Mamaste Doula and Birth Services

09/24/2022

It's National Seat Check Saturday! I'll be out checking car seats at Christiana Hospital in Lot M until 1:00 PM. Stop by and make sure you are doing everything you can to protect your most precious cargo.

09/22/2022

Such an interesting new paper - babies reacting to different flavours in the womb. There have been previous studies that have linked maternal diet during pregnancy to acceptance of different foods when babies start solids (and also maternal diet during breastfeeding). This study shows babies pulling different faces in the womb according to whether their mother had carrot (sweeter tasting), kale (more bitter) or a control.

Personally 'carrot face' here is more my cake face but they didn't have that as an option :(

'Pregnant women and their fetuses based in the northeast of England were involved in this study from 32 to 36 weeks’ gestation. Fetuses exposed to carrot flavor (n = 35) showed “lip-corner puller” and “laughter-face gestalt” more frequently, whereas fetuses exposed to kale flavor (n = 34) showed more “upper-lip raiser,” “lower-lip depressor,” “lip stretch,” “lip presser,” and “cry-face gestalt” in comparison with the carrot group and a control group not exposed to any flavors (n = 30).'

Paper here -

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976221105460'

08/25/2022

From a mom who exclusively breastfed all my kids for the 1st year of each of their lives, I fully support this message from ❤️Take care of YOU. That is the best thing you can do for your baby.

08/15/2022

RECALL ALERT: 4moms Recalls More than 2 Million MamaRoo and RockaRoo Infant Swings and Rockers Due to Entanglement and Strangulation Hazards; One Death Reported. When the swing or rocker is not in use, their restraint straps can dangle below the seat and non-occupant crawling infants can become entangled in the straps, posing a strangulation hazard. Consumers with infants who can crawl should immediately stop using the recalled swings and rockers, place them in an area where crawling infants cannot access and contact 4moms immediately to register for a free strap fastener that will prevent the straps from extending under the swing when not in use. More Info: https://bit.ly/3CceJ4R

08/13/2022

07/26/2022

Willow Wearable Breast Pump

07/24/2022

07/22/2022

Scientists have discovered an odorless scent molecule called hexadecanal, or HEX, that is released by humans and impacts aggressive behavior. The HEX molecule is the most abundant molecule released on the newborn baby's head. The researchers found that this molecule reduced aggression in males (biologically important as infanticide is a relatively common event in the mammalian world) and increased aggression in females (key to infant protection). We have shared with parents that when they are skin to skin with their newborn they should remove the baby's hat to allow them to inhale the scent of their newborn as it elicits an entire range of activity in the parental brain. This is one more reason to take a deep sniff! (Mishor et al., 2022)

Source: Eva Mishor et al, Sniffing the human body volatile hexadecanal blocks aggression in men but triggers aggression in women, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg1530

07/18/2022

Yep! This is is exactly why the Cochrane Review suggests that we better our observational skills of knowing where someone is in - something that both an experienced and tend to be pretty good at 👍🏽

In our we talk all about how to gauge without relying on internal exams 🤰🏿


Posted • In a 2007 study, researchers wanted to know, how accurate are cervical exams?

To explore this they had one researcher (an experienced obstetric consultant) and various hospital clinicians separately perform cervical exams on 508 women in active labor — without knowing each other’s findings.

The researcher and clinician agreed on dilation 49% of the time and disagreed 51% of the time. Out of that amount, 11% of the time they disagreed by 2cm or more. 🤯

This was the first time a study used the assessment of real people rather than models!

What can we take away from this study? 🤔

Cervical exams have their time and place but they are not the end all be all for assessing where we are in labor and what’s to come.

💬 Do you have a story or question about cervical exams?

