Hydration tips for sick kids: holistic, kid-friendly ways to prevent dehydration with broths, teas, juicy foods, red flags, natural remedies and supports.

Time is a frequently unnamed and unacknowledged medical complication plaguing most births currently taking place in hospitals and even birth centers. Considering the fast-paced nature of modern culture, perhaps it follows that the issue of time is having a never-before-seen, and increasingly disastrous effect, on pregnancy, birth and postpartum recovery.

The question of flying while pregnant comes up quite a lot around the holidays. It’s a common season for moms to be overwhelmed by family expectations and traditions, while simultaneously trying to act like their usual energetic selves even though their reserves are already low. The most important question to ask yourself is, How do you really feel about this trip?

Social media promotes and popularize a quick ‘bouncing back’ into life after having a baby. However, as a midwife I’ve seen the wonderful and far-reaching benefits of slowing down after your birth for a few weeks of physical and emotion restoration. The postpartum window is a precious and critical time for mother and baby to recover and settle in. And it helps the entire family to adapt to your new little family member too. Here are eight starting points that help protect you during your postpartum period…..

Our modern palate has no idea of how special cabbage has been through the ages! Its mild flavor and crisp texture is wonderfully adaptable, and it’s incredibly healthy in unique ways. This recipe is a delight in every season - warming in cool weather, cooling in hot weather, a little exotic when I’m craving carry-out, and healthy when we’re trying to stay on track.

Keeping our babies warm and cozy is essential to their well-being and comfort, but this seems to be lost knowledge. There are incredible benefits to warm babies – they tend to be more comfortable and relax, digest better, have less constipation, and are champions at weight gain! Here’s the radical truth - Newborns and infants both need to be wearing the same numbers of clothing layers as their adults, plus 1-2 more!

It’s common on the web to bicker about the dramatic risks or benefits of drinking red raspberry leaf tea at certain stages of pregnancy. (Namely that if used too early it “might cause a miscarriage!” or should be saved to the end as it can “put you into a strong labor.”) As a midwife who has safely used red raspberry herbals with pregnant and lactating clients for over four decades, there’s so much more to know! Unfortunately, a lot of incomplete information and fear-mongering has been repeated in authoritative ways. Let’s clear up the confusion!

It’s time we educate the newly pregnant woman that the midwife or obstetrician that ‘delivers' their baby is actually HELPING THEM to deliver their baby, and even more importantly, helping them along the journey of becoming a mother/parent. What this health care provider will do, could do, should do is quite a bit more than to just make sure everyone survives the whole thing. Many assume that whatever their OB does is automatically the best care to be had. However, it can be problematic to ‘just go along’, without asking questions and without actively choosing the sort of care you want. Here’s why….

Breastfeeding is a natural process but it doesn’t always come naturally. Many things are known to help boost breastfeeding success. One of the most powerful ways to position you and your baby for breastfeeding success is to choose a birth team that is skilled and enthusiastic about low intervention/low-tech birth. Their expertise in natural birth will help you both emerge from your birth empowered, feeling your best, and without needing a lot of extra recovery from being ‘done to’, all of which protects your baby’s instincts and ability to breastfeed skillfully.  

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