Bodywise

Mothers and Fathers with Babies

The following headings to lead you to a particular subject further down the page

• Look after Mother First
• Bodywisdom for Mothers in brief
•  A little preparation goes along way when managing a family
• Nature’s bounty - Choose food from all food groups and make it is colourful, fun and a taste sensation,
• Getting Enough Sleep
• Nature’s  greatest gift - Breastfeeding
• The thrills and spills of Mothering
• Nature’s Baby: What to feed baby
• Teething & Colic
• Common Homeopathic remedies
• Hygiene and  skin care
• Common colds, diarrhoea and vomiting: Homeopathic remedies

 Look after Mother First

Oh yes! All those motherly instincts to put baby first are vital for the life of the baby. Yet in this era, when mothers are often home alone most of the day with a newborn it is mother who needs to plan ahead to see to their own needs so that they can be in the best possible condition to look after themselves and their baby. And,  Mothers - if you need help, write a list of things you need done and leave it for your partner to read, its so much better than nagging. Keep in mind that they may have had a demanding day at work may be suffering from lack of sleep too

Of course all this info also applicable for Dads, so do read on Dads.

 Bodywisdom for Mothers in brief to make life run smoothly:

1.     Plan ahead for the next day. ☺ It’s a form of visualisation and it works.

2.     Simplify with food that looks like it came from nature.

3.     Prepare tomorrows lunch by doubling dinner

4.     Enjoy lots of nutritious herbal teas hot or cold for fluild intake and to promote milk production

5.     Celebrate the beautiful food and rest that goes to make energy for you and your baby

6.     Rejuvenate with moderate exercise in the sunshine, at a park or beach and hopefully with a friend

7.     Reaching out for help is necessary for all and one day you may help someone in need.

Read on for more detail on Bodywisdom for Mothers and Fathers

  A little preparation goes along way when managing a family

• Plan outings and shopping by writing a list the night before. ☺ Imagine you have got to the evening of the following day and that it all went beautifully inspite of a few moments which you took in your stride.  You had planned ahead the night before and had everything ready so your day went really well.  Now that is worth celebrating. What a great habit to create. What a great way to reduce stress.

 Nature’s bounty - Choose food from all food groups and make it is colourful, fun and a taste sensation

• Shop for several days with the intention of preparing enough food for 2 meals at a time.  ☺At dinner have extra fish or meat, vegetables (salad) and complex carbohydrates (roasted veges or wholegrain rice) that may be made into a soup or salad for the following day.  ☺Leave baby at home if possible with Dad or a friend, it is a brief opportunity to have some space.
• Eat a great variety of food that looks like it has come from the garden or the farm, is colourful, smells good, and where possible is not wrapped in plastics (plastic leaches into our food and is NOT good for any of us)
• Portion size guidelines for each meal –

Protein, the size of your palm, Veges the size of both of fists, and fats the size of a teaspoon, with each meal and perhaps an extra potato or spoon of wholegrain rice depending on how much exercise you get.  As many people are sensitive to bread and the sensitivity can be passed to babies, avoid bread where possible (except glutenfree in moderation) by enjoying lots of veges and complex carbohydrates.

• Breakfast is so important to stimulate metabolism, energy and milk production. ☺Enjoy raw, unsweetened muesli soaked overnight in water and natural unsweetened yoghurt or rice milk. In the morning add fresh fruit and a tablespoon of almond butter or tahini and add ground linseed or LSA for breakfast and. ☺Make enough to keep for a high energy pick up in the mid afternoon instead of a muffin!! By soaking muesli your food is easily digested.  Alternatively enjoy eggs or sardines on toast are terrific brain foods. You will be full of energy until morning tea.
• For snacks (even in the middle of the night), savour antioxidant packed fruit best eaten between meals will provide you with readily available energy, fibre and water to promote efficient digestion and protection from oxidative stress during the long days and nights. Other great snacks are small handfuls of walnuts, almonds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds or as stated above sardines, tomato and avocado on a gluten free bread or some left over muesli.
• Lunch is a must for energy, so enjoy those leftovers as a soup or salad.  Salads are lovely life giving energy and a good oil dressing made from extra virgin olive and flaxseed oil will feed you essential fats and a tasty apple cider vinegarette.
• Dinner, just think colour and all food groups, some raw, some cooked, add herbs, some sea salt and a little in the way of spice, make food yummy, present it well. Savour this knowing that you have just made your lunch!
• Lastly, remind yourself that this beautiful food is your fuel to make you and your baby happy and content. You will get so much more enjoyment and digestibility from your food if your savour and chew slowly.

 Getting Enough Sleep

Vitally important, grab a nap if you can every day, your body, mind and soul will be grateful for it.  Sleep deprivation is a big issue and we strongly recommend that you do not feel guilty for lying down with your baby feeding and then falling asleep. Obviously take measures to make sure that baby is not going to get rolled on!!!

