Spinach and Honey

Marin is getting serious about waste

2011-12-23T10:57:00.000-08:00

Starting January 1st, Marin will charge .05 for bags at all Marin grocery stores. I've got to start keeping bags in my car because I'm always at the store when I least expect it. I love how Rainbow Grocery always has a pile of used bags, crates, and boxes for customers who forgot their bags or need extra. Did San Francisco's bag fee pass this year?

Here's an interesting article in the Huffington Post about the decrease in waste since San Francisco banned plastic bags in 2007.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/san-francisco-plastic-bag-ban-and-fee_n_1096011.html

What Safeway has that Whole Foods doesn't?

2011-12-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

Plastic bag recycling bin outside their store. Maybe it's because Safeway still bags with plastic bags (only stores outside of San Francisco), but still, there are plenty of foods at Whole Foods wrapped in some sort of plastic. The foods packaged in plastic that can't be recycled make me cringe. The plastic bags with loaves of bread inside make me kind of ill too. The rate at which they accumulate under my kitchen sink is shocking. Not to mention the twisty ties, which can't be recycled because of the metal. I save them, but I have so many now, I need a good art project. In my ideal world, I'd live in France and pick up fresh bread daily with my bare hands, no packaging. And, on a side note, I asked a Whole Foods employee in Mill Valley where I could compost my muffin wrapper and he said that they didn't compost. Really!? Come on.

Popsicle Peas

2011-12-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

Vegetables, vegetables, vegetables...what's on the menu right now for my five year old and my two year old? Raw green beans for Nate and frozen peas straight from the bag for West. West normally eats the peas for a snack during the warmest part of the day. And, Nate likes his vegis with dinner.

#5 Last Planning Post: Finding Childcare Abroad

2011-07-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to hire the hotel babysitter, but I am not against a little help with the kids. Zack wants to go on some big bike rides. I want to go to yoga and finish writing my book. We would like to do at least one big hike in the Alps and go out to a nice dinner. So, how can we find someone we trust to watch our darlings? More importantly, how can we sculpt the arrangement so that Nate and West feel comfortable enough to let us go?

I really didn't know how until my French friend told me that she spent a summer watching the children of an English family in order to learn English. They gave her room, board and English in exchange for babysitting. I decided to try Craigslist Paris to see if I might be able to find someone to do the same for us.

I did! I found a lot of people interested. I asked for a resume. I called their references, and then I chose Chantal. She's French Canadian and going to study in France in September. We used Skype to meet her in person. Even the kids got to say hi.

So, we're hoping that because she'll be living with us, we and kids will be comfortable with her. Even in the worst case scenario, we can't leave the kids behind during the day, we can certainly go out after they've gone to bed, which we wouldn't be able to do without Chantal! Thank you, Chantal!

#4 Find Free Housing

2011-07-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

The fourth step to planning a family sabbatical is finding free housing. Yeah, right! Sounds impossible? Actually, there's house-swap sites where I registered and people email me who want to come to my house and I email houses where I'd like to stay. The houses are usually a lot nicer than rental homes, but we didn't see any in Annecy.

So, plan B was to rent our place in Mill Valley. We joined Vacation Rental By Owners but got zero bites. I posted on Craigslist and got some response, but nothing materialized. I found our two renters for the duration of our trip through the Southern Marin Mother's Group and the Lycee Francais parent's email list.

We found a nice rental house on Lake Annecy and we'll offset the cost buy renting our home. I lined-up the house cleaners and someone to cut the grass. I cleared out some of our personal stuff and voila. Done. With a little effort, we have discounted European housing.

#3 Pick a Family Sabbatical Location

2011-07-07T15:51:00.001-07:00

Think of everywhere that you'd want to go on an one-week vacation and cross it off the list.

We'd never fly 10 hours with the kids for a one or two week vacation. Six weeks, yes!

I speak French. We went to the Alps when we got engaged and Annecy, France seems to everything that we could want to do right out the door.

Annecy has warm weather, hiking, a warm lake to swim in, biking, and a cute town with farmer's markets and yoga.

With two young kids we didn't want to travel from place to place. That didn't sound relaxing, and so we had to find a place in the world that had everything and was easy living. We found Annecy. Let's see how the six weeks goes.

#2: Get Inspired, Read “The 4-Hour Workweek”

2011-07-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

“The 4-Hour Workweek,” by Tim Ferriss helped motivate me! Zack bought it. That’s how I got a hold of it, but he hasn’t read it yet. Which is kind of funny since I don’t have a day job.

