Hand, Foot and Mouth disease spreads easily through day care centers and kindergarten classes. It brings great misery to families, is highly contagious, and can be hazardous to the immune-compromised. Let’s review it’s symptoms and typical course, which will help you choose your best natural, therapeutic response

Our deeper understandings of birth may come to us from the most unexpected sources, and at the most unanticipated times. During a stretch when I was selling insurance, I found myself in a very unusual place: a stud farm for some of the most valuable horses in the world. One of the stalls emanated energy that felt like so much like birth, I peeked in the large horse box. It was a familiar scene, but with a four-legged mama; a swollen mare was pacing restlessly in the afternoon quiet, deeply breathing and blowing. Her unborn foal was already worth about three million dollars (in 1990 dollars!) because of the lineage it shared with two Triple Crown winners. As horseman explained the barn birth I was about to see, it was entirely shocking how MUCH better it was than humans experience in modern hospitals!

Having the kids off school during the summer is a mixed bag. The long-anticipated freedom from being over-scheduled quickly gives way to the stressful fatigue of managing high-intensity kids looking for outlets. It’s exhausting to constantly be ‘herding cats’, or trying to muscle our kids into ‘helping’ or ‘things to occupy them’. As parents, we can still reap the helpful benefits of rhythm during the summer free-for-all by getting creative. Here are 10 parenting tips to beat summer boredom!

During pregnancy, women are already feeling extra warm because of their hormonal changes and increased blood flow.  When the weather turns super-hot, midwives look for all the tricks to help their miserable mamas stay a little more comfortable and guard against dehydration and overheating.  

Here are the strategies that helped me get through my own hot pregnant July, and that help my midwife clients get through their hot season.

The dazzling heat of a bright summer day makes it a perfect time try some new refreshments.  The herbs are growing wildly in many yards and gardens, new flavors are popping up at your local farmer’s market, and the eagerness for thirst quenchers buys you a little grace as you try out new recipes. Herbal teas are simple, tasty ways to keep everyone hydrated with budget-friendly variety and nourishing minerals.

Seeing the wonderfully quick relief of my kiddo’s bee sting with a single homeopathic dose and drop of essential oil topically got me hooked on keeping a natural first aid kid handy. Here are the most effective natural remedies to keep on hand to safely and effectively relieve the pain and swelling of bee stings, wasp stings, and all the biting insects!

Mothers & babies sometimes struggle with yeast or thrush infections after birth.  While yeast is not usually a ‘serious’ problem, it can cause a very serious level of discomfort and pain for mothers and babies both. The infant’s digestion may be disrupted over the long term, and if they are being breastfed, mama’s commitment to breastfeed may also erode due to the misery is causes.

Support your family’s gut health with gentle, natural remedies for constipation, regularity, and digestive wellness. Learn what healthy bowels look like—and how to improve them with food, hydration, movement, and family-friendly solutions.

For many of us, it’s frankly hard to know where even to begin on the topic of being willing to ask for and receive help.  The last couple years this theme has been up close and personal as I’ve needed a great deal of help and accommodation while healing from a ruptured disc. In the beginning, it was really uncomfortable!  But I’ve learned that it is a healing journey to explore the flow of give and take and to lean into the balance of inhale and exhale.

The adrenals produce over 50+ different hormones which affect nearly every system and organ of the body. Our capacity to handle stress is greatly reduced when these glands become dysfunctional, they dysregulate in response to the extreme pressure to produce enough of the body’s primary anti-stress hormone, cortisol. Here are the epidemic symptoms that nearly everyone seems to have, and four simple things you can do today to start restoring healthy adrenal function.