Guest Post: Massage Therapy an Essential Part of Your Body and Baby Care During Pregnancy

Massage Therapy an Essential Part of Your Body and Baby Care During Pregnancy

Article by Nicole Nifo from Fully Alive Wellness Centre
Most of us make a visit to see our Registered Massage Therapist (RMT) at least every 1-2 months for a “tune-up” or sometimes every few months to relax and let go.

As you are progressing though each Trimester, your body is slowly adapting to a growing baby, belly, weight gain and more flexible joints. This puts a lot of strain on the muscles and joints that hold up your posture. Oftentimes body pain can be relieved with a stretch or a heated compress. Not when you are pregnant! Don’t forget that if the baby is already pushing into your ribs or lower back-as baby grows, so does your discomfort.

The benefits of Massage Therapy when you are Pregnant are:
• Reduced stress hormones and anxiety in the body
• Reduced postural discomforts (back pain, headaches, sciatica, carpal tunnel, etc.)
• Reduced swelling in hands and feet (reducing leg cramping)
• Improved maternal mood (decreasing depression)
• Promote neonatal health and development
• Promote awareness in the changing pregnant body
• Bond mother to baby growing inside her (important for 1st time mom)

Which Trimester is safe for Massage Therapy?

All of the trimesters are safe for Massage Therapy. Minor modifications will be made to accommodate your pregnant body during each trimester (eg. positioning, techniques, pressure).

So you have never had a Massage?

Then there is no time like the present! Face it, once baby arrives- all that “Me” time that you like to take for yourself will turn into “Baby” time. Most moms find it hard to do self care, but being a new mom is the beginning of parenthood. We all know that parents want the best for their children, but when it comes to themselves its mediocre.

Think about it: happy mom equals happy baby! Please do not think that your baby cant sense stress or fatigue; they are very receptive so make sure that you give you self lots of love before, during and after pregnancy to ensure optimal health and happiness.

A Mom's evolution into Author

I never dreamed I’d be an author.

I never dreamed I’d be a ‘mommy blogger’.

I never dreamed I’d have 4,700 followers on Twitter, one of them being @MarthaStewart (?!)

Actually that’s not strictly true, because I did plan to write a book, but a children’s picture book, you know the kind with 2 sentences per page the length of a single blog post. I still will write this book. In fact I have written this book, but I’m building up to the hard part of illustrating it. If I procrastinate long enough perhaps my daughter will illustrate it for me.

So it’s quite amazing to me that I can now state ‘author’ as my occupation. I’m filling in all sorts of application forms just for the kick of it. Yet even though I can leaf through the pages of the book I (half-)wrote, it still seems like a dream. Someone pinch me, please. Ow, not that hard!

One thing is for certain: I would never have done it on my own. Fate meant that I found the perfect co-author in Erica Wells. We make the perfect partnership not only because we are the best of friends, but because we have such different personalities. Erica is an ideas person, a go-getter and a born saleswoman, oozing with enthusiasm and positivity. I’m the glass half empty type with my feet planted firmly on the ground. I’m a doer who likes to be given tasks. I like to beaver away behind the scenes and shy away from the spotlight. We frequently marvel at how fortunate we are to have forged the perfect partnership for our project.

Most conceptions are enjoyable. And so it was for The Survival Guide for Rookie Moms, albeit a little unorthodox as it took place in a crowded Vancouver Indian restaurant and involved 2 women. When Erica threw the idea of collaborating on a parenting book on the table I was skeptical (as I always am); unsure whether I had it in me to write half a proper, adult, full-length book. But the idea quickly blossomed and I hunkered down and found writing was both an enjoyable and therapeutic process. I had struggled with the first year of motherhood and writing about it helped me a lot.

Having a baby was easily the biggest lifestyle change I have experienced. It was as if I’d entered a whole new world, without a map, guidebook or phrasebook. Luckily, after only a few weeks adrift in ‘Baby World’, I was lucky to find some fellow castaways and soon built up a lifesaving band of ‘Mommy’ friends. Chatting with this group I discovered a whole lot more truthful and helpful info than I did reading the typical baby book. The group was soon discussing the nitty-gritty about how difficult breastfeeding really is and how explosive baby poo can be; sharing tales of vaporized sex drives; admitting that it’s fairly common to pee your pants at this stage postpartum. Quite often it’s not an answer to a problem that brings relief, but simply knowing that what’s happening is normal; other moms have been there. It makes you feel a whole heap better to have a comrade and being able to laugh about your woes with other moms might just save your sanity.

