Spinach and Honey

Mass Media Childbirth vs. The Real Thing

2010-02-08T20:40:00.000-08:00

A documentary by childbirth anthropologist Vicki Elson. Please visit www.birth-media.com for more info, ordering, etc. ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Gd7pqeESE

Get Me Out: Making Babies Through The Ages : NPR

2010-02-06T13:02:00.001-08:00

Terry Gross interviews investigative author who wrote a book on the history of childbirth (15 minutes).

'Get Me Out': Making Babies Through The Ages : NPR

Randi Hutter Epstein's book Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth From the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank is full of delightful — and sometimes disturbing — anecdotes like this one. The author explores the medical and cultural history of pregnancy and childbirth, from folk remedies and old wives' tales to ultrasound images and fertility drugs.

KQED Radio: Pregnancy-Related Deaths on the Rise?

2010-02-04T13:43:00.001-08:00

KQED Radio: Pregnancy-Related Deaths on the Rise?

Points to call out:

This was a breaking story that uncovers a study held at the state level which is not being released. The word cover-up was mentioned.

Maternal death rates have tripled in California over the last 10 years study finds.

Cesareans are one of the big reasons for this increase.

OBs not telling patients about the real risk of cesareans. For example, repeat cesareans are not as safe as vaginal birth but vaginal births after cesareans are being banned around the country.

CPMC seems to want to only increase technology to avoid hemorrhages, prevention of blood clots from prolong bed rest, cardiovascular problems but Elliot Main, chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the California Pacific Medical Center, doesn't mention pulling back on the cesareans performed or other interventions.

Death certificates now have a check box since 2003 to indicate if the deceaced was pregnant within a year or her death.

Better reporting may have contributed to a 30% increase that just wasn't reported before but that still leaves the other 70%.

African women across all economic levels are 4% more likely to die during childbirth. Why? No one knows.

Obesity is a new and added risk to pregnancy and labor.

Maternal Death Rate in California is the same as US.

CDC cautious to release numbers. Yeah! because it's a HUGE public health issue that no one is dealing with.

when you pass 15% cesarean rate things start going south.

Aaron Caughey, associate professor at UCSF and director of the Center for Clinical and Policy Perinatal Research within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology says that we need to improve care of women in labor. YEAH!!!

Young healthy women are dying, people around the death call it a death before its time, the only reason why these women are dying is because they had a cesarean.

There's a lot of people who get hurt that don't die...that's me.

Dr. Aaron Caughey says that women pregnant now should spend early labor at home! stay healthy during pregnancy, a lot about taking care yourself

Another study: Are we really safe giving birth in hospitals today?

2010-02-03T12:45:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco Chronicle just reported on a new study that once again says that we are not keeping our women and children safe in hospitals. The study says that the last time they saw a spike this high was in the 1930s. Are all those machines, drugs, and cesareans really making us safer? Why is it safer to give birth in Kuwait or Bosnia than in California?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/03/MNER1BRFT4.DTL&tsp=1

Take Action, educated yourself, ask questions, and demand better care for our pregnant mamas and their babies.

Baby Food: 7 months

2010-02-01T13:59:00.001-08:00

The most reassuring message that I give myself is that solids are fun but not necessary because I breastfeed and I eat well. I know that West is getting the nutrition that he needs from my milk. If I was giving him formula, I would pay attention to balancing his diet. As long as I am breastfeeding, solids are more about including him in our family meals and letting him explore food, which I still love to do.

When he turned six months, he still wasn't too interested in food. Now, at seven months, he sees me cooking and pulls on my pant leg. When he is in his chair, he pounds his hand on his tray to ask for more food.

I feed him our weekly soups and spoonfuls of sauces in our meals. I make him smoothies with banana, strawberries, and blackberries and a little water, which he devours from a straw cup. I puree my stir fries for him. He loves avocado still. I give him soft black beans, which I am going to expand to lentils. I am also excited to start giving him Strauss whole milk yogurt and raw, unprocessed cheese. I also want to start crumbling up grass-fed ground beef on his tray. I'm excited about soft corn and peas. Pasta too..Boy! That puree phase went by fast.

