Battling Varicose Veins

My mom had painful and noticeable varicose veins.  She had some of them removed with a laser when I was younger.  I knew that they were hereditary, but thought that they just came with age and too much stress on one's legs.  She has worked on her feet for most of her life.  I didn't realize that pregnancy also causes a woman's body to built new blood ways to transport the new demand for blood that the growing fetus requires.  Wednesday, I made a point to take a brisk 40 minute walk during lunch, because I can feel them building up.

 A view of the path on my walk.

According to Raising Baby Green by Alan Greene, M.D.:

The baby's heart pumps depleted blood out of it's body through umbilical arteries divide into a network of tiny capillaries  The mother's blood in the placenta forms a free-lowing, living five ounce lake about the size of a glass of red wine.  This blood is refreshed completely three or four times each minute to supply the baby's needs.  The replenished blood returns through the umbilical cord like a steady, unhindered river bringing the stuff of life to the fetus.  

By the fourth month of pregnancy, seventy-five quarts of blood flow through this river every day, delivering oxygen-rich vital nutrients and removing waste.  A typical blood cell will make a complete round trip every thirty seconds.  By the time the baby is born, up to three hundred quarts of blood a day will flow through the umbilical cord.

No wonder! The body has to suddenly build so many new pathways for blood to be carried through the body to support the baby.  I realized that my mom didn't get varicose veins from getting older, but that he had two children and didn't take time to take care of herself, because she's a really hard worker.  I see the consequences that she paid, and I'm trying not to repeat them.  But, my legs have already sprouted some icky veins.

Wise Woman's Herbal for the Childbearing Year has a long list of natural suggestions for how to prevent and alleviate varicose veins on pages 29 to 31.  Here are the suggestions that I have been or will plan to incorporate into my routine:

• Not standing for long periods of time.
• Not being constipated or pushing hard during a bowel movement.
• Doing leg inversions and other inverted yoga postures
• Brisk walking
• Deep leg massage for 5 minutes daily
• Avoid crossing legs
• Vitamin E supplements
• Nettle leaf infusions

I also feel that regular exercise and routine massage therapy will play a part in reducing variscosities. And, along with not standing for a long period of time, not sitting for a long period of time should be there, too.  I can really tell that when I sit for long periods of time that it restricts the blood flow in my legs.

Teas for Pregnancy

Baby daddy would love to open a shop where one of the features were healing teas to improve the quality of people's lives.  I didn't realize until I got pregnant just how healing herbal teas can be.  I'm now beginning to understand that like massage, tea is not a luxury, but a requirement to live our healthiest lives.  Just look at the benefits of a few cups of tea per day for you and baby, and then tell me if you could go through pregnancy without drinking them regularly.  And then, imagine what other herbal teas could do for your life.  Wow!

Red Raspberry leaves contains many vitamins and minerals beneficial for pregnancy, including vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin B, calcium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium.  In Wise Women's Herbal for the Childbearing Years (pages 18-19), Susun Weed talks about raspberry leaves extensively, and that made as a tea or infusion, it is said to have the following attributes:

• Increased fertility in men and women
• Gives tone to uterine muscles
• Prevents miscarriage and hemorrhage
• Reduces pain during labor and after birth
• Facilitates delivery of the placenta
• Assists in breast milk production
• Contains calcium in it's most absorbable form, especially in conjunction with other vitamins and minerals
• Relieves morning sickness
• Calms emotions
• Can aid in preventing hypertension
• According to What to Expect When You're Expecting, it may encourage labor to begin.
  
  

According to Wise Women's Herbal for the Childbearing Years, nettle leaves include "nearly every vitamin and mineral known to be necessary for human health and growth," which includes "vitamins A, C, D, and K, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, iron, and sulphur" (pages 20-21).  Made as a tea or infusion, the attributes of nettle leaves include:

• Increases fertility in men and women
• Aids the kidneys, even when they are in disrepair or have stones
• And help protects against bladder infections
• Nourishes mother and baby
• Eases leg cramps and spasms
• Lessens pain after birth
• Prevents postpartum hemorrhage
• Reduces hemorrhoids, 
• Improves breast milk quality
• Helps alleviate varicose veins
• Guards against hypertension

