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The True Cost Of Trying To Be A Perfect Mom

2/14/2018

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“Realize that some moms won’t ask for help because they don’t want to seem less than the supermom they hope to be.”
                                                                                   -Dr. Sears
“Why did nobody tell me about this?” was the question I often asked myself when I woke up in the middle of the night to nurse my firstborn, wondering if I had peed the bed and realizing my breasts were leaking all over. I wish I had a clean shirt right next to bed. I wish I had a water bottler within reach. I wish I had a waterproof cover on my mattress. I wish I knew why my baby was crying. And all of the sudden I was furiously hungry at 3 am and the weight of it all was quite overwhelming.
 
Why didn’t I know these things?
We just don’t know what we don’t know.
 
HOW HARD CAN IT REALLY BE?
When I talk to pregnant people about postpartum and they look at me with disbelief at the thought of asking friends and family for help, I totally get it.
I was there too. It wasn’t until AFTER the birth of my first baby that I picked up a book about postpartum and I found myself thinking, “Darn, I should have read this BEFORE the baby was born.” Well, too late. I wasn’t prepared at all.
 
You might be wondering, what kind of preparation do people actually need? Does this really apply to me? A pregnant woman asked me recently: “Will I really not be able to get up from bed and make myself a sandwich? Is it really that bad?”
 
Honestly, if you don’t have any major complications during birth the answer is: most likely, yes. You will probably be able to physically get up from bed and make yourself a sandwich. You might even be able to make yourself a fancy sandwich or a more complex meal. I have seen people do very difficult things in the first few weeks after birth. But the real question here is… At what cost? And why?

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The Pride and Shame of Feeding a Baby

8/8/2017

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World Breastfeeding Week recently ended and I realized that although breastfeeding has been such an important thing for me as a mother and as a woman, I have never written anything about it in this blog. I don’t know at what point I started to think about it as a controversial topic and preferred to avoid it. The obsession with what "the best" is, can be a dangerous territory and it's hurting us.
 
FEEDING A BABY CAN BE A STRUGGLE

Some people who are very dear to my heart struggled with breastfeeding, one of them being my own mom. She nursed me for an incredibly painful month and a half and decided to stop when she found me spitting blood from her injured nipples.

She had absolutely no support. There were no lactation consultants she could talk to and her own family was very far away, on the other side of the country. She is, of course, not the only one who has been failed by a system that tells parents breastfeeding is best but gives them no tools to overcome the many challenges they might face.


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Does your baby's sleep make you a better parent?

8/3/2017

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YOUR BABY IS NOT A BLANK SLATE
One of the biggest mistakes that we make as parents is thinking that everything our children do, positive or negative, is a reflection of who we are.
 
It’s hard to become a parent. We have to give so much! Our own identities often become diluted as we pour every bit of ourselves into caring for our children. So when people say, “he is such a good baby,” “she is so sweet,” “they are so smart!” our chests swell with pride. Those comments can feel like an affirmation on the worthiness of our hard work as parents, which so often goes without recognition in nowadays individualistic culture.
 
Equally, if someone turns their nose to our kid, criticizes their manners, temper or behavior, it feels like a punch in the gut. For many of us, it’s easy to internalize that judgment (imagined or not) and start labeling our children and ourselves negatively (even if it’s a joke). Hot mess mom. Bad mom. Difficult child. Etc.

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CALL THE FOOD  DOULA: POSTPARTUM  NOURISHMENT  CAN  BE THAT  EASY!

6/28/2017

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​Before I became a mom I used to love cooking. I was even good at it! My old friends still remind me how much they loved my creative dishes. Nowadays it’s hard to imagine how I used to come up with time and imagination to prepare that food. Most days even making a sandwich seems like a challenge. I do cook for my family and sometimes I enjoy it, but it’s a lot of work. I need to research recipes (hello Pinterest!), make lists, write meal plans, do the actual cooking and psychologically prepare to accept the fact that my three year old might still reject a lot of my food (we’re working on it).

I knew that I was particularly going to need help after the birth of my second child and luckily, the help I got surpassed all my expectations. Not only did my loving community brought me amazing food for weeks after the birth, but I also got to experience one of the most nourishing and comforting services a postpartum mom could ever enjoy: a food doula!

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Why  you  need  to  set  up  a  meal  train  for  postpartum

3/15/2017

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LIFE WITH A NEWBORN IS BUSY
 
It’s crazy how the most basic things become so difficult once you’re caring for a newborn. Taking a shower, peeing by yourself, eating with both hands and other things we take for granted on the pre-baby days all of a sudden become luxuries during postpartum.
 
