OK so this is a biggie in my 'Tell Me About' video series with amazing local pregnancy, birth and motherhood experts. It's something that is always being discussed in my Mum & Baby Yoga and Baby Massage classes, it causes a lot of worry and stress for all new, and not so new, parents - and it is of course BABY SLEEP! In this post you’ll learn all about baby sleep with the brilliant Lauren of Calm Family York.
Read MoreIf you are breastfeeding a baby, whether exclusively or in combination with formula then getting enough nourishment yourself is really important. Keeping your energy levels up and also staying hydrated will help you to produce the milk your baby needs (as well as sleep, but that’s another blog post entirely!). So this weeks blog post is all about foods that promote milk production or flow.
Read MoreYour baby is going to arrive soon and the chances are you have some nappies, a variety of nappy creams, some wipes all sorted - you are more than prepared for baby’s bottom. But what about your bottom?? Are you organised and prepared to help yourself heal following babys birth? Here’s 5 top tips for you.
Read MoreFilling your mind with positive thoughts, and reminding yourself what a truly amazing job you are doing, can really help you feel brighter and repeating positive affirmations actually rewires your brain and halts negative thought patterns.
Use these affirmations on a daily basis to help you create pops of positivity when you are sleep deprived, hormonal and feeling overwhelmed. They are simple yet effective, and allow you to regroup a little and focus on the positive. Find you FREE printable Positive Affirmations For Motherhood here.
Read MoreI wanted to chat to you today about something that most women (if not ALL women) fear and worry about in pregnancy. And that is tearing in birth. So anything that you can do to reduce the risk of having a tear, is surely good to know yes? And there are things you CAN do in pregnancy and in labour too, to help to minimize this happening.
So read on to reduce this fear and feel more calm and confident through your pregnancy and in your labour and birth.
Read MoreIn labour there is a phrase that is often not so kindly used to describe a woman who’s labour is not moving fast enough - according to folk who decide on the appropriate the speed of the average uterus! I kid you not! Such women, and you might be one of them, will be ‘delighted’ to learn the term ‘Failure To Progress’ will be written on your notes and perhaps bandied around. Fricking great! Just what you want to hear. So here’s some tips for getting a slowed labour moving again.
Read MoreAt the end of my Pregnancy Calm & Relax Mini Retreat last week I loved to share a little something edible and homemade to restore and give energy back to the mama's to be. After an afternoon of letting go, relaxing and nurturing body, mind and baby it's lovely to revitalise with something delicious to eat. They are also perfect for energy in labour too. After many requests hre’s the recipes. Enjoy. Susan x
Read MoreWelcome to the final part of my top tips and techniques to ease discomfort and manage the sensations of labour, however they may feel in your body (and remember everyone is different). So in this post you are getting the final 10, which makes a whopping 31 Comfort Measures in total!! Being informed and educated and knowing you have choices is hugely important in having a positive birth experience.
It’s week three of my Summer of tips and techniques to ease discomfort and manage the sensations of labour. Helping you be more knowledgeable, positive and confident about your upcoming labour and birth.
In this post you'll find a range of comfort measures for labour including - Massage, ReFraming, Clary Sage, Epidurals and Hypnobirthing. It's a balanced look at ALL your options.
Welcome to week two of my Summer of tips and techniques to ease discomfort and manage the sensations of labour. By the end the series you are going to feel so much more confident and relaxed I hope about your upcoming labour and birth.
I've been running these each day on my For Modern Mothers Facebook page. In this post you'll find a range of comfort measures for labour including - TENS Machines, Doula's, Heat, Aromatherapy and Opioids. It's a balanced look at ALL your options.
Welcome to August, and my whole month of tips and techniques to ease discomfort and manage the sensations of labour. By the end of the month you are going to feel so much more confident and relaxed I hope about your upcoming labour and birth. I've been running these each day on my For Modern Mothers Facebook page, and thought I'd put them together here as a series of blog posts for easy reading.
Read MoreWelcome to today blog post, where I wanted to talk a little about home birth. Those two little words 'home' and 'birth' when put together can cause even mild mannered folk to suddenly become highly opinionated and start to either evangelize about it, or to shriek with fear that your baby's life may be in danger. I think we need to all calm down, and separate fact from fiction. Because I imagine that you want to make all your decisions about your pregnancy, baby and child from a place of knowledge and information, not myths and hearsay.
