I am apparently all excited about these fun blog challenges from Twitter Mom.  I actually won a $50 Target Gift card with my post about organization the other week.  So here comes another post.

But this I will make Pregnancy/Birth Related, because that is what I do best!

1. Take time to relax each day (Hypnobabies is great for this).   Relaxing a little every day helps keep your stress level lower = happier and healthier mom
2. Learn about your birthing options – what are the best choices for you and your baby?   This will lead to a healthier birth = healthier and happier mom
3. Choose a Birth Location and Birth Provider with a low cesarean rate.  This will lessen the possibility of an unnecessary cesarean = healthier and happier mom
4. Eat lots of protein.  It is good for your growing baby and helps you have energy to do the things you need to do = healthier and happier mom
5. Drink Tropicana Orange Juice.  OK, shameless plug. It is Important to stay nice and hydrated with water and  juice is another healthy liquid.   Your amniotic fluid replenishes itself every 3 hours – so it is important to stay hydrated! = healthier mom
6. Listen to pregnancy affirmations each day. (Hypnobabies CD)  This will help keep you in a positive state of mind which equals a happier mom!
7. Use your Bubble of Peace (Hypnobabies tool) to help keep things positive in your mind about your pregnancy and upcoming birth = happier mom.
8. Read lots of positive birth stories, to get you excited about your upcoming birth = happier mom.
9. Do 10 kegals each time you pee.  Easy to remember and = healthier mom
10. Drink Green Smoothies – More veggies, easy snack = healthier mom

Bonus Tip! Read The Top Three Tips to Enjoy Your Birth, it will help you feel happier as you prepare for a wonderful birth!  Download your free copy here.

Trop50 Little Things for Happy, Healthy Living 1000 Little Things for Moms from Trop50

I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Tropicana Trop50 blogging program to be eligible to win 6 free Juicy Rewards points and a $30 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

The 2 main challenges of being a doula are

1.  Being on Call – which is not so stressful.

2.  Being on Call when there is something challenging happening – which is stressful.

• Like when Thing 2 broke his leg!
• Or when my DH unexpectedly goes out of town.
• Or when each Thing gets the Flu.  One at a time.

This was my situation a few weeks before Christmas, I am posting it now, after everything is all healthy! 

Thing 2 got the Flu on a Wednesday, I pick him up from school.

I do research and realize I am potentially a carrier for 7 days, so know I can’t attend a birth for 7 days.  I call my back up doulas and they are on call for me.

I don’t call my 2 moms who are due.  Why make them worry when I know I have back up standing by if they need someone?  I will add that I feel really good (intuitively) that I will be at both these births, so I try to relax about it. If I had felt like I might miss their births or they would need me, I would have called them.

I felt on Thursday, Friday and Saturday like I was really fighting something off.  But I am functional.   I feel like I have had “flu lite”. Which is actually reassuring to me.  It has worked through my system and built up immunity.

Day 6 arrives. I feel confident that we have beat this thing!  Then Thing 1 wakes up and is sick.  I cancel my doula appointment for that night.  I was going to explain the situation, that it was day 6 and let them choose if they wanted to meet, but since Thing 1 was sick, cancelling seemed smartest!  My client agreed.

I kept thinking Wednesday at 2 PM and we will be clear.  That will be 7 days exactly.

Well Wednesday at noon Thing 3 starts to get sick.  This flu hits suddenly.  He is playing happily and then a few minutes later is laying down on my lap and is feverish.

By now I am a pro.  I have a system.  I am used to washing my hands 100 times a day, washing sheets and clothes and nursing these little things back to health.

Lingering in the back of my thoughts is the worry.  What if one of my moms needs me? Last night after Thing 3 threw up, I couldn’t fall back asleep.  What if someone calls RIGHT NOW!?

I prayed and gave that worry up to God.  What else could I do?

I am so grateful that no one called.  (Though I have my back up doulas ready, I really want to be there!)

I am feeling healthy. I am past that 7 day window.  The boys all had the same thing.  So I feel cleared for action.

Though it may be a challenge to find a friend willing to watch my throwing up little thing.

Luckily my DH has his own company and can come home if I need him to.

I am hoping that my moms will both wait a few more days (they did!) so I can be here to nurse all my little things back to health.

AND I hope DH stays healthy, we all know they are the worst patients!    (He did stay healthy)

This weekend I went on one of the health and fitness industry’s most well respected and authoritative courses on advanced Kinetic Chain Assesment, (taught by my ex-boss, friend and mentor, Dax moy). That probably means nothing to you apart from a load of gobbledeegook but the stuff I learnt is going to affect you in a BIG way!!

One thing that shocked me beyond belief and made me scared first and foremost for my own baby and secondly for all of my pregnant clients, friends and readers was a little known fact about MSG and how seriously it can affect your pregnancy health.

