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!

A midwife’s tongue-in-cheek poem, a Dr. Seuss take-off of all the places and ways she helped moms deliver their babies (or catch, as midwives say.)

One of the best ways to keep track of a healthy baby is to notice its movements, as pregnant mothers tend to do naturally. Understanding kick counts can enhance a mother’s confidence, empower her to independently monitor the well-being of her baby, reduce anxiety, and improve outcomes. These are the directions I give my midwife clients, including the extra details for the most accurate kick test which are commonly missed in most directions to pregnant mothers.

There are wonderful benefits of more outside time for our kids EVERY DAY.

Here are just a few: Children breathe cleaner air. Indoor air has the off-gassing from all kinds of man-made materials, as well as all the germs and carbon dioxide from the humans.

Stress is reduced. Everyone needs to have a break from hearing, “Inside voice, no running, stop climbing, no fighting!” Improved coordination. AND MORE!

As a midwife, I’ve gotten calls from mamas about spotting for over 40 years, here is the conversation that I have with them. Women are scared, their husbands and partners are scared. People need gentle reassurance, and information on their choices, so they can make decisions that are best for them.

Heartburn is such a pain! It’s caused when hydrochloric acid (HCL), which is used by the stomach to digest food, backs up into the esophagus and irritates sensitive tissues. This creates a burning sensation in the stomach or chest, and pain behind the breastbone. It’s certainly not fun for any of the 60+ million Americans that suffer with it, but as midwives hear from our clients every day, it’s the absolute bane of pregnancy.

Pregnant mamas have two complicating factors that make them more likely to suffer from heartburn.

It’s hard to know where to even begin on the topic of help, frankly. I’ve started this blog over and over, with endless perspectives in my mind about what it means to be willing to ask for help, and to receive it. This is a big theme in my life, as like so many midwives I’m a helper by trade and personality. A great deal of my career has been spent encouraging mothers to ask for and receive support, and teaching them that it also gifts the giver. But recently the theme was up close and personal; I needed quite a lot of physical help while I healed from a ruptured disc in my back, right at the time I thought I’d be celebrating a new season of independence by stepping back from being on call after 40 years.

Most importantly, it’s the mama who ‘delivers’ her baby! She grows her baby, and she births it; I do mean vaginally or surgically. The process of birth, all births, encompasses our body, mind and spirit. And, mother-babies may be assisted in their births by a range primary care professionals such as OB’s and Midwives, as well as their partners/spouses, friends, and professional doulas. Women have choice in their birth attendants and birth locations, even towards the end of their pregnancies, or within insurance boundaries, hospital proximity, or tight budgets.

It’s wonderful to revisit the smooth, silky texture of our childhood jello with clean ingredients. This recipe is ridiculously quick and easy; I’ve broken out each step here for the newbies who may, like I did, feel intimated using plain gelatin for the first time. But everyone’s a jello expert the second time around!