Wise Woman's Herbal recommends drinking 2 to 4 cups of these teas per day..  The book mentions that you could drink raspberry tea one week and nettle tea the next week. Or, it suggests to stick with raspberry leaves until the end and then switch to nettle to prepare for labor.  I've found a few different "pregnancy teas" that combine raspberry leaf, nettle leaf, and a few other herbs.  I like these blends for just mixing up my options.  Traditional Medicinals makes a version that's I've been drinking.  My birth center sells an organic brew that is made for them.  And, I just bought a red raspberry brew that is mixed with nettles, peppermint, and alfalfa from the Bulk Herb Store, which is family-run.  I also just purchased red raspberry leaves and nettle leaves from the Bulk Herb Store.

Peppermint tea and ginger tea have booth been recommended to sooth morning sickness.

Diaper Free Baby?

In looking into green and organic diaper options, I still haven't made a decision on what kind of diapers to use.  There are a lot of reusable choices, and I'll talk about diapers later.  What I've been reading about this week has been a diaper free baby.  One of my girl friends sent a link to Alicia Silverstone's review of the book Diaper Free Baby.  This book talks about the possibility of toilet training from birth, and the process of understanding when your baby has to use the bathroom is called "elimination communication" as opposed to conventional toilet training during toddler years.
 
I'm just gonna get off my chest that I found the subculture of "ECers" a little creepy.   I rolled my eyes when the book talked about EC support groups and how this one woman was so relieved to meet other people practicing EC so that she didn't have to be in the closet with it all of the time.  Instead of coming out of the broom closet, maybe she was coming out of the potty closet.  I know, I'm horrible.  That woman was just excited to be able to share her experiences with other people.  For that, I am very happy for her, because moms need that.  I can't lie; I might check out the local group to see if the extra support is helpful.

That said, there is a lot of value to the basic principles of having a diaper free baby.  It starts with the premise that babies aren't born with the desire to poo in their pants, and that we teach them to do that.  They want to soil themselves as much as adults do.  Parents can help babies adapt to using the toilet starting at any time, including just after birth, through a few combination mechanisms:

• Watching for signals the baby is giving off just before peeing or pooping.
• Communicating that it's time to go to the bathroom by giving cues (making a sound), such as "pssssssst" for peeing or grunting for pooping.
• Holding the baby in a comfortable position over the toilet, infant potty, diaper, or other container.
• Not letting the baby sit long in a soiled diaper.
• Not using super-absorbent diapers.
• Using clothing that allows for easy removal.

The author of Diaper Free Baby emphasizes that practicing this technique isn't required all of the time.  Babies can be outfitted with cloth or disposable diapers when out and about or at night.  Doing this for a few hours per day can have drastic results.  Even just paying attention to baby's signals once a week for a couple of hours can have a good impact on the lessening the length of time to potty training a child. 

I find this concept fascinating, because I completely believe that babies can learn to use the toilet at a much earlier age.  It also folds right into the concept that we can communicate with Baby Bennett prior to speech development by using hand signs.  Baby daddy and I purchased a baby sign language kit, because babies do have the ability to communicate and once we establish communication, we can better help baby be happy.  And, we can help develop our child's cognitive skills earlier.

Washing the Baby at Birth?

One of my friends shared an article on Facebook yesterday about not letting the baby be washed at birth, because that cheese-cloth like covering on the sweet new joy of our lives actually serves an important function after birth.  That is, if it's not washed away in the middle of it's work, which is a common practice in the U.S.  We wouldn't have thought of that, but it makes complete sense after hearing the midwives at our birth center talk about not cutting the umbilical cord until the last bit of life-giving fluid pumped through it, because that last bit has important stuff for a healthy baby, too.

According to the Indian Journal of Dermatology:

Vernix coating on the neonatal skin protects the newborn skin and facilitates extra-uterine adaptation of skin in the first postnatal week if not washed away after birth. It consists of water-containing corneocytes embedded in a lipid matrix. The strategic location of the vernix on the fetal skin surface suggests participation in multiple overlapping functions required at birth, such as barrier to water loss, temperature regulation, and innate immunity. Vernix seems to perform various integral roles during transition of the fetus from intra-uterine to extra-uterine life. It has also found various interesting diagnostic and prognostic implications in this arena.

