As I just wound up another Lamaze Childbirth Educator Workshop, the ever present question of when I was going to teach “Lamaze Breathing” as a part of the workshop’s practical skills kept popping up. Just as in the Workshop, most women and their husbands who come to Healthy Mother Antenatal Lamaze Classes want to learn [...]
As we at Healthy Mother are waiting for many of our babies to be born, I seem to be repeating the similar encouragements during each mother’s antenatal visit “it is okay to wait”; “your baby knows when she is ready”…… most mommies are tired of waiting; their “due date” has come and gone; and even [...]
In a climate where mothers-to-be are treated as patients, over-diagnosed, over-treated with medicines, and under-counseled, it is sometimes difficult for parents to grasp the depth to which mother-friendly care can affect pregnancy, labor and child-bearing experience of a woman. This blog is for all those who ask me how we at Healthy Mother, in providing [...]
Our midwife Marianne, just posted a link to how the current practice of Obstetrics has such little base on scientific evidence .. This is something we have known for a while! The fact that Cytotec or Misoprostol is used widely by OB-GYNs to induce labor, even after the manufacturer and FDA explicitly say that they [...]
Today I had three new mothers-to-be come in for consultations. Two of them are first time moms – one was told that her baby had a big head, the other was told that her baby would become too big if she waited beyond 40 weeks. The third mother had already had a previous C-section after [...]
Many times, when expectant parents call me about Lamaze classes, the first thing they ask is “Do you teach breathing techniques?” I tell them that I do, and then also tell them that “breathing” is not the most important part of the classes. Many women who come to me for postnatal exercises, or lactation consults, [...]
This headline screamed in Page 2 of today’s Times of India, Hyderabad edition. While many readers may be surprised, this news has been a common fact for many years now. Since the time when Healthy Mother was founded we ourselves have seen c-section rates around 70% in most hospitals, including some of the large corporate [...]
I’m back in Hyderabad after spending a couple of days at a birth workshop in Goa led by Elena Tonetti Vladimirova, a wonderful and wise woman (see link below). The workshop filled me with even more inspiration about birth as a natural, beautiful, intelligent process. It reaffirmed my awareness of the incomparable benefits that it [...]
Dec 16th, 2008: Our second mom had been very active till the day of her delivery. In fact, on the night before her labor started, she and her husband went for a movie where she climbed 2 flights of stairs. She was also very good about doing her birth fitness exercises she learned in the [...]
The cervix is the narrow, tubular, lower end of the uterus that extends into the vagina. When you’re not pregnant, the cervical canal remains open a tiny bit to allow sperm to enter the uterus and menstrual blood to flow out. Once you become pregnant, secretions fill the canal and form a protective barrier called [...]