Newborns are a lot of work. Many want to be held all the time and those little stomachs can’t hold much food, so they need to eat and poop often. If you’re breastfeeding, you might find most of your day is spent nursing. So, when are you supposed to cook and prepare all the nutritious meals you will be needing to recover from childbirth, cope with sleep deprivation and keep a healthy milk supply?!
 
Even if you have an awesome partner who is committed to taking the best care of you, the demands of parenthood are many and it’s easy to put our nutritional needs on the back burner. Taking care of babies wasn’t meant to be a one or two person job. You will keep hearing it over and over and even if it sounds cliché it’s true: it takes a village! So hey, there is a very easy thing you can do to make this transition easier: let people help!

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Are  Placenta  Pills  The  Magic  Solution  To  Postpartum  Problems?

1/8/2017

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Placenta encapsulation is becoming very popular these days.
Celebrity buzz has certainly contributed to make this practice more mainstream. Nowadays more and more people are trying it out and sharing their experiences.

Consuming placenta is nothing new. Traditional Chinese Medicine has been using placenta medicine for more than 2000 years. In this tradition (and some others around the world) placenta is considered a powerful medicine that can help you replenish important nutrients, balance postpartum hormones and improve milk supply. (Although some these benefits are supported by research, they  have not been verified by the FDA or any other such governing body).

When looking at the possible causes of postpartum mood disorders, science has found that a dramatic drop in hormones can contribute to depression. On top of that, the intense physical demands and blood loss of childbirth put a lot of stress on the body, causing fatigue and general weakness. It makes sense to think that consuming your placenta and recovering some of the iron, protein and hormones, would help balance things out and guard off postpartum depression.

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The  Challenge  Of  Loving  Your  Changing  Pregnant  Body

12/7/2016

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You know what sucks? Worrying about your appearance all the time.
If you’re a woman, chances are you know exactly what I’m talking about, since statics show that at least 80% (although some say it's as high as 98%) of women feel dissatisfied with the way they look.
Isn’t that insane?
The documentary Embrace (trailer below), goes deep into this struggle for self-love.

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ARE  WE  CRAZY  FOR  BRINGING   MORE   PEOPLE  INTO   THE  WORLD?

10/30/2016

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​I have a lot of friends that don’t want to have kids.

 
Some of them might change their minds in the future, they are still young and nowadays people are becoming parents later on in life. But you know what?
I think most of them won’t change their minds. They are determined and confident and they are doing great things in life that fulfill them. They don’t seem to feel the urge to bring other humans into the world.
 
I know they don't mean any harm, but sometimes their comments and posts about their decision to avoid parenthood rub me the wrong way. Why? Well, because I’m a mom. Not only that, but I’m also someone who shifted her lifestyle and career completely since becoming a parent. And although I love my son with all my heart, when I read all the reasons why people don’t want to have kids, a shade of doubt grows in my heart. Am I too selfish to be a good mom? Am I raising my son in a world that is falling apart? Can I really give him a good life? Is he going to be a person who will bring positive things into the world? Am I losing myself in motherhood?
 
These are hard questions. I could ignore those voices in my mind and just look at my son in his amazing innocence and beauty, but I would be denning a party of my self and that's never good. I think it’s worth to sit with these thoughts and feel the feelings all the way.

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CREATING   SPACE   FOR   HONEST   BIRTH   STORIES

7/17/2016

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Odds are that you and almost everyone you know can spin a tale about birth: the birth of their children or grandchildren, births they witnessed or heard about, or the story of their own entry into the world. And these stories are important. People want to tell their story, and need to be heard.

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THE   #1   THING   I   WISH   I   HAD   KNOWN   ABOUT   BABY   POOP

5/12/2016

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OUR JOURNEY WITH ELIMINATION COMMUNICATION
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The number one thing I wish I had known before the birth of my son is that you can start potty training babies right after they are born.
Ok, not really. It’s not potty training. It’s really more like a parent training in which you pay very, very close attention to your child so that you can put them over a sink or a bowl when they need to eliminate.

In case you have never heard about this before, in the Western World this “method” is known as Elimination Communication (EC), Diaper Free Baby, or Natural Infant Hygiene. Amongst most indigenous people around the world, EC doesn’t even have a name because it is the norm.
​I know this must sound crazy to most people, and you might be wondering why in the world would you want to sit around waiting for your baby to fart or kick his/her legs in a particular way when we are blessed with the miracle of diapers?
Well, there are many reasons.

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    Marissa Rivera Bolaños is a doula and visual artist with a passion to create change around the way our culture approaches women's health.

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