Conversation on BabyCenter.com expresses other mom's questions and experiences in regards to the vernix:

1. Its a great moisturiser. You cuddle your little one and rub it in like lotion. Makes me so soft and smooth :) It also helps regulate body temperature. When they wash it off usually newborns end up needing to be under the warming lamps to bring it back up after being cold from the bath..
2. Just rub it in, the longer its on the better. We were told to wait a week for the first bath.
   
3. (My son) didn't get a bath for quite awhile after birth.  He was early and it helped him maintain his body temp.  It was kinda yucky looking but it helped him and they wrap them up and put a hat on so it was not super noticeable.

Birth is a miracle, and there is so much magickal power in using the gifts of birth that Mother Nature gives to us.  This includes the vernix as well as breast milk and those last bits of umbilical fluid.  I am also excited to find out what other gifts nature has in store for the baby.  These are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that will set up our child to be as healthy as possible. 

So many of my friends are new and experienced mothers reading this blog, and I want to stress that we all do what we feel is best for our children.  We mostly grow up as healthy people and our children have grown up healthy, too.  I was born in a hospital and they likely washed me before giving me back to my mom.  And, I grew up to be a healthy woman.  This adventure is about following my spiritual path of exploring the amazing innate and built-in gifts Mother Nature gives us to grow and raise our offspring. 

Raw Honey: Secret Acne Weapon

For some women, the hormonal changes of pregnancy come with unwanted breakouts.   I've been using raw honey on my face this week, which has drastically improved it's quality.  Raw honey has antibacterial and anti inflammatory properties and contains enzymes that make it effective for some folks.  They sell this brand of local (to DC), raw honey from Baltimore at Whole Foods, though you have to get through the honey comb at the top to get to the fluid honey:

I didn't have acne until I went away to college.  A combination of stress, a horrible water supply, and unhealthy food likely contributed to the problem.  I started washing my face with harsh cleansers, which would work for a few months, but then I'd have to find something else that worked.  A couple of years ago, I read an article about over-washing your face.  I realized that I washed my face two to three times per day, which was likely irritating my skin and stripping my it of natural oils that it needed to create a healthy balance. So, I stopped washing my face so much, aiming to only wash my face to get the makeup off at night or in the morning.  My acne immediately went away and I only broke out in conjunction with my menstrual cycle before I got pregnant.

So, I was disappointed when I started to breakout again, as I can imagine anyone would be.  Sean mentioned that peeing a lot is good, because every time I drink water and pee, it balances my hormones.  My first acne remedy was to then drink as much water as possible in hopes that it would balance my hormones and relieve some acne.  I was already drinking 80 ounces of fluid per day, mostly water, so I bumped it up to 100 ounces of fluids per day, and I really can't make myself drink anymore. And while things were starting to even out, I was still breaking out.

Two weeks ago, Sean told me the story of his coworker who started putting raw honey on her face to get rid of her acne, and that it was working for her.  I sat on that a couple of days.  We were out of raw honey and needed to order some.  I put it off and put it off, until I finally picked up a small jar of local, raw honey from Whole Foods.  Again, I put off using the honey again and again.  There just wasn't enough time to sit around with honey on my face.  But, last Saturday, I had a fancy dress party to go through and there was a huge zit on my temple, so I grabbed the raw honey and slathered it all over my face for 5 to 10 minutes.  When I washed it off, my face looked clearer and the big zit on my temple wasn't so scary.

My friend, Cortney, had come over to get ready for the fancy dress party, and she mentioned that she's a fan of this gal on youtube who has been using honey on her face for awhile.  She had really bad acne under the skin, and after trying everything with nothing working, she put raw honey on her face.  Voila!  Her face is now acne-free and baby-smooth.  I asked Cortney how long she leaves it on her face, and she said a couple of times per day as long as she can, sometimes having more time than others.

Every since I started to use it, my face has been clearer and smoother.  It's so soft! So, I'm definitely going to keep working with the raw honey as a possible natural remedy for these pregnancy breakouts.