I never do the exercises in these types of books, but I did do the one in the beginning of this one. Two of the things on my wish list were “buy bras, get a haircut.” And then, on the long-term list, “family sabbatical.”

I loved the story about the author consulting with CEOs and convincing them to sell all their vacation homes because they’re too much work to manage for only a week visit a year even with other people doing the work and all the money in the world. This book is about honing in on what’s really important to you and slimming down your life to focus on it. It’s about doing something now and not waiting for retirement.

Since I read this book, I now outsource a lot of phone calls and tasks to India! I can call the airline and get a list of questions answered for $3.75 and save myself a lot of stress doing it. Seriously, I can’t make a phone call around here. I’d rather pay someone to do that stuff so that I can be with the kids and not get all sweaty wondering if I’m going to make it to the end of the hold music.

It’s a fun inspirational read for all of us stuck in the routine of the workweek.

#1: First Step to a Family Sabbatical

2011-07-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

First step to a family sabbatical, get yourself in a situation where you have to do something big or something big is going to do you.

In our case, we have two small, adorable children 2 and 5; but nonetheless, it’s enough to send most people to the loony house. Add staying home alone with them for 10.5 hrs. a day.

So where's the husband? He's working his ass off at work and commuting three hours a day in his car. What does he do when he gets home? Relax? No, he spends a half hour with the kids and then goes back to work. I go to bed and he's still up working.

Okay so our relationship is in the outs, but we just don't know how to make it all stop. Does he quit his job? Do we move to an easier place to raise kids? Do we take a long vacation? Do we sell out and take a REALLY long vacation and never come back?

First we started with a move. We survived and things for me did get better, but Zack is commuting even longer to work and still is up working past when I hit the pillow. Sooo...what do we do now?

Zack discusses sabbatical time with boss and gets it approved. Six weeks! Perfect! A family bonding time right before Nate goes off to Kindergarten and before we have no where else to turn but dumping buckets of money on couples therapy. Doesn’t a lovely vacation in France sound so much better than therapy.

France sounds so much better than crying it out in therapy. Stay-tuned for step #2 in planning a family sabbatical.

Huffington Post Article on Childbirth in the USA

2010-11-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tabby-biddle/women-speak-out-about-wha_b_781205.html

"Women die in childbirth as a result of systemic failures including: barriers to accessing care, inadequate, neglectful or discriminatory care, and overuse of risky interventions like inducing labor and delivering via cesarean section." -- Amnesty International

For many of us who haven't yet been through childbirth, there's an image we have of what it's like: A woman is rushed to the hospital in a taxi; she gets put in a wheelchair and is rolled down the hallway in dire emergency; then we see her screaming, and yelling in pain and then... there's the baby.

Sadly, this is the image that a lot of television shows have put into our minds, and have led many of us to believe: Birth is scary. Birth is dangerous. And it might be better if we just numb out through the whole experience.

Because so many women don't have an image of what a natural, empowered birth looks like, there is a lot of fear surrounding the act giving birth. Accordingly, the majority of women give their inner authority over to doctors in their birth process. They trust the doctors more than themselves. The problem with this is that many women aren't aware that the majority of her doctor's medical decisions are being made today for monetary and legal reasons, and not necessarily for the good of her and her baby.

Here is the reality: Hospitals are businesses. They want those beds filled and emptied. They aren't really interested in having women with long labors hanging around. And there is something else you should know: Having a baby in a hospital might not be as safe as you thought.

Did you know that the United States has the second worst newborn death rate in the developed world... and one of the highest maternal mortality rates among all industrialized countries?

You can go to any other developed country in the world, and you will find that they are losing fewer women and fewer babies around the time of birth. The important thing to know here is that in these countries, midwives are attending 70 to 80 percent of the births (doctors are there for the small percentage that have complications). In the United States, midwives attend less than 8 percent of births.

Why is this number so low?

"I've interviewed a lot of nurse midwives and I've noticed that as soon as their practice reaches over 30 percent of the women in a certain hospital, the doctor will start firing them because that's too much competition," said medical anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD, in an interview for the documentary The Business of Being Born.

Hmmmm... interesting.

The common way to have birth now is be Cesarean section. Today in the United States, the Cesarean section rate is at an all-time high. Since 1996 the C-section rate has risen 50 percent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Today one out of every three babies comes into this world by C-section.

This seems like a crazy statistic. What is really going on here?

Marsden Wagner, M.D., former director of Women's and Children's Health at the World Health Organization, gave his opinion in an interview for The Business of Being Born: "A Cesarean is extremely doctor-friendly, because instead of having a woman in labor for an average of 12 hours, 7 days a week. It's 20 minutes, and I'll be home for dinner."