Our aim with The Survival Guide for Rookie Moms was to get these ‘no one told me’ topics out in the open. It’s a practical, helpful and humorous survival guide covering the things you need to know but no one ever tells you. We want to reassure and appeal to moms feeling low or lonely and raise a smile from the reader even through the pain of chafed nipples; regardless of the fact that she can’t sit down except on a doughnut cushion; even when she hasn’t slept more than four hours in the last forty-eight.

Erica and I embarked on this venture way back in September 2006, and it wasn’t until March 2009 that we finally signed contracts with John Wiley & Sons, Canada to start the publishing process, so it was a l-o-n-g pregnancy. The labour was a bit of a marathon too, but finally in April 2010 we were celebrating having a published book on bookstore shelves. We headed straight to the bookstores armed with cameras to take photos of our new arrival. I can’t describe the feeling of holding your own book in your hands for the first time.




Lorraine Regel is the co-author of The Survival Guide for Rookie Moms, now available in bookstores across Canada and the US and on Chapters.Indigo.ca, Amazon.ca and Amazon.com
Lorraine and Erica blog at www.survival4moms.com
Join them on facebook
Follow @RookieMommy and @MomSurvival on Twitter

Birthing from Within - A wonderful approach to labour

My prenatal class did not really prepare me emotionally for my labour or the post natal period. What it did was intellectually prepare me for delivery but we did not discuss what our labour plans looked like and how we would deal with a labour that did not go as planned. This cursory approach would be fine for someone who had a textbook delivery but for me, my worse case scenario happened and I was not prepared emotionally for this.

I believe that if I had done additional research into prenatal classes in Toronto and the different philosophies out there, I would have been in a better frame of mind.

I recently came across The Nesting Place http://www.thenestingplace.ca/ which is run by Amanda Spakowski who is also a doula. I met with her and we discussed her philosophy of Birthing from Within. As it says on her website "Birthing naturally means birthing in the way that comes naturally to you". This was a refreshing thought as Amanda prepares her parents-to-be for their ideal birth but also for the unexpected. The question of "How would you deal with your worst case scenario" is asked and parents have time to answer this question which in turn prepares you to handle the unknowns of labour.

What was also interesting in my conversation was Amanda's deep understanding of the difficulties of the post partum period and I was happy to learn that this is discussed in her classes as well.

Amanda addresses what you need to know about your delivery including:

•The stages of labour and labour support
•Specific techniques for pain coping, including compassionate use of epidurals and other medical support
•How to communicate with your health care provider
•Handling the unexpected during childbirth, physically and emotionally
•Birth art to explore feelings, fears and positive intentions
•Becoming a parent – the partner’s perspective
•Preparing for postpartum
•Caring for your new baby

I wish I had found her classes before I had my girls.

For more information on the Birthing From Within philosophy please visit http://www.birthinfromwithin.com/.

Birth Story - Ainsley

Birth stories are very powerful. Every mom I know has shared their's with me and I have shared mine with them. There is even a TV show that revolves around the birthing experience.





When I was pregnant with Ainsley, my eldest, I fantasized about her delivery. I dreamed about going into labour, calling my loved ones to come to the hospital, and delivering her naturally and quickly. I figured it would hurt and that I would have my epidural, push her out and then cuddle her and all would be well.





I started to get an inkling that my dreams would not come true when I had my 32 week ultrasound which indicated that she was face up. I googled this and found out that being face up during delivery made a natural delivery more difficult and often came with back labour. I read this and thought that won't happen to me. The baby will turn.





When I finally went into labour 2 days before my due date I was so excited!!! My water broke at 10:30pm just as we were getting ready to go to sleep. I then googled what this meant. The website said my contractions would start probably 12-24 hours later. I decided to have a shower and then try to go to sleep. Well, 40 minutes later my contractions were 4 minutes apart and Brett and I were heading to the hospital.