I ran into a friend today who soaked pancake pieces in breast milk, and then put them on her seven-month-old's tray. Wet with Sierra Nevada organic cultured butter and Jam made from endangered Blenheim apricots from Santa Clara, I gave West some bites. He loved it! Who doesn't like toast? I am thinking that most everything goes right now.

I am excited for finger foods. I was disappointed when he turned down my homemade apple sauce, but maybe he'll like softened apple bites.

He is growing up too fast. Did I mention that he is standing up without holding onto anything? I think that he'll be walking at eight months. I can't believe that it has already been that long since his birth.

Sleeplessness

2010-01-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

I'm having this reoccurring dream where I am in an elevator with no doors. I am looking at myself going down into a hole with black dirt on all sides like a bucket being lowered down into a well. The elevator reaches the bottom of this long narrow hole and I curl up into a ball on the floor of the elevator without any pillows or blankets and sleep. The hole is quiet and dark. It's impossible to wake me. I sleep until my eyes open on their own. A big red button is there to press when I want to go back up to the surface. I imagine myself there for days sleeping.

Circumcision

2010-01-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) taking a position on circumcision, I am compelled to tell a personal anecdote.

Here's the Washington Post article on the happenings:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011503106.html?hpid=topnews

I know a physician assistant who works at a San Francisco hospital now in year 2010. Her job is to ready baby boys for circumcision. She straps their arms and legs to a board. I try to make them as comfortable as possible, she says. The room is cold. The babies turn their heads away from the bright florescent lights shining above them. Multiple babies are lined up in a row. They are naked and crying. Then, the doctor comes by and snip, snip, snip, one baby after another. They are left crying until she can get to them. She unstraps them one at a time. She soothes one baby while the rest are left screaming waiting their turn. When the baby that she is holding stops crying, she delivers him back to his smiling parents in the waiting room.

If they knew what their baby had just been through, I don't think they'd be too happy, she says. It's better to request to be with your baby for the circumcision. I don't see those babies and that's a good thing.

Other links of interest:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=46066

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/male-circumcision-and-the_b_249728.html .

Elimination Communication at Six Months: An Update

2010-01-06T11:32:00.000-08:00

At first, I liked diaper-free better than elimination communication (EC) because elimination communication is a mouth full. I even named my folder Diaper Free. However lately, I like elimination communication better because I'm realizing that it really isn't about diapers at all. It's about communicating.

At six months, West can mostly hold in his pee until he is over a potty. I went for a half-hour walk with him in the Ergo without a diaper because I trusted that he wouldn't pee on me. When I got home, I put him over the potty and he peed. Smile. (Can you see the pee in the picture? Thanks Abigail for a great action shot!)

I am so glad that I stuck it out through the hard times when it seemed like he never went in the potty. Those frustrating times when I put him over the potty, he didn't go, and then he went on the floor two seconds later. So annoying. Willow warned me about these down times at her diaper-free workshop, and so I stuck with it.

Zack doesn't like the dirty potties around the house. I agree that I could be a little more sanitary. But with two kids at home all day every day, it's a wonder that everyone is still alive. And I am not joking! It's amazing to me that we all survived early childhood. I can't believe the number of life and death situations that I deal with day to day. So at this point, I don't care too much about a couple of dirty potties around the house.

The other day, West sat up in his crib before his nap and called out. I had already put him over the potty moments before. But his cry wasn't a "I don't want to take my nap cry." (This is where sleep books need to be ignored. They don't cover ECing your child.) I took him out of the crib and held him over his potty. He pooped. Sighed. (So cute) I wiped his butt, put his diaper back on, and laid him back down in his crib. He fell right to sleep. Success!

He has potty preferences. His favorite potty isn't an official potty at all. It is a pink sitz bath that I used once for my hemorrhoids after his birth (I recommend a bath in a bathtub instead). He likes the guest bathroom toilet at his grandparents. He doesn't like public restrooms.

We have gone four weeks without a poop in a diaper. I use diapers more like underwear. I am constantly taking them on and off. And since he is so wiggly lately, I am keeping them off a lot more just because I can't get the darn things on anymore.

