from my favorites list

I just happened upon this wonderful website by Cynthia Lair and her family: Cookus Interruptus. It's a great cooking website full of wonderful recipes and information about cooking with whole foods, plus there's videos of many of the recipes! If you're unfamiliar with Cynthia Lair, she has a couple of whole foods based cook books, the most well known is Feeding the Whole Family, a wonderful book for anyone who cares about the food they put into their body.

As many of my patients will attest to, I spend a fair amount of time discussing nutrition and diet as an important part of the healing process. My patients often question how something so basic as food can be responsible for so much of our ill health and can be such an imperative part of healing. But that's exactly the point, if we can't even provide our body with something so fundamental as proper nutrition, how can we ever expect to achieve optimal health. In addition, sometimes our conceptions of what is healthy is based on hype and media and involves foods that have been stripped of anything real, so remember to go back to the roots of food, look for that which is real, that which you can identify and contains as many of the original components as possible, it may not be labelled 'fat-free' or 'low-fat' or 'all natural', but often the fewer the labels the better.

So check out Cynthia's site, including her latest blog post about whole fat dairy and don't forget to look at her book!

be well

stories of '09

It's 2010 and I'm happy to report the last quarter of 2009 was full of exciting events, and even more should be in store for 2010.

I was privileged to be the acupuncturist to some very special moms in 2009, and though all the moms I work with are amazing women with great birth stories, I just wanted to highlight some of the exceptional one's starting with a mom who had a successful VBAC at Evergreen. Way to go mama!

I also had the opportunity to treat a mom considered by general obstetrics to be of 'advanced maternal age' and not only did she have a successful vaginal birth, but at home in water attended by midwives. Congratulations on your second born, she is beautiful!

Finally, twins!! But, once again, not only twins, but vaginally born, breastfeeding twins!!

Here's the story:

March: Hopefully pregnant.

April: Definitely pregnant.

Later that month: Twins!!

March-December: Lots of acupuncture, yoga & prenatal checkups!

3rd Trimester: Pregnancy going great, bye-bye high risk OB, down to 1 OB!

August-September: Childbirth classes, mom & dad studying hard to prepare for the big day!

December: It's time, the boys are ready. Mom and dad labor hard and strong, both boys born the old fashioned way and big and healthy. Discharged from the hospital 24 hours after birth.

Mom reports the whole L&D floor was a little shocked at the short hospital stay for twins, but staying healthy and being prepared made a great difference for this family!

What does mom have to say about it:

"I think its important for women to know education is the key to having the birth you want and the determination to see it through…I couldn't have made the choices I did without learning my options and knowing that I had choices!!!!

Congratulations new family of four, you are an amazing family!

And congratulations to all who had new additions in 2009, especially these brave, strong moms, I hope you all know your stories will inspire and strengthen other women to achieve the births they hope for!

Be Well!

take The Birth Survey reminder

For all you new moms out there, or mom of new babies, even if you've done this before:

Congratulations & don't forget to take The Birth Survey to anonymously share your ratings of your provider and facility with other local women.

Thanks for helping to make healthcare options open to every family!

newborns & H1N1

With all the H1N1 or swine flu news flying around lately, patients have been asking how to protect their newborn.

Here are my suggestions for decreasing chances of exposure in the early days:

1. Don't allow your baby to be bathed after birth. Your baby is coated with all kinds of great protective microbes for exactly the purpose of protecting them as newborns. Shampoos and other soaps, especially antibacterial cleansers, will wash these away leaving your newborn without a wonderfully protective coating. In addition to strengthening your baby's protection, when they haven't been bathed, babies are handled less frequently by the medical staff since they are not 'clean' (as if it can any cleaner than a newborn!), which is actually more of a benefit for your baby, the less potentially contaminated hands touching him/her, the better.

2. Initiate breastfeeding as soon after birth as your baby shows interest. Usually within the first 2 hours. Your colostrum provides many, many antibodies to your newborn. If your newborn has exposed to H1N1, chances are high you have been also and your body will respond by making antibodies. In utero, babies receive antibodies through the placenta, after birth, they receive them through breastmilk until their immune system is mature enough to take over the job.

3. Make sure everyone washes their hands before handling your baby. When I say washes their hands, I mean with warm, soapy water for at least 30 seconds, which can be followed by hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer alone is not nearly as effective as hand washing, though the both combined is better than hand washing alone. Hand sanitizers are good when nothing else is available, but for a newborn, thorough hand washing is gold standard.

