Lion Hearted

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"For every disease, there is a cure." 
Prophet Muhammad 

At four weeks postpartum, I was bending over cardboard boxes, deciding which books I would need for the next year, and which I could part with.  As I straightened up, I tightened the knot on the belly wrap designed to put my fragile insides back together.  To help me pare down my closet, I needed a dear friend, and the unwavering opinion of my fashion sensible midwife.  I guess plaid is out, who knew? The fragile moments of the first couple of weeks post -birth, already seemed like another lifetime's dream.  By the time my mother came to meet her newest grandchild, her only daughter was in need of some ibuprofen and a shoulder to cry on. Not to mention the help I needed washing the dingy curtains, and packing those aforementioned books. (Note to self: A Kindle is warranted until you buy a house!) It wasn't an option to take a back seat.  My husband accepted a once in a lifetime opportunity to study with a respected teacher and continue his academic studies.  One short month after meeting my son, it was LA or bust.  I was tending towards the latter. 

If this were a movie, I would roll the credits first, because without the support of family, friends, and community, none of this would have happened.  It was an outpouring of generosity like no other.  Each night I found freshly cooked food at my doorstep, or steaming from my table.  Clothes for the baby, and even my daughter arrived unbidden.  One talented and creative friend sewed bags filled with activities for the older ones, and baked the best sugar-free, grain-free snacks a gluten sensitive mama could hope for.  My son went to the zoo, and Fairy Land, with an ice cream stop to boot.  The last baby I delivered before I had mine, even made an appearance. And I would be remiss not to mention the presence of a fellow midwife, who truly midwifed me through one of the hardest days of my life.  She was born to do this work. God bless her.  It was awe inspiring and bittersweet, for soon I would be leaving this nest of community and warmth. But first, I'd have to put the Boppy aside, and pack up the entire house.

It's hard to follow your own advice, though I endeavored.  I rested in bed for two weeks, stayed warm, gave myself warm oil massages, ate the best darn food I could. Hell, I even gave myself moxa treatments.  But the looming move crept in and all of my best laid postpartum care plans shrank in response.  STRESS became  a real and unwelcome guest.  Oh, did I mention 'the shooting'?  There was one, in front of my house, at dinner time.  We had the luxury of leaving that night.  May God help and raise up those mothers who don't.  It seemed stress was everywhere I turned.

Evidence of my herbal medicine nesting!

There was however, one burst of nesting which became my postpartum savior.  In anticipation of the move,  my settled pregnant self dove into herbal medicine making.  It was a way to hedge myself against what I knew would become a harried postpartum. Sitz bath herbs, nursing teas,  arnica and St. John's Wort oils, valerian root, motherwort and echinacea tinctures were all brewed up and bottled before I delivered.  It was a gift to myself and a sure stroke of intuition, for I needed these herbs even more than I anticipated.

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The move, turned out to be a minor blip in the scheme of things.  My husband and I had to be separated, all told for over a month. (The LA rental market turned out to be less than friendly to a family of 5!)  My little ones and I lived with the most generous brother and sister in law you could ever ask for, for one month.  It was an epic postpartum I tell you.  It was going to take more than some nursing tea to get me through. It was going to take the heart of a lion.

Luckily, I had the closest thing I could get, the plant called motherwort , leonurus cardiaca, Latin for lion hearted.  Brewing this tincture many moons ago, I had anticipated using it for the afterpains.  Motherwort, or mother's herb,  is an antispasmodic and a uterine tonic.  And for those first few days, I was taking it every half hour or so to quell the crushing afterpains.  However, motherwort is more than that, it is also a nervine and sedative and often used in the treatment of stress and nerve related disorders.

This is what the respected herbalist Susan Weed has to say about this herb:

Another of motherwort’s uses is to improve fertility and reduce anxiety associated with childbirth, postpartum depression, and menopause. If used in early labor it will ease labor pains and calms the nerves after childbirth. Take motherwort only once soon after giving birth as consistent use before the uterus has clamped down may cause bleeding to continue. Use one to two times a day in the weeks following birth for easing tension and supporting a woman through the feelings that come with new mothering.