Sometimes, he communicates well by tugging at my pants and grunting. Other times, I figure that it has been awhile since his last pee, and so I put him over the potty. It really isn't that much different from telling Nate to go pee before we get in the car, or before he goes to bed.

If West doesn't have a pee, he arches his back. If he has to go or if he hasn't finished yet, he sits calmly in my arms. And then, sometimes, he pees in his diaper. He doesn't seem to care when it happens, I don't care and we move on. And then, there are the times when he pees on the floor.

At six months I can avoid a lot of the out-of-diaper messes by putting him in a diaper if I have guests over or if I need to make dinner. And, he mostly wears a diaper when we are out of the house.

Accidents happen when I am not listening attentively to him or when he doesn't communicate well with me. From the first night that I tried EC, four months ago, I knew that I couldn't turn back. It's like all those times when my first son cried, he could have been trying his hardest to say, "I have to poop and I don't really want to do it on myself." Who does?

Sticking him over a toilet wasn't on my radar at that time, and so I trained him to go in his diaper. Even still, Nate potty trained himself when he could walk. All I had to do was provide one potty in the house and one in the back of the car. He was fully day-time potty trained at 18 months.

It will be interesting to see what happens with West. How will this all evolve as he grows? We shall see.

Other EC Posts of Mine:
http://www.spinachandhoney.com/2009/07/diaper-free-baby-well-not-yet.html

First Foods: Avocado and Banana

2009-12-01T20:11:00.000-08:00

First it starts with fake oxytocin in labor, and then fake breast milk postpartum, and then fake food. After boxed rice cereal is jarred baby food. And then, it's Gold Fish and Cheez-its. Until finally my child is a sugar addict and doesn't even recognize the taste of a baked sweet potato or steamed broccoli. He recognizes food brands and thinks that he can only eat "kid food" in packages. And then, soon, he won't eat anything that isn't puffed, artificially colored, or contain less than 12g of sugar per half a cup.

I bought a box of rice cereal three years ago for Nate when he was four months old because I didn't know any better. I later realized that making my own rice cereal was cheaper and healthier. And this time around with baby number two, I don't even think rice cereal needs to be a first food.

West's first foods are banana and avocado. I take a ripe banana, peel down the sides, and scrape out a small amount. I cut the avocado in half and scrape out small bites for him straight from the avocado. He started out eating about a 1/2 teaspoon and then slowly increased his appetite to a tablespoon, which is where he is now. He is five months old.

Now this isn't rocket science, but I knew nothing about babies when I had my first. I looked outward toward the baby food aisle for answers.

Should we really be diving right into the billion dollar market of boxed processed cereals for our babies? My pediatrician recommends it and most moms do it. What do you do?

Adding Protein to Toddler Dinners

2009-11-19T21:07:00.000-08:00

Nate doesn't want anything mixed into his pasta like chicken or bacon bits. I'm always looking for ways to feed him protein. Sometimes I use nutritional yeast. But lately, I have been mixing in an egg.

I started off cooking the egg over low heat in the cooked and drained pasta, but it didn't turn out creamy. The egg looked like scrambled eggs.

"What's that?" Nate asked peering into his bowl of pasta.

Now I use the best eggs that I can find, and I just use the hot pasta to cook it, no flame!

Pasta
1 egg to 2 cups of dry pasta
Cook pasta
Drain water
Put pasta back into pot
Crack egg into hot pasta and stir vigorously to mix
Add any sauce to pasta and egg
Salt
------------

In rice, I like the scrambled egg texture, and so I think cooking it over heat works.

Rice
1 egg to 1 cup cooked rice
Cook rice
Scoop rice into a fry pan over low heat
Crack egg over rice
Stir until cooked into the rice, 3-5 minutes
Salt

Just the Breast Please

2009-11-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

I don't pump. I don't use formula. I am keeping it simple this time and just breastfeeding.

I decided to exclusively breastfeed West before he was born. I had already planned on it. I knew that my pediatrician would encourage me to introduce the bottle.

"Have you given him a bottle yet?" he asked me when West was two months old.

"No. I don't want to give him a bottle," I said.

He looked at me from above his designer classes.

"You have to introduce the bottle. He should have a bottle once a day," he ordered.

I coward a little to his authority.