• Foods (proteins and fats) that increase the happy chemicals in your brain and fuel your metabolism are very important. Sorry to sound like a stuck record but seriously, alcohol and coffee do not feed a tired body and mind!!
• For symptoms of loss of sleep always think of taking a dose of Homeopathic  Cocculus  – while not a miracle cure you will feel better and when you get to have chance for a nap the body should be ready to take it. 

A lovely relaxing tea from Artemis or a tonic from our Herbal Dispensary will lift tired spirits and nurture the nervous system.  And I cannot stress this enough, if you think you are feeling really out of sorts, with negative thoughts, overly tearful and generally have feelings of not coping, do get help.  Bodywise is there and we are all mothers and know how it might be.

 Nature’s greatest gift - Breastfeeding

• Breast milk is undoubtedly the perfect food for every baby, being the ultimate fast food that is free!  If breasting feeding is an issue at an emotional level, some soul searching or counselling to help move through the impasse and would be of great benefit to you as a mother and ultimately how you bond with the baby.
• Could it be that feeding time is not just about feeding baby, but ensuring mother stops, rests, relaxes and has a cup of tea and snack! A hurried mother may create an unsettled baby, so slow down and enjoy providing one of life’s greatest gifts.  Therefore, create a comfortable place, lying down or in a chair, with your feet up and with a table off to one side for a warm tea or cold drink and enjoy giving and receiving. A nice view into the garden will be most rejuvenating for those feeling really tired.
• Change position with each feed to avoid bruising areas on your nipples.  Use Weleda Hypercal or Thyme Heal – comfrey cream to reduce swelling and bruising
• A well feed and watered mother will be relaxed and have the energy to produce beautiful milk.  To promote milk production drink a tea containing the herb nettle and fennel like Weleda’s “Nursing Tea or Artemis’s “Breastfeeding  tea”  At Bodywise, we also have one we call “  “Galactogogue Tea”. This is an old term used to describe herbs and aid the production of milk. Always have a drink handy for that thirst that comes as soon as the “let down reflex” begins.  ☺ By making tea in the morning in any old pot, with enough to last most of the day, you will always have some on hand to enjoy hot or cold at a moment’s notice.  Warning! Do not reheat in the microwave, just pour enough of the concentrate to give yourself a good dose and add boiling water. Please keep clear of baby until it has cooled a little!!

 The thrills and spills of Mothering

• Managing yourself and your baby. Babies are immensely enjoyable and sometimes immensely frustrating. Babies will let you know what they want yet will fit in and go anywhere with you without to much trouble if you are prepared and attend to their needs before they become distressed.  Our Bodywise advice includes, if you have something planned for the next day, prepare the night before!  Anything from soaking your muesli for breakfast, gathering your baby items, packing your lunch box and Eco Tanker (stainless steel water bottle) with herb tea, all the way to what you want to wear, are the keys to the car are in your handbag?with your wallet and you have already put the buggy in the car.  Got all that and you can be ready to go!!
• Trust your instincts, if you feel worried that something is not right with baby that will be your cue to get help from your midwife or go to the doctor. Listen to you and your partner’s internal wisdom.
• Ask for help if you need it. ☺ If you were asked to help another mother, you would in most cases do your best to help and without hesitation. Therefore remember that what goes around comes around and that when you feel you need a hand, just reach out, it is OK to ask. It may seem an effort to ask however, socialising with friends is a normal human trait so enjoy a stroll along the riverside or through a park with a friend. Nature and company will inspire you far more than shopping!  However if you are in the city and are looking for a quiet place to feed a baby or have a rest then you have an open invitation find that peaceful place at Bodywise
• Look after yourself with beautiful colourful food, gentle exercise and sleep when you can. Seek out nature not mindless shopping, nature rejuvenates every time. Practice loving and encouraging talk to yourself during tough times and heap on the gratitude during peaceful times.  All of that will ensure your baby feels they are in great hands.
• If you really feel you are not coping, and all practical measures have been addressed with your midwife or doctor, you may be helped by some St John’s Wort or a supplement to raise your nutrient levels.  Your hormonal system (the endocrine system) may need rebalancing and this can usually be treated with herbs and supplements.  In these situations there is no one prescription to fit all, you need to seek guidance from a Bodywise medical herbalist or naturopath.

 Nature’s Baby: What to give baby.

Quite simply, food that looks like it came from Mother Nature. 

As stated above breast milk is the perfect food for the first year and while food is gradually introduced.  Natural health principles encourage natural unprocessed foods at their best, raw, cooked or used from frozen. Organic produce is great however economic for all. So try to by local, spray free and hopefully you may grow veges to help supplement your grocery bill.

In general, what did all our ancestors eat that fed them so well that we are, hundreds of generations laterhere today? They ate veges, fruit and some nuts in season, some eggs, meats, fish and fowl.  Since the agrarian age began about 5000 years ago, wheat came on the menu in greater amounts as did more milk, but even then nothing like what we have all eaten in our daily lives of the last century.  There is a big debate now about the high gluten flours that do appear to be undermining health as does pasteurised milk devoid of all the naturally occurring good bacteria for our digestive systems.