One lonely morning,  as the two year old was melting down, the baby was crying, and my poor six year old looked just plain apathetic, I found the full bottle of motherwort tincture waving at me from my  bathroom bag.  I  took two full droppersful.  My shoulders instantly dropped from my ears.  A plan of action soon formed in my mind (calm the two year old first, always!), and the overwhelm seemed to diminish.  The courage to pluck on grew in this delicate new mama heart.  Throughout the next month, motherwort became my green friend.  I took it morning and night, and whenever the two year old decided to dig in her poopy diapers (yes, you read that correctly.  A habit she developed once moving into the pristine enclave of my in laws!) Motherwort, take me away!  Two droppersful and I could exhale again, feel the ground hold me up, and march on. 


It's been three months since then.  Ya Sin is four months old, just rolling over, and charming us all with his easy going grin. My 8 ounces of motherwort tincture is long gone.  There are many mornings or mid afternoons, where I could still use it to be sure, but I find myself brewing that nursing mother's tea now. "For every disease there is a cure", said the Prophet Muhammad.  While my postpartum was not a disease,  it was excessive and warranted a cure of its own.  I believe in medicine of all kinds.  Each tupperware filled box cooked for us was medicine.  Every phone call or text message to see how I was, was medicine.  For everyone who joined me on my couch and listened, I healed.  These were all cures for my state.  But motherwort certainly lived up to its name as a mother's herb.  It was the cure for this mother during a less than ideal postpartum. 

I once heard that the medicine you need, is always with you, you just have to be open to it.   That was certainly the case with me and motherwort.  May you always find the medicine you need, when you need it.  Thanks for your patience.  Want to know how I made these tinctures without alchohol?  Stay tuned, I have a post coming up!!

The Healing Hour

No matter what type of birth you have, the first hour after birth is meant to be savored. Both mother and baby have made it. The hard work is over and the instinctual acts of attachment and bonding are about to begin. Baby has so much work to do, learn to breathe, digest, find the food, etc..but these lessons have not begun yet. Think of this hour as an exhale, a big exhale after the bated breath of labor. No one needs to intervene, weigh, assess, or even show the baby where he is to get his nourishment from. Mom and baby know exactly what they are doing, it is a state of expansion after the contraction(s) of labor.

Recently, a fellow midwife deemed this hour, 'the healing hour'. Labor is a huge event, mother and child each feeling the grandness, and difficulty of it, well, they just need a moment to catch their breaths. An hour is not an exact measurement, but I find it nice to really try to guard that sixty minutes closely. Today's world moves fast enough, it impinges on every area of our life as it is, birth should be an exemption. For one hour, no visitors, no texts, no phone calls. Take advantage of the biological imperatives so firing in these moments, the baby's alert state, her large searching eyes, mother's oxytocin level the highest it will be in her life, take these and so many other reasons and fall in love. It is a love that cannot be weighed, swaddled, assessed, but one that in the moments after birth is begging to happen.

If this isn't enough reason to keep antsy nurses and fidgety midwives at bay, here are some more by the legendary Michel Odent. I have summed them up and clarified in certain instances. The full article can be found here.

1. Baby needs to breathe. Who is a better teacher of this, mom or incubator?

2. A short but crucial period, that will never be repeated. Ethologists have observed this period in birds and mammals and have concluded that it should never be disturbed. Why do we disturb it?

3. The first hour as the beginning of lactation. Babies have instincts too. Place them tummy to tummy between mom's breasts and watch them find their own nourishment. Also skin to skin has been shown to increase success in breastfeeding.


4. Metabolic adaptation. Babies use less of their precious glucose and fat when on mother. They use more when screaming from across the room, or being passed around to relatives. They can enter hour 2.


5. Thermoregulation. Babies stay warmer on mom, and they also learn how to keep themselves warm when sleeping near her. The womb didn't have great temperature variations, so they must adapt to the extremes on the outside and it takes awhile for them to be able to do that.

6. The bacteria. When placed skin to skin baby starts to colonize mom's bacteria, the bacteria he/she will be living with, and already has antibodies to from it's time in the womb. This is extremely important for babies future health.


