October, 2011
Happy Hallowe’en! What are you grateful this Monday? I am grateful for/to/because:
1.) I love this time of year with all of the mystery surrounding the spooky, scary stories!
2.) Today feels like a slow transition into the cold weather that is just around the corner…once November 1st hits the calendar I feel like going into hibernation mode.
3.) Indoor soccer! I get to play with both of my daughters, my sister, some of my best friends and I get the chance to make new friends as we have new additions to our team.
4.) The upcoming births I have in November.
5.) I am reminded about how passionate my team is about birth, breastfeeding and education.
6.) The prospect of new experiences this week.
7.) Starbuck’s anniversary blend coffee…thank you to a very thoughtful friend.
8.) The chance to really kick back and laugh A LOT with some brilliant friends on Friday night.
9.) The awesome little people that will trick or treat tonight.
10.) The chance to dress up tonight….like a witch.
11.) The upcoming workshop I am team teaching this weekend.
12.) Curried soups, stews and all things spicy!
We are feeling extra grateful and are extending our giveaway to all 8 of those that answered on our blog last week. Please email carol@babiesnaturally.ca and leave your address so we can get your prize out to you! Happy showering and bathing with your new soap! xo
Please tell us what you are grateful for…we really do want to know!
With much love,
Carol xoxo
Category : Blog
We at Babies Naturally are fortunate for many reasons. Every day, every one of us get to work with pregnant and postpartum families and alongside families as they parent their older children. Time and time again, we are absolutely astounded with the news we hear about the LACK of normal birth.
To us, normal birth means allowing, trusting, supporting the mum and babe (and dad!) on their journey to have their baby the way our bodies are intended. We believe in low -intervention to no intervention. We fully understand that there is a time and a place for intervention ( induction, augmentation, narcotics, anaesthetic) but intervention should not be an every day occurrence…..yet it is.
If any of you have watched The Business of Being Born, you know that birth is a business. Hospitals have bottom lines just as any other business. What we don’t understand is that for most hospitals, maternity fetal care is at the bottom of the totem pole. One of my friends, a midwife, was telling me today (she is from the UK ) that she does not believe that all of our “medical” (read—Obstetricians) practitioners practice evidence based medicine. Women have been disputing this fact for years. When I first started supporting women in birth, episiotomies were routine procedures…I had one myself with my first daughter almost 21 years ago. Enter Dr. Michael Klein, a researcher, family practitioner and obstetric practitioner from BC. Dr. Klein, through evidence-based medicine, research and practice proved that episiotomy did the opposite of what it was supposed to prevent…and women tore deeply where the “kindest cut” was intended to control tearing. Just because a medical “professional” feels that something MAY be beneficial does not mean it is so.
Most women tear due to coached pushing. We know this. Most coached pushing comes from not being able to feel contractions due to epidurals. Tearing is rampant in medicated births and central tendon injury is very traumatic and takes an extended time frame in which to heal. Trauma and most interventionist births go hand in hand.
Post traumatic stress disorder can be the result of trauma in births. Women with birth trauma cannot tend to and take care of their infants in the same way as women that experience normal birth. Left on their mother’s chest after delivery – not “processed” by being weighed, evaluated and wrapped – can benefit mums and babes and establish mechanisms that will last a lifetime. It is not just “bonding” – there are chemical reactions in the body and brain that enable trust, esteem and the roots of love to be laid down deep.
Just being skin to skin has an enormous impact on mums and babies. If you have ever witnessed a birth, you will understand how important this practice is. A woman will shake uncontrollably if her baby is taken away from her after delivery. She goes into a sympathetic state and only through the return of her infant, skin to skin, can she calm her central nervous system. Babies will have a similar response – their body temperatures will drop, their blood pressure levels will rise, their breathing will become tachycardiac – until they come back to their mothers.
Protecting the body’s innate instinct and the baby’s deep understanding of its role in birth is imperative. At Babies Naturally, we support, educate and empower families. We strive to be Guardians of Birth. We are invested in your experience because we know that you and your baby are capable of doing what you innately know to do….and that is Normal Birth. Know your rights, know your options, be your own advocate – you and your baby deserve it.
With much love,
Carol
xoxo
Category : Blog
This last week has been a busy one and I am very grateful for/to/because:
1.) As I write this, I am looking out over a lake at the Deerhurst Resort. It is beautiful.
2.) I am very grateful that my family is with my children in London.
3.) I do not feel sick, weak or awful this week!
4.) We have had a lovely load of positive and thankful gratitude notes delivered to Babies Naturally over the last week.
5.) Every.single.one. of our summer childbirth education class couples had unmedicated births!
6.) I get to be with my love.
7.) My group of students are amazing, inspiring and full of heartfelt wisdom.
8.) I have discovered that I am Grok like…more to follow at a later date.
