Have you ever wondered why women hire doulas and whether this type of support person is someone you need on your birth team? Doulas are birth professionals who can fill specific roles in both the hospital and home birthing environments. While a doctor, nurse, and midwife is focused mainly on the health of your baby and you, a doula is focused on helping you through the birthing process itself.

Watch a video on what a doula does The Essential Ingredient: Doula

A doula’s help in the hospital environment can make a huge difference in the outcome of the birth for both mama and baby. If you have taken the time to write a birth plan because there are things that are critically important to you, it will be well worth your money to hire a doula. She will be the best tool in your bag for helping your birth plan materialize as closely as possible.

Doulas in the Hospital

In the hospital, a doula functions as labor support, addressing your physical needs during labor. But her main role is as your advocate. An experienced doula will have seen many birth outcomes. She will be accustomed to working with hospital professionals in a friendly and non-challenging way; yet, she will be assertive enough to stand up for your non-negotiables for you when you are scared, in pain, and out of your comfort zone.

A good doula is worth her weight in gold when she helps you avoid a cesarean by keeping you calm and informed and helping you feel in control so that your labor goes more smoothly. She is equally valuable when she looks at you squarely and says, “Yes, this c-section is going to be necessary,” because later you can rest assured that you did everything you could do to avoid it.

Doulas at Home

A doula’s role changes a bit during a home birth, where she does not have to function as your advocate unless the home birth ends in a hospital transfer. In these cases, a doula might be able to stay with you at the hospital if your midwife cannot. She will then become the only birth professional you have seen throughout the entire labor. Not only can she be a huge comfort as the one consistent, friendly face that has been there all along, but she can also provide invaluable information to the medical staff at the hospital.

Usually, however, a home birth doula focuses on helping the mama through her labor pains without the medication available in the hospital. She might suggest pain management techniques you didn’t think of on your own, remind you to breathe, give you drinks or food when appropriate, and – perhaps most importantly – help you to not become overwhelmed by fear.

How to Hire a Doula

An expectant mama will usually begin to see a doula in the middle of her pregnancy so that she has time to develop a positive relationship with her. It is essential that you feel you can trust your doula on every level if she is to be a help to you during childbirth.

You can find doulas in several ways. Online, there are directories that allow you to search by zip code or city, such as the DONA International database and the Find a Doula service. You can also do a search on La Leche League International to find a local chapter in your area. Your local La Leche League leader would likely have a few names she could share with you. Or, if you enjoy social media, you can try putting the word out among your Facebook friends, since a word-of-mouth reference is usually the best kind.

The rates that doulas charge vary, particularly by location. In our area, most charge $200 – $300 total. If you want to give yourself the best possible chance for a smooth childbirth – at home or hospital – this will be a few hundred dollars well spent.

Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.


Title image source

Birthing From Within, by Pam England and Rob Horowitz

If you are planning to give birth naturally for the first time, this book is a must-read. Appropriate for both hospital and home birth preparation, it provides a complete overview of the natural birthing process; resources to help you find the professionals who can help you achieve the birth you desire; and – perhaps most importantly – specific exercises and ideas for quelling the underlying fears and assumptions you might not even know you have, let alone know how to handle. Start at the beginning and read every page. Do every exercise. Consider this to be your prenatal homework. Approached in this way, this one book could give you all the information you need to prepare your whole self – body, mind, and spirit – for the feats ahead.

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin

Authored by perhaps the most well-known midwife in America, this book will both educate and empower your home birth plans. On the fence about where to give birth? Absorb Ina May’s stories and you might find yourself swayed toward your own bed with new confidence. Her incredibly low Cesarean and transfer rates will give pause to even those who staunchly defend modern medicine. While her views on childbirth pain are not universal and will not apply to most women (despite her assertions, childbirth is painful for most women, and those women do much better to prepare themselves for that pain beforehand than to pretend it won’t exist), her experience and skill in relaying it prove her Guide to Childbirth to be the authoritative tome of American home birth.

Active Birth: The New Approach to Giving Birth, by Janet Balaskas

If a birthing manual is what you’re looking for, this is it. Janet Balaskas offers clear instructions on prenatal fitness, physical preparation for birthing, managing pain during the birth itself, and postnatal exercises for healing quickly. If you are birthing without medication for the first time, you might not understand yet just how useful the info inside its birthing section is. Don’t be surprised if you reach for its pages during labor itself! This book was written to assist mamas who are determined to birth without medication; it is equally relevant to hospital and home births.

Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife, by Peggy Vincent

Peggy Vincent’s memoir provides an intimate window into more than 40 births that she was privileged to attend. And nothing soothes the soul of an expectant mama, especially in the later months of pregnancy, than reading more than 40 stories of home birth that rarely go wrong, rarely transfer. Peggy Vincent relays her stories as they were, as they should be relayed. She doesn’t capitalize on the most harrowing, nail-biting scenes in her career to grab attention, and she doesn’t downplay that birth is inherently a nail-biting experience at times. Most births are normal, and occasionally they’re not. Peggy Vincent does a superb job of showing us how a trusted midwife handles the unpredictability of birth through her honest, open story-telling.

Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.

In a word, YES, especially if you’re planning a natural childbirth.

The reality of natural labor and birthing is overwhelming when you aren’t prepared for it. Stubborn avoidance of medications can get you through early labor, but in active labor, the contractions just don’t stop. The unceasing swell of cramp after cramp with little downtime between them can quickly make an unprepared mama feel out of control, and with the out of control feeling comes fear. If fear stalls the labor, complications and interventions can quickly ensue.

Even worse, some expectant mamas planning a natural birth pick up just enough information to determine for themselves that birth isn’t actually painful; it’s simply a construct of our fear-based society that makes it painful. These women can have some of the most difficult labors when it is painful because not only do they have to deal with the lack of control and fear reactions, but also with a deep sense of failure that they couldn’t “rise above it.”

The truth is, labor does involve tight contractions that the vast majority of women perceive as pain, but there are definite, proven ways to reduce the sensation of the pain. Physical relaxation is a skill that can be learned, and knowledge of the biology of labor – what all these contractions are doing in there – give a strong sense of control no matter the birthing pattern.

A high-quality childbirth preparation class will teach both of these facets and can mean the difference between a vaginal or surgical birth outcome. Each of the following classes are designed to help prepare a mama for a medication-free childbirth.

Lamaze

Lamaze is practically a household name in the USA. The classes are easy to find; if there is a hospital in the vicinity that delivers babies, there’s probably a Lamaze class too.

The Lamaze philosophy focuses on prenatal nutrition, relaxation techniques to prepare for a natural childbirth, and postpartum care. Unfortunately, because Lamaze classes are so widespread, not all are as comprehensive as others.

If you decide to take a Lamaze class, or if it’s the only type of childbirth class offered in your area, ask to see a full class description list before signing up. Experienced instructors should be able to easily provide one, or at least tell you an overview of each week. Avoid classes that focus only on scripted breathing techniques (like a hee-hee sound), but instead look for those that explore a variety of relaxation techniques, as well as those that emphasize how to read your body and trust its cues.

Bradley Method

The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth, as its name attests, is another class that prepares parents for medication-free childbirth. Bradley classes can be a little harder to find, but are available in most metropolitan areas. The online directory is an easy tool for finding a local instructor.

The Bradley Method is known for equally supporting your need for a relaxation skill set and your need for full knowledge of the internal process of labor. For logical-minded mamas like myself, this class can be a real blessing. It’s much easier for us to remain calm in any situation as long as we have an understanding of what is going on. For us, knowledge is control, and that control is the power we need to stay calm.

The relaxation techniques, like in Lamaze, mostly focus on conscious breathing. If mindful, conscious breathing helps you relax, and you routinely calm your fears through logical analysis, Bradley classes are probably a perfect fit.

One potential drawback from the Bradley Method is its associated name, “Husband-Coached Childbirth.” For many women, that’s not a drawback at all. My own husband coached me through all three childbirths. But everyone’s situation is different. If you don’t have a husband or you don’t plan to birth with your husband as your coach, you might try to get a feel for the specific class itself before signing up. It’s hard to imagine that all Bradley classes are made up only of couples fitting the husband/wife profile, but if that wasn’t my childbirth dynamic, Bradley’s heavy emphasis on “Husband-Coached Childbirth” would give me pause.

Hypnobirthing

Hypnobirthing “is a unique method of relaxed, natural childbirth education, enhanced by self-hypnosis techniques.” If you’re not familiar with hypnosis, especially self-hypnosis, this probably sounds pretty hokey as a childbirth preparation technique. But if you think of the word hypnosis as meditation, trance, or deep relaxation, you might begin to see the merits of the skills you would learn in this class.