Read MoreThis is such an important blog post and video! It's all about local breast feeding support here in York by a wonderful organisation called Treasure Chest. They are an amazing resource that aims to promote, support and encourage breastfeeding in the York area. They have amazing FREE breast feeding workshops you can attend when you are pregnant, and they offer brilliant support once baby arrives and for as long as you'd like or try to breastfeed (in person and on their Facebook group too). And support is SO important when you are trying to breastfeed. It is often not an easy journey, but having support and knowing where to turn is REALLY important.
Read MoreSo I wanted to write today about mindset and about positive affirmations for pregnancy, labour and birth. Positive affirmation are one of the many techniques and tools we use in hypnobirthing, and I often use positive affirmations in my pregnancy yoga classes too.
Positive affirmations are a great way to start thinking about mindset in pregnancy. This is so important, really actually more important than any physical work you may do to prepare. They are brilliant to build confidence and to release fear, and are simple yet effective and everyone can start using them straight away - wherever you are in your pregnancy. Here’s how to use them….
Read MoreComing along to a Mum & Baby postnatal yoga class can really help mums on so many levels – physical, mental and emotional. Postnatal mum & baby yoga uses movement, breath and relaxation to allow you to reconnect with your body after pregnancy and birth. It’s not an typical ‘exercise’ class as such, and is certainly not a ‘boot camp’, we are not trying to be some perfect instagramable, “look at me, I’m back in my pre-pregnancy jeans” type class. In these classes yes you will start to strengthen and gently work the muscles of your core, your lower back and the pelvic floor. But there is so much more to these classes, and so many brilliant benefits.
Read MoreIt’s so easy as a new mum to focus exclusively on the little human wrapped up in our arms and totally forget about ourselves. I mean who wouldn’t?!
The problem is, that ignoring our own well being through the postnatal period can make an already challenging time even more difficult. Lack of sleep, a plethora of (often unwanted, sometime not!) outside advice, a totally new relationship to navigate and endless new things to learn is a tricky landscape to steer through, even for the most zen of us. But practicing small acts of self-care that nurtures, nourishes and recharges YOU is so important. You need to take care of you, so you can best take care of your baby.
So here’s my top tips for self care in those early days.
Read MoreTo have the best possible birth for you, you need to give birth in an environment that makes you feel safe, comfortable and relaxed and allows you to produce oodles of the important birth hormone oxytocin - read more about oxytocin in birth here. This will not be the same place or environment for every woman – we are all different. And it can be harder in some places and easier in others, but it’s still possible and important whether you are planning a home, hospital or birth centre birth. Here are some great ideas for creating a brilliant birth space that works for you.
Read MoreOften food cravings and/or aversions are often one of the first symptoms of pregnancy. You know when you start to feel weirdly nauseous at the thought of a morning cuppa, or you *really* need to eat salt and vinegar crisps for breakfast (cornflakes no longer cut it!)
While pregnancy is not the time to be watching your weight, you do need to be mindful about what you are eating and keep a really good supply of nutrients, vitamins and minerals both for you and your baby too. Here's some great tips on how to manage them and have a more positive pregnancy and food experience.
Read MoreI wanted to share with you this blog post, which is a really interesting one for couples who are currently researching how to prepare for the birth of your baby. If you are considering your options for antenatal preparation you might be interested in what exactly Hypnobirthing is and whether you will get everything you need to know from attending my course.
Here are some of the questions that I have been asked many times by couples enquiring about my hypnobirthing classes in York, and I think these are the questions that everyone thinks about before about attending a hypnobirthing course:
Read MoreEven if you have never stepped foot on a yoga mat before, you may well be drawn to yoga during their pregnancy as many women are. Pregnancy yoga provides a safe and gentle way to move your body in pregnancy, working with your pregnant body as it grows and changes. But pregnancy yoga offers *SO* much more than just exercise appropriate for the pregnant body, and many mums to be discover they are reaping many many more benefits than they imagined from taking a pregnancy yoga class each week. Here's my guide to 5 brilliant benefits of pregnancy yoga.
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