Don't Need No Sonogram

Last week, baby daddy and I went to our first appointment with our midwife.  They are associated with a natural birth center in the area, and we picked this practice because we felt that a lot of their philosophies about health matched up with ours. The center's primary midwife was accompanied by two of her students.  We sat on a couch in one of the luxurious birth rooms and talked about my medical history and eating habits. The brunt of the conversation surrounded which medical procedures and tests we wanted to opt in or opt out of during our pregnancy.  This included blood, urine, and genetic testing.  I opted out of a lot of the genetic and extraneous tests, because false positives for a range of birth conditions and diseases could stress us out.  Sean and I have already talked about what we would do if our baby was born with a condition or disease, and since we're not going to make the choice to abort our pregnancy, we prefer not to have that stress complicate the situation.

Then, I got onto the birthing bed so that they could do an assessment.  With their hands, one of the midwives found the bottom of my placenta and then used a tape measure to determine the size.  Based on that, she made the determination that I was 12 weeks along (today I am 13 weeks, 4 days).   Then, they brought out the fetal doppler and we listened to the baby's heart beat.  Though we didn't get to go home with any new sonogram pictures, we got to listen to our baby's heart beat.  The sound is reassuring, and I can understand why at-home fetal listening devices would be popular.  But, I'm okay with hearing it once a month.  I know that our baby is doing well.  Incredible the things we can do without all of the fancy technology.

It seemed that the women's center we were previously attending was going to schedule us for a sonogram or ultrasound every visit.  And, it was an option to have these done routinely out of the office while we were attending the birth center.  I asked the midwives if they thought any of the ultrasounds were necessary.  They recommended the 20 week ultrasound, which is also the check up where we'll find out the sex. 

We're thinking that I am growing a little Libra girl, but there is a group of us hoping for a Virgo girl.  I'm a Virgo, and baby daddy is a Libra.  Since my due date is October 16th, we're likely to have a Libra, which means that we'll have to save up lots of money for expensive clothes or expensive cars.  Libras like pretty things.  Virgo Mom here is likely to tell them to get a job, but Libra Dad is likely to pay off their credit cards on the sly.  Despite our jokes about the astrological makeup of our baby, the bump is growing, and we're gonna love this child to pieces no matter who he or she is.

Finding a Rhythm

Oh, goodness. I have been exhausted. I always told myself that I would be the kind of pregnant woman that put working out as a priority so that I ended up with a healthier pregnancy and less weight to deal with in the end.  I was doing a decent job until a couple of weeks ago.  But, it's been a struggle to find that rhythm of work, sleep, and self-care.  It's okay to be tired and sleep a lot, because I'm growing a person inside my body!  How neat!  But, I also don't want to get to 40 weeks with  buncha shoulda, coulda, woulda's hanging over me.

Our society is built on treating symptoms, but not finding the route cause of our aches, pains, and illnesses. My knee was aching last night. The American response is that if the body hurts, we shouldn't push it farther by exercising, and that we should take pain medication to stave off the hurt.  But, that really depends on why it hurts. My knee was aching because I haven't been exercising. I haven't been doing yoga in the living room.  I haven't been walking. I haven't been getting to the gym. I also ate potatoes twice yesterday.  Potatoes are a nightshade vegetable, which is connected to arthritis, and I have noticed that when I eat less potatoes, my joints are less achy.

And, baby daddy does the same thing.  We believe that so much of basic human self-care is directly related to the food we eat and making sure to exercise...that so many aches and pains commonly associated with and accepted as a part of aging are directly related to what we eat and how active we are. His first response when his tummy hurts is that he didn't eat something that his system could process well.  He is very aware of what various foods do to his system.  Some foods make him feel old and achy.  Some foods make him gassy.  Some foods make him feel as if he's not getting any nutrition from them.  So, he eliminates them.  When his stomach is upset, he eliminates what he thinks the cause is until his digestive system is balanced.

Anyhow, I haven't had the energy to keep up with my preventative care routine of working out.  I'm hoping that being in the 2nd trimester with more energy (and post major non-profit fundraiser) will have me feeling revived and relaxed.  I was reading in Wise Woman's Herbal for the Childbearing Years about ways to get more energy.  One of the suggestions was to squeeze fresh lemon just into water.  The ironic thing is that I will have more energy when I step back into my workout routine.  But, that isn't helping me get out of bed in the morning...