From the WBWC Blog:

Month: May 2012

New Arrivals

*Sahaya Lucan Adhikari – 6 lbs., 8 oz. – October 4 *Charlie Lorraine Hulick–Fink – 9lbs., 13oz. – March 31*Jill Audra Jacobson – 9 lbs., 10 oz. – April 1  Edan William Jedidiah Derby – 7 lbs. – April 3 *Dianne Adele Lunsford – 7 lbs. – April 7 Kayleigh Elizabeth Staples – 8 lbs., 6 oz. – April 8 Mya Ann Chung – 7 lbs., 14 oz. – April 8 *Genevieve Francis Williams – 7 lbs., 15 oz. – April 9 *Stuart Jack Ritchie – 6 lbs., 9oz – April 10 Evan Alexander Patterson – 8 lbs., 11 oz. – April 11 *Victoria Nahuel Chambers – 5 lbs., 9 oz. – April 11 *Lily August DeBrecht – 7 lbs., 9oz. – April 14 Cole Anderson Chappell – 8 lbs., 10 oz. – April 16 *Cora Verity Johnson – 10 lbs., 12 oz. – April 16 *Maclain Chase Lunsford – 6 lbs., 12 oz. – April 16 Ella Lou Bainbridge – 8 lbs., 9 oz. – April 17 Lucinda Simone Turlington – 9 lbs., 15 oz. – April 23 Ashton Haswell Stephenson – 8 lbs., 7 oz. – April 25 Vivani Lila Fiorentino – 6 lbs., 7 oz. – April 29 Cyrus Michael Mehdizadeh – 7 lbs., 12 oz. – April 30 *pictured above Welcome to the world, little ones! If you would like your baby’s birth announced in the newsletter, send an email with baby’s name, weight, and birth date to missy_swanson@hotmail.com.  Feel free to include a picture. We’d like to hear from all WBWC moms, whether your baby was born at the birth center or UNC!

MILC at the Women’s Birth and Wellness Center: Mother’s and Infant’s Lactation Care

     We are so proud of the community we have through Women’s Birth and Wellness Center! We recently completed a survey of some of you to see how our community was doing with breastfeeding over the long term. Thank you to all the families who participated in the survey, and our apologies to those who might have gotten the survey in error. It was our first breastfeeding survey, and we learned some extra steps we will use when doing future surveys. We knew there was a lot of breastfeeding going on, but this survey helped us understand just how much there was!      The results we got were astounding! We knew that our community was special, but this survey quantifies one aspect of what makes it so remarkable.      We emailed our survey to 416 WBWC families who had babies between 6 months and 18 months of age to ask a short series of questions about their breastfeeding experience. Out of the email surveys we sent, 215 were completed, which was about a 52% response rate. Most of our respondents (95%) intended to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months of their babies’ lives; 28% of those intended to nurse just at the breast, while 72% planned to mix breast feeding at the breast and using pumped breast milk. Five percent of our mothers were planning on breast milk and formula feeding in the first 6 months. No one planned to formula feed exclusively.      Sometimes, despite the best of intentions, women who plan to breastfeed are not able to continue to breastfeed because of problems, or lack of support. For instance, in one group of about 900 women, when asked prenatally (different from our survey, which asked women to remember what their intentions were), about 75% of the original group of women wanted to exclusively breastfeed. By the end of the first month, 15% of them were still exclusively breastfeeding; the rest had introduced formula or were fully formula feeding. While women who choose to give birth in an out of hospital birth center are different from the general population in many ways, this is one example of what things might look like in other settings.      In our community, almost everyone who responded to the survey wanted to exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months. At six months, almost everyone had met their goals. At 3 months, 91.5% were … Read More

Raw Energy Salad

Contributed by Brianna Honea, WBWC Business Director Feeling fatigued, unmotivated, or just down in the dumps?  Here’s a recipe I found that’s sure to give you an energy boost!  I found it in my vegetarian cookbook. It just looks so colorful and fresh, and it tastes wonderful! Ingredients: 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds 1/4 cup sunflower seeds 2 tbsp sesame seeds 2 tbsp cumin seeds 1/4 of a red cabbage, finely shredded 1 large carrot, grated 1 cooked beet, grated 2 cups baby spinach leaves, finely chopped 1 red onion, thinly sliced 1/4 cup dried currants 3 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint                              Dressing: Finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange 3 tbsp pomegranate molasses (I have personally never heard of this. I substituted 1.5 tbsp of molasses and 2 tbsp of pomegranate juice. You could simply use pomegranate juice or lemon juice.) 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Freshly ground pepper Directions: 1. Toast the pumpkin, sunflower, sesame and cumin seeds in a medium frying pan over medium heat until golden brown (about 3-5 minutes or so). 2. Combine the cabbage, carrot, beet, spinach, onion, currants, mint and toasted seeds in a large salad bowl. 3. Whisk the orange zest and juice, pomegranate molasses (or other substitute), and oil in a small bowl. Pour the contents over the salad, toss to combine, and season with pepper to taste. Get ready to feel energized! If anyone is curious about the cookbook this recipe came from, it’s called Vegetarian  and was written by Ting Morris, Rachel Lane, and Carla Bardi. 