Many women come to the hospital with a plan for a natural birth, but all too often their birth plan changes very quickly based on a doctor's decision (that is not necessarily based on any real complication). For example, one friend of mine had written a birth plan with her doctor. She would be having a natural, vaginal birth at St. John's Health Center in in Santa Monica, California. On the day of my friend's birth, her doctor did not show up. So my friend was then under the charge of another doctor. This doctor decided that instead of the natural birth my friend had wanted, she should have a C-section. His reason: she was taking too long in labor.

But the doctor forbade my friend from squatting and getting on all fours (apparently against hospital policy), even though it felt so good for her and it opened up her pelvis. (FYI: When he left the room, she went ahead and squatted anyway.) My friend knew she could give birth naturally. She felt deep inside that she had the strength and power to do this. She trusted herself. But the doctor kept insisting on a C-section.

After fighting off some medical interventions that the doctor was insisting on (one of these was the "fetal probe"), and a lot of eye rolling and shaming from the hospital staff in the process, her baby was born. While my friend was happy as can be about her new baby girl, she explained to me: "The birth was something that should have been beautiful, but degenerated into something that wasn't."

As Nadine Goodman, Public Health Specialist, has put it: "What the medical profession has done over the past 40, 50 years is convince the vast majority of women that they don't know how to birth."

I have heard too many stories from friends and family members where the hospital told them that they were open to the natural birth they wanted, but then the reality was so different. First came the Pitocin to speed up the labor, then the epidural to dull the pain from the strong contractions caused by the Pitocin, and then the C-section "for the safety of the baby."

"We need to make sure that we reduce the overuse of interventions that are not always necessary, like C-sections, and increase access to the care that we know is good for mothers and babies, like labor support." -- Maureen Corry, executive director of Childbirth Connection

As Dr. Eden Fromberg, OB/GYN, has admitted in an interview: "There was a doctor who used to train me who said, 'They can never fault you if you just section them. Just section them.'" In other words, the current thinking in the medical world is: avoid being sued at all costs.

"There's the prevailing sense among doctors that you don't get sued for the C-section you do, only the ones you don't," said Nan Strauss, a maternal health researcher for Amnesty International, quoted in The New York Times. Amnesty International published a report earlier this year declaring the country in the midst of a crisis in maternal health care.

The reality is that once the hospital starts with an intervention, it becomes a domino effect. They say: Thank God we were able to do all of these interventions to save your baby. But, as Eugene Declerqc, Ph.D., Professor of Maternal and Fetal Health at Boston University School of Public Health has said
.... the fact of the matter is if they didn't start the cascading of interventions, none of the rest would have been necessary.

[By the way, putting a woman flat on her back for giving birth literally makes her pelvis smaller and makes it much more difficult for her to use her stomach muscles to push. The result: It is much more likely that she will need an episiotomy and a vacuum or forceps will be used to deliver the baby.]

Negotiating their way through the hospital environment is a power struggle that many women aren't interested in, so they are choosing to have their babies at home.

"For most women who are having a normal, healthy pregnancy, it can be safer to have a home birth," said Cecily Miller, prenatal and perinatal specialist living in Los Angeles, in an interview with me.

When I asked Ms. Miller to tell me more about the benefits of a home birth for expectant moms, here is what she told me:

"Giving birth is a rite of passage. It is an initiation into motherhood. If we want an empowered initiation where women are honored in the female body, and we are ushering in new life to the society, then women need to feel safe in their birth process... Giving birth is the most intimate experience we can imagine. And how we make love is how we want to give birth."

Cecily explained to me that the qualities of making love and the qualities of the environment -- dim lights, private space, intimate space -- is the same conducive environment for birth. It should be a place where a woman feels she can be herself, which, as Cecily explained, is usually at home.

Sure makes sense to me.

When a woman is at home she can groan and make natural sounds (these sounds actually open up her pelvis); she can eat when we she needs to; rest when she needs to; have privacy when she needs to; kiss her partner, be held; walk around, look out at nature, and basically do what feels best for her. "The comforts of home afford a woman her ground, her roots... and then the body will naturally in most cases, open, and will give birth," explained Cecily.

A friend of mine who had both of her babies at home described just that: "The best thing about giving birth at home was that I never had to leave my home. I could be rooted there. My husband brought me smoothies. I could hop in the tub when I wanted to. I could get on all fours. Then after the birth, I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was curl up with my baby, and that is exactly what I did."