I poked through a friend’s hypnobirthing materials when I was expecting my first daughter. I thought the concept was interesting, but I didn’t work on all the scripts and things that were on the CDs. I just learned the basics of how to bring on deep relaxation in ways besides conscious, mindful breathing (which for me has always had the opposite effect – instant panic!). I was so surprised when it was my limited hypnobirthing exploration that gave me the calm center I needed during active labor.

The ability to bring on deep relaxation immediately and consistently is an incredibly useful skill. For most of us, childbirth isn’t the only time our pain tolerance and coping ability is tested. The skills learned in hypnobirthing are lifelong and could serve all of us in any acutely stressful situation, including your birth if it ends in a different way than you had planned. Hypnobirthing prepares you for more than just natural childbirth.

Hypnobirthing classes are the hardest to find. Large metropolitan areas are likely to have some, but for the rest of us, the website offers an at-home study course. If you are interested in learning these techniques – even if only to augment other strategies – you might find the materials used. Try craigslist, eBay, and your local natural birthing community.

If you are determined to birth without medication, you will not regret investing in one of these classes to help you prepare. And your chances of achieving the birth you want will drastically increase.


Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.

Physical Nurturing

​The most valuable things you can do on a physical level are to eat well, supplement properly, support your adrenals, and listen to your body’s limitations.

​Eating high quality, nutrient-dense foods during pregnancy can do amazing things for your body’s ability to support new life. Although this is challenging in early pregnancy when nausea is often an issue, all mamas-to-be should try to find nutritious foods they can tolerate. Look at Dr. Brewer’s diet for ideas, then fit in as many as your morning sickness will allow.

​Take a multi-vitamin every day. If your prenatal makes you nauseous, try another brand or consider a different form. Many women find large pills difficult to swallow during early pregnancy, but a powdered or liquid form mixed into a fruit drink might be easier to handle.

Vitamins – especially those made from whole foods, such as what you might find at health food stores – help fill in deficiencies and gaps in diet. Also consider taking daily a separate mineral supplement, cod liver oil, and (particularly in the winter) Vitamin D drops. As always, let your health practitioner know what you are taking in case you have a pre-existing condition that could worsen with certain supplements.

​Your adrenals are incredibly important in the production of progesterone, a hormone that is essential to carrying a baby through the first trimester. (Beyond the first trimester, the placenta itself produces the needed progesterone.) Support your adrenals by eliminating or drastically reducing caffeine and sugar, reducing stressful environments, and getting as much sleep as possible.

​Listen to your body and its limitations. If there are any activities that cause you to cramp afterwards, consider dropping those activities for a short while. While “experts” claim to know what activity is or isn’t good to do during pregnancy, it’s not that simple. All women are different, and your own body is the best marker of what’s safe for you. If nothing else, cramping triggers more fear, so preventing cramping helps reduce the stress of fear.
​

Mental Nurturing

​When you approach your fears from a mental angle, you need a good external support system that will allow you to put words to your fears without judgement. Some of us have people like this in real life. If you are fortunate to have some of these folks in your circle, seek them out. They are a wonderful resource for a scary time.

​If your current support system isn’t open to hearing you in a way that makes you feel comfortable, that’s okay. There are other ways to fill this need. The online forums for Pregnancy after Birth Loss and Pregnancy after Infertility on the mothering.com community are excellent resources. Also, reading the stories of others even without contributing your own can be cathartic. A search at the library for memoirs about pregnancy loss or infertility should yield several results.

​Journaling your fears in a notebook or on a personal blog can help put words to difficult emotions. Somehow, when dark emotions are articulated and brought into the light, they can lose a lot of their power.
​

Spiritual Nurturing

​Regardless of your specific spiritual beliefs, you can address your fears through meditation, prayer, or imagery.

​My own fears were at their highest point during my first full-term pregnancy after multiple early losses. To cope with the fear, I set aside time each night to connect with the growing baby in a positive way. When I had a placental bleeding scare at 12 weeks, this connection helped me stay calm until the cause of the bleeding was found and I learned I wasn’t miscarrying again.

​Each night, I would lay on my bed alone and clear my head by allowing my body to sink into the bed, part by part, which brought me to a meditative state. I laid my hand on my belly and focused on sending the baby love, then joy, then peace. Then together, the baby and I would send out love, then joy, then peace, in prayers toward people we thought needed it.