Keep it simple

• Human milk is very sweet and high in essential fats. So for a start, babies need food that tastes similar and yet is coming from nature. So think about what we as adults eat in our healthy meals, and pulverise for baby. Adding a little avocado and tiny amounts of meat broths will give creamy nature. 
• Vegetables, some cooked and some raw are best just as they are for adults. Initially stay clear of all grains and dairy products except natural yoghurt or unpasteurised milk if you can get it. 
• Start slowly, with tiny amounts, one new food at a time. Vary the flavours and textures. For great ideas go to a site called the www.Weston Price Foundation. They bring back common sense to eating.
• Later on simply liquidise or mash up some of last night’s dinner, with a little broth from meat and veges and some fruit
• Finely grate, mash, or liquidise, any natural food until old enough to pick up foods, suck on fingers so that they can enjoy the taste with their fingers.
• For older babies, some prefer food separated neatly on the plate, it’s a personality type.  Being creative with the layout and making it fun and colourful only takes a minute.
• Eat with baby, they are bright little buttons and will watch you and want to copy, it is a social event that creates communication and builds relationships
• In hot months and when babies are more than a couple of months old, do introduce them to water, mostly between meals. I strongly recommend you squeeze a little breast milk in to get them going and keep fruit flavourings away from menu. And, never allow yourself to be seduced into buying expensive high sugar cordials. And cereals.  Use a sipper cup, make sure the baby is sitting upright and when you get into substituting more water, do the best thing and either use a glass bottle or a stainless steel Ecotanker so that baby is not drinking plastic!!!
• Do not eat treats such as icecream and such foods in front of babies, they will learn what we role model to them! If you eat  well babies and children will in most cases just copy their parents habits and behaviour. Now that not just food for thought!

Teething & Colic

Colic- cramping in the abdomen, with varying degrees of pain, trapped wind, diarrhoea and or constipation may be due to a skeletal and energetic problems due to the birthing process, a lack of good bacteria within the babies gut and sensitivity to just about anything.

• First of all check with a cranial sacral therapist to ensure the plates that make up the head are sitting as they should and the spine is also in correct alignment.
• Check your own diet for allergy creating foods like bread and sometimes dairy products, excess tea, coffee not to mention cigarettes and alcohol!! Just don’t drink!!
• Drinking herbal tea containing fennel, peppermint, and aniseed will quieten colicky babies. Herbs may be given directly in diluted doses as has happened for centuries. Just make sure the quality and purity of the herbs.
• The baby can be given a Probiotics in powder form from birth to ensure the good bacteria a present in adequate amounts in the bowel of the baby. Check with our practitioners at Bodywise for the correct version.
• Mother may also take the Probiotics before delivery and most importantly after any prescription of antibiotics for mother or baby.

•  Common Homeopathic remedies –

• Chamomilla for irritable and clingy babies, with green spinach type stools. No matter what you do, you cannot placate these cross little babies.  Belladonna for very red faced, hot glassy eyed babies with pain that may be from any inflammation. Lycopdium for babies with stomachs that are fully distended, creating fretful babies who look anxious and worried. Lycopodium babies are always much worse in the late afternoon and into the evening.  To get the right remedy consult a homeopath.  No one remedy fits all.

• Teething usually starts from about 3 months of age.  Symptoms of dribbling, hot red gums and cheeks and sometimes a full on fever can respond to the homeopathic remedies Belladonna and Chamomilla mentioned above.  There are many more but they are a good place to start.  A homeopath can usually set you on the right track especially for those babies who have great difficulty with the teeth coming through.

 Hygiene and skin care

Bodywisdom says that if you over wash skin with harsh chemical it becomes dry and the fragile balance is tilted in toward, skin that is sensitive and open to infections.  Check out those disposable wipes, chances are they are not very friendly towards young bottoms

At Bodywise we love the Weleda range for all things baby, its is organic and very kind to skin.  A good barrier cream is essential and there are a great  variety. We also love pot of gold

 Common colds, diarrhoea and vomiting: Homeopathic remedies

Homeopathic remedies are often amazing and can make such a difference to life at home in the middle of the night.

There is so much to know that I strongly recommend an introductory class for all interested parents. Do not take on serious problems on your own. Trust that intuition, but know when to get help!! In summary: ask about the following.

• Aconite: ailments from fright both psychological and physical that bring on anything from  nightmares (flashback after all those nasty earthquakes in Christchurch, sniffles and croup, after exposure to cold wind.  Especially when the first sign of symptoms comes on with a drop in the temperature, in the evening and night.
• Arsenicum: diarrhoea and vomiting. Tummy bugs like salmonella poisoning or gastric flu - it works a trick nearly everytime.
• Pulsatilla: for thick colds and clingy babies

There are too many to list, so come into Bodywise and if we can help we will or refer you to a Homeopath.