Postpartum

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I WENT TO A “VAGINAPRACTOR”—HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED

https://www.wellandgood.com/good-advice/what-is-a-sexological-bodywork-kimberly-johnson-wmn-space/

When I met Johnson at WMN Space, my first question was how, exactly, she started doing this kind of work in the first place. (I mean, it’s not something you can major in at college.) The former yoga instructor and bodyworker told me she found her calling while dealing with a serious pelvic-floorinjury brought on by childbirth.

“I started researching [treatment], and all I could find were tens of thousands of entries on postpartum depression,” she recalls. “But I was like, ‘Of course I’m depressed.’ I was pooping in my pants, sex was impossible, my low back was killing me all the time—and I’m someone who was totally fit and healthy [before giving birth.]

(Click to read about pelvic floors on wellandgood.com)

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Advice to New Moms from Moms Who’ve Been There

http://redtri.com/bump-baby/the-best-advice-to-new-moms/

Ahh, new motherhood. You go from dreaming of the day your baby will arrive to holding that tiny, wriggling bundle in your arms and thinking, “What the heck do I do now?” Hang tight, mamas! We’re here to help. We asked women to tell us one thing they wish they’d known when they first became a mommy. Read on for mom wisdom on sleep, self-care, getting perspective on those intense early days, and much more.

(click link at top to continue reading on redtri.com)

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Is Your Baby a Tether-Berg or a Tether-Floe? (Tongue Ties)

http://www.michalechatham.com/blog/tether-berg-or-tether-floe

We all know the definition of iceberg: a large mass of ice located in the water with just a visible portion protruding above the water’s surface. Ice floes, by contrast, are flat floating sheets of ice with no base underwater. Both beautiful and dangerous, icebergs and ice floes present no issue as long as you can sail around them or sail over them.

Often babies presenting with feeding issues can be viewed as icebergs or ice floes. These babies present with Tethered Oral Tissues (TOT), or oral ties. Upper Lip Tie and Tongue Tie have been implicated as causes of Oral Dysfunction related to both breastfeeding and bottle feeding.

Some moms who elect to have these tethers released via scissors or laser, find huge results from symptoms like: nipple trauma and pain; leaking milk around the mouth; gas; reflux (both silent and violent/vomiting); difficulty sleeping; snoring; weight loss; clicking-while-nursing; colic; and bowel issues, such as constipation. Sometimes the release of tethers seems like a miracle or cure-all for everything — even things not directly related to oral tethers — such as hating the carseat or disliking diaper changes.

The type of baby who gets a miracle cure from having
oral tethers released is dubbed the “Tether-Floe.”

Picture

Tether-Floe babies have all of their issuesfloating on the top of the water, so to speak. The tether is the clue and solution to their breastfeeding problems. For them, the laser or scissor frenectomy IS the answer. 
     Poof! 
The problems begin to melt away, whether quickly or slowly, and within a short amount of time (days to weeks) these babies are breastfeeding like champs, gaining weight, and not hurting their moms any longer. For them, there were no underlying issues (or at least it seems so). The presenting problem is addressed and the breastfeeding relationship is saved. 

(click link at the top to read more!)

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The Lonely Terror of Postpartum Anxiety

https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/the-lonely-terror-of-postpartum-anxiety.html

(click link to read this really important piece on thecut.com)

I’m lying awake, gazing at the gentle rise and fall of my 3-month-old’s chest. He’s a delicate infant, constantly surprising me with his smallness, like his sister did when she was born four years earlier. In recent weeks, my son has begun stretching out the number of minutes between nursing sessions. He can go for two hours without eating now, or two and a half if I’m lucky. This means I have more of a chance to sleep, at least in short spurts. But every time I drift off, I jolt awake in a sweaty panic.

I am on high alert all the time these days. I tell myself that this panicky feeling is normal — I have a new(ish) baby, after all. But it doesn’t feel normal. I have constant visions of my son suffocating in the night. I think of waking up to his cold body. I spend nights imagining a thousand unlikely, tragic things that could happen to him.

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HERE’S HOW TO HELP A NEW MOTHER (ESPECIALLY WHEN SHE DOESN’T ASK)

http://raisedgood.com/how-to-help-new-mother-especially-when-doesnt-ask/

As a new mother, I had a knack for giving the impression that I didn’t need help.

My village lives on the other side of the globe, so it was borne out of necessity, but I wonder if it was more than that. As new (or not so new) mothers, I wonder if we feel as though we’re letting ourselves down if we show that we’re vulnerable. Are we falling short if we admit that we simply can’t do this alone?

That we have one hairy leg because our survival strategies have devolved into shaving one leg one day, and the other the next. And we forgot the second leg…for a week. That we eat breakfast for dinner on a semi-regular basis. And that if one more well-meaning person tells us (as if we’ve forgotten) that we really need to take care of ourselves, we’ll scream.

Because, before becoming mothers we were used to feeling productive. To meeting deadlines. To getting the job done and feeling like a valued team member.

But motherhood shatters that reality. And although it’s bittersweet, thank goodness it does. It softens us. Slows us down. Stops the treadmill of a results driven society, forcing us to reassess what we truly value in this one short life of ours. As parents, we need to redefine success in the context of a journey, with a destination we will never see.

(click to read on raisedgood.com)

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The Neonatal ICU Gets a Makeover

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-neonatal-icu-gets-a-makeover-1498443000

Hospitals are taking premature infants out of isolated incubators and into rooms where they can have close contact with their parents.

Hospitals are rethinking the way they care for premature babies.

The traditional neonatal intensive-care unit puts preterm babies—those born before 37 weeks—into incubators in a room with six to eight other infants. But hospitals are starting to realize that premature infants benefit from close physical contact with their parents.

One of the latest NICUs, in Beacon Children’s Hospital of South Bend, Ind., was designed around this idea. There, families can stay together for weeks or months in private rooms that facilitate skin-to-skin contact—also known as kangaroo care—between parent and baby.

(click to read on WSJ.com)