Here’s Why Experts Say You Shouldn’t Wash Your Baby After Birth

Mothers of teenagers, think back to the happy day when your son or daughter was born: Shortly after birth your infant was likely taken away from you. It was to be expected—after all, the baby needed to be cleaned up and washed off. But now, experts are saying there’s evidence that parents should wait...

The Birth Pause: Unhurrying the Moment of Meeting

If a ‘pregnant pause’ is a breath held in a story, a moment’s stillness where we linger between what has been told and what is yet to be told, then what we are calling a ‘birth pause’ might be thought of as a breath at the moment of birth: a place to linger, suspended briefly between what has just happened...

The First 72 Hours Postpartum – The Little Things Make All the Difference

During pregnancy, we focus so much on the birth itself, that we often overlook the postpartum time; we write birth plans but don’t plan for what our needs will be after baby arrives. This time is so precious and fleeting; taking a moment to think through those first few hours, days, and even weeks to...

11 Mothers Courageously Reveal The Unspoken Truth About Birth Trauma

Even though one in three women in the U.S. experience some form of birth trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it is a topic that is rarely discussed openly. Whenever a mom tries to talk about her traumautic birth experiences, she is often scolded and told “a healthy baby is all that...

The 7 Stages Of Birth Grief

The seven stages of grief are a fairly well known psychological pattern experienced after a loss. The stages may or may not be obvious and many times they don’t follow a consequential order, and sufferers cycle through a couple of the stages at the same time, or in a repeating fashion. The seven stages of...

A timeline of a baby’s first hour

Back when I worked in a lab, I spent countless hours diligently watching fruit flies mate. It was a strange job — both extremely scandalous and extremely boring. But lots of scientists are also voyeurs, I swear. And those tedious observations were a good way to learn about instinctual behaviors. So I was a...