Pregnancy

Childbirth is one of the ultimate times in our life, where we must surrender to our body's innate ability to do what it was created to do. Currently however, we no longer have access to all of the support we normally would have during our births. Because of this, I decided to create a video to help teach anyone pregnant and their birth partners, how to support a smooth and healthy childbirth with acupressure. This video teaches acupressure points to help encourage the body's optimal response during labour, to help with pain management and to promote an efficient labour and recovery.

I heard many different birth stories from the midwives while teaching the training in Chiapas. One story that deeply affected me was told by two of the traditional midwives and was about an indigenous 16 year old girl from a community outside of San Cristóbal de las Casas. I will call her Maria. 

Having a baby shouldn’t result in an early death due to complications with pregnancy and childbirth. However in Mexico, many women face disproportionately high odds of experiencing preventable maternal health challenges and complications leading to death. 

If you haven’t already read part 1 (Weeks 1-2), Click here.

Week 3-4 Postpartum

Here is an idea of what to expect and what you should do the first 2 weeks after having a baby.

Click here for part 2 (Weeks 3-6)

If you’ve ever seen me in the clinic then you know I love the updates. When I haven’t heard from a patient in a little while, I’ll always send over a quick note to see how they’re doing. How did your cycle go? Are you finished the cleanse? Have the improvements held out? How are the herbs going? It’s a great way to get continuity of care while tracking successes and seeing where improvements are needed. We are always asking the question: could we be doing better? But often, believe it or not, I get the best response ever, like the email I got today.

Have you been searching for the signs of early pregnancy? The magic symptom that will tell you for sure if your pregnant or not? Most if not all of my fertility patients are. The hard part is that there are no perfect, definitive symptoms which can 100% guarantee that you are pregnant. Besides doing a home pregnancy test or better yet a blood test with your doctor the symptoms of pregnancy are often similar to that of PMS. Very confusing indeed! Even more confusing is if women are using fertility medications.

It’s estimated that somewhere between 70-80% of women struggle with nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Most of the time, the symptoms are limited to the first trimester – and somewhere around 13 or 14 weeks it’ll start to lift. Unfortunately, a small percentage of women have prolonged symptoms that can last until delivery.