Drug Free Birth

 Below I give suggestions for the following first food log of a student.  What would you add to the suggestions? My comments:  "It's great to get a baseline established, and you've got a good starting point.  A few suggestions: let's add a protein to each snack, fortify what we can, and forget about what looks like a traditional 'lunch' or 'dinner--think in terms of nutrients in.  We're aiming for 85-100 grams of protein a day, with as many 100 gram days as we can. "Try some of these:  Trailmix and any kind of nut (add to your yogurt too) cheese sticks, any kind of cheese beef jerky whole grain toast and cream cheese + jam/ honey  hardboiled eggs or scrambled egg bites granola made with lots of seeds and nuts, dried fruit (ask for my recipe) rotisserie chicken, deboned and cut into pieces fish sticks Think more about getting enough of the nutrients than if it feels/ looks like a true 'breakfast' or 'midnight snack.'

  Your childbirth class may be reimbursable by insurance.  Read this article to find out how.

  Infants and Toddlers:  Do naps matter? PositiveParentingNews.org  asks parents if their children are cranky, fussy, or whiny, and write that "your child may be much better after a nap, which helps with emotional memory and the regulation of emotions."

  Infancy:  The benefits of breastfeeding, even for only a few days   American Heart Association has reported  that babies who are breastfed, even for a few days, had lower blood pressure at 3 years old than children who had never been breastfed.  

  Pregnancy: High quality diets in pregnancy   Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's  annual meeting will unveil findings that suggest that a high-quality diet in pregnancy is associated with a lower risk of fetal growth restriction, and will also release impact on gestational hypertension, gestational diabetes and other factors. In addition,  University of Colorado researchers suggest  that mothers who eat more veggies during pregnancy generally have children who eat more veggies than their peers. Click here to see an example of a food log .

  When the doctor brings up augmentation   Augmenting (speeding up/ initiating) labor is a discussion that is bound to happen between doctors and families in a high percent of pregnancies and labors, whether it is at weeks 38/39 or during early or active labor.   Sweeping membranes  (separating the amniotic sac from the uterine wall) or breaking the waters to speed labor may be suggested.  The use of oxytocin to initiate or stimulate contractions is quite common as well, but is  found to increase Cesarean rates .  BioMedCentral.com's 2022  article on labor dystocia  ('slow labor') concludes that a healthy respect of mothers with slower labors is key, and that doctors generally shouldn't augment with oxytocin because of the increase of Cesare an rates.     My encouragement is that families read about these trends and options well before they are in late pregnancy so that they know what kinds of questions to ask should they be encouraged to speed up their labors.  Also, d