When I asked her about her confidence level for her home birth, she explained to me that through her birth classes and her yoga practice she felt prepared. "Deep breathing, steady focus, determination, and a desire to do it myself helped me bring my babies into the world." she said. My friend explained that when the time came, she allowed her body to take over and do the rest. "I really do believe we are all strong women. I think the whole hospital realm has brainwashed women to think: 'Oh you can't handle this, so we will give you drugs.' It's pretty sad." Agreed. She added: "While giving birth was the most challenging thing I've done in my life, having my children at home was comforting, inspiring and empowering."

While a home birth might not be for every woman, it's my hope that more women will consider it as an alternative to the institutionalized and currently over-medicalized environment of the hospital. As Cara Muhlhahn, a Certified Nurse Midwife in practice for more than 10 years, has said: A home birth gives the power back to the woman.

Cross it out!

2010-09-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Buy bread? What happens to all those bags? I either recycle them at Lucky's down the street. Recycled plastic bags are used to make decking, fencing and other products. Or I reuse them. If I reuse them, I cross-out the bar-code so that I don't pay for bread by accident at the checkout!

Plastic bags can't be recycled in our blue recycling cans because they get jammed in the machine at the recycling center. San Francisco's plastic bags need to be recycled at a separate depository and handled differently. I think that most grocery stores have a bin for all bags with the recycle symbol on it. There's still a lot of plastic bags out there that can't be recycled and therefore have to go to the landfill. I try to avoid buying these products. I also try to buy fresh bread not in a bag as much as possible.

"Plastic bags are a clear example of excess run amok," Mirkarimi (SF Supervisor) said. "People don't necessarily realize the composition of the plastic bag or the consequences of the plastic bag. ...They're omnipresent."

Read about San Francisco's efforts to control the excess:
http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-08-03/news/22010241_1_plastic-bags-large-supermarkets-and-chain-american-plastics-council

Check out my related posts here: http://www.spinachandhoney.com/2010/03/getting-rid-of-plastic-wrap-and-plastic.html

http://www.spinachandhoney.com/2009/02/avoid-plastic-bags-in-produce-section.html

ACOGs Homebirth Study reviewed by Jennifer Block

2010-09-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Block a reporter who wrote, "Pushed," published a review on her blog about ACOG's study on the safety of home birth. Read it here:

http://jenniferblock.com/wordpress/?p=122

Cups Stacked Up or Down. Which is Best?

2010-08-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

I took a food safety class with the city of San Francisco about a year and a half ago to sell my granola bars to San Francisco's local coop grocery store, Rainbow Grocery. In this class, I learned that if I were a restaurant owner, I would have to stack my glasses upside down. Why? Because it reduces the risk of touching the lip of the cup where people put their mouths. If I look at my picture above, I have to pull the cups on the right up by pinching the cup around the lip with my fingers. The cups stacked on the left, I would pull apart by grabbing them from the bottom and so not contaminating the area where people will put their mouths.

So, what do I do at home? I stack them upside down when I think of it, but stacking them right-side up just comes more naturally.

Do you unload the top or the bottom first?

2010-08-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Which do you unload first from your dishwasher the top or the bottom? I unload the bottom so those cups that get filled with water during the wash don't dump on my clean dishes below.

ACOG changes its VBAC Statement: This is huge!

2010-07-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

Yeah! Finally, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is changing their policy on VBACs and women might have to wade through less politics to have a vaginal birth after a previous cesarean. Of course ACOG's wording could be stronger and we need to keep fighting for a woman's right to choose how she births her babies but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Even if a hospital does not offer trials of labor after Caesarean, the group says, “such a policy cannot be used to force women to have cesarean delivery or to deny care to women in labor who decline to have a repeat cesarean delivery.”

The new guidelines replace the obstetrician group’s earlier ones — which were exactly what led many hospitals to ban VBAC in the first place. But the group says it never intended to limit women’s access to vaginal birth, and it acknowledges that its policies may have helped fuel the trend toward too many Caesareans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/health/22birth.html?_r=2&th&emc=th

New Guidelines Seek to Reduce Repeat Caesareans

By DENISE GRADY

Most women who have had Caesarean sections can safely give birth the normal way later, studies have shown, but in recent years hospitals, doctors and insurers have been refusing to let them even try, insisting on repeat Caesareans instead.

The decisions have been based largely on fears of medical risks and lawsuits, medical and legal experts say.

The hospital rules have infuriated many women, added to the nation’s ever-increasing Caesarean rate and set off a bitter debate over who controls childbirth. Now, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is issuing a new set of medical guidelines meant to make it easier for women to find doctors and hospitals that will allow vaginal birth after Caesarean, or VBAC (pronounced vee-back).