7. "The greater the social need for aggression and an ability to destroy life, the more intrusive the rituals and beliefs are in the period surrounding birth." Wow! No comment!


I keenly remember each of my children in this first hour, both unique and different, yet I still see it in them now. These moments you can't have back. Talk to your midwife or doctor about this hour before you deliver. Tell them you want to postpone the weighing and measuring and any assessments until afterwards. Have a no cell phone rule in this hour. Everyone can wait, but your baby is present now, and he is looking for his mother, he is looking for home.

Newborn Needs

When my son was about four weeks old, one of my favorite uncles came to visit. I was feeling stronger and excited to show off my new bonny boy! I took him to one of my favorite Afghan restaurants. What a mistake, it was so loud, bright, and busy in there! I had never noticed this before and my son was not having it. He screamed at the top of his little lungs until I walked him outside back and forth, back and forth, weaving lullabies into the cool night air. Meanwhile, my husband and uncle were talking about all sorts of interesting topics, undisturbed by the heavy handed kitchen staff, or the glare of the overhead lights. This was the first of a slow learned lesson, restaurants and our baby did not mix.

I later came across a possible explanation. Ayurveda believes that mothers are in a state of psycho-physiological transition for six weeks after the birth of their child. That after pregnancy, birth, and lactating, the first six weeks their system is transitioning back to a new normal. It is such a rapid and profound time of growth and change, that nothing really matches it. Except the rate of growth and change in a newborn. When I experienced the loudness, brightness and bustle of the restaurant, something that had not occurred to me before (and to be fair, not after my kids are older either), I was simply in tune with my baby. Newborns need stillness, quiet, softness, love. Restaurants might offer the latter, but rarely any of the rest.

It is important for both mother and baby to honor this need for stillness, rest, and beauty. It can be done in all birth settings. Recently, I came across a beautiful example of a mother going to extraordinary lengths to create this for her newborn. Meg, of the Sew Liberated blog, knew that her second son Lachlan was going to be born with a heart condition that would require nearly immediate surgery upon birth. It would require him to be in the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) and separated physically from her. Well, this crafty and beauty loving mama, did not let that stop her. She hatched a plan to bring softness, black and white prints, breezy mobiles, and warmth to her son. You can read about her post, Every Baby Deserves Beauty -Thoughts of a Heart Mom, and then check out the lovely Lachlan, surrounded by softness and warmth here. Having spent my fair share of time in NICU's with babies, I know that all of this effort must have muffled much of the noise and beeping that incessantly happens in these units. The babies who need the most quiet to grow and thrive get the least of it. I hope Meg's example inspires others to take control of their baby's surroundings from day one!

The following quote from Cynthia Aldinger founder of LifeWays North America powerfully sums up the needs of a newborn. By taking care of newborns in this way, we will be meeting the needs of ourselves as mothers as well. Say no to the restaurants, the trip to Target, the mall, wherever. Bring sunlight and nature into your space. Celebrate your baby's stillness and tranquility, in stillness and tranquility.

" However, I do want to say something about the first three months. Some refer to it as the fourth trimester, and I feel it is worth noting that it is a time that is completely different from the development we see taking place in the months following. If it were possible to wrap an extra layer of care around these little newborns, that would be wonderful. As a kangaroo mother keeps the newborn in her pouch, I wish we could provide more protection around the child from birth to three months. If you have ever been in a situation where you have had to adjust to an abrupt change in your life, perhaps that experience can build compassion for the newborn’s adjustment from womb life to outer life. Even more than the adjustment from womb to world, I feel it behooves us to consider the transition the individual is making from spirit to matter. Imagine being pure spirit, held in the arms of the angels, so to speak, surrounded by heavenly sounds, then being tucked into the womb for nine months with its own special sounds and warming rhythms, then emerging into the mechanistic, materialistic, ever-moving and somewhat cold and loud world of modern life. Certainly nurses, midwives and many parents know that swaddling helps to mitigate the dramatic change in physical existence for the newborn. If we could imagine taking similar protective measures in regards to the type of lighting, the sounds, and the activities to which they are exposed, most particularly in the first six weeks, gradually expanding their worldly experience over time, that would be a real gift."