​Not only did this allow me to feel a deep connection to the growing baby, but it also helped me to remember to step outside myself to others in need. Whatever your choice of spiritual practice, this stepping outside of your own head can provide the grounding that you need to work through your fears.

​When we are expectant mamas, we are naturally full of hopes and dreams. But if our experience has given us a reason to fear the loss of those hopes and dreams, our best goal is to live the pregnancy without letting our fear suck the joy out of it. By setting ourselves up for success physically, finding a support system that allows us to verbally process our fears, and working to replace a fearful spirit with a loving and peaceful one, we can give our little one the best possible environment to grow in.

This article is featured in week 5 of our pregnancy series.

Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.

Hormones. We are so grateful to our hormones for their role in conceiving and sustaining a new life inside us. When they are in balance, they fit together like pieces of an amazing puzzle, all dependent upon the other to form the cohesive whole of optimal health.

When they are a little out of whack, though, watch out! One of the classic symptoms of imbalanced hormones are the mood swings women experience around their monthly cycles and during pregnancy. Often the fodder of jokes and stereotypes, this extra sensitivity and heightened emotions are simply a result of a major change in hormones. Some pieces of the grand puzzle have changed, which has thrown the other pieces out of order.

Unfortunately, for some women, the effects of these changes are much darker – they go far beyond tears over a heartfelt television commercial. For these mamas-to-be, the mood swings and emotional changes can be so severe that they can damage close relationships.

The good news is that there are simple nutritional approaches you can use to help your hormones return to a more balanced place. As always, do consult your doctor or midwife before changing your diet or adding in any supplements.

Sugar Swings

Sugar and simple carbohydrates (like pasta, bread, and white potatoes) hit your bloodstream quickly and burn quickly. Your blood sugar soars and you feel good. Until….you crash. Your blood sugar dips and if you tend toward hypoglycemia at all, it can dip much too low. Women might experience low blood sugar as cravings for more sweets, shaking hands, difficulty thinking through a problem, a foggy feeling head, or a burst of anger or irritation.

The mood swings caused by the effect of sugar on your hormones is one of the easiest to control. First, reduce or eliminate the sugary treats and starchy “comfort foods.” Try to make all your carbohydrate intake in the form of whole grains instead, which do not burn as quickly as they do in their more processed forms. Next, include more protein eaten in conjunction with any carbohydrates and sweets. This also helps your body assimilate them at a slower pace, reducing the likelihood of a sugar crash later.

When you are pregnant, your body and your growing baby both need carbohydrates, so now isn’t the time to eliminate them completely as any kind of diet plan or cleanse. But most women who eat a Western diet could easily reduce their carbohydrates and still be within a healthy zone for pregnancy.

B-Vitamins

Serotonin and dopamine are the two main hormones discovered so far that affect mood. These two hormones must always be in balance in order to achieve a consistent mood and a positive outlook.

From a nutritional standpoint, the B-Vitamins are critical to a balanced production of serotonin and dopamine. Vitamin B-6, in particular, is often called a precursor to their healthy functioning, since they will quickly fall out of balance without sufficient B-6 in the diet.

With very few exceptions, it’s much easier to maintain an overall balance when you supplement with the whole vitamin complex rather than one isolated part of it, even if the isolated part is from a whole foods source. Nature never intended for us to consume single vitamin parts in high doses. It’s even better if you can meet your body’s needs with foods rich in the vitamins you need. Depending on the level of deficiency already present, this may or may not be possible.

Foods rich in B-Vitamins include beef, turkey, salmon, bell peppers, yams, green peas, spinach, organic peanuts, sunflower seeds, cashews, chickpeas,and lentils.

Tryptophan and Magnesium

Recently, nutritionists have found that tryptophan, an amino acid, and magnesium, a mineral, both seem to have an effect on mood as well. Interestingly, many of the foods listed above as being high in B-Vitamins are also high in these compounds.

Turkey and organic peanut butter (non-hydrogenated) are great sources of tryptophan, while spinach and sunflower seeds are loaded with magnesium. Since all of these foods are low in simple carbohydrates, they can do triple-duty as mood swing busters.

The Effects of Processed Foods

Finally, a discussion on improving your mood wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the deleterious effects of processed foods. While B-Vitamins and tryptophan can help support healthy serotonin and dopamine production, and thus a positive, consistent mood, the food additives in processed foods destroy this balance.

