Katrina Woodham-Midwife

04/07/2025

https://www.sarawickham.com/podcasts/

Looking for a Sara Wickham podcast? This page contains links to all the podcasts that Sara has spoken on over the past few years.

29/06/2025

Your baby’s output (wee & poo) can tell us a lot about their overall wellbeing. This is why us midwives ask about it at every postnatal visit!💩

You might be surprised to hear there is a wide range of normal when it comes to the colour & texture of baby poo. Here’s what you should know:

⚫️MECONIUM ⚫️
The first poo. It looks like marmite/tar & is very sticky. It can be tricky to wipe off baby’s bottom - a little trick is to put some coconut oil on baby’s bum to make it wipe away easily. Meconium is made up of everything babies ingest in utero. Babies usually have meconium poos for the first 1-3 days.

🟢 TRANSITIONAL POO 🟢
The in between poo. Transitional poos occur as your baby starts to digest milk. It is generally green in colour & less sticky than meconium. Transitional poos usually occur between 2-5 days old.

🟡 BREASTMILK POO 🟡
Breastmilk poo is yellow in colour and can look like it has little ‘seeds’ in it. These seedy looking bits are undigested milk fats & are very normal. We hope to see yellow poos by 5 days old. Breastfed babies generally poo daily for the first week & then it can be normal for them to space out their bowel motions. Some breastfed babies can go up to 7 days without a poo.

🟤 FORMULA POO 🟤
There is a wide variety of normal when it comes to formula poo & it largely depends on how much & what type of formula they drink. It can be anywhere from yellow to green or brown. Formula isn’t digested as easily as breastmilk so it may be a little firmer than breastmilk poos (but should still be soft). Formula fed babies should poo more frequently. See a doctor if they have not pood in longer than 3 days.

🍐SOLIDS 🍌
This is where things start to change! Solids poos are definitely more smelly, darker brown in colour & more formed than milk poos. You may also notice undigested pieces of food in baby’s poo.

It’s important to let your midwife/doctor know about any of the following concerns:
• Black poo for more than a few days
• Blood streaked poo
• Grey/white poo
• Constipated firm or pebble-like poo
• Persistent mucous or frothy poo
• Persistent diarrhoea

28/06/2025

12/06/2025

Every so often, a group of paediatricians write and publish an article in a medical journal about the fact that some parents decline vitamin K for their newborn baby.

Generally, they express their concern and the overarching message is that these parents are making the ‘wrong’ decision, thus professionals need to use better tools to persuade them down the ‘right’ path.

Vitamin K is effective, they say.

And they’re right on that point.

If we gave it to every baby, they say, we would prevent almost all cases of vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

Right again.

I’ve read the same research that they have.

But the next bit of their argument is where they and I differ.

Because I’m all about parents having all of the information so they can make the decisions that are right for them.

Which includes not just the short-term benefits of interventions, but the wider picture.

That includes any medium and long-term consequences (which is very important when it comes to things like induction, and antibiotics for group B strep) and also the gaps in our knowledge.

In other words, the questions that we don’t have answers to.

This is a key issue with vitamin K, and also with Anti-D/RhoGAM.

Because when proponents of western medicine find something that works, they tend to want to just give it to everyone, and they stop asking questions.

This closes off the paths that might lead to better, more nuanced options.

The paths that might help us to target interventions better, rather than making blanket recommendations and then trying to coerce compliance from those who – rightly – have concerns about this approach.

If you’d like to understand the bigger picture on vitamin K, without coercion in either direction, see https://www.sarawickham.com/vk

There, you'll find links to my popular book on this topic, and also my information hub, which contains several free articles to help those wanting to understand the pros and cons.

I hope you’ll find it useful.

10/06/2025

In this free masterclass you will learn:

✅ The number 1 mistake I see women make and how to avoid it.
✅ The biggest decision you must make to have a great birth. You make it sooner than you think.
✅ 3 strategies you can employ during your birth to keep control and avoid unwanted interventions.
✅ The biggest failure of the maternity system and how to best prepare to overcome it
✅ PLUS if you attend live you have a chance to ask your questions during the Q&A.

Click the link and register today

07/12/2024

30/09/2024

Have you ever received the ‘you’re so brave’ for choosing to birth at home comments? What was your retort?

12/09/2024

04/07/2024

Can you help us, please? We urgently need these items for our care packs.

We have drop-off points in Te Awamutu, Hamilton, and Morrinsville.

29/05/2024

12/05/2024

https://www.facebook.com/bornathomefilm?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Documentary film exploring Homebirth. Based in QLD, Australia.