Now I think that most of us know full well that MSG during pregnancy is bad for us, right? There was a big panic a few years ago and a lot of Chinese restaurants banned it from their food ingredients, but what none of us know (or very few of us) is that MSG can come under different guises of at least 40 different names that we would never suspect AND because it is combined with other food additives, the food manufacturers are NOT REQUIRED to list it as an ingredient on the label – which makes it very difficult to exclude from your preganncy diet.

And do you know where it is most widely used?

In BABY FOOD.

…….  to read the rest of the post please go to Nisha’s Blog (I couldn’t get all her charts to upload)

Nisha is the UK’s leading expert on safe and effective pregnancy health. To get your questions answered directly, register for the free Christmas Pregnancy Health Coaching Call on Tuesday 15^th December at http://www.the9monthclub.com/webinarxmas.html

I will say that I have been on a journey over the past few years.   Because of Bryson’s birth,  I became a doula and Chidlbirth Educator.  That has changed my health for the better.   I have opened my eyes to what health is and how I need to be more in charge of my own health.

It is a slow journey, but here are some of my steps along the past 4 years and the changes I have made since Bryson’s birth.

Questioning medical authority: When Bryson was 12 months his Pediatrician said he wasn’t big enough and it was pointless to nurse him anymore. There was no benefit to it. Then he tried to tell me Bryson might die if I didn’t give him the MMR vaccine at that visit. (I have chosen to space Bryson’s vaccines out, rather than give them on the “normal” schedule.  I wanted to wait until he was 3 to give it.) I used my Bubble of Peace and stuck to my decision.

After leaving and thinking about the appointment, I changed my pediatrician.  I knew as a doula that I deserved more as a consumer.  Talk to me, tell me the pros and cons and then let ME decide. I am the mom and can decide what is best for my kids! Medical Care Providers should respect that!

As a doula, I also see that care providers do NOT always practice evidence based medicine and it is the consumer’s (us) responsibility to gather information and make educated and intuitive decisions.  What is best for our family and situation.

Chiropractic Care and Supplements: Another big change in my life was meeting Dr. Jen. She is a fellow Childbirth Educator and she took my Hypnobabies Class with her 3rd baby. I am so glad, because I got to know her better and started going to her.

Her belief that our bodies want to be healthy, that medication shouldn’t be the automatic answer.  Look at diet, what else is going on, etc.

When we were heading to Cancun a few months ago, my Mom was freaking out about Swine Flu. I asked Dr. Jen, what things can we do to help prevent getting it? She gave me some natural supplements, which we all took during our trip and we stayed healthy!

Exercise: I have never been a big exerciser. EVER. I have been walking off and on with Jenn in the mornings for about 18 months and it is great when we do.   I would like to do this more consistently next year.

Healthy Diet: This is probably the slowest part, but I have made much improvement in even the last year.

I used to drink soda on a regular basis. I used to eat M&Ms every afternoon and a big bowl of ice cream every night. I did this for YEARS. I rarely eat vegetables and we eat a lot of processed foods as a family.

I weaned myself from soda over a few year time period. I got myself down to one can a day, then 1/2 can a day, then switched to caffeine free 1/2 can a day to maybe a soda once a month. (Have been that way since getting pregnant with Bryson.) As a family rule the boys can only have 1/2 can on Saturday (our soda day) Saves lots of money at restaurants and so healthy not to drink it.

About a year ago I got really sick with a stomach virus. Somehow that helped me get off the ice cream every night. I think I have Candida issues, so I really have to avoid too much dairy and sugar, or I get very Yeasty. So ice cream I maybe have twice a month. Family rule Sunday is Ice Cream day. Though I pretty much skip it. I will sometimes have a bowl at night when I have a sore throat.

The M&M habit, I substituted trail mix in the afternoons. Which wasn’t too much of a sacrifice. I get my chocolate fix and with the bonus of some raw nuts.

So I feel like I have done pretty good in getting rid of the bad things, but can’t seem to get the veggies in and we still have lots of processed food. I don’t really like to cook or even know how to efficiently do it. So that is a huge stumbling block.

I read this very interesting and eye opening book called Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right

It really opened my eyes to the importance of eating healthy. But the big question is how to DO it. Frankly the book made me want to, but I couldn’t figure out how to implement it easily.

I was praying and researching and I now feel like I should try Green Smoothies. Blending and drinking Veggies. Sounds yummy? I don’t know. I’ll be trying it soon!   I found the Green Smoothie Girl 12 step program and I am going to try it for 2010. I will update every month as I move along the steps. If I do them all, think of how much healthier we all will be in 12 months!

Special thanks to

• Jenn who asks me questions, tells me I am crazy, but still loves me. It makes me really think about what I am doing and check with myself to see if it is right for ME.
• Dr. Jen who is a GREAT resource.
• Valerie a friend who does things naturally and helps me not feel crazy!
• My husband who pretty much never complains about what I feed him or what new things I try.   “Take these supplements dear.”   He replies, “OK!”

I feel that educating myself and empowering myself with a natural birth, helped open my eyes to the power I have in the health of my family.

I met Nisha online and was a guest on her radio show.  She has a great fitness program for expecting moms and is going to be doing some guest posts on my blog!

