Down with the gown: Local doulas develop stylish skirts and tops for expectant mothers

By Pam Mellskog
© 2011 Longmont Times-Call

After delivering her first baby 10 years ago, a Berthoud mom boycotted the hospital gown that exposed her backside and bunched up as she moved in and out of different labor positions.

Carri Grimditch instead wore a homemade birthing skirt — an oversized miniskirt with a drawstring in a purple floral print — during the labor and delivery of her next three babies.

“You’re not getting your tonsils out at the hospital. You’re having a baby!” she said. “But some women don’t know that they don’t have to wear the gown.”

As a certified doula — a professional, nonmedical childbirth assistant — Grimditch, 34, designed her line of BINSI birthing skirts and tops to make the option available to other expectant moms.

“(The hospital gown) made me feel less like a soon-to-be mother and more like patient No. 2453-A,” Grimditch said. “Instead of walking in and putting on something drab and clinical, you can wear something that you’ve chosen.”

Research shows that personalizing the birth environment with keepsakes, music and scents decreases a woman’s stress, she said.

Longmont resident and fellow certified doula Kimberly Taylor joined the company in 2005 as a business partner.

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