johncsnider

My placenta went home with me for baby #2 and baby #3 to encapsulate my placenta (a.k.a. "happy pills"). I started running really low with baby #3's happy pills and a friend suggested that I make a tincture that I could use if I ran out of pills and also for hormone balancing during menopause ( 1-3 capsules full in 8 oz. grain alcohol) . Jennifer Leigh Mayer , a Placenta Alchemist with Mama Moon NYC and Brooklyn Placenta Services has shared her recipe for making your own placenta tincture.  Thanks Jennifer for this great placenta tincture tutorial! DIY Placenta Tincture DIY tinctures are a wonderful remedy for mothers to use during the postpartum period. Many mothers use the tincture during times of transition such as teething, weaning, change in caregiver or even travel. They are easeful to prepare, all you need is 7-10 drops of tincture in a bit of water. The effect is a gently uplifting emotional support. This step-by-step guide will teach you everything you need to...

http://www.ounewsbureau.com/?attachment_id=4275 My friend Liz had a midwife during her first (of three) pregnancy. Her midwife explained to her that giving birth is like running a marathon . There is no way that you are going to have a good experience running a marathon if you just show up the day of the race and start running. If anyone has had a good experience doing this, keep it to yourself! I have ran and was glad that I trained. I hear from endless women who made little to no effort to prepare for their baby's actual birth. They planned for the nursery, the clothes, their diets, their maternity leave but completely left out the birth. I've heard pregnant women say "I'm just going to show up and get that wonderful epidural" or "my doctor is going to step me through it". I know no one in these situations who looks back on their experience as beautiful and being in control of their body. So here's the issue with those thoughts. That epidural is u...

Like many parenting and health topics, circumcision is a very personal decision. Once it is done it will affect your boy for the rest of his life. Kenyan boy taking part in is circumcision ceremony. image: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7536892.stm This is a non-judgemental page. Researching circumcision is entertaining! It is traditionally a religious or cultural decision where the historical reasoning is conflicting. Some circumcised to increase sexual pleasure (now known as a myth) while others circumcised to decrease sexual pleasure and decrease masturbation. The world is very polarized on this topic. Even within Kenya where I witnessed the circumcision ceremony of teenaged boys, the decision is tribal. Some tribes do it and some don't. In the United States, the rate of circumcision changes based on where you live. The west coast has low instances while the east coast has high instances of circumcision. My town is very divided. Most of the moms that I know chose not to c...

Moms are evenly divided on this fence! So many of us have been touched by a illness or fear the worst for our babies. The idea of banking the blood inside the umbilical cord after delivery to one day heal someone in your family in enticing. The cord blood is so amazing that there are benefits to letting your own child immediately receive the blood. What to do? Use it now or later or not at all? Use it now Some moms keep the umbilical cord attached until it drains of blood and stops pulsing to know that the baby has received the final nourishment. The NYTimes reported that " a new analysis has found that delaying clamping for at least a minute after birth, which allows more time for blood to move from the placenta, significantly improves iron stores and hemoglobin levels in newborns and does not increase the risks to mothers". Other moms enjoy a "lotus birth" where they keep the cord attached to the baby for around 10 days until it naturally falls off. Even  ABC New...

As parents we all want to see our children reach their highest potential. We know that we cannot protect them from every danger, toxin, and heartache. We all want to make the decisions that will have the best long term outcome on our children. Some moms and dads have known the secret to a higher I.Q. for thousands of years. Yet it comes as a news-breaker in papers such as the NYTimes when JAMA Pediatrics, a major mainstream medical journal, publishes a study about it. The World Health Organization recommends doing this for at least 2 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends doing it for at least 1 year.  Breastfeeding 1+ years WILL increase your child's I.Q. (for those who have already chosen the formula path, have adopted, or have serious medical issues I am in the process of writing a post on how to pick the healthiest formula so check back and don't feel left out!) Below is the latest study including the results and conclusion (the important part). ...

This is the real world, not Hollywood, but here goes my first video!  Here I am demonstrating how to cloth diaper using prefolds.  This is my very easy way of diapering where I only do one load of laundry per week!  Enjoy and don't forget to check out why I cloth diapered baby #3 and the details of cloth diapering the easy way with prefolds . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uk975ujPXQ&feature=player_embedded

Baby #3 was born while I still had 3 kids aged 4 and under at home. I had to shave down daily tasks to a "survival" level yet I continued to cloth diaper my baby because I had discovered a great system . It is so easy that I had to share it with you. Here's a video of the diapers in action. Disposable Diapers Do you ever think about disposable diapers? They are made in a factory with a ton of chemicals and plastics then transported to your local store. What a carbon footprint! Oh wait, after they are used, they sit in a landfill for 450 years according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency . Yeah, yeah disposable diapers are not going to cause the human race to cease but it hardly feels like it helps our environment. I have heard arguments that cloth diapering is worse than disposable diapers because water is used to wash them.  Maybe if you wash daily but I wash weekly and there is no way that one load of wash comes anywhere near the environmental impact of makin...

Have you felt that afternoon or mid-morning lack of energy? Do you reach for something sweet or caffeinated to give you a jolt? That's right, we all know it. As good as they taste, those sweets and caffeinated foods/beverages give you a cheap thrill of energy then they drain you the rest of the day. Here are 10 ways to increase you energy without sugar or caffeine from my days at Integrative Nutrition (amended for you moms): 1) Reduce or eliminate caffeine:  The ups and downs of caffeine include dehydration and blood sugar ups and downs, making mood swings more frequent. If you need something to get you going in the morning try some hot lemon water, a decaf or herbal tea or a weak coffee/tea until you adjust. 2) Drink water: Most Americans are chronically dehydrated. Pregnancy and breastfeeding requires you to consume even more water. Before you go to sugar or caffeine, have a glass of water and wait a few minutes to see what happens. Caution: Soft drinks are now Am...