I apologise if this turns into a bit of a rant – I don’t intend it come out that way, but it might because I am PASSIONATE about this subject.
For years the “health food” industry has spent millions on positioning Soy as a health food and now it is in EVERYTHING! Even baby formula. And even though the Food Standards Agency has issued warnings about the dangers of Soy in infant / childrens food it is still allowed to go on today.
One of my Facebook Friends recently posted a comment on how her 4 month old baby is always hungry at around 1030pm and how she was planning to give him “goodnight milk” to see if it helped him go through the night.
I immediately posted on her update that goodnight milk is made with soya as is 99% of baby formula that you will find on the shelf in the supermarket and her comment back was, “Why is soya bad?”
It seems that although all the scientific evidence is to the contrary, the “health food” industry have done such a good job of marketing soya as a healthy alternative that the truth is drowned out in all the noise they are making.
Soya should not be part of your diet, especially during pregnancy and breastfeeding or given to your baby in formula milk or other baby food.
Soya was traditionally used in Asia as animal feed and only in times of extreme food shortage was it used by the very poor people. Even then it was used sparingly and only after lengthy fermentation – the Asians knew the dangers that we did not.
Soya is widely used as a vegetarian alternative to meat because it is high in protein BUT what the health food industry don’t tell you is that they are also high in enzyme inhibitors and antinutrients which actually block the action of your digestive enzymes in protein digestion. So the protein becomes useless to you as you cannot absorb it!
Protein is the building block of all our cells – you need it for repair and to grow strong lean muscle tissue and your baby needs it to form cells; so if unavailable protein is a regular part of your pregnancy diet, both you and your baby will suffer.
Now the health food industry has spent billions on investing in technology to eradicate these antinutrients from soya and have succeeded to a point, but in one success lies another problem.
Western soy manufacture uses high temperature manufacturing and caustic chemicals to destroy the antinutrients (trypsin inhibitors) in soy, to make it “safe” for human consumption, but in doing this the high temperature heat processing actually denatures the proteins in soy, making them difficult to digest and toxic. In addition, the process still does not remove trypsin inhibitors.

Trypsin inhibitors are particularly dangerous for pregnancy and infants as even in small amount trypsin inhibitors has been found to depress growth and cause enlargement and pathological conditions of the pancreas, including cancer.
Soybeans are also high in phytates and phytic acid blocks the uptake of magnesium, calcium, iron and zinc in the intestinal tract. During pregnancy it is vitally important that you get enough of all these minerals in your pregnancy nutrition to protect your immune system, prevent brittle bones, help your baby form properly within your belly and prevent premature labour and miscarriage. So anything which blocks the uptake of these essential nutrients is potentially extremely harmful to both you and your baby.
In children, high phytates in the diet have caused retarded growth and in babies it is especially serious as it delays the accumulation of lipids in the myelin, jeapordising brain development and proper formation of the nervous system.
Soy formula also increases the need for Folic acid and in early pregnancy this can result in neural tube defects such as Spina Bifida. It also block the uptake of fats, which also means that you cannot absorb fat soluble vitamins like Vitamin D.
But whilst all these things are harmful to your pregnancy health and the development of your baby, they pale into insignificance when compared to the effect that Soy has on your hormones and your baby’s hormonal development.
Soy contains isoflavones – a compound which mimics the effects of oestrogens. Isoflavonones are powerful endocrine disruptors and alter growth patterns and proper sexual development of your baby. Isoflavonones depress thyroid function, causing autoimmune thyroid disease and have a devastating effect on sexual development in infants.
Male infants undergo a testosterone surge in the first few months of their lives where the testosterone they are producing is equal to an adult male. Isoflavanones present in the diet at this time flood the bloodstream with female hormones. Peadiatric medicine has noticed a much greater number of boys who are showing a lack of physical development of the sexual organs and whose physical maturation is greatly delayed.
Within girls, puberty begins much earlier with 48.3% of girls showing physical signs of puberty at age 8, (such as breast development or pubic hair).
So why do the government food agencies still allow Soy to be promoted as a health food to pregnant and lactating mums and worse as the main ingredient in the majority of infant formula?
MONEY!
Soy is cheap and it allows the food industry to make huge profit margins that would be unachievable without the volumes they produce. The governments GDP depends upon the taxes to keep the economy going the way it should and until a suitably cheap alternative is found this will just keep on happening.
And it’s no wonder that the majority of the experts within the government run food agencies are also major shareholders in the manufacturing companies that benefit from the profit margins that soy manufacture gives them.
So please, check everything! Like I always tell you, if you are not cooking from scratch and fresh and organic ingredients, you need to recognise everything on the label as a wholefood and if soy is one of those things – don’t use it!
Nisha is the UK’s leading prenatal fitness expert and the author of The 9 Month Club, the online Pregnancy Fitness Coaching System. For more information on how to eat safely and effectively for your baby’s best potential development grab your free copy of the Pregnancy Elimination Diet