Women’s health advocates praised the new guidelines because they expand the pool of women considered eligible for vaginal births, but they expressed doubts about whether the recommendations go far enough to change a decade of entrenched behavior by doctors, hospitals and insurers.

The new guidelines replace the obstetrician group’s earlier ones — which were exactly what led many hospitals to ban VBAC in the first place. But the group says it never intended to limit women’s access to vaginal birth, and it acknowledges that its policies may have helped fuel the trend toward too many Caesareans.

“It will be better for women in the long run if we can lower the C-section rate,” said Dr. Richard N. Waldman, president of the obstetricians’ group and chairman of obstetrics at St Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse. The guidelines are being published on Thursday in the August issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

About 1.4 million women had Caesareans — or about 32 percent of all births — in 2007, the latest year with figures available, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Like earlier guidelines, the new ones say that vaginal birth is safe for most women who have had a Caesarean, provided that the cut in the uterus was low and horizontal, the way nearly all Caesareans are performed today. Sixty to 80 percent of women who have what doctors call “a trial of labor” — an attempt to deliver vaginally — after a Caesarean succeed.

The new guidelines go beyond the earlier ones, however, stating that vaginal birth after Caesarean is also reasonable for most women carrying twins and those who had two prior Caesareans.

Even if a hospital does not offer trials of labor after Caesarean, the group says, “such a policy cannot be used to force women to have cesarean delivery or to deny care to women in labor who decline to have a repeat cesarean delivery.”

The main worry is the risk of uterine rupture during labor, which can severely harm both the mother and the child and requires emergency surgery. But the guidelines state that for women with one previous Caesarean, the risk of rupture during a trial of labor is quite low — from 0.7 percent to 0.9 percent. If the same woman has a repeat Caesarean instead, before labor starts, the risk of rupture is even lower — from 0.4 to 0.5 percent.

But a Caesarean increases the risk of placental problems in later pregnancies that can cause hemorrhage or lead to hysterectomy.

Compared with babies born after a repeat Caesarean, those born vaginally after Caesarean have increased risks of stillbirth (the overall risk is well below 1 percent), but decreased risks of breathing problems and jaundice.

Until the 1970s, the rule was “once a Caesarean, always a Caesarean,” largely because of worries about rupture. But medical opinion shifted, and an expert panel convened by the National Institutes of Health in 1980 found that vaginal birth after Caesarean was safe for many women.

In 1985, 6.6 percent of women with prior Caesareans were giving birth normally. By 1996, the rate had risen to 28 percent. But some uterine ruptures were reported, with lawsuits and enormous payments, and the rate began to drop.

In 1999, the obstetricians’ group issued guidelines that had a chilling impact. By 2006, the percentage of women with Caesareans who later had vaginal births had plummeted, to 8.5 percent from 24 percent in 1999.

The chill came from two words in the 1999 guidelines: the college said hospitals offering a trial of labor after Caesarean should have a surgical and anesthesia team “immediately available” to perform an emergency Caesarean if needed. The previous policy had said “readily available,” which gave hospitals some leeway to call a team quickly.

The 1999 wording led many hospitals, particularly smaller ones, to ban vaginal deliveries after Caesarean, saying they could not afford to pay doctors to wait around during labor and could not risk being sued for malpractice if they flouted the guidelines and complications occurred.

In March, the National Institutes of Health convened a panel of experts to examine why so few women with prior Caesareans had normal births later. The panel reaffirmed that vaginal birth was safe for many women with past Caesareans, and urged the obstetricians’ group to reassess its guidelines.

The new guidelines mention the March conference. But the recommendations still say trials of labor should be offered in facilities with staff members “immediately available” to provide emergency care.

Those words are softened somewhat by the recommendation that if an immediate Caesarean is not available, it should be explained to the patient, and she should be “allowed to accept increased levels of risk” — or to plan a trial of labor elsewhere. Opinions vary as to whether the new recommendations will lead to a lift on bans on trial of labor.

Maureen Corry, executive director of Childbirth Connection, an advocacy group, said, “Overall, it’s dubious that these guidelines will in fact open up access for women.”

Debra Bingham, president-elect of Lamaze International, an advocacy group for natural birth, said the “immediately available” wording might still pose an obstacle.

Sandy Haryasz, the chief executive officer of Page Hospital, in Page, Ariz., which does not offer VBAC, said the hospital would review the guidelines, but she noted in an e-mail message that the guidelines still highlighted immediate Caesareans.