"Okay," I said halfheartedly. I knew that I wouldn't give West a bottle.

I don't know anybody who only breastfeeds. I am acting on my deep desire to feed him this way for no other reason then a feeling. After the preparation and defiance of what is normal in our society to achieve a home birth after a previous cesarean, I listen to myself now. I am listening with both ears.

I knew that a bottle would be suggested as a solution to logistical problems like taking my three-year old to varies activities. But I was confident with my decision, and now five months into it, I am still happy.

Before West was born, Zack bought bottles just in case. I pumped one bottle to please the crowd. Nate jumped up and down when the milk started flowing out into the two bottles connected to my breasts.

"Here it comes. It's coming mommy," Nate cheered.

I felt like a circus show. That bottle of milk never got used. It is still in the freezer.

West is almost five months and he just had a little taste of a banana and an avocado. I went to my first hour and a half yoga class since he was born.

"If he gets hungry feed him a little banana or avocado," I said to Zack as I left. (Note: First food is not processed rice cereal in a box.)

With Nate, I felt jealous of the bottle. Nate often refused me, and then turned around and took the bottle from Zack or even me. I felt crushed. I hated competing with a plastic beverage container. I was naively giving him Similac, which is super sweet. The first ingredient was high fructose corn syrup. He loved the sugar. I didn't think to shop around for "healthy" formula. I just assumed that all formula was healthy.

The books say that it's a wonderful gift to give to your husband to allow him to do a feeding. I can say that Zack isn't complaining this time around. I am up at 11:30pm, 2:30am, and 5:30am. It sounds like a bad deal, but with Nate, I was up anyway. Zack would get up to do a bottle and I would lay awake. I couldn't stand the crying while Zack prepared a bottle in the kitchen.

"Don't wait for the hot water, just give it to him cold," I would yell from bed.

This time around, I am not working out of the house, and so it isn't worth the hassle of pumping, storing milk, and cleaning bottles. I'm keeping it simple: just the breast please. The biggest clean up is a little breast milk on my shirt.

Another benefit of bottle feeding is freedom. I too want my own time, but my instincts to stay close to my babies are strong. I never left Nate for very long when he was a baby and taking the bottle. And, I am feeling the same way about West, and so why pump? Zack and I find other ways to meet our alone time needs. After the kids go to bed and the babysitter shows up, we sneak out of the house for dinner. And, I can do my yoga classes now! Yeah! In a small amount of time these precious months will be over.

Premature Births Are Fueling Higher Rates of Infant Mortality in U.S., Report Says

2009-11-07T20:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/health/04infant.html?_r=2&hpw

----------------

Another factor in the United States, she said, is the increasing use of Caesarean sections and labor-inducing drugs to deliver babies early. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has guidelines stating that babies should not be delivered before 39 weeks without a medical reason, but doctors may be declaring a medical need more quickly than they did in the past.

----------------

High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries, government researchers reported Tuesday in their first detailed analysis of a longstanding problem.

In Sweden, for instance, 6.3 percent of births were premature, compared with 12.4 percent in the United States in 2005, the latest year for which international rankings are available. Infant mortality also differed markedly: for every 1,000 births in the United States, 6.9 infants died before they turned 1, compared with 2.4 in Sweden. Twenty-nine other countries also had lower rates.

If the United States could match Sweden’s prematurity rate, the new report said, “nearly 8,000 infant deaths would be averted each year, and the U.S. infant mortality rate would be one-third lower.”

The first author of the report, Marian F. MacDorman, a statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics, said in an interview that the strong role prematurity played came as a surprise to her.

Dr. Alan R. Fleischman, medical director for the March of Dimes, said the new report was “an indictment of the U.S. health care system” and the poor job it had done in taking care of women and children. The report, Dr. Fleischman added, “puts together two very important issues, both of which we knew about but hadn’t linked tightly.”

Infant mortality is widely used as a way to gauge the health of a nation, and the relatively high rates in the United States have long dismayed health officials. Most European countries — as well as Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore — have lower rates of infant death than the United States.

Premature infants in the United States are more likely to survive than those elsewhere. Yet they are still more likely to die than full-term babies, and the sheer numbers born prematurely in the United States — more than 540,000 per year — drive up infant mortality.