Thank goodness we went when I did because within 20 minutes of arriving at the hospital the contractions went from uncomfortable to down right unbearable. I was having contraction on top of contraction (they never told me about this in my prenatal class) and I couldn't get away from them. Yes, I was having back labour.





When the doctor came to check if my water had indeed broken, I asked if my baby was face up and she confirmed that indeed that was the case. That is when I had a sickening feeling that a natural delivery may not take place.





Soon after this I was begging for the epidural and as soon as it went in about 45 agonizing minutes later I started to feel much better. I was also 8cms. I was hopeful that maybe things would go as planned and quickly. However, when I was 10 cms, Ainsley was not making her way out and no matter how hard they tried to turn her she wouldn't budge.





I pushed for two hours and would have kept going but when they came in to check on me after pushing I could see in their faces when I asked if they thought I could deliver her naturally, that they really didn't think so.





So my dream scenario did not happen. In fact, my worst case scenario happened and I was not prepared. I had come into the hospital saying that my birth plan was to avoid a c-section and that was what I ended up having.





The c-section was not great for a number of reasons (other than having major surgery). I didn't get to see Ainsley for about an hour after the delivery which is a long time to wait to see your new baby. My milk didn't come in right away so she lost a lot of weight and so breastfeeding also did not go as I had fantasized. My body felt alien to me. I was swollen and in pain. It was hard to not be able to get up to change my new baby's diaper because it hurt so much. I felt inadequate.





I mourned the loss of a natural delivery for months and to this day I still feel a little bit sad that I will never experience that. I intellectually know that I am lucky to have had a healthy baby and to have recovered well from the experience. However, emotionally I was not prepared for this eventuality. We never talked in our prenatal class about how we would feel if our births did not go according to plan. We didn't discuss what would happen in the post-partum period (other than depression) and how we could deal with these situations.





If I could do it all over again with what I know now, I would have searched for a prenatal class that talked about our hopes and dreams but made us look at our fears and how we would deal with them should they happen.

Top 5 Must-Haves for Baby (and Top 5 Useless Products)

I decided to compose my top 5 Must-Haves for expectant parents. I bought a lot of stuff when I was expecting my eldest and while some were lifesavers, some things were hardly used.

Top 5 Must-Haves:

1. Sling/Baby Bjorn - The baby bjorn saved me with both girls (especially my eldest). Ainsley would only sleep during the day in the baby bjorn for the first few weeks and when I had Juliet, I needed my hands free. My advice would be to wait until your baby is born and then pick out which carrier your baby prefers. I bought a sling for Juliet and she hated it so I sold it.

2. Breastfeeding pillow - if you are going to breastfeed, a good pillow is essential for saving your back. I started with a jolly jumper pillow which was too soft. My Brest Friend was fantastic. It gave me great support and was very firm.

3. Baby's First Journal - now I know this is my product but a journal to log your newborn's feeds, sleeps and diapers is essential for the first few months. I would have been lost without this. It definitely, helped me get to know my daughters' needs quickly.

4. A good diaper cream - even for kids with the best skin, a diaper rash is sure to appear at some point. The best cream I found is A&D Cream which is not sold in Canada. I actually make the trip to the US periodically and buy tons as I have found nothing else that works quite as effectively.

5. Large Receiving blankets - Swaddling your child in small receiving blankets is impossible. I actually made my own 1 meter by 1meter and it was the perfect size. This didn't cost much. I just went to a fabric store. You can buy larger swaddling blankets in stores but you have to look out for them.

Now for the Top 5 Biggest Wastes of money (for me):

1. The Swing - borrow one if you want to try it, neither of my girls liked it

2. Bumbo Chair - neither daughter like it - another one to borrow

3. Cradle - We bought a pack n'play which is very useful so we could have just used this instead of the cradle

4. Burp clothes - my girls did not spit up - they threw up - A folded up receiving blanket will do just as well and even better for the big spit ups

5. Bottling supplies - we bought all the bottle paraphenalia and had at least a dozen bottles, but them my eldest didn't take the bottle - my advice is to buy a few bottles and then if you child will take the bottle then invest in more