Moms-4-Kids

The other day I am downstairs and all of a sudden I hear “Maman, Maman” coming through the baby monitor. I go upstairs and open my 2.5 year old’s door to find her standing there looking like a ghost or a clown, whichever you prefer.  All I can see is that her face and clothes are totally white and you can’t see any of her skin except around her eyes. She just happened to climb up the change table and get the diaper rash cream off the shelf that is mounted up on the wall!!! I think she must have thought it was my masque that I put on my face because she seemed oh-so-proud of herself. After I gasped, I couldn’t help but laugh inside.

After making this discovery, the real fun began… getting the diaper rash cream off my daughter, her clothes, and everything she had touched. Here are a few tips I learned in the process:

(1) On dry surfaces (like a dresser, change table, and bed frame), the diaper rash cream comes off best with a dry, throw away cloth like toilet paper or paper towels.

(2) On my daughter’s face and hair, I needed to wipe off as much of the cream as possible. Then into the tub we went. I used some preservative-free shampoo and scrubbed her hair as best as I could. I got most of it out of her hair the first time, and then needed to do a second shampoo to get the last parts out on the side where it was really thick. For her face, I used a preservative-free body wash on a loofah and scrubbed as much as I could while she kept her eyes closed. The cream stings, so you need to work as fast as possible. She certainly didn’t have fun at this point and learned her lesson.

(3) On the clothes, I made a paste with Borax and a little cold water and scrubbed it into the cream. Then I washed all the laundry in hot water and a cold rinse with regular laundry soap. Because of all the soap being used since I didn’t rinse the Borax out, I put an extra rinse on the laundry cycle. It was amazing… the diaper rash cream came right out!!!

When it was all cleaned up, I couldn’t help but think that this was another great adventure in parenting… and another great story to tell!!!

A few weeks ago I went to my first La Leche League meeting… It was so nice to meet with other moms to talk about breastfeeding, the benefits of breastfeeding, and to get support. The topic was overcoming difficulties that we experience while breastfeeding. It can be a lonely world and feel like it’s easy to give up on breastfeeding when there are difficulties, so it’s really nice to meet with other moms to get the support we need. I know I sure felt encouraged!

Check out the La Leche League website at www.lllc.ca … it even has breastfeeding tips on it.

Many women experience morning sickness, myself included. With my daughter, I had morning sickness up until 37 weeks; however, most women who experience morning sickness find that it subsides by the end of their first trimester!!! Yeah!!!

Luckily this pregnancy my morning sickness has gone away already and I only experience some mild nausea. There are lots of ideas about how to get rid of this… eatting soda crackers before getting up in the morning, sucking on hard candies, drinking ginger or raspberry tea, and then there is the suggestion I received from our midwife… cut up fresh ginger, mix it with hot water, and sip it throughout the day.

I found a site that quotes some studies about ginger and has some ideas for pregnancy nausea. I have never purchased any products from them, but their articles look interesting.
Here is the link for ginger: http://www.morningsicknesshelp.com/ginger-morning-sickness.html.
Here is the link for ideas for morning sickness relief: http://www.morningsicknesshelp.com/morning-sickness-relief.html

Let us know if you have any ideas or share your ideas of what’s worked for you.

I look forward to sharing our experiences throughout this pregnancy!

Enjoy every moment of your pregnancy,

Melissa

Here is a recent study that came out about folic acid reducing the risk of preterm birth if it is taken prior to conception. This is just another reason why women need to be taking care of themselves at all times, particularly by taking a good quality, pharmaceutical grade nutritional supplement with a potency guarantee that includes folic acid, among other important antioxidants, minerals, and B cofactors.

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Supplementing with folic acid prior to conception reduces risk of preterm birth

Births that take place prior to 37 weeks of gestation have been associated with developmental disabilities and decreased survival. It is also known that women who have low plasma folate concentrations during pregnancy are at higher risk of giving birth prematurely.

An article published online on May 11, 2009 in the journal PLoS Medicine reports that women who consumed folic acid supplements for a year or more before conceiving experienced a significantly lower risk of preterm births.

Natural length of pregnancy was defined as gestational age at delivery in pregnancies with no medical or obstetrical complications that would make early delivery necessary. Spontaneous preterm birth was defined as duration of pregnancy between 20 and 37 weeks without those complications.

The risk of preterm delivery was directly related to the duration of folic supplementation.

Compared to women who did not supplement, women who supplemented for at least one year prior to conception experienced a 70 percent lower risk of premature delivery between the 20  and 28 week of gestation, and a 50 percent decrease between the 28 and 32 week.

Pre-conception folic acid supplementation is associated with a 50-70 percent reduction in the incidence of early spontaneous preterm birth, and the risk of preterm birth is decreased the most in women who supplement the longest before conception.

PLoS Med 6(5):2009.

Being a mom today can be really hard work and so rewarding! I Iove being able to be at home with my daughter and witnessing her first moments, hearing her run around our home, listening to her smile, and discovering the world!!!! There are so many joys to being a mom. At the same time, being a mom can be hard… diapers, meals, laundry, being up at night… I have to say that I’ll take the challenges for all the blessings!

One thing I’ve really been reminded of recently is that we need to take care of ourselves as moms! We need to make sure that we are getting enough time for us… time to exercise, eat properly, read, do a hobby, time with our husbands, and time for ourselves throughout the day! I find that as I take care of myself I am a better mother and wife!

I just saw the report CBC did on a study out of Toronto about mom-to-mom suppport helping with postpartum depression, particularly that phone contact with other moms helped lower postpartum depression in new moms. This is great!!! New moms really need more support and help because there seems to be lots of support before the pregnancy, and then slowly support disappears within days or a couple weeks after the baby is born.

It is great to connect with other moms! I know that I make an effort to get in touch with other moms by phone and in person, even if it’s for coffee/tea or a play date once a week.

We would love to hear from other moms if they have any ideas of how we could support each other. Just submit a comment and we’ll post it!

Melissa

Over the past few years my desire for helping moms and their children stay healthy has increased significantly. This change arose when I found out I was pregnant for the first time! Unfortunately, we lost our first baby through a miscarriage. Although my husband and I were devastated by this, looking back now, a lot of good has come out of this.

One of those things is that we ended up learning a lot of information on how to keep myself healthy so that the next time I would get pregnant, I would be as healthy as possible and hopefully deliver our next baby (this did happen a couple years later!!!).

Through the research we did, I realized how much a mother’s health is sacrificed. We, as moms, seem to always focus on the health of our baby and children, and we are willing to sacrifice our own health, which later may lead to diseases like oesteoporosis. I even have a friend who suffers from severe oesteoporosis after having 5 kids and not taking care of herself during her pregnancies and she’s only in her 40s.

I would love to share with you information about how you may take care of your health before, during, and after pregnancy. If the information we have for you could make a difference in your life and the life of your baby, it’s definitely worth the few moments you spend receiving this information! We know many moms who are so thankful they received some of this information.

Please contact us if you would like this information. We could set up a time to do a live web conference together from the comfort of our own homes or we could meet for coffee.

Let us know!

Melissa

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