How to Resolve Round Ligament Pain in Pregnancy
The two round ligaments that support the uterus are rope-like bands of connective tissue. As the baby and uterus grows, the ligaments stretch along with them, which sometimes results in a spasming pain which may be described as sharp, jabbing, stabbing or βa pingβ. Itβs pretty common for pregnant mamas to bring up βIs it normal to have this weird pain?β in the 4-7 month range. Here are a number of approaches that can bring relief, some that you can do with your hands right on the spot!
Doulas are Essential Support for Laboring Moms and Their Partners
In an impersonalized health care system, the professional doula has become a tremendous asset for modern birth in any setting. Doulas are experienced, trained, sensitive, labor-support privately hired by families to be with them during the labor and birth of their babies. They provide continuity of care, share knowledge of the normal process of labor and birth, and use their experience to ease the mother/babyβs birth process.
Why You Need to be Informed About Informed Consent
Informed consent is legally and morally mandated throughout ALL health care in the United States. This important process is to educate you about the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention. And that you have the protection to freely decide what course of action, or if no action, is in your best interest. In spite of ACOGβs clear definition of autonomous informed consent, it is still alarmingly absent from maternity care.
Why You Need to Ask These Questions in Your First Prenatal Appointment
Itβs time we educate the newly pregnant woman that the midwife or obstetrician that βdelivers' 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 βjust go alongβ, without asking questions and without actively choosing the sort of care you want. Hereβs whyβ¦.
How to Make Nourishing "Pregnancy Tea"
Drinking Red Raspberry Leaf tea is one thing a pregnant mama can do that nourishes her uterus, her baby, and her immune system all at the same time! Many of us midwives suggest that at the top of your list would be drinking red raspberry tea infusion throughout pregnancy, and especially during the third trimester and after birth!
Historically, pregnancy tea has been safely used by herbalists and midwives for nourishing all aspects of pregnancy, birth & postpartum for generations. And, contrary to internet dogma, red raspberry is most recommended to help PREVENT miscarriage, not cause it. (See my previous blog on red raspberry for more information and references.) This infusion is tasty, and nourishing for the whole family!
Expert Proof That Red Raspberry Tea is Safe Throughout Pregnancy
Itβs become fashionable to bicker on the web about the dramatic risks or benefits of drinking red raspberry leaf tea at certain stages of pregnancy. As a midwife who has safely used red raspberry herbals with pregnant and lactating clients for over four decades, Iβm rather astounded at the level of incomplete information and fear-mongering that is being promoted as authoritative. Letβs clear up the confusion!
What To Consider Before Flying in Late Pregnancy
This question gets asked a lot around the holidays. Hereβs my midwife perspective from helping mothers birth, and navigate family holidays, for over 40 years.
These are the Books That Midwives & Doulas Suggest You Read
Good books on pregnancy and birth will introduce you to new information, expand your understanding of both details and broader picture, and help you more effectively navigate your childbearing year with clarity and peace. As a midwife, Iβve found that the βWhat to Expect When Youβre Expectingβ series does just the opposite! Whether you are a stories person, or relax into lots of good data and studies, find the book(s) that help find your ballast and grow your confidence. Here are some tried and true volumes that generally have reliable info, respectful tones, and empower their readers to more capably navigate their birth journeys and health care experiences.
Healthy Baby, Healthy Birth: Why You Are Not Safer When Doctors Rush Your Pregnancy
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.
Safer Birth in a Barn? How Race Horses are Treated Better Than We Are
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!