The high levels of prematurity in the United States have various causes.

Dr. Fleischman said the smallest, earliest and most fragile babies were often born to poor and minority women who lacked health care and social support. The highest rates of infant mortality occur in non-Hispanic black, American Indian, Alaska Native and Puerto Rican women. But other minorities have some of the lowest infant mortality rates in the United States: Asian and Pacific Islanders, Central and South Americans, Mexicans and Cubans.

When it comes to prematurity, infertility treatments — drugs that stimulate ovulation and procedures that implant more than one embryo in the uterus — also play a role by raising the odds of twins or higher multiples, which have an increased risk of being born too soon.

Professional groups for fertility doctors recommend limiting the number of embryos transferred to avoid multiple births, but ultimately doctors and patients make their own decisions. Dr. MacDorman said that because most insurance in the United States did not cover infertility treatments, some patients chose to transfer multiple eggs in hopes that doing so would increase the odds of pregnancy and reduce expensive procedures.

“In Europe, they may have been more successful in limiting the number of embryos transferred,” Dr. MacDorman said, “because there is more national health insurance and people don’t have to pay out of pocket.”

Another factor in the United States, she said, is the increasing use of Caesarean sections and labor-inducing drugs to deliver babies early. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has guidelines stating that babies should not be delivered before 39 weeks without a medical reason, but doctors may be declaring a medical need more quickly than they did in the past.

“I don’t think there are doctors doing preterm Caesarean sections or inductions without some indications,” Dr. MacDorman said, “but there sort of has been this shift in the culture. Fifteen or 20 years ago, if a woman had high blood pressure or diabetes, she would be put in the hospital, and they would try to wait it out. It was called expectant management.

“Now I think there’s more of a tendency to take the baby out early if there’s any question at all.”

These births — called “late preterm,” which occur after 34 to 37 weeks of pregnancy, instead of the normal 38 to 42 weeks — are the fastest-growing subgroup of premature births. A late preterm baby’s risk of dying is about three times that of a full-term infant. But late preterm babies are still far more likely to survive than very premature ones, and the very early babies account for much of the death rate, Dr. Fleischman said.

Taking care of women’s illnesses and problems like drinking, drug use and smoking before and during pregnancy can help prevent prematurity, he said, adding that a state program in Kentucky to provide home visits by nurses to poor women during pregnancy had decreased preterm births.

Dr. MacDorman said prematurity was not the only factor behind infant mortality in the United States. She said full-term babies in this country also had higher death rates than those in Europe from sudden infant death syndrome, accidents, assaults and homicides.

Pumpkin Pie

2009-10-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

Make Pumpkin Pie with Your Kids
This recipe was adapted from Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions cookbook.

What you’ll need:
1 sweet “pie” pumpkin
1 frozen pie crust (or make your own crust)
3 eggs
¾ cup sugar (Rapadura or pure cane sugar)
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon powdered cloves
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1 cup creme fraiche

Buy a small sweet “pie” pumpkin from the grocery store. I know that Rainbow has yummy ones right now. They’re small and taste better than the jack o’ lantern kind.

Cut in half and scoop out the insides. Nate loved helping with this part. Save the pumpkin seeds to plant or toast later. Ours flew all over the place when Nate was digging them out, and so we didn't toast them this time.

Cut the halved pumpkin into chunks. Nate had a blast using a knife. I was closely watching while getting a few more grey hairs.

Bake covered at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes with an inch of water in the baking dish so that the pumpkin doesn't dry out. It’s done when you can stick a fork in it and it’s soft.

Peel the skin from the pumpkin meet.

Puree with a hand blender, food processor, or blender. Let puree drain overnight either in cheese cloth or a mesh strainer with a bowl under it and a plate on top.

Weigh 15 ounces for one pie. My small pumpkin produced exactly 15 ounces of pureed pumpkin.

Cream eggs with sugar. Blend in other ingredients.

Pour into pie shell and bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes.

For toasting the seeds: Clean the seeds well. Put the seeds in a bowl and salt and toss them around. Lightly oil a cookie sheet and spread the seeds out. Toast in the oven at 250 degrees until seeds are crispy.

