Birth, Baby & Beyond Blog
Survival Without Caffeine in Pregnancy
First and foremost, know that you don’t necessarily have to give up coffee entirely during pregnancy. The experts at the March of Dimes suggest 200 milligrams of caffeine in pregnancy is safe. So means that that 1 ½ cups (or a Starbucks tall) of coffee during...
Doula Confession: I’m In Need of a #Glowup
Between pregnancy, birth the postpartum period, and even doula life, sometimes we can get a little lax in our self care. Everything seems more important than us, and we all know that making wellness a lifestyle is actually pretty hard work. This week, I found...
Pride, Pushing, and Pooping During Childbirth
It has probably been a long time since your poop was outside of a toilet. I don’t like to make assumptions, but most of my audience is adults, and this feels like a safe one. So it’s only natural if you, like so many pregnant women before you, are worried about...
10 Baby Bonding Tips (After the Golden Hour)
We’re told a story about baby bonding that depends a LOT on love at first sight. The moment that your baby is placed on your chest, magic is supposed to happen. Trumpets will sound, and you’ll never know another love like this (until the next baby, of course). ...
Exhaustion? Maybe It’s the Human You’re Growing
Most of the pregnant folks I know are busy women with full lives. And that doesn’t stop when they’re having a baby. There are places to go, people to see, work to be done and other kids to care for. All this on top of staying connected with themselves and their...
Doula Confession: I Can’t Remember Lullabies
As a Postpartum and Infant Care Doula, I know how to deal with a baby crying. I tend to be good at keeping little ones calm, and not freaking out when they're upset. But I never call myself a baby whisperer. One of the things that important to us, at DC Metro...
When Your Baby is Losing His Mind
The day you get home from the hospital, your baby can sleep through anything. From cuddling with Mom, to Grandma’s lap, to skin to skin on Dad. And while this game of pass the baby continues, the TV is going to catch up on the news, and the dog barks because he missed...
What Should I Do With My Placenta?
Before becoming a doula, I never thought much about placentas. To be perfectly honest, I’m not confident that I even knew that they existed. Geez, that’s embarrassing, because I’d taught about reproductive health. But the separation between sexual health education and...
We Trust Your BRAIN
It can be so hard to find honest, unbiased sources of information that we can trust. It seems like everyone has an agenda, and the whole world is full of folks who do more talking than listening. Our loud, shouty, modern culture can wreak havoc on new...
What is an Apgar Score?
The Apgar, an exam when your newborn is born, is usually billed as baby’s first test. It may seem a bit stressful to think of your little one being thrown into the world of standardized testing, from the moment that they enter this world. But we can thank...
In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within oursleves.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn