After 42 weeks of pregnancy, two days of undergoing inducement and physical stress on the baby, my daughter was delivered via an emergency C-section. Oh, it was music to my ears when my gynecologist arrived in my hospital room at 4:30 a.m. and told me they were going to do an emergency C-section. I must have been in shock or delirious! However, after going through a traumatic two days, I had had enough and I wanted to meet this precious baby who lived inside of me for 9+ months. The time came and I was wheeled to the operating room, and what a blessed event it was to see my sweet new baby girl!

I wasn’t prepared for the aftermath of a C-Section but I am so grateful that I had a great family who were there for me and helped me every step of the way.

1. Plan ahead. No one can predict whether or not you’ll need an emergency c-section. So prepare yourself with information.
2. Try not to be upset if you are told you have to undergo a C-section to deliver your baby. I know that many new parents are less than thrilled at the prospect and have anticipated a natural delivery. Plenty of women feel put down and feel less like a woman because they did not deliver their baby through the hard work of labour. I know it is emotionally hard. Truly, the main concern is you and your baby’s health and that is more important than how you delivered your baby.
3. Expect a brief hospital stay. My daughter and I were in the hospital for four days after the birth. If you require assistance at any time in caring for you or your baby, are uncomfortable due to the pain, or have any questions, do not be afraid to ask for help. There were times when I was too proud to press the buzzer to ask for assistance. But, believe me, their assistance is very much required, especially with the care of your newborn baby.
4. When the time comes and the nurses and/or doctors tell you to walk around, do try. It may be difficult but do try to do a little walking if and when possible. It helps to alleviate the stomach gases that are very much a part of the discomfort you feel after a C-section.
5. The day arrives when you and your newborn can finally go home. Enlist support! Ensure that you have family, friends or loved ones to assist you and, once again, do not be afraid to ask for help. Do not try to be supermom! I was fortunate to have a supportive family at home and could not imagine going through the recovery without them. It will take you 6 weeks to fully recuperate from a C-section, afterall, it is major surgery.
6. Do not pick up heavy items. Remember, you have just had surgery and your incision is in the healing process.
7. Ensure that you eat healthy and drink lots of water. This is important to ensure that your digestive systems returns to normal. Plenty of rest is vital for recuperation. Enjoy this period of relaxation because you have many years of motherhood to go!
8. Enjoy this special time with your new baby!

I survived my first C-section and 18 months after the birth of my daughter, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy via a scheduled C-section. The second C-section was easier. I am grateful to have two healthy children who are the joy of my life, irregardless of how I delivered them.

About The Author
Lee-Anne Robert, proud mother of two healthy young children and owner of Cuddles ‘n Gifts,
Copyright 2004 info@cuddlesngifts.net

Every pregnant woman has experienced the pregnancy blahs. I can remember feeling so big and unattractive throughout my two pregnancies, and secretly wishing for the pregnancy to be over so that I could have my body back and fit into my normal clothes. It’s sad to say, really, because pregnancy is such a beautiful experience and the fact that you created this little human being that is developing in your body should make you feel wonderful through every step of the way.

Oh, but those pregnancy blahs kick in! Your stomach is growing, you cannot fit into your normal clothes, you can’t see your feet, you waddle when you walk, your feet and legs are swollen, and other additional physical changes make you feel, well, blah! Sometime during your pregnancy, you may even start to feel bored with the pregnancy and/or feel depressed. Yes, those raging hormones kick in too.