The more you know, the more informed your choice. ❤️✨



Reposted from

07/15/2022

No question about it. 💯If we want to improve outcomes for everyone - regardless of pain medication preference or - including

🟡 shorter time
🟡 less risk of fetal distress
🟡 less risk of a baby getting “stuck” during
🟡 less risk of intervention
🟡 decreased risk of perineal trauma
🟡 increased support person involvement
🟡 improved birth satisfaction for the parent
🟡 increased autonomy for the person laboring

then ALL providers - clinical and non-clinical - must become well versed in how the bones of the shift with movement and positioning and how to use that knowledge to change space for the where they need it as they descend and rotate in . 🤰🏼👶🏽🧑🏾‍⚕️👩🏻‍⚕️👶🏻🤰🏿🧑🏻‍⚕️👶🏿🤰🏻👨🏼‍⚕️🤰🏽👶🏼

🌟Workshops available virtually and in person. Contact hours available through the PA Board of Nursing. 🌟

07/15/2022

07/11/2022

I find lots of parents start to query colic / reflux when their baby is 3 weeks old. This makes sense as babies seem to “wake up” a bit at that stage, and are more active / alert in general, but this involves more crying. After a couple of weeks of what was relatively peaceful behaviour post birth, suddenly this extra crying can be worrying.
Crying increases in the weeks following birth. This has been found in multiple studies, in both high and low income countries. Babies cry less in the societies where they are carried more (both when awake and asleep), but even in those societies there are still peaks of crying at certain times. This crying happens in healthy babies, with no health issues -nothing else going on, and as such - some crying is thought to be part of a pattern of maturation.
We’ve grown up in a strange society where crying is not really seen as acceptable, so when people have unsettled babies, they tend to stay at home because they’re worried about not being able to settle their baby. They are worried about what people will think about them. As a result, we don’t see crying babies. That means we continue to see it as abnormal and not acceptable, and we worry when our baby cries. When that happens, we tend to pathologise crying and think it means something medical is going on. In most cases of young babies crying, it’s not medical. It’s hunger, it’s a need to be regulated, it’s emotions, it could be about scary thoughts / dreams etc. Holding your baby as much as possible can really help. It does reduce crying. On top of that we need to start talking about some crying being normal. If you have baby groups / breastfeeding groups / mums and tots groups near you - take your baby, even if you are worried about crying. Talk to the other parents. Find out how they manage when they worry about crying. We all need to support each other. If you are worried about your unsettled baby and whether it is normal or excessive crying - I have an unsettled baby consult and would abe happy to talk to you - www.carolsmyth.co.uk/unsettledbaby

07/04/2022

06/24/2022

Safe abortion care is essential to protect the health of women & girls everywhere.
Removing access to abortion care will put more women & girls at risk of illegal abortions and the consequent safety issues that would bring.

Every year over 25 million unsafe abortions take place and up to 37,000 women die.

Evidence shows that restricting access to abortion does not reduce the number of abortions that occur.
Restrictions are, however, more likely to drive women and girls towards unsafe procedures.

06/24/2022

Roe v. Wade is overturned—but we will not go back. Planned Parenthood of Delaware will not back down. With everything we've got, we will keep fighting so that you can access the care you need to control your body, your life, and your future.

06/21/2022

Some people ask why group B strep screening isn't offered to all pregnant women in the UK.

That question is in the UK news today, as proponents of routine GBS screening complain that hospitals don't want to participate in new research in this area.

But a 2019 review published in the British Medical Journal has already showed that universal antenatal screening for the group B strep bacteria can cause more harm than good.

The reviewers found that universal screening for group B strep "would have led to overtreatment of 138 583 (99.75%) women in labour."

The treatment for having GBS bacteria consists of giving intravenous (by drip) antibiotics during labour.

But very, very few babies would have a problem and the antibiotics have side effects.

Not just for the mums and babies who are exposed to them, but for future mums, babies and families.

Having a drip can also mean that movement is limited and in some areas having GBS bacteria and/or the treatment for this can limit your options.

It's tricky though, because GBS disease can be fatal for a tiny number of babies.

But as with so many things, there's a bigger picture and wider issues to consider. Some babies are more at risk than others, for example.

So this is an area where it's important to weigh up the pros and cons in the light of YOUR individual situation.

If you’d like to know more about group B strep, your options, the wider issues and how to weigh up what's right for you, take a look at www.sarawickham.com/gbse

That page has details of my book on this topic – which helps parents, professionals and others to understand the issues and the evidence relating to the screening and prophylactic measures offered in the hope of preventing early-onset group B strep (EOGBS) disease.

It also contains a link to my information hub, where you can read about this study and many others.