News from WBWC Board

by Kaaren Haldeman           Greetings from your Board! In our full board meeting May 9 we made some wonderful progress in beginning the committee work that will strengthen the WBWC. Mary Alexion of Executive Service Corps attended the meeting and helped to bring into focus the goals and objectives of our three committees: Planning, Human Resources, and Executive. Board members will be connecting with staff to request help on these committees, so please take this opportunity to join us in this great work! 

Those Awful Aversions!

By Claire C. McKiernan           You wake up one morning and the smell of your favorite hand cream is suddenly revolting. You walk into the kitchen and run out again when you get a whiff of fresh-brewed coffee. You walk back in a few minutes later, hand protectively covering your tummy, and can’t imagine why you are the only one who thinks the eggs being cooked are more sulfurous smelling than the house of Hades. Thinking of going outside for a breath of fresh air? Maybe, as long as the smell of wet earth, mulch, and budding trees doesn’t send you running back to the bathroom.           Maybe the nausea ends every morning after you’ve been awake for an hour or so. Or maybe, your sense of smell stays in high gear. All. Day. Long. Perfume, coffee, fast food, spicy ethnic foods, seafood, tomatoes, tomato sauce, veggie burgers, garlic, rare beef, ground meat, chicken, sweet foods, and cooking vegetables were all on the list of WBWC patient aversions. WBWC patient Alisa wrote, “In my first trimester, I couldn’t hear or even think the words ‘popcorn,’ ‘macaroni and cheese,’ or ‘steak’ without wanting to hurl. Thankfully that’s not happening anymore, as I’ve had cravings for both popcorn and macaroni and cheese several times in the last month alone!” Basically, anything that is on the craving list for some women can be on the aversion list for others, and can completely reverse from pregnancy to pregnancy and even within the same pregnancy. Heck, even the smell of your husband/SO can become an aversion (and you craved him at least once, didn’t you?)           And so goes those awful aversions of pregnancy: the unfortunate flip-side to the fantastic cravings. Each woman and each pregnancy is different. Sometimes there are aversions, sometimes there are cravings, sometimes there are both, and sometimes there are neither. They come and go, or last and last throughout the pregnancy (and possibly beyond).           Here’s what WBWC patient, Danielle (who also had incredible cravings), experienced: “When I found out I was pregnant, I was working as a cheese maker at a local goat dairy. I found out I was pregnant while on vacation for Christmas, and a few hours into my first day back in the cheese room I took a break to snack on some cheese and crackers. When I started eating, the cheese tasted as if it … Read More

Give Infant Potty Training a Try!

by Claire C. McKiernan     I began researching Infant Potty Training (IPT) eight years ago. Perhaps it was that first poop that shot up to my firstborn’s armpits that made me put my skepticism aside.  I wound up buying Infant Potty Basics by Laurie Boucke (about 100 pages) along with the 500 page companion Infant Potty Training by the same author which covers potty training around the world. There are other books and websites on the topic, but these cover the basics.     IPT is unconventional in America: I didn’t try it until my firstborn was eleven months old. On that glorious day, I showed her the new potty and she happily sat down and peed in it.  That day she peed six times on the potty!  Two months later, I introduced the potty ring on top of the toilet and she used both potties. By 14 months she was pooping twice a day, but I was only changing one or two poopy diapers a week.     When my son came along 2 ½ years later, I couldn’t wait to put IPT to the test. I started him at 6 WEEKS old! Now this was real infant potty training!  I bought the smallest, simplest potty I could find. I gently placed him on it with his back resting against my belly while we happily gazed at each other in a mirror. That first day, he peed five times in the potty, and the second day he pooped for the first time in it. A week later we were catching three of his six poops a day in the potty.  I only held him on the potty for a minute or two at a time, and only if he was content. He quickly associated pooping with the potty and enjoyed being clean in his diaper. By the time he was 4 months old, I was only changing one poopy diaper a week. By 8 ½ months, he would let me know he had to go. By 10 months, he rejected his potty in favor of a potty ring.     I also started my third child, another son, at 6 weeks old with much the same success. According to my baby journal, by the time he was 4 months old, I had only changed one poopy diaper in the space of three weeks! My fourth child is now 19 months old. She did equally well early … Read More