Food additives like monosodium glutamate in any of its 40 common forms, food coloring, food preservatives, and food flavorings wreak havoc on the delicate hormonal balance you’re seeking. It can be daunting to avoid these food additives at first, but it gets much easier with time. Stick to the outer edges of the grocery store and try to purchase foods that are as close to their original form as possible. Become a label-reader, and avoid buying foods that have ingredients you can’t pronounce. Long lists of ingredients (more than five or six items) are usually a red flag as well.

Healthy habits like these are a great thing to start now – their benefits extend well past pregnancy, and the hormone balance achieved helps more than just mood. In fact, you might look at mood swings as one visible marker for overall hormonal health. Making needed improvements now will set the stage for a healthier, happier life with your new baby.

Other posts by Julie:

The Importance of High-Quality Prenatal Vitamins

Caffeine During Pregnancy: Is it really a no-no?

The 5 Baby Items You’ll Never Regret

Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.

What is eclampsia? Eclampsia is not a new disease; it has long been known among midwives to be a threat to the life of an expectant mother and her baby. Also known as toxemia, it occurs in late pregnancy and it can progress very rapidly. Characterized by high blood pressure, swelling, and the presence of protein in the mother’s urine, it can cause severe seizures, organ damage, and death in the pregnant mother, as well as a stillborn baby. If the disease progresses unnoticed for too long, its effects can be irreversible and untreatable. The key is to catch (and prevent) it early.

This is where the diagnosis of pre-eclampsia comes into play. When an obstetrician sees a pregnant woman with certain markers that look like she’s headed into eclampsia, it’s taken very seriously. Many, many women are induced to labor early because of pre-eclampsia; in fact, it’s so common that it’s unusual for American women to not know at least several women in our circle of friends who have dealt with it. Most Western-trained doctors insist that it is random, or that it only occurs in a first pregnancy. This isn’t the full story.

Eclampsia is a disease of poor nutrition. If you eat in a way that supports your baby and yourself, you will drastically reduce (some midwives even say eliminate) your chances of developing eclampsia.

“Eating well” can mean different things to different people. But in terms of eating well for pregnancy, it’s much easier to define.

Babies and Pregnant Mamas Need Protein
Pregnant mamas should ensure that they are eating 80-100 grams of protein every single day. Vegetarians find this the most challenging, but is is so important it can’t be ignored. Eating meat and dairy makes this task easier, but it can also be done on a vegetarian diet if you are careful to include complete proteins.

Babies and Pregnant Mamas Need Greens
Pregnancy itself puts heavy pressure on the liver and kidneys, so the Vitamin K (and the other vitamins and minerals) of leafy greens helps support these organs. Every pregnant mama should eat one serving of leafy green vegetables such as kale, spinach, mustard greens, collards, chard, beet greens, or broccoli. Mamas who tend toward high blood pressure, blood sugar instabilities, or are overweight before pregnancy should have two servings every day.

Babies and Pregnant Mamas Need High-Quality Fats
Despite what our popular culture might say, fats are not inherently bad for us. However, it’s important to remember that not all fats are created equal. Actually, quite the opposite. The fat of a plant or animal will collect and hold the toxins that plant or animal was exposed to. For this reason, you especially want to avoid genetically-modified fats like corn oil, soy oil, cottonseed oil, or canola oil. Also avoid “junk” fats like margarine, shortening, safflower oil, or peanut oil.

Instead, pregnant mamas should enjoy three large tablespoons of grass-fed butter, extra-virgin coconut oil, or extra-virgin, cold-pressed olive oil every day.

Babies and Pregnant Mamas Need Whole Grains
Pregnancy isn’t the time to do a carb-free diet. But it is the perfect time to practice the habit of eating whole grains and learning the glycemic index. If you focus on educating yourself on how to keep your blood sugar stable now, you will thank yourself later, after baby comes.

It’s unfortunate that so many movies, television shows, and magazine spreads show pregnancy as a time of indulging. It’s an idea that was formed by our cultural focus on weight and body shape (your body is already getting bigger, so hey, make the most of this time and eat up!), but the message is so damaging.

Babies need quality food, and so do the mothers who are growing them. Traditional cultures know this, animals instinctively know this, and in our hearts, we know this too.

For more information on eating to prevent pre-eclampsia, visit Blue Ribbon Baby. And please share this information with your midwife or doctor as part of your overall healthy pregnancy plan.

Other posts by Julie:

The Importance of High-Quality Prenatal Vitamins

Caffeine During Pregnancy: Is it really a no-no?

