Gift-giving lists are not my usual thing, but you’ll love the unique gems on this one. These are incredible treasures I’ve found over the years for my boys as they’ve grown up. I’ve always tried to prioritize imagination, playfulness, fun, and quality materials for longevity and aesthetics. Many of these companies are smaller scaler, family-owned, or are proud of being ‘Made in the USA;’ plan accordingly because they may need human time to arrive (as opposed to Prime time).

As a midwife, I’ve spent considerable amount of time with young parents to-be in their springtime season. In this hopeful chapter, they often expect to birth their baby and mostly get back to their busy lives with a baby in tow. “But babies,” I tell them, “are not on iPhone time.” I teach them that we need to slow down for our babies, and take the time to be with these fresh little humans. Pretty consistently, the mothers who take the time to spend the first few weeks a little more quietly with their babies on their chests, especially with some “skin-to-skin” time, seem to ‘luck out’ more often with calm, bright-eyed babies who pretty comfortably settle into life along side their families....

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!

Homeopathy is wonderfully effective remedy approach to those who dread the fireworks’ season, and it’s safe for everyone including infants, elderly, pregnant, those with PTSD, those on anxiety medications, and even pets. Look for the best symptom match, and it’s fine to use more than one. It’s not unusual to have family members, including 4-legged ones, who find fireworks distressing. The noise may be overwhelming to fearful small children or anxious adults, or trigger former military members with PTSD memories. And as a midwife, I’ve often counseled pregnant women to ‘let their babies know’ what to expect if they are attending a fireworks event, so they will be less alarmed by the explosive noises.

I recently did an Instagram reel about (medicinal) weeds in my yard, and it led to being flooded with prostate questions! I know, LOL, that’s what I thought too! This is a very interesting incrimination of state of our health care system, that a midwife would seem like a great person to ask about men’s prostate health…but that’s a blog for anther day. So let’s take a look at how to help our men by helping their prostate, because nourishing and preventing is always a lot easier than solving a problem that builds for years! The prostate is a donut-shaped, walnut-sized glad that is wraps around the male urethra near the bladder. It produces the nutrient-rich fluid that nourishes and transports sperm (semen). The most common of prostate problems tend…..

Dying is a topic most people vigorously avoid, until they can’t. We’ve found that many natural modalities, such as essential oils & flower remedies, bring comfort & relief to the entire range of life experiences, including dying. And, as a midwife who's personally gone through a number of up-close family deaths, I can say, gently, that there is indeed healing & wholeness to being present in the dying, as well as in the birthing that's usually my focus.

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

Throughout time, each culture and most religions have had their own methods of purifying a space, sick room, or temple. Clearing your new house before you move in is a way of releasing it’s past, and starting with a sort of “clean slate” for the future. Clearing your house, in your own way, supports the presence of your home in being a nurturing haven for your family. There are many ways to cleanse a space. And, there is no exact recipe or perfect way to do this. The intention is to invoke clearing, cleansing, and release.

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.

Here’s a quick summary of the PFAS issue, and natural options to effectively relieve our bodies of PFAS’s toxic accumulation and reduce our continued exposure. Tap water is confirmed to be a major source of contamination, and there is specific mineral supplementation to consider in helping to shift the bio-burden of PFAS out of the body.