Dr. Sandra B. Reed, an obstetrician at Archbold Memorial Hospital in Thomasville, Ga., which does not offer trials of labor after Caesarean, said, “I do not think this bulletin is strong enough to change the current policy in our facility.”

Dr. Waldman said he still hoped the new guidelines would encourage more hospitals to allow trials of labor after Caesarean, but, he added, “the big issue is liability.”

“What I’m hoping is that everybody will get together and do the right thing,” he said. “That includes patients.If they take the risk, they have a certain responsibility not to sue the physician if there’s a bad outcome, knowing that they took the risk.”

Drowning in laundry!

2010-07-08T12:39:00.001-07:00

Seriously, I'm doing laundry daily. What happened to the days of laundry on Sunday nights? Four years into having children and I am still adjusting to my new life style. My dinning room looks like this picture 24/7. The minute I get everything folded and put away, I'm throwing another pile from the dryer in the kitchen through the doorway and onto the dinning room floor. Now I understand why people created laundry rooms.

How to Use Cloth Baby Wipes

2010-07-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine your life without disposable baby wipes? I couldn't. It's sort of like the big leap that I took to stop buying paper towels. No Impact Man went without toilet paper. Now that seems even harder.

I was a year into cloth diapering before I plunged into cloth wipes. It happened organically. I never thought that I'd do it.

I have a bucket in the bathroom for the dirty cloth diapers and I started using it for dirty wash clothes after tubby time. And then, I started wetting my disposable wipes because they weren't wet enough to really clean the last phase of wiping a poopy butt. I realized that if I needed to wet the wipes, I might try a wash cloth instead. The wash clothes were so much better than the wipes, and so I bought some soft ones (Under the Nile) to be used only for butt wiping. I wash them with the cloth diapers.

We still keep disposable wipes on hand but I am not buying the $40 box of 12 refills. It takes us a couple months to go through one packet. I guess that we just keep it around for visitors who aren't familiar with using cloth. Cloth wipes work better, cost less, and of course are better for the environment.

NY Governor Due to Veto Bill TODAY!

2010-07-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

Governor Paterson of NY, we understand your counsel is advising you against the Midwifery Modernization Act, but we are asking you to please allow it to go through without signing it. This way he does not need to oppose his counsel or his constituents. CALL NOW! 518-474-8390. He is due to veto it today.

From NYT article on subject:

So to Ms. Paulin, New York’s requirement that midwives have a “written practice agreement” with a doctor or hospital seems like an unnecessary hurdle.
A week ago, a bill that would repeal that requirement breezed through Assembly and Senate committees, and its champions expected it to pass the full Legislature within days. Then it hit heavy opposition from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

New York Times reports on Midwife Bill

Can ACOG Block Midwife Competition in NY?

Nate is 4!

2010-06-24T22:19:00.000-07:00

In the last four years, I have spent a lot of time stripping away layers and layers of learned behavior, thoughts, and feelings. And what did I find? I've found me, a little girl, Nate's age. I found myself before I was fully taken over by life. It is so funny to me that I am spending so much time teaching Nate how to function in this world while knowing that he has it all right now. He is his authentic self. Everything that he learns from here on out is only to help him function in our man-made systems that support more complex systems. He'll learn to go to school, work, take vacation, drive a car, follow the rules, break the rules, read, write, but what he carries in himself now is what he'll need to find again some day.

When Nate was screaming so loudly I was left standing there dumbfounded and irritated by the noise. West, the baby, crawled full speed ahead towards Nate and lay his head on his lap. Instead of wanting Nate to stop screaming, West didn't think or want, he loved. I saw this and followed West's lead. Nate, West, and I all hugged and Nate was calmed almost instantly.

I am so grateful for the growth that having Nate has forced me into. I am so thankful that I have embraced this opportunity with the support of Zack and the rest of my family, the Attachment Parenting community, Bay Area Homebirth community, Hokhmah Joy-Allen's women circles, and Lydia. I am forever changed. Thank you Nate and Happy Birthday!

NPR Report: Babies' First Bacteria Depend On Type Of Birth

2010-06-22T20:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/06/21/127988586/babies-first-bacteria

Babies' First Bacteria Depend On Type Of Birth

11:54 am
June 22, 2010
by CHAO DENG

Babies start their lives with a clean slate. But it doesn't last long. All sorts of bacteria move right in at birth. And how a baby is delivered — vaginally or by Cesarean section — can make all the difference in what kinds of bugs start calling the newborn home. Researchers who tested 10 babies found those born vaginally tended to get colonized by bacteria such as Lactobacillus from the mother's vaginal canal. C-section babies, however, got more Staphylococcus, a type of microbe usually found on the skin and one that sometimes causes nasty infections. The results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Microbiologist Maria Dominquez-Bello tells Shots the bacteria on C-section babies may come from the first person to handle the baby. Without the exposure to vaginal bacteria from a natural birth, C-section babies may be more at risk of getting infections and even asthma. As the researchers note, the majority of antibiotic-resistant skin infections occur in infants born by C-section. Dominquez-Bello says that doctors might be able to reduce those bacterial risks by wrapping C-section babies in gauze that's been exposed to the mother's vaginal bacteria. It may be worth a look considering that C-section births are at a record high.