Home Birth after Cesarean Video

2009-10-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

Wow! I sobbed through this whole video. All that I can say is I feel the exact same way. Thanks Lydia for sharing this on your blog.

My Journey to a VBAC from Lindsey Meehleis on Vimeo.

Writing a Book

2009-10-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I am writing a book. Yes, I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am going to pull this off while being a stay-at-home mom with a 3-month old and a 3-year old. I don't even have a babysitter. Although I am looking if you know anyone. It's me and boys all day every day. I love it! I picked the hardest time of my life to accomplish a goal that I've had since I was 10-years old. I love food and cooking, but it turns out that my book is about neither. It's about birth. It's about my polar opposite experiences giving birth to two children. One was a planned hospital natural birth (aka. no drugs) that went wrong and ended in a lot of drugs and the icing on the cake, a cesarean. And, the other one was a planned home birth that changed my life forever.

All this to say that I am not doing a lot of creative cooking right now because I am sooooo busy with the kids and my book at night. I did make a pumpkin pie last night which turned out great. I'll post that soon.

This is the time to be a mom

2009-09-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a baby shower of a friend of mine. Instead of a game, everyone wrote a little something for the mom-to-be. I thought that some of the moms here might identify with what I wrote:

This is the time to be a mom. To surrender into it. To just "be" with my son. This is what I have to do right now in this moment. I ignore the chatter that worries about the past and the future, the what ifs and could ifs. I want to focus on the miracles and beauty of the present moment. An open door to peace was his gift to me and I walked through it. Look for the door that your child will open for you.

Birth by the Numbers: Video

2009-09-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

In Birth by the Numbers, Eugene R. Declercq, PhD, Professor of Maternal and Child Health, Boston University School of Public Health, presents the sobering statistics of birth in the United States today.

I think that you have to wait for it to download, but it is sure worth the wait. I love the stats on how mothers requesting cesarean sections aren't the reason why cesarean rates have sky rocketed. In reality, that number is so so small. Yeah! Mothers aren't blame.

Beautiful Home Birth Slide Show

2009-09-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks for bring this to my attention Lydia. I cried watching these pictures. They reminded me so much of my recent home birth.
http://www.emilyweaverbrownphotography.com/darkroom/share/?n=peterson_birth#1jpg

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) up to Dirty Tricks

2009-09-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louise-marie-roth/acog-up-to-dirty-tricks_b_274372.html

A Diaper-Free Segment on ABC News

2009-09-12T19:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.news10.net/news/featured/story.aspx?storyid=66686&catid=49

I just am

2009-09-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

I love my niece, Emily, so much. She was the first baby in my life. I spoke French to her until she was three, something I didn't do with my own son. She turned seven this month and I wanted to share my thoughts on life with her. So, I wrote her this little story and slipped it into her birthday card. Would anyone like to share a story that they have written for their children about life?

---------

There lived a little girl named Penelope. She was seven years old. Although she was only in first grade, everyone always asked her, "What do you want to be when you grow-up?" She never knew what to say because she didn't know who she was yet. She wished for the future and to be big so that she would finally be able to answer the question.

Many years later when she was married, had a house, and a dog, she realized that she still didn't know who she was nor what she wanted to be when she grew-up. Yet she was grown-up and had a job. Where were the answers?

Then one day, while observing a flower blow in the wind, all her other thoughts stopped. She felt calmness flood over her. She felt so alive and at peace. Her existence wasn't much different from the flower that she watched. She felt the wind tickle her skin and move her hair. She put her hand on her chest and felt her heart beat. "I just am," she said.

When is it too early to teach reading?

2009-09-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

[Previously published for sfgate.com/moms]

A little after Mikey turned 1 year old when he saw a picture of a cat, he said, "meow." I thought to myself, "If he can see a cat and know its sound, then I could teach him to look at a letter and know its sound."

After reading some books, I came up with two basic ground rules for myself:

1) Don't waste my time teaching Mikey the song, "A, B, C, D, ...now I know my A, B, Cs." It doesn't help him read to know the names of the letters. It is better to teach the sounds of letters. It takes a little retraining on my part but it's working.