4. Be sure you are getting adequate nutritional resources and hydration following labor and birth and in the recovery period. Your stores will need to be refilled after the marathon of labor to allow your body to keep your immune system strong for yourself and your baby. You may also want to discuss vitamins, minerals or other supplements such as whether to continue your prenatal, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, and others with your care provider. Most of these supplements are safe to take while breastfeeding, if your caregiver is unsure of any supplement, dosages or the safety of a supplement during lactation, find a practitioner who is familiar with these

protocols such as a lactation or breastfeeding counselor or consultant or a naturopath with experience working with breastfeeding mothers.

5. Finally, give your baby lots of kisses! One reason we enjoy nuzzling and kissing our babies may be preprogrammed into us to ensure we are being exposed to the same pathogens to which they have been exposed. By putting our faces all over theirs, we are taking in these microbes through our nose and mouth causing us to make antibodies against them that will be passed via breastmilk to the baby.

Close to half of the births in Washington state are paid for by Medicaid. Until recently much of our medicaid dollars have gone toward paying for unnecessary, even potentially harmful cesarean sections. Recently, Washington state has decreased the reimbursement rate for uncomplicated c-sections to equal that of complicated vaginal births, a drop of approximately $2,600/birth. This is (conservatively) predicted to save the state and the federal government $2 million dollars each over the next 2 years, spurred by the economic crisis our state government has seen these past couple of years. The savings may be even greater if the cesarean rate actually begins to drop from close to 30% to the WHO standard of 10-15% (a debatable number itself, but better than 30%+).

Further, research by midwives has estimated that the state currently saves around $250,000/year by covering out-of-hospital births attended by midwives. That savings could be even greater if more women with healthy, uncomplicated pregnancies were encouraged to use birth centers or have home births.

Of course, if other states throughout the nation follow Washington's lead, both in equalizing the reimbursement rates for surgical & non-surgical births, as well as covering out-of-hospital, midwife attended births, the nation could be off to a great start toward truly cutting healthcare costs. However, it is yet to be seen whether this will have an effect on actually decreasing the number of c-sections performed.

Read more here:

• http://maa.dshs.wa.gov/News/fact/FS009-007Hospitalpurchasing-rates-C-sections4-8-09.pdf
• http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehsphl/chs/chs-data/public/CSectionsInWA.pdf
• http://crosscut.com/2009/08/06/health-medicine/19144/

world breastfeeding week day 7

Research reports that breastfeeding decreases obesity rates. The more a babies diet includes breastmilk and the longer a baby is breastfeed or taking breastmilk, the greater the benefit.

Excerpt from the CDC publication Does Breastfeeding Reduce the Risk of Pediatric Overweight?

"Does the duration of breastfeeding influence its association with pediatric overweight?

The duration of breastfeeding is inversely related to pediatric overweight. In Harder et al., the greater the duration of breastfeeding, the lower the odds of overweight. For each month of breastfeeding up to age 9 months, the odds of overweight decreased by 4%. This decline resulted in more than a 30% decrease in the odds of overweight for a child breastfed for 9 months when the comparison was with a child never breastfed.

Does exclusive breastfeeding have a strongerassociation with pediatric overweight thancombined breastfeeding and formula feeding?

Exclusive breastfeeding indeed appears to have a stronger protective effect than breastfeeding combined with formula feeding, but more research is needed. In Owen et al., the four studies that included exclusive breastfeeding groups showed a stronger protective effect compared to all their other studies combined (OR=0.76, 95% CI=0.70, 0.83). In the Harder et al. review, the two studies that documented exclusive breastfeeding also showed a stronger protective effect, decreasing the odds of overweight by 6% for each month of exclusive breastfeeding."

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/nutrition/pdf/breastfeeding_r2p.pdf

world breastfeeding week day 6

As published in Pediatrics Feb. 2002 by Bulkow LR et al. the risk of hospitalization due to the common viral infection called Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is decreased in the breastfeed baby population.

Excerpt:

PEDIATRICS Vol. 109 No. 2 February 2002, pp. 210-216

Risk Factors for Severe Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection Among Alaska Native Children

Lisa R. Bulkow, MS^*, Rosalyn J. Singleton, MD^*,,Ruth A. Karron, MD and Lee H. Harrison, MD^|| the Alaska RSV Study Group

"Results. Breastfeeding was associated with a lower risk of RSV hospitalization (odds ratio: 0.34), whereas underlying medical conditions (primarily prematurity) were associated with increased risk (odds ratio: 6.25). Environmental factors associated with a higher risk of hospitalization included household crowding (4 or more children in the household and crowding index greater than/equal to 2). The level of maternal RSV-neutralizing antibody was not associated with the risk of hospitalization.

Conclusions. In this region with extremely high risk of RSV hospitalization, several measures, such as encouraging breastfeeding and reducing household crowding, could reduce the risk of hospitalization attributable to RSV."

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/109/2/210?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=breastfeeding&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=109&issue=2&resourcetype=HWCIT