Here are some tips in helping to beat those pregnancy blahs:

1. Eat healthy and get plenty of rest. Choose healthy foods and ensure that your intake is nutritious.
2. Exercise. Even a short walk in the outdoors will uplift your spirits.
3. Make yourself feel attractive by taking the time to groom yourself. Do your hair and put on makeup. We all feel so confident and alive when we look good.
4. Buy maternity outfits that will make you feel good. Don’t buy just because they fit you.
5. Ensure to include pretty accessories in your daily wardrobe such as nice earrings or a pretty scarf. Most of us raid our spouse’s closet for clothes that we can wear throughout our pregnancy. Lovely accessories even dress up your spouse’s wardrobe.
6. If you start to feel bored with your pregnancy, choose an activity that you will enjoy to help you through the boredom. Many woman will prepare for the baby by going shopping or decorating the nursery. Other woman choose a hobby such as gardening, preparing a scrapbook, writing in a pregnancy journal, etc.
7. Roughly 10 percent of women experience mild or moderate depression during pregnancy. If you feel persistent depression or anxiety, seek professional help.
8. Spend quality time with your spouse. Go for a romantic dinner or out to a movie. Enjoy this time because it’s hard to find time after the baby is born.
9. Take time out for yourself. Motherhood is just around the corner so take this time to enjoy your independence.

Although it may seem like 9 months is taking forever, really, it goes very quickly. Enjoy the wonderful experience of pregnancy each step of the way. There will be a time in our lives when our children have grown up and we wish to live the pregnancy experience all over again.

You can beat the pregnancy blahs! Feel good about being a woman and feel good about bringing a wonderful new baby into the world.

About The Author
Written by Lee-Anne Robert, a mother of two young children and owner of Cuddles ‘n Gifts, info@cuddlesngifts.net

Unfortunately, fatigue is part of the postnatal period. Although sleep deprivation is almost inevitable, utter exhaustion is avoidable. Here are a few tips and recommendations on how to manage your energy levels in the weeks and months after childbirth.

While some mothers feel “back on their feet” after just a few days home from the hospital, medical studies show that fatigue generally reaches its peak two to four days after you return home. Many women also go through a slump between the eighth and tenth week after childbirth when the accumulated lack of sleep really begins to cause damage. Only 50 percent of women feel that they have regained their usual energy levels within six weeks postpartum. Twenty-five percent more feel that they are back to normal only after six months. This means that a quarter of new mothers are still suffering from fatigue and low energy more than six months after childbirth. But then, remember also that two-thirds of babies aged six to twelve months, and a third of toddlers have trouble sleeping through the night…

Most mothers find that their biggest problem is lack of sleep. A sleep cycle is made up of four phases, which in total last about 90 minutes. The last phase, deep sleep, when physical recuperation takes place and the immune system works hardest, occurs mostly early in the night. Only after the full sleep cycle is complete can the body go into REM (rapid eye movement) sleep when we dream and process all the mental stimuli accumulated during the day. If a mother is woken during any stage of her sleep cycle, she will go back to its very beginning when she falls back to sleep, thus missing out on precious REM sleep. So even if you are sleeping the same number of total hours within a 24-hour period, you may still suffer from REM sleep deprivation.

Elevated hormone levels are notorious for disturbing sleep during pregnancy. These persist for the first weeks after childbirth. Add in a newborn’s erratic sleep patterns as well as the habits of your older children, and it seems that you can’t escape the burning eyes, chills, hunger for sweets, irritability, lethargy, difficulty in concentrating, and even depression that accompany “sleep debt.”

Fortunately, it takes just two or three nights in a row of uninterrupted sleep to cure these symptoms. Most importantly, fatigue is managed through prevention: by building up energy reserves that can be called upon in times of stress and by never letting yourself become completely exhausted.

Managing your time to make rest your top priority usually means a total reorganization of your normal routine. This must be planned well ahead of your delivery. Building a network of friends and family to whom you can assign tasks (household chores, baby-sitting, shopping/cooking/washing up after a meal) ahead of the baby’s birth is the most important step you can take. The secret to surviving the postnatal period is to delegate, delegate, delegate and to forget about what you cannot delegate.

About the Author:
Sylvia Brown wrote The Post-Pregnancy Handbook: The Only Book that Tells What the First Year After Childbirth is Really All About — Physically, Emotionally, Sexually in response to her own frustration at the lack of comprehensive information for the mother in the weeks and months after childbirth.

