Welcome to Early Advantage® Childbirth Services.

At Early Advantage® we are dedicated to providing you with the knowledge and support you need to have a safe and satisfying birth experience. It is our goal to remain objective, promote awareness of your options in childbirth, and to encourage everyone involved (mothers, babies & families) to feel nurtured and respected during one of the most important times of your life.

MY STORY

My journey began the day we discovered we were pregnant with our first child. It was during this time that I realized that over my lifetime I had been programmed with various subliminal images of fear relating to women in labor. I discovered that modern media had done women an incredible disservice by instilling fear and apprehension that resulted in negatively formulating my ideas regarding labor and birth. I realized that this emotional baggage I had been carrying around with me needed to be quickly abandoned.

My newly formulated goal of dispelling fear, discovering the beauty of birth and finding the confidence within myself was attained through education. I started devouring every book I could find and took various childbirth classes. One of the first classes we took was a basic hospital course offered through our hospital. After completing the course I was left feeling that I had a very good understanding of what to expect of the labor and delivery staff but unfortunately I didn’t have a clue as to what I could do for myself. As a result we then signed up for a Bradley Method® class. Fortunately, through the Bradley® classes we learned tools to dissolve and resolve the negative associations we had regarding labor and birth and learned specific techniques that we could use to work with the contractions and allow labor to progress smoothly and naturally. We were ready!

In the summer of 1997 I delivered our first born with a wonderful midwife and labor & delivery nurses at Stanford Hospital. The entire process had unfolded smoothly and naturally with my supportive and loving husband at my side enabling me to feel safe and secure. We were so fortunate to experience the miracle that birth was intended to be and at this time I realized that this wasn’t just the birth of our son, but the birth of our family. It was such an incredibly empowering experience full of beauty, amazement, and unconditional love that I understood that these events shouldn’t be deemed (under normal circumstances) as a ‘medical emergency’ but that these experiences and emotions should be nurtured and respected. And with this, I had discovered my calling; to help encourage, support and educate other expectant families.

We now have 4 beautiful children all of whom were born naturally in a hospital setting using the Bradley Method®. We have truly been blessed.

ABOUT LORI

Lori Ismail, AAHCC, CBE encourages couples to feel empowered to allow themselves a safe and satisfying birth experience according to how they personally see their birth unfolding. She provides non-judgmental and objective educational, emotional, and physical support to new families and encourages couples to prudently set their own goals and priorities together as a team.

Lori has been working as a birth professional in the bay area since 1998 as a certified childbirth instructor affiliated with the Bradley Method® of Natural Childbirth, labor support Doula, and Lactation Counselor. She teaches independently at the Campbell Community Center, at Blossom Birth in Palo Alto and at Harmony Birth Resources in Campbell, California.

The Blossom Birth community sought Lori out to join their team as a member and staff in 2007. Harmony Birth Resources requested that Lori join their team as a member and staff in 2008 and again in 2010. She is currently a member and staff of Blossom Birth and Harmony Birth Resources and educates and supports families throughout the greater bay area.

Lori teaches Bradley Method® childbirth prep classes, standard childbirth preparation courses, childbirth intensives and refreshers. She works as a labor support doula and lactation counselor. She has continued her education by attending Advanced Doula Training workshops and Advanced Breastfeeding seminars with Treesa Mclean. Lori is a professional member of Bay Area Birth Information (BABI), Bay Area Birth Association (BABA), Blossom Birth, and the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS). She is also a yahoo group member of BABI Families, BABI Peer Review, Bay Area Bradley, Family-Harmony, Blossom Families, South Bay Doula Pool and South Bay Birth Circle.

Lori currently resides in the South Bay.