; it is rewarding, and just because you're finding it hard doesn't mean you're doing a lousy job. You're learning, your baby is learning, and you might just need a little help. I love helping parents, and when I see them come into the clinic a couple of months later and they look like parenting professionals, it's nice to think that maybe I had a hand in supporting their journey.
What are your favourite things about your role?
We talk a lot about how it takes a village to raise a baby and that, in the olden days, new parents had a community to help with their transition to parenthood. Modern-day parenting is often lonely; we get many answers from the internet or books that differ from our parent's journey. MAMA is fantastic community support; many healthcare professionals work predominantly on the journey to and beyond parenthood. All the Professionals here work together to truly support parents and babies through a trip you don't get a map for.
Where would we find you outside of MAMA?
Playing with my children. I love my work and my kids, and I don't have much time for anything else right now.