• No two baby brains are alike and there is no such a thing as a set of right answers for enhancing the baby’s intelligence. Be aware of the baby’s interests and motivation and help s/he to act upon the objects.
• The observation of the baby’s brain still difficult to do and it is not yet available to use in real-life situations. So, to know what is happening inside you baby brain we would need to use different kinds of computerized or caps of electrodes to display its structure. So… what we have left in order to enhance the baby’s intelligence? – A combination of behavioral observation and good educational research to help us to get every act we experience with our babies right! This we can perform!
• Don’t be afraid! Mix your personal experience, research results, and observe educational practices, and you will not have a chance to do it wrong with your baby!
• Remember that your baby is always constructing his knowledge of the world, and the more s/he uses his/her body to leave, the better s/he shapes the power of his/her neural connections. The more s/he uses his/her functions, s/he access a dynamic process where his/her neurons communicate through electrical and chemical signaling, leading to creation of complex physical connections, that are all together what will become the structures of the brain. Remember – “Use it and you will have it!” This -phrase works for the babies, the ones who have the brain quality to shape itself every other minute in life!
• So, how to get every act we experience with the baby right? How to increase the baby’s neural connection, increasing the Baby brain development?
• Give them good nutrition – yes, we all already know it is important!
• Pay attention to their rest – we all know babies need sleeping schedules! But, do not impose it to the baby. It’s hers/his own necessity that counts;
• Care for their emotional stability! – This is a factor that makes all the difference. Care for it!
• Promote them time to play! – Playing for the baby brain equals exercise and the experimentation of the relationships of movements, space and body. The baby needs to feel the world by going around places, seeing things, sensing spaces, listening and understanding sounds.
• Promote time to read – I am not talking about reading to the baby. I am talking about time for them to read! Giving the baby the opportunity to be exposed and to using symbols and signs that represents the culture and the thoughts that maintains the culture, are the most valuable experience for him/her. And it is right to learn to read! Even if the culture yet do not accept it!
• But take time! Wait for the baby’s own rhythmic development to have enough time to do their own mental growing. The baby will do the magic! How? Observe the baby’s inner motivation, and go with him towards his/her own interests. Time to learn all about cats? Dogs? Flowers? Family members? Girls? Boys? Toys? Give them all the time they to play and learn about them! Give them all the information they are affected to, attended to, interested in. Give them the opportunity to be observing, exploring the surroundings.
• Let him/her repeat what s/he is doing, how many times s/he needs to.
• Make games to promote problem solving (Ex: Where are we going? What color is the cat?… Keep talking to the baby all the time you can!…)
• Motivate with different colors; when talking to the baby add adjectives to objects, nouns and subjects. (Ex: Book?…Red book. Shirt? White shirt, etc…)

• Brains respond to novelties better than to anything else. So, show the baby the uniqueness of everyday life. Show colors, forms, temperature, animals, fits, cars, words in public places, people of different ages, birds, and wild animals, etc…

All these activities will aid in healthy Baby brain development!

About this Author:
Dr. Eliane Leao is a native of Brazil, South America. She has a background in Education from Purdue University (Masters) and a PhD in the Dept of Educational Psychology from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP)/Purdue University (Ph.D.). Visit our website for Free Articles and a Free Ebook on the subject of Babies and Reading at www.baby-can-read.com.

Wanting to raise a healthy baby is a primary desire for parents. An expectant mother will get her check ups, follow the advise of her doctor or mid wife in the myriad of things she can do to contribute to the health of her unborn child.

The usual list of things to do and not to do can include, but certainly not limited to, are eating habits, exercise, rest and stress release while avoiding smoking, alcohol and drugs.

Every person is different, without getting into “lists” of what vitamins and minerals to take or the amounts, we will just touch on some of the basics. Sensible eating and lifestyle habits are at the forefront.