The 5 Baby Items You’ll Never Regret

Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.

Pregnancy is an ideal time to begin because your body often speaks very loudly about what it wants and needs during this time. We know these as cravings. And learning how to trust your intuition with your dinner plate can also help you trust your intuition in other areas of your life, like with your new baby-to-be. This is a tremendous gift that will enrich both your lives forever.

How to Listen to Your Cravings

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was a vegetarian for ethical reasons. I had been living meat-free for over four years. Around 26 weeks of pregnancy, I began to have intense cravings for meat. Because my husband and I were doing the vegetarian lifestyle together, I would sneak out to a fast food restaurant about once a week, wolf down a chicken sandwich, and throw away all the “evidence” before I got home.

My body was craving protein, but I wasn’t listening to it well enough. I didn’t understand. By week 35, I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, hospitalized, and was induced at 37 weeks. When I became pregnant with my second child, I was surprised at the amount of protein my midwife recommended for a healthy pregnancy based on Dr. Brewer’s Blue Ribbon Baby guidelines. I asked her why she asked her clients to eat so much protein. Her answer was simple: that is her standard diet to help prevent pre-eclampsia.

Are you one of the women who craves pickles? This can indicate a need for salt. Chocolate? A need for magnesium. Carrots and sweet potatoes? Vitamin A. Bananas? Potassium. Greens like kale and collards? Calcium (and other vitamins and minerals). How about red meat? Please, indulge! You likely need the iron and B-vitamins.

When Not to Listen to Your Cravings

Listening to your cravings for carrots and greens sounds great, but what about ice cream and cookies and cake and cereal and bagels and a grande extra-sweet white chocolate mocha?

These cravings are a very different beast. They don’t indicate a true need because of the addictive nature of these foods. If you had been a former cigarette smoker and during your pregnancy, you began to crave cigarettes, you would define that craving as a want, not a need, because of the addictive nature of nicotine.

It is the same with sugar or caffeine. Both are very addictive and are certainly not in the “need” category. Even worse, filling up on sugary, refined treats can mask the information you could be gaining from your body with a cleaner diet (and clearer mind).

When you eat sweet treats all day, your body begins a cycle of insulin and hormone release that causes a roller coaster effect of wildly swinging blood sugar. When your blood sugar dips too low, your body will have a very strong craving for something – anything – that will get your blood sugar back up. It’s hard to hear the valuable feedback you could be getting when the loud demanding of low blood sugar is so deafening.

Sugar and caffeine shouldn’t be considered a valid nutritional need except as an indication that your blood sugar has dipped too low. When you’re learning how to eat intuitively, it’s especially helpful if you can give up sugary, processed treats for a few days to see how your body might speak to you differently then. (If you are diabetic, this might change matters, so always ask your practitioner for advice if you’re on a medically restricted diet of any kind.)

A Visualization Technique

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to eat intuitively. Sometimes it’s hard to eat during pregnancy at all! At these times, you can use a visualization technique that I find very helpful in those all-I-want-is-cereal moments. I know my body needs solid nutrition, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what that is. Nothing sounds good.

I imagine myself at the grocery store or market. I visualize myself walking slowly through the produce section, picking anything I want off the shelves. I have no money constraints – I can get anything I want and as much as I want.

Within a few minutes, things begin to stand out. Often, I’ll notice patterns. I want broccoli and kale and cabbage – white cabbage? No. Red cabbage? No. Pak choi! That’s it. Broccoli, kale, and pak choi. This sets me on the right track. It looks like I need the nutritional profile of green vegetables. Maybe I need my minerals, too. If I can’t meet those needs at home, at least I have something specific I put on my grocery list.

In my mind, I move my way through the store, doing the same thing with red meat, poultry, fish, dairy, fermented foods, oils, baking goods, and juices. The patterns that emerge almost always tell the whole story. In the example of the broccoli, kale, and pak choi, I might try to figure out if it were the minerals or the vitamins in greens that I needed. If a chicken bone broth also sounded great, I’d assume it was the minerals. On the other hand, if bone broth sounded awful, but a green smoothie sounded wonderful, I might figure it was the vitamins.

The last time I helped a friend to do this exercise, she figured out she wanted avocados, mangoes, and coconut milk. Obviously, she was in need of the specific nutritional package that tropical foods provide. Tropical foods can be powerhouses of vitamins and healthy fats – probably exactly what this nursing mama of a two-week infant needed.