180 Degrees South

2010-06-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

After watching the movie 180 degrees South last night, I came away with this thought:

When a climber gets to the top of a mountain, they stay for only a few moments looking at the view before heading back down. The top is the goal, but it is the journey to the top where the hiker is most likely to learn something about themselves.

Although having a baby at the end of pregnancy and labor is a lot different than the top of a mountain. The similarity is in the journey. If we focus solely on a healthy baby, healthy mama, and not on the journey to that place, then we miss out on all the possibilities for transformation and growth.

Want a Sandwich? Here's the Bread

2010-05-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

In my house, where everything is cooked fresh, I realized that I do all the cooking. Reflecting back on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution TV series, the message that stuck with me is, "Learn to cook your own food." Cooking my own food has empowered me and I want Nate to feel it too.

I put healthy snacks where he can reach. I put the silverware and some cups for water where he can access them himself. He is quite capable of getting himself a snack and a glass of water. Why not start him making his own sandwiches? In the picture, he is making an almond butter (bulk from Rainbow Grocery) and jam (HappyGirlKitchen.com) sandwich on sprouted rye bread (alvaradostreetbakery.com). Rye is different than wheat and offers a lot of health benefits that wheat bread doesn't. Nate quickly realized that he can control the amount of jam in his sandwich. That's the beauty of cooking! I told him.

P.S. I follow Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign.

Home Birth: An Image

2010-05-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

This picture from WikiMedia really moved me, and so I am sharing with you.

Baby Food: 9 months

2010-04-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

One food item that stands out for me right now is making breaded chicken for my boys with Panko bread crumbs. Lydia reminded me of this simple kid-friendly dish when she came over and graciously made it for us. She calls it crispy chicken. I use to make my own bread crumbs, but I am looking for a few shortcuts these days with two young children running around.

For West, I chew up bites in my mouth first, and then serve it to him in little chicken balls. I read that this is how babies get their first foods in other places around the world.

I like the simplicity of premasticating the chicken. He gets to eat what we're eating. And, a bonus side effect was the chicken tasted fantastic this way for me. I really got the full flavor of it because I chewed it for longer than I do when I am chewing my own chicken. It's like wine tasting and spitting out the wine rather than drinking it down.

I can't chew these crispy chicken balls fast enough. West grabs for them one after another and stuffs the whole thing in his mouth. I am amazed at how much chicken he can eat. Of course, I only feed him pastured-raised chicken from the best source that I can find (Marin Sun Farms or Prather Ranch).

I also like feeding West whole small red potatoes with their skins on. I just split them in half with my fingers and serve them up large and with all their features. West sucks on it and leaves behind the skin as if he is eating a mango.

If I were to sum up nine months in one sentence, it would be: Everything goes! I just feed him what we're eating. I feed big pieces and he knows what to do with them. He eats what he can and spits out the rest. It's less work for me and more fun for him.

Other foods that come to mind outside my meals that I cook for the whole family and give to the baby as well:

peas and corn, squash, sweet potato
pineapple, banana, avocado, mango
bread soaked in coconut milk
smoothies (banana, frozen strawberries, splash of coconut milk, 1/4 cup yogurt, coconut water)
toast
eggs
pancakes, waffles etc.
pasta, raviolis
cheese
black beans, lentils
chicken broth in a straw cup

A food article of interest:
http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/blw/engels.html#drinks

FDA Recommends that Doctors Suspend using Rotarix Vaccine

2010-04-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

Rotarix is on the vaccine schedule to give to our infants at age 2, 4, and 6 months. It has only been on the market since 2008 and is one of two vaccines given to almost all American babies for the rotavirus. Scientists doing a study on something else stumble upon the pig virus and notified GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer. And the FDA suspended the vaccine until they can determine if the pig virus is dangerous. The other vaccine, RotaTeq, is made by Merck. RotaTeq was found to contain a virus similar to simian (monkey) retrovirus, but the FDA hasn't suspended this one.

I opted out of the rotavirus vaccine for West. I didn't know any better with Nate and he got the full doses at his young age of 2, 4, and 6 months. In the US doctors can easily identify the virus, and then I can give my child the fluids and rest that he needs to fight it, and then rake in the rewards of natural lifetime immunity.

The question here is really why is there a pig virus in a vaccine that no body knew was there? How is that safe? What else has gone undetected in this vaccine and all the others? Why do we have a policy of distributing the vaccines first, and then thoroughly testing it later? We are injecting our most vulnerable and precious babies with vaccines that we put full faith in. Should we really have full faith in these vaccines? Are the vaccines really less risk than the virus? We need to gauge our own threshold. For me, I feel like I can handle diarrhea. It isn't that big of risk compared to the unknowns of vaccines.

The manufacturers don't even know what's in their own vaccines. The FDA doesn't know. It is just by luck that some scientists saw the pig virus and notified us. Doctors just do what the FDA says to do. I feel like a big herd of sheep all following huge pharmaceutical companies off the cliff.

When has my child's pediatrician gone over the brand option for my child's vaccines? I asked Nate's pediatrician what brand he was selling and he had to go get the insert to find out. When have they sat down with me and really told me what was in those vaccines? Are we really making informed choices? To be informed, I need to do the research myself. At least I can have the peace of mind that I did the best that I could. I did enough research to feel comfortable with my decision to inject my children with these vaccines.

And it isn't just the question of whether to vaccinate or not. With every vaccine that is on the schedule, I need to ask myself: what is this vaccine? What is in it (that is noted!)? Just like reading the label on my food. If I don't know what it is, I need to find out or I don't eat it! What are the differences in the brands available to me? Not all brands have the same ingredients in them. What is the virus? Is it really that bad that my child needs a vaccine? Remember that vaccines are making our doctors and those big drug companies a lot of money.

From the National Vaccine Information Center:
“Today, even though almost all US infants receive vaccines for rotavirus, and despite efforts to improve the management of childhood rotavirus-associated diarrhea, hospitalizations of children in the U.S. with the disease have not significantly declined in the past two decades.”

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/22/rotavirus.vaccine/index.html?hpt=T2

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/17/major-vaccine-suspended-due-to-contamination-with-pig-virus.aspx

This Sweetener Is Far Worse Than High Fructose Corn Syrup

2010-04-15T10:22:00.000-07:00

Great article by Dr. Mercola about agave. I put some bullet points below if you don't have time to read it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mercola/agave-this-sweetener-is-f_b_537936.html

All sugars are not created equal, in spite of what you might have been told.
Agave syrup has a higher fructose content than any commercial sweetener -- ranging from 55 to 97 percent, depending on the brand, which is FAR HIGHER than high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which averages 55 percent.
Glucose is the form of energy your cells were actually designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium -- and in fact, nearly every living thing on the Earth -- uses glucose for energy.
But as a country, regular cane sugar, or sucrose (50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose), is no longer the sugar of choice. It's now fructose.
Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. Fructose is broken down in your liver just like alcohol and produces many of the side effects of chronic alcohol use, right down to the "beer belly" However, only 20 percent of glucose is metabolized in your liver. This is related to the fact that nearly every cell in your body can directly use glucose as a fuel source, so it's normally "burned up" immediately after consumption.
If you feel you must have a sweetener, here are a few guidelines to follow:

Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners.
Avoid agave and high fructose corn syrup
Limit sugar of all types as much as possible. You can buy pure glucose (dextrose) as a sweetener for about $1 per pound, which has none of the adverse effects of fructose if used moderately. It is only 70 percent as sweet as sucrose, so you'll end up using a bit more of it for the same amount of sweetness, making it slightly more expensive than sucrose -- but still well worth it for your health.
Use raw, organic honey in moderation or avoid it completely as it is 70 percent fructose which is higher than HFCS. However the fructose is not in its free from so that moderates the damage. But each teaspoon of honey has nearly four grams of fructose so you will want to carefully add the total grams of fructose (including fruits) and keep them under 15 grams per day.
Use regular stevia in moderation, but avoid stevia-based sweeteners like Truvia and PureVia because they have undergone more processing.
Lo Han is another excellent natural herbal sweetener.
Exercise can be a very powerful tool to help control fructose in a number of ways. If you are going to consume fructose it is BEST to do so immediately before, during or after INTENSE exercise as your body will tend to use it directly as fuel and not convert it to fat Additionally exercise will increase your insulin receptor sensitivity and help modulate the negative effects of fructose. Lastly exercise will also help to blunt your appetite and control your sweet tooth.