Starting with healthy eating, look to a well-balanced, nutritious diet of lots of fresh greens, fruits and whole grains, organic if possible, to avoid consumption of pesticides and herbicides. These chemicals are detrimental to you and your baby. At the very least, if organic is not an option, avoid foods that contain additives and artificial ingredients.

It has been estimated that Americans consume about 5 lbs of additives/year. If you include sugar, the most used additive, the number jumps to an astounding 135 lbs /year. To learn more about the staggering number of food additives now being used, you can consult Michael Jacobson’s Safe Food: Eating Wisely in a Risky World or Unsafe at Any Meal: How to Avoid Hidden Toxins in Your Food.

Additionally, avoiding junk foods, highly seasoned or fried foods will help with energy levels as well as keeping low the intake of liver clogging hydrogenated fats. When choosing healthy proteins, cooking practices should be considered to be very important. Steer clear of undercooked or rare meats, poultry and fish which can cause food poisoning.

Considering we are approximately 70-75% water, being well hydrated, especially during pregnancy is imperative. The body’s water supply is involved in and responsible for nearly every bodily process, including digestion, absorption, circulation, excretion and the transport of nutrients. It is essential to drink about half your body weight in ounces/day (eg. 130 lbs = 65 oz).

Consuming a high quality water is of the utmost importance, investing in a reputable water purifier or purchasing purified or spring water is the way to go. Distilled water is fine in moderation, too much or drinking solely distilled actually robs your body of vital minerals.

Avoiding high sugar or chemically laden drinks, such as sodas, soft drinks, fruity drinks, etc will keep the additives down as well as the empty calories. (If you drink 100% juices, diluting with pure water will make it easier on the system to handle and keep your insulin from spiking) Other than the obvious reasons to pass on alcohol, it is a depressant, dehydrates and robs you of vital nutrients, including Vitamin C.

After touching on food and water, smoking not only affects the lungs, hence oxygenation of every single cell, but smoking causes serious depletion of vitamin C which is an antioxidant required for collagen formation, tissue growth and repair, adrenal gland function, immune function, healthy gums and an endless list of additional tissues and functions requiring this vitamin.

Moderate exercise (always check with your doctor or midwife) can not be over emphasized, it helps to alleviate many of the common problems of pregnancy. Improving circulation, helping to prevent hemorrhoids, constipation and varicose veins, to name a few, can be reason enough for many women to hit the walking path.

Strengthening the circulatory system gives more endurance, improves your physical condition and some studies suggest it can actually result in shorter labor and help the mother to bounce back quicker.

The previous items are some very basic considerations in your child’s health before it arrives. OK, the sweet little bundle has arrived, now the parents will do what they can in feeding and caring for the new addition. From the right crib to covering edges, outlet guards, breast feeding or formula, bathing, there is an endless list of things to consider……. the point is of the long list of things to get or have or change or do for the health of your baby, some very important considerations may be overlooked if the parents aren’t aware.

At the top of list is the bedding and clothing that babies live in. Racking up almost 60% of their time in bed, the sheets your baby is in are just as important as the construction of that oh so fabulous crib. Have you thought of organic? Did you know they produced organic bedding and clothing? Were you aware they manufactured baby organic bedding and clothing? Most people really have no idea, it is just something they hadn’t thought of as well as the fact it is not quite yet the main stream.

Organic means growing fibers in fields without synthetic chemicals, for at least three years. Third-party certification organizations verify that organic producers use only methods and materials allowed in organic production. Pure, natural, chemical free.

Conventional clothing and bedding embedded with chemical toxins from growing to processing to finishing are now unacceptable to many. In the child and baby arena, it is getting even more so. As concerned parents start to research or happen by an article with vital information on poison exposure, they are finding that children and infants are uniquely at risk from pesticides because of physiological susceptibility and greater relative exposure. Three major factors are particularly important: