Embrace Your Mommy Brain
It often starts in pregnancy, the sudden inability to remember names, appointments and other details of daily life. You may find yourself struggling to remember the word for toothpaste or that your favorite show is on every Wednesday. This can leave you feeling unsettled and frustrated. You may wonder where you left your brain and [...]
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Getting Enough Protein in Pregnancy as a Vegan
As a most-of-the-time vegetarian/vegan and full-time pregnant lady, I am so tired of hearing about protein. I’m dragging my feet writing about it. It seems like so much of my energy is consumed by counting protein grams every bloody moment of every bloody day. And I don’t like counting anything that I put into my [...]
If I Had Only Known…my Top 5 Pregnancy Annoyances
Before I got pregnant with my twins, I considered myself to be pretty knowledgeable about pregnancy and childbirth. I am a birth doula, and grew up with lots of pregnant women around me. So when I started experiencing things that no one had ever told me about, I was a bit peeved. Aren’t women supposed to [...]
Vegan Eating During Pregnancy
My preference for veganism has always provided me with some challenges. Now that it’s not just my body, but my baby’s, too, the challenges have revved up. I love vegan food. While I will now eat a bite of meat occasionally, or indulge in some cheese here or there, meat and dairy products don’t sit [...]
Preparing for Pregnancy
Someone asked me the other day how many planned pregnancies I see, versus surprise pregnancies. It’s hard to say, because by the time I see pregnant moms, they are just excited to be pregnant! If you are trying to get pregnant, or are getting ready to try, there are some things you can do to [...]
Herbs for Pregnancy and Postpartum Class
Local herbalist and Bloom Spokane professional member Sarah Patterson is offering a new class for pregnant and postpartum women to learn about safely using herbs to treat common pregnancy-related issues. What an awesome new resource for our community!
Class is on November 16th from 6:30 – 8:30pm at the New Moon Family Wellness Center in Spokane. Cost is $10.
Pregnant With Twins? Now What?
Being pregnant with twins is hard. It’s hard on your body and your mind. During my twin pregnancy, I found it to be most difficult mentally (once the puking stopped around week 15 anyway). The medical establishment, and therefore most people, expects a woman pregnant with twins to have an elective cesarean section around week 38. This is not what I wanted, so I spent a lot of time researching my options. I am also a birth doula, so I went into pregnancy with a lot of knowledge.
The first thing to remember with any pregnancy is that you MUST be flexible. I wanted a natural, unmedicated birth. I did not get that. I spent my time finding a doctor who was supportive of the birth that I wanted, but he did lay out some guidelines. [...]
The Only Due Date Calculator You Need
I’m happy to have found a “due date” calculator that actually sets proper expectations for women. It gives you a safe range of dates in which you can expect your baby to be born and explains why our current cultural thinking around due dates isn’t helpful.
“One of the biggest obstacles to natural birth is misunderstanding your “due date.” A due date does not mean there is only one safe day for your baby to be born. It is meant to establish a range of time that your baby is mature and safe to be born. Because modern obstetrics narrows this to a specific day, unnecessary interventions, like inducing labor, come into practice.” [...]
Prenatal Pilates and Birth Education
I have been reminded, once again, how lucky we are here in Spokane to have so many passionate, smart, skilled and caring people working to educate and empower the women in our community! I recently met Elizabeth Jones, a local Pilates instructor and physical rehabilitation specialist who has focused much of her career on working with pregnant women. As we began talking, something Elizabeth said captured my attention. “Society has lost interconnectedness with families and with birth.” I was drawn to this statement because it encapsulates the core reason that so many of us (midwives, doulas, educators, etc.) do what we do. We are trying to reconnect women and families to the importance of birth in our lives. Elizabeth Jones does this by providing women a way to stay in good physical health while preparing their bodies and minds for birth. [...]
The Bradley Method: Up Close & Personal
Even though I’ve had two children myself, until this past week I had never attended a Bradley Method class. I title this post “Up Close & Personal” because I don’t think there’s another pregnancy or birth preparation class out there that provides such complete information on the physical and mental aspects of natural birth…and it doesn’t leave out one juicy detail. The idea is that with such intense preparation, couples will be prepared to achieve a natural birth and/or make knowledgeable decisions about medical interventions should they become necessary. [...]