9.) My legs hurt from hot yoga at Yoga Shack….from Friday.
10.) I have mapped out a bookstore to pick up Ami McKay’s The Virgin Cure on its release date tomorrow!
11.) There is more love in my life than I ever thought I deserved.
12.) I don’t have to cook dinner tonight!
Please tell us what you are grateful for – we really do want to know! The first five people to comment on our blog will receive a bar of The Filthy Lass Soap Company’s Dirty Baby and the new fall release bar, Cindy’s Cranberry Apple, named after Carol’s best friend, Cindy!
With much love,
Carol
xoxoxoxo
Category : Blog &Uncategorized
At Babies Naturally support mums in breastfeeding before they deliver their babies by educating them. We provide support after delivery and all the way through to weaning. Lately, we have been supporting extended breastfeeding and want to know this:
Did you breastfeed your toddler?
How long did you breastfeed?
What were the challenges you faced with extended breastfeeding?
What were the perceptions of everyone around you (family) as you continued to breastfeed?
How did your breastfeeding relationship come to an end?
Please tell us how you came to be an extended breastfeeder and what you loved MOST about it. We will be publishing these results at a later date in an educational format. Please provide your answers here on our blog. We thank you in advance!
The Babies Naturally team xoxo
Category : Blog
Monday….manic, maven, mundane…whatever you choose, be grateful you lived another week to see another Monday!
This Monday I am grateful for/to/because:
1.) The wicked virus that knocked me flat last week is losing its grip on me.
2.) I woke up to the best coffee this morning…it is local, too! Las Chicas Del Cafe coffee, Don Rey’s private reserve Viennese Roast was brought home by my 18 year old from her work (Remark Fresh Market…oh how I love you too, Remark!) and it is delicious!
3.) I was inspired endlessly by my students yesterday. Something shifted in class and we all saw our intent magnified.
4.) I have a nicely paced week ahead of me this week and it really does seem manageable.
5.) Our little group of birth warriors and guardians of breastfeeding enjoyed the Babies, Tots and You show yesterday.
6.) I was not home as the whole student council from Banting High School gathered at my house and ate all of the baking I had done (for them!) on Saturday. You would have never known there were 24 teenagers in my house by the time I got home.
7.) The fact the sun will come out today is marvelous.
8.) I am savouring every page of my current novel. I am giddy with the prospect of the next novel I will read: The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay is released next week….eeeeekkkk!
9.) Heavier sweaters will warm me over the next chilly months.
10.) Indoor soccer starts next week!
11.) There is spice everywhere. Just look.
12.) My fur boy turns six today. Although he drives me crazy I could not live without his love. Sick, fevered and miserable last week, he curled into the back of my legs, accompanied me to the bathroom and snuggled into my back when it hurt.
Please share with us in this space what you are grateful for on this soon to be sunny Monday. We really do want to know.
With much love,
Carol xoxo
Category : Blog
A mother’s soul is the heart of a family. To an anxious teenager, answering a question about their changing body can calm a worried mind. To a newborn, a soft, full breast, a warm chest and familiar thump of a beating heart will settle things down. To a husband, calm assurance about an upcoming promotion, meeting or workload can ease the thoughts in his head. A mother’s soul does not just exist in her own family…it knows no boundary.
A mother’s soul steps in and nurses the babe of another while that mother has chemotherapy. A mother’s soul fills mason jars with soup to take to the elderly neighbour across the road. A mother’s soul insists on taking on one more thing to help out where and when needed.
A mother’s soul is fractured at times….the first time she is left alone with her newborn to work things out after the visitors have gone and her husband has returned to work. It is here that support in the form of a mother that has gone before will sustain her until she is familiar with the rhythms of her new life. She is occupying a new space as a mother. She is working out how this feels – and at times it is terrifying. She is exhausted. She is healing. If she has had a traumatic birth, her cells are trying to make sense of it all. Her road to this healing will be harder, longer and need the love of another mother’s soul…perhaps many of them. A mother’s soul needs someone to bear witness. Every day. A mother’s soul yearns-it longs- for a village. Competition, comparison, deadlines and productivity of a benign nature will afford no balm for a mother’s soul. Self judgement, self-criticism and self-loathing will neither help nor soothe a mother’s soul.
If her children are safe, thriving and most of all, happy, there can be no finer elixir for a mother’s soul. Understanding the change within herself that only comes after giving birth will enrapture a mother’s soul. Being guided along this path by those that have gone before and know the hardships of “growing children” warms a mother’s soul.
The knowledge that staying connected to her children and her family means sometimes she needs to be without them to decompress allows space to breathe in a mother’s soul. Hard days, long nights, sick children, her own aging parents and the plain emotionality of some days threaten the depth of a mother’s soul.
