I had the most amazing opportunity to meet Robin who founded The Bumi Sehat foundation (one of our charities).  We visited her clinic in Ubud Bali.  I’m not sure what I was expecting but she blew all away all my expectations. She is the grandmothers of all grandmothers and what a humble grandmother she is. She’s an extremely busy woman and yet took time to sit down with us speak to us on a one to one level. Robin had gone to Indonesia in 1993 to figure out what she had wanted to do with her life.  She started helping Indonesians deliver their babies in their homes.  Eventually she became well known however there was a problem.  These women were embarrassed to have Robin come to their homes because of dirt floors, no plumbing and so forth.  They said to her  “Robin, we want to come to you”.  And that is how Bumi Sehat was born. . Robin’s organization will take in any pregnant mother and she will be there personally if they are a first time mother or feeling scared.  Everyone on the island of Bali knows who Robin is and she is known widely as Mother Robin.

Many women in Indonesia can’t afford to have their babies in a hospital.  If they do and can’t pay their bill before they leave they are not allowed to bring their child out of the hospital.  They will not feed your babies, wash your babies or change your baby’s diapers.  Mothers will sleep outside the hospital on newspapers just for the chance to feed their baby for which they are only allowed to do twice a day and for 20 minutes at a time.  According to Robin you should begin feeding your baby 18 times a day and these women are only allowed to do it twice!  If after a certain time the mother can’t pay their bill, the Indonesian government will put their baby up for adoption.

I quickly learned what a genius Robin is.   We asked her about the water birthing at her clinic and she started chuckling. She had said that a few weeks ago the Indonesian government had come to Bumi Sehat to shut down her water birthing by saying that she didn’t have the proper licensing or certification to do water births.  She realized that the “license” doesn’t exist is Indonesia.  So what did she do?  She created a “license” and took it back to the government and they were forced to continue to allow her to do it.   You do not want to come between Robin and births.  She will win every time.

She changed my perspective on human population.  I had always thought the world was populated enough and Mother Earth was slowly getting mad at us for creating more lives than she could handle.   She taught me that when babies are born and immediately yanked away from their mother to be washed and cleaned, the baby’s first experience in this world then becomes trauma.  The fact the umbilical cord is cut so soon is creating another problem in that the umbilical cord carries much needed blood and oxygen from the mother to the baby.  Again, more trauma to the baby.   During the time of labor and birth the mother is releasing a natural drug from her body to her child’s body called Oxytocin.  If you yank the baby away from the mother you are depriving the child of receiving this natural drug “called the love drug”.   That is a trauma that this new human being will carry through out their lives.

What I learned was not that the world was over populated but by birthing babies the way she is teaching will create a higher quality of beings on this planet.

One of my favorite quotes of Robin’s is “Gratitude is my religion”.  I could feel this emanating from her.  She felt so honored to be helping these women.  I felt honored to be in her presence.  She is a true inspiration and I find it comforting to know she is out there changing the world one baby at a time.