When you learn to eat intuitively, you will empower yourself to take care of your own health, and later, the health of your child. You will learn how to let your intuition guide you and help you grow in wisdom. And, the next time you get a little ribbing from friends or family when you ask for extra pickles on that burger, you can shrug nonchalantly. “I need the salt.” Because you’ll know your stuff, and your confidence will shine.

Other posts by Julie:

The Importance of High-Quality Prenatal Vitamins

Caffeine During Pregnancy: Is it really a no-no?

The 5 Baby Items You’ll Never Regret

Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.

This is a companion article to this, on the benefits of nursing.

There are loads of real, daily benefits of breastfeeding your baby. You don’t need a degree in nutritional science to see them and they won’t be the first ones your male pediatrician talks about. Your experience will show you how nursing builds a healthy mama-child relationship in both tangible and intangible ways.

But what about when nursing is hard?

Yes, the drive to nurse a baby after it is born is instinctual for most moms. And yes, our bodies – like all mammals – are designed to feed human babies human milk. But just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s easy. Truth be told, most moms that I know personally struggled a little (or a lot) during the first few months as they learned this new skill of breastfeeding a baby, but most problems have a solution.

Breast Pain

Breastfeeding is a new skill. It is common for it to hurt at first. Most women describe the hurt as a discomfort, but for some, it is more painful. Inverted or flat nipples can cause pain in the beginning, as can an incorrect latching technique. If the baby doesn’t latch well, it can lead to plugged ducts or mastitis. How can you solve it?

Inverted or flat nipples will resolve themselves in time. If this is the issue, you will notice that it doesn’t hurt after the first minute or less of each nursing session. Try counting slowly to 10 each time you start to nurse and by the time you get to 10, the pain should have subsided.

A correct latch is incredibly important and isn’t as intuitive as you might think. It can be hard to learn this by yourself, so unless you have a friend or family member to show you, or a lactation consultant to guide you, videos can be invaluable. Try KellyMom for some links to videos and detailed written descriptions of a good latch.

Plugged ducts or mastitis can resolve themselves, but if you have a fever, you might need antibiotics. The fever from mastitis coupled with the breast engorgement and pain is hard to work through and your baby needs you so much at this time. Just remember to alternate every couple hours with quality probiotics to protect your own health and to help prevent thrush.

Poor Weight Gain

This is also known as “not having enough milk.” A few issues could be at play, including infrequent nursing, pumping, stress, a poor latch, or dehydration. Also, the days right after birth can be particularly difficult because your milk hasn’t come in yet. You’ll know when it does! In the meantime, rest assured that your baby is getting what he or she needs – your nutrient-rich colostrum.

The act of nursing itself is what causes your supply to increase. During the first several months (or more), your baby should have no limits placed on the length and frequency of feeding times unless it’s absolutely necessary. When baby cries, mama nurses. This helps build your supply of milk and helps the baby gain weight at a good pace. Also, if at all possible, try to minimize or avoid pumping in the first few months. Your milk supply is best built by your baby himself, and if pumping is stressful for you, it can swiftly decrease your milk.

Whenever you can, try to nurse in a quiet, stress-free space. Give yourself plenty of opportunity to learn how to latch properly without having to worry about being modest or discrete. Learning how to latch under a blanket is hard! And if nursing itself is stressing you out, ask yourself why and try to solve that emotionally. Relaxed moms let down more milk.

Dehydration can be a silent supply killer. You’ll be amazed at how thirsty you always are when you are first nursing – don’t ignore it! Drink as much as you want and then some. Your body needs to be hydrated to make more milk.

Medications

In today’s world, it’s not at all uncommon for women of childbearing age to regularly take some sort of prescription medication. If you ask an obstetrician or your baby’s pediatrician, don’t be surprised if they tell you that you shouldn’t breastfeed while taking the medication. But, if they don’t offer you any alternatives, then definitely seek out a second opinion.

You could consult with another doctor right away, or you could consult La Leche League to find a local group leader for ideas on medications in your category that are safer when breastfeeding. You could then visit your doctor or another doctor armed with the list.

While there are a few rare cases of women being unable to nurse while treating a condition with prescription medication, most women can find a different medicine that is safer. Or, the pharmaceutical they had been taking might transfer to their milk at such a low level that they are comfortable with that small exposure.