2) Stick with starter letters but don't limit myself to them. I started with U, P, and C. These letters make the words UP and CUP. Mikey's face lit up when he learned that if he says U and P together it makes the word UP. He threw his hands above his head and said, "UP."

Teaching the sounds of letters happens naturally throughout the day. It's really just being mindful of taking advantage of learning moments and knowing the sounds of letters myself. Mikey now knows that letters have special sounds. He has an alphabet placemat and loves to review letters over breakfast.

I don't have any big goal in mind, I just figure, why not!

Where's the excitement in the kid's menu?

2009-08-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

[Previously published for sfgate.com/moms]

My husband sometimes says to Mikey, "You're not going to like this, it's too spicy." I always interrupt a little irritated, "Let him try it and decide for himself." I think Zack has a preconceived notion that kids only eat bland and boring foods. I think restaurants think this way too.

We don't go out to eat often with Mikey but when we do I order off the kids menu. It's always the same old stuff like grilled cheese and pasta with butter sauce. I order it thinking that it's a treat, that I've deprived Mikey of what all other kids like to eat. And every time, Mikey tastes it and says, "no that, no that!" The food is boring and tasteless and he knows it.

Are kids not eating because they're picky eaters or do they
not eat because their options are always the same old boring meals?

Vaccines: My Story

2009-08-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

West received his first vaccination, DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis). My pure and perfect little baby is now contaminated with things like aluminum and formaldehyde. According to the FDA, more than 30 micrograms of aluminum injected into a newborn at one time could be toxic. The aluminum in the Daptacel brand of the DTaP vaccine is 1300 micrograms (Sears). Somehow vaccine manufacturers are exempt from FDAs 25 microgram limit of injected aluminum at one time. And, The Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Consumer Product Safety Commission all list formaldehyde as a carcinogen and state that it can cause kidney damage and genetic damage (Sears). Yikes!

I asked the doctor, "Should I nurse him during the shot?" I was halfway thinking of my breast milk like a super power that would save him from all the poisons. He replied, "No, better to reward him with a feeding after the shot." And so, I lay West down on the crinkly, white paper and looked into his eyes. He looked up at me and smiled. I told him, "West, you're going to get a shot. It will hurt, but I have done a lot of research and feel like this is the best decision that I can make for you right now." And then, the Doctor stuck the needle right into his little thigh. West's face flared red and he let out a helpless cry. I swooped him up as the doctor put a band aide over the blood leaking out from the injection spot. I plopped down on the nearest chair to feed him. "Let me know if you need this room. I can move if you like," I asked the doctor. "No, take your time," he said.

West nursed for a little bit, but he seemed fine. I was not fine. I hated seeing him get hurt. One of the reasons for a home birth was to avoid traumatizing events like this one. Babies only minutes old are pricked with a Hepatitis B shot. Hep B is sexually transmitted. I don't think that a newborn is at risk of that. Up until now, West hasn't had anything traumatizing happen to him. I believe that his calm, protected birth at home is why he never cries. Will this shot change all that?

I started researching vaccines before West was born and continued my research up until the morning before his first vaccination. I had already declined the Hep B. I decided to also decline the Rotavirus and Polio vaccines because the Rotavirus is treated by drinking fluids and it is a new vaccine which makes me nervous. Since the Homeland Security Act, some trial periods for new vaccines can be only two weeks (Hicks, Phipps). Polio is practically nonexistent, and so I feel comfortable postponing that shot until he is three-years old. I decided to space out the Haemophilus and Pneumococcal vaccines from the DTaP to give his body a chance to absorb the aluminum and formaldehyde before receiving another dose.

I came to these decisions by reading The Vaccine Book by Dr. Robert Sears. I had a private vaccine consultation with Dr. Sanford C. Newmark down at Whole Child Wellness. I spoke with West's first pediatrician to get his input. He didn't seem to be taking my concerns seriously, and so I ended up switching pediatricians. I went to a vaccine talk by chiropractors Dr. Kristine Hicks and Dr. Colin Phipps. Neither one of them have vaccinated their children. I spoke with Dr. Daphne Miller at her Family Practice and got her input. After all my research and discussions with different doctors, I created my own alternate vaccine schedule.