We can be brought to our knees by the most tender acts, yet ravaged by the unjust brutality of our world. Our souls will recover, given a soft place to land. Our intuition will point us in the direction of true north if we allow our souls to be our pilots. A mother’s soul needs to be nurtured, protected and given space to heal. At times, pieces of it may need to be retrieved. Mother to mother, soul to soul, from the light in me to the light in you, live from your soul. We can collectively be powerful beyond measure. We can protect the souls of those that will come after and heal those that have come before. Together.
With much love,
Carol
Category : Blog
As I write this, in bed, with the knowledge that I will get to spend another day with family, I am especially grateful. This week I am grateful for/because/to:
1.) The beautiful weather that we have been blessed with this long weekend. I was fortunate enough to lie out on a lounger with a great new book yesterday.
2.) The great new book I am reading…The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Thanks, Allison, it is fantastic.
3.) A gorgeous cedar trail in our neighbourhood…it will be part of my running route with Ned.
4.) The farm share that we participated in this season. We had our last pick up on Saturday, which makes me sad. We said good bye to our farmer with big hugs, knowing that what we have frozen will remind us of our magical trips to the farm once a week for the last four months.
5.) The knowledge that, every night, as I go to bed, I can fall safely into the arms of the very best man I have ever known. Words cannot describe how grateful and blessed I feel for this.
6.) All things pumpkin….nail polish, pie, pancakes.
7.) Re-discovering my Moondance CD by Van Morrison. “Into the Mystic” is one of my favourite songs, ever.
8.) No heating or cooling in the house except for the open windows…
9.) The awesome women I work with, and how, when I said to them on Friday that I could not work this weekend (because I am feeling a bit burnt out and need these three days in the shelter of my home and family) they said “don’t worry…I/we will take care of things.”
10.) The gentle reminders from my children to slow down.
11.) The comfort of a warm pair of pajamas.
12.) The endless possibilities that scrying into the flame of a fire can bring about.
On this particularly grateful Monday I would love to know what you are grateful for. Enjoy the day…may it be restful, rejuvenating and full of grace for each of you and your families.
With much love,
Carol xoxoox
Category : Blog
A day late….all relative, though, isn’t it? We have been really really busy at Babies Naturally with breastfeeding clinics that are full to the gunnels with mums and babes, childbirth education classes, breastfeeding support, Calm Mum and beautiful, beautiful babies being born. We have also been attending continuing education courses on breastfeeding and are busy planning for the next year. All the while, we are mothers to our own children… and we all know how busy that is. We are, however, grateful for/because/to:
1.) A gorgeous thank you letter Shannon and I received for the birth she attended with a first time couple. In the letter they captured their birth journey and how Shannon stood beside them every step of the way and far exceeded any expectations they had of her. Shannon told me all the way along how much she loved them…they feel the same for her and I am once again reminded JUST what loving energy can accomplish!
2.) The knowledge that I am not alone in feeling that the world has been spinning just A LITTLE off its axis of late.
3.) Settling in. The kids are situated into the routine of school once more and are attuned to the new schedule again.
4.) The enormity of a project we are all undertaking at Babies Naturally. I am not sure what the outcome will be, but I know I have got the best team anyone could ask for.
5.) We have a new practitioner on board! Stay tuned for all of the awesome details about her….we all love her and are grateful for what she is bringing to our team!
6.) Vivid hues of fall…everywhere.
7.) Cooler nights for better sleep.
8.) Pumpkin pancakes…gluten and dairy free…ridiculously yummy with apple butter…(recipe to follow in this blog..)
9.) Starbuck’s anniversary blend coffee…so delicious with aforementioned pancakes.
10.) Awesome business partnerships….networking with other organizations to enhance so much in the lives of mums!
11.) Carrot ginger soup. (recipe for that too!)
12.) Warm snuggles on cool nights with my favourite human being.
Please tell us what you are grateful for today….we really do want to know!!
With much love,
Carol xoxo
Pumpkin pancakes:
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1.5 cups gluten free flour
3/4 of water
1tsps. of flax seed mixed with 2 tsps. of water to form “goo”
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup sucanant, cane sugar or other sweetener
Mix gluten free flour with spice. In a separate bowl, mix puree, “goo” and water. Add wet to dry ingredients and stir just enough to mix.
Cook on skillet..makes about 12 pancakes. Serve with apple butter.
Carrot ginger Soup:
2 cooking onions
2 cloves of garlic
4 teaspoons of fresh ginger
4 pounds of carrots, cleaned and chunked
6 cups of vegetable broth
6 cups of water
salt, pepper
Saute onions in olive oil, salt and pepper. When golden, add garlic, crushed or chopped, and ginger. Saute until garlic is soft. Add broth and bring to a gentle boil. Add carrots and stir. Add water, bring to a boil once again. Let simmer for about 45 minutes. Take off heat, cool and with an immersion blender, puree soup. Return to heat before serving. Makes 12 cups!
Category : Blog