If you can hang onto only one thing during those first few months, it’s this: nursing your baby is a long business. It might take two or three months to get it right, but once you do, you could have years to enjoy that special relationship with your baby. It is absolutely worth every bit of struggle you put into it and then some, as it will pay dividends for life.

Other posts by Julie:

The Importance of High-Quality Prenatal Vitamins

Caffeine During Pregnancy: Is it really a no-no?

The 5 Baby Items You’ll Never Regret

Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.

Forget the whole “breast is best” campaign for a minute. Let’s talk about the real benefits of nursing.

Yes, human breast milk is the perfect food for a human baby from a nutritional standpoint. And yes, babies love it! But there are some clear benefits to mom that many doctors and other professionals don’t mention. In the wee hours of the night, when no one has had much sleep for days, and no one gives a hoot about the nutritional profile of anything, it’s these things that will keep a mom nursing and be glad that she is.

Nursing Moms Sleep More

I’ve done it both ways. I fed my first daughter formula from day one, and nursed my second two children. I can report that I definitely slept more when nursing than when bottle-feeding.

When you are bottle-feeding, you have to drag yourself out of bed every time your baby cries, travel to the kitchen, make a bottle, hold it for her until she’s finished, then try to get back to sleep. All that traveling in the middle of the night and forcing your mind out of the sleep fog to prepare bottles can make you very, very sleep deprived. This sleep deprivation can cause many problems postpartum and can even masquerade as postpartum depression.

Severe, ongoing sleep deprivation can make you confused and angry in the middle of the night, which can be a scary feeling for new mothers. Chronic interrupted sleep and chronic lack of sleep can also affect a working mother’s ability to perform her job and reduce her reflexes to the point where she can’t safely drive a vehicle.

While many mothers worry that breastfeeding will reduce their quality and quantity of sleep, it is usually just the opposite. Personally, I was terrified of the sleep deprivation I had felt when bottle-feeding, but found myself totally surprised when it never happened.

Most moms have to spend a couple months learning how to nurse for the first time, which can be difficult, is sometimes sleepless, and can be painful while figuring out what a good latch is (and what it is not). But this learning period is short-lived. One day, you figure out how to nurse lying down and that changes everything. You can doze on and off as you nurse the baby back to sleep. It’s such an important and helpful position to learn, that it is actually the first position my midwife teaches her mamas as they learn to breastfeed. She says it can make the difference between loving nursing and wanting to throw in the towel, because so much of your enjoyment of the new baby depends on how rested you are.

Nursing Moms Have Magic Calming Tricks

You know all those tips people pass along to calm babies? Tips like: walking around might help, or swaddling him tightly, or rocking, or swinging, or driving around in the car, or even strapping him into his car seat and setting it on top of a running dryer. How about pacifiers? If she won’t take one type and spits it out, try a different brand. Maybe she likes to bounce?

As a nursing mom, you can forget most of those methods – you are more of a one-trick pony. Baby cries, you nurse, baby usually falls right asleep. Sometimes, illness plays a role and your infant might not be soothed by nursing alone, but you can rest assured that he’s getting lots of immunity from your antibodies to help him recover faster. It makes the baby’s sickness a lot less scary for you when you know that you’re doing something to help every time you feed your baby.

Nursing Moms Make Their Own Relaxant

Let’s face it, when you first have a baby, you are in one of the most work-intensive, exhausting, sleep-deprived, and all around difficult times of your life. This is where the beauty of being a nursing mom really shines. Breastfeeding an infant releases relaxing chemicals (oxytocin to be precise) that make the whole thing feel happy and worth it. It’s a reliable way to bring calm to a busy day. Countless days have I come home feeling frazzled and headed straight to a quiet room to nurse the baby. It revives both of us.

Oxytocin is a bonding chemical too, and the object of your love is conveniently just 12 inches away. All that happy, relaxing bonding time sees you through the clingy, sick times and later the opinionated toddler two’s.

The doctors tell us now that the nutritional makeup of breastmilk is best for our babies. And as nature would have it, many moms find it’s best for themselves, too.

Other posts by Julie:

The Importance of High-Quality Prenatal Vitamins

Caffeine During Pregnancy: Is it really a no-no?

The 5 Baby Items You’ll Never Regret

Julie Stockman lives in Farmland, Indiana where she homeschools her children with her husband, Jeff. She spends her days baking, gardening, keeping chickens, listening to the nature around them, practicing gratitude and faithfulness, and stealing minutes to write about it all.