New Article: C-section Healing Guide

For those of you who don't know, I was one of those women who did everything perfectly and then ended up in the surgery room either way. There's a heavy pressure in our online communities to have a natural birth and sometimes it just doesn't work out no matter how hard you try. Anyway, after my c-section I was appalled at the lack of care and information about how to take care of myself post-operation, so here are some things everyone should know:

Supplements that should be taken prior to and after the surgery; CoenzymeQ10, Echinacea Tea, Vitamin C, Cod Liver Oil.
In nutrition, focus heavily on high protein intake for wound healing.
For post-surgery topical healing, your options are: scar massage, creams, silicone wraps and bio-oil.
And for heavier treatments to reduce the scar appearance: laser therapy and microdermabrasion.

You will be more physically tired than usual for a week afterwards, then it will get better. You shouldn't drive until at least a month later. The better your nutrition is prior to the surgery, the quicker your recovery will be. Take it easy.
Read in detail here.

Giving a triplet only 2 lollies to see what she will do

Postpartum guidance for the mother and baby from early 1900s - an equivalent for the little red book, a century ago.

Some kids puree pouches have concerning lead levels

The most important takeaway is the part about what parents can do (which basically boils down to my baby-feeding and general eating ethos anyway) - just feed them whole real foods with minimal processing, cooked or cut into manageable portions for babies. 🥰

"In addition to limiting consumption of the fruit purées in our testing that were higher in lead, there are several other steps parents can take to limit a child’s exposure to heavy metals. 

Choose foods that tend to be lower in heavy metals. These include most fresh and frozen fruit, peas, green beans, and butternut squash, as well as cheese, yogurt, eggs, lentils, chickpeas, and baby food meats. 

Give babies and children a variety of whole foods. When possible, try not to serve the same food meal after meal or day after day. “Doing so could mean you accidentally are concentrating a particular contaminant in your child’s diet,” Houlihan says.

Limit fruit juices, puffs, and wafer snacks, and rice-based cereals. In previous CR tests, some fruit juices, puffs, and wafers were found to contain heavy meals. Consider instead infant cereals made from oats and other whole grains—except rice. Both white rice and brown rice are often high in arsenic. However, you can lower arsenic levels by 40 to 60 percent if you make it yourself and cook it in a large amount of water, according to the FDA. " (Thanks Eeee R for sharing)

Parents and children answer "If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?"

I have a child that believes if rules seem arbitrary, she shouldn't have to observe them. When her last nature journal entry didn't have capitalization at the beginning of sentences, she argued that it's not necessary for understanding and pointed out that in Latin they don't capitalize when starting sentences. I informed her that if she wanted to do her nature journal entries in Latin she was welcome to follow Latin grammar rules but when she wrote in English, I expected her to follow English grammar rules. Her nature journal entry this week was in Latin. For having been shown up by an obstinate preteen, I'm feeling pretty satisfied.

🐣 📊 ♀️ When women in their late 40s and 50s end up with more kids than they thought was ideal, desired, or expected at ages 14-22, they tend to have happier life trajectories.

🔶️ This is not true if they end up with fewer kids than they stated in youth.

📎 Lyman Stone

How to make shadow puppets in a 1930 article from Modern Mechanix