I was at a party last Friday night with my 8 week old who stuck her cute tongue out while I was chatting to a friend. “Oh I think your baby might have oral thrush,” my friend said as I somewhat anxiously peered into my daughter’s mouth. “Oral thrush!” I replied, “yuck that sounds awful. That then means I must have a yeast infection.” That night I went online to try and figure out if Leia has oral thrush. According to the…

Filed under: Nutrition | 2 Comments »

I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism almost a year after giving birth to my first daughter. The symptoms really started after a bad bout of flu but it took me months to do anything about it. I attributed my fatigue to lots of sleepless nights with a demanding breastfed baby but after spending ten days on a beautiful beach where I slept every afternoon and should have felt wonderful, I remember returning home feeling nauseated, yellow, constipated and exhausted. My hair was also falling out, I had lost my appetite and…

Filed under: Wellness | 4 Comments »

It’s just starting to dawn on me, now that I feel half normal again, that I need to start pumping. I pumped with my last child and one of my fondest memories is a trip I made to LA for work five months after giving birth and pulling out my pump in a diner bathroom because my boobs were literally aching. Pumping is not a very sexy activity in my humble opinion but for working mothers who are still breastfeeding and more importantly for a woman who just wants to…

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I love Aviva Romm, and her book “Natural Health After Birth” (available in my reading materials section) is a must read for new mothers. I know you can’t plan your birth and a new baby can bring many different experiences so it makes sense to give yourself the best start possible in those last few weeks before a baby is born. (The image is of the Nettle plant - read on for its beneficial qualities).

Aviva writes, “Excellent nutrition and adquate rest in late pregnancy improve…

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I have just Fedexed some supplements to a friend of mine in England who tried my pot of calcium/magnesium while we were on holiday together (both of us were pregnant) and found her sleep and bowel movements improved significantly. I found the company, Sound Formulas, when I was doing research for this site. It seemed strange to me that no one was really focusing on postpartum recovery which for so many women is an extremely demanding and physically draining period. i mean, with sleep deprivation, breastfeeding,…

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Every year on March 8th, women around the world celebrate International Women’s Day. It’s a day when women connect and inspire each other to achieve their full potential. This year, I am thinking about the poor women in Darfur who continue to be subjected to rape in the brutal conflict in the Western Sudanese region. To educate yourself about the attrocities the people of Darfur are suffering, go here, scroll down and download the powerpoint and don’t forget to DONATE. We can all make a…

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I haven’t got much time to write but I just wanted to share with you a friend’s tough time at the moment. Everything started off relatively smoothly with a C-Section delivery and a nice 5 day rest in a posh hospital. But at some point after nights of really bad sleep (believe it or not, as tiring as all these middle of the night wake-ups are, a baby that is not in pain will just drift off to sleep pretty quickly) she realized things were not all right. Then started…

Filed under: First Six Weeks | 1 Comment »

Oh that first smile. I have been waiting a couple of weeks for it. Just some sign from my dear daughter that we are doing OK. I have tried to record it on my camera but it may take a couple more days before we are able to synchronize. The last five and a half weeks have been very intense, night after night of breastfeeding sessions, diaper changes and silent somewhat revengeful promises to myself that I can’t do this again. Yet really, Leia is a breeze. For the past…

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Having gained 35 pounds during my pregnancy, I am now waking up to the fact that at some stage fairly soon I would like to start losing some weight. What a drag that’s going to be. On the sugar front, I thought I was rather clever for having found Agave syrup, a “natural” sweetener produced in Mexico that comes from the same plant as wonderful Mezcal tequila. The plant produces a syrup that is sweeter than honey but it’s truly outstanding property is its glycemic index of…

Filed under: Nutrition | 1 Comment »

I was just watching Ellen DeGeneres on TV…. no not the Oscars, one of her stand-up comedy shows. She was talking about how dreadful TV is these days and how adverts for Paxil and Prozac asking if you are depressed, suffering from anxiety and sad while you are watching the horrors on CNN are just meaningless. I mean, isn’t that just part of the human condition? Aren’t you supposed to feel like that when you watch CNN? Obviously she was trivializing serious problems to show how the…

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