My main concerns with vaccines are the ingredients in them and their impact on West's immune system. So my vaccine schedule looks at the brands of vaccines used at my pediatrician's office and the amount of aluminum and other toxins in each shot. I am also not giving West more than two vaccines or shots per month to avoid stressing his immune system (Hicks, Phipps). Except, the DTaP is actually three vaccines in one shot, but I had no choice in the matter. I wanted him to be vaccinated for Pertussis, but Pertussis only comes with Diphtheria and Tetanus attached. I would prefer a Pertussis shot alone because there is only five cases of Diphtheria each year and sometimes years go by without any cases (Sears). There is only 50 cases of Tetanus a year and only one of those cases was a child under five years old (Sears).

I was also informed by Dr. Newmark not to give Tylenol or Motrin preemptively before a shot or even before a fever. Tylenol is digested by the liver and takes effort by the body's immune system. When getting vaccinated, it's a good idea to have a healthy body with nothing else taxing the immune system.

West was a little needy for the rest of the day, but he didn't get a fever and he hardly fussed. But, I did see him turn red and cry a little in his sleep. His sleeping was also very fragmented. He slept only about twenty minutes at a time. On day two, he slept practically all day and had larger than normal spit-ups. I scanned him over constantly looking for more serious side effects like seizures or lowered consciousness (Center for Disease Control). The third and fourth days, his napping was short again and hasn't gone back to the way it was before the shot. On the fifth day, I am noticing more crying and general fussing. On the seventh day, sleeping appears to be back to normal.

For me, vaccinating is deciding to take the risks of the vaccines over the very small risk that he might get one of the diseases. Although I am making a well informed decision to vaccinate West, I don't feel good about it. I am injecting him with poison and I could be compromising his immune system so much that he will have other health problems later in life (Hicks, Phipps). The only thing that comforts me right now is what my friend Amy said about her son getting the Rotavirus in Vietnam, "When he was sick over there, I would have given anything to have had him vaccinated." I think that I would feel the same way if I didn't vaccinate West and he got one of the diseases. We are not vaccinating West for Rotavirus, but I'd consider it if we travel to a remote area of the world.

Next month, West goes in for the Haemophilus and Pneumococcal vaccines.

Vaccine Talk. 'Questioning Vaccines' is an informal lecture presented by Dr. Colin Phipps and Dr. Hicks.

The talk will be held at More Mojo Studios (1347 Church Street, located at the corner of Church and Clipper) from 10:00 a.m. to noon, on Sunday September 13, 2009.

Tickets are $10.00 at the door. Please call More Mojo (415.821.6656) in advance to give us a heads up with your intended attendance in order to support us in preparing for the number of people who will be present.

For more information or if you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call at 415.821.6656.

When there's no jarred pasta sauce in Mexico

2009-08-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

[Previously published for sfgate.com/moms]

It's a good thing that I know how to make simple tomato sauce because there isn't any jarred kinds here in Puerto Vallerta, Mexico. It makes sense, I am in Mexico not Italy. Although I can find a lot of American foods like peanut butter, they come at a high price. The grocery store charges $9 for a jar of peanut butter. It's best to stay away from the expensive packaged foods and by loose fruits and vegetables.

I normally don't use jarred sauces, but I still rely heavily on my written recipes and cookbooks, which I didn't carry to Mexico. Luckily, I learned how to make a tomato sauce without a recipe a few weeks ago.

For a simple dinner at the vacation condo:

1/4 cup olive oil
5 garlic cloves
1/2 small onion
26 oz. chopped or pureed tomatoes
1/2 tablespoon honey
salt to taste

Heat the olive oil and garlic together for five minutes. The idea is to scent the olive oil. Pull the garlic out after the five minutes. Add the onion to the olive oil. Cook for five minutes or until soft. Add all the tomatoes. Season with salt and honey.

While living in France many, many years ago, I learned that sugar helps cut the acidity of the tomatoes. Then here in Mexico, I used honey instead of refined white sugar and my red sauce tasted even better!

Simmer until all the flavors blend together, another ten minutes, or until the pasta is ready. Either eat the sauce chunky or puree in a blender.

The meal was simple to make and very tasty. Even on vacation, it's nice to eat in.