Blogs

Momfulness - A group for moms-to-be
Posted by Eva on April 11, 2012 - 1:11pm
Are you over 18 years old?
Are you currently pregnant? 
Did you struggle with a difficult mood for at least 2 consecutive weeks in the first year after the birth of a previous baby?
If you answered 'yes' to all three questions, you may be interested in the new Momfulness group! 
What are  Momfulness groups? 
Momfulness groups are based on Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).  MBCT has been a helpful way for many people to manage the difficult mood and stresses of daily life. It is a gentle group approach that  includes mindfulness practice, such as meditation and gentle yoga strecthes with group discussions where participants learn and practice coping strategies.  It will teach you how to stay in touch with the present moment, without having to agonize about the future, or ruminate about the past. 
 
Who leads the Momfulness Group?
My name is Katya Legkaia and I am graduate student in the Master's of Counselling Psychology Program at the University of Victoria. I am interested in exploring the possible benefits of MBCT for pregnant women who have struggled with a difficult mood (e.g., feeling worried, nervous, sad,down, overwhelmed) for at least 2 consectutive weeks in the first year after the birth of a previous baby. I would like to invite you to help me in this study I am doing for my Master's thesis. Starting April 15, I will be running a 9 session Momfulness group. I think the groups will be fun, relaxing and helpful! Of course while I hope this will be the case for all participants, I can't guarantee this. 
When?
Sundays 3pm - 5 pm, April 15 to June 10th
Where?
Mothering Touch Centre - 975 Fort Street
What do I have to do?
Your participation would involve 9 sessions, each of which is 2 hours long. 
In appreciation for your time, I will provide you with a "Mindful Way through Depression" book accompanied by a CD of guided meditations and handouts with mindfulness exercises. I will also provide light snacks during each group. 
For more information:
please contact Katya Legkaia: 778-977-4886 katya@uvic.ca
Thank you for your interest in the study!



The Five Trimesters
Posted by mike on February 29, 2012 - 1:51pm

In 1830 the German obstetrician Franz Karl Naegele formulated a rule: To calculate a woman’s due date, you add 280 days to the first day of her last period. This gives us the famous Nine Months of Pregnancy. Those nine months are conveniently divided up into Three Trimesters (trimestris is the latin for a three-month period). But for many women, the experience of childbearing lasts much longer than that.

Ask any woman who has had trouble conceiving or difficulty carrying a pregnancy to term and she will tell you that she feels she has been pregnant for years. Listen to any woman who has had a difficult childbirth, a long recovery, a hard time breastfeeding or a struggle with post-partum depression and she will tell you that she feels she has been wrapped up in the process for ever!

I think we can identify at least Five Trimesters of Pregnancy. Each one has its joys and its woes. Here are some of the tasks childbearing women and their partners encounter in each trimester and some of the resources, locally and on-line, that can help them.

Trimester 0 : Planning to Become Pregancy

The 1st Trimester : The First Three Months of Pregnancy

The 2nd Trimester : The Middle Months of Pregnancy

The 3rd Trimester : The Last Months of Pregnancy

The extra Trimester : Those First Three Months With The Baby




How can we prepare parents for the possibility of Caesarean birth?
Posted by Eva on February 23, 2012 - 4:45pm

Caesarean birth

A couple of weeks ago I had a long chat with a health care provider about how we can help mothers who have Caesarean Births not feel that they have "failed." 
 
This is something I struggle because, in our attempt to normalize and promote vaginal birth, we do marginalize caesarean birth. We don't want to consider it "normal" and yet about a third of mothers in Victoria give birth by caesarean! Clearly giving birth by caesarean is part of the range of normal experiences of childbearing women.
 
By happy coincidence, I came across this blog post the next afternoon: A Love Letter to Caesarean Moms  http://thestir.cafemom.com/baby/131563/a_love_letter_to_csection  . In it, Michelle Zip says: "Moms who have had c-sections need and deserve respect and love for the way they birthed. We need to honor all ways of birth, even the ones that didn't go as we planned."
 
Yes, we need to honour mothers who give birth by caesarean. A mom in the New Baby Group yesterday pointed it that it's an extremely brave thing for a woman to allow herself to be cut open for the sake of her child. It take courage and devotion to give birth by caesarean, just as it does to given birth vaginally.
 
There are a lot of mis-conceptions out there about caesarean birth. I hear them all in our prenatal classes. Some think caesarean birth is less painful than vaginal birth. (It's not. Post-surgical pain can last a lot longer than labour!) Some think that women who have caesareans choose them because they are more "convenient." (They don't. According to The Listening to Mothers Survey, less than 1% of caesareans are done without medical indication.) Some think that women who need caesareans are not fit enough or smoke, or don't eat the right diet. (Not true. Some of the healthiest, fittest, cleanest-living women need to have caesareans.) Some think that women who have caesareans did not have the right attitude, didn't think positively, didn't have the right birth plan, didn't try hard enough. (Not true. Caesareans happen to women with all sorts of attitudes and knowledge and levels of preparedness.)
 
The biggest mis-conception that the participants in our childbirth preparation classes arrive with is "It won't happen to me." I think they often don't pay a lot of attention to the parts of our course about caesareans and other interventions because they don't believe it is relevant to them. And when it does happen to them, as it might to any of us, they are surprised and feel un-prepared. And (big sigh) I don't know how to prepare them. I don't want to threaten people and lecture them and warn them. I don't want to discourage them. I want them to believe in themselves and believe they can have the birth they want. I think they are more likely to get their dream birth if they plan for it. But it would be absurd to think that a plan is a guarantee!
 
I still want to invite women to dream about their ideal birth. I want women and their partners to plan for it and tell their care-providers about it. But  I also want them to consider what might happen if it doesn't turn out the way they dreamed. If they imagine themselves having to have a cesarean and imagine how they might feel and what they might see and hear, perhaps when they find themselves in that situation for real, it won't be quite such a shock.
As Michelle Zip says, women who give birth by caesarean  may face some judgement from their friends and family. But I think the harshest judgement of these mothers may come from within themselves. They feel like failures. Because they went into this believing that if they tried hard enough they would be able to have a vaginal birth. But sometimes no amount of trying is going to be enough. Sometime, a caesarean is the best choice, the only choice. The bravest choice.
 
It's hard enough to live through recovery from surgery, and a new baby, and disappointment about how the birth went, without also blaming yourself for "failing." Caesarean Moms need love and honouring from all of us, but first they need love and honouring from themselves. 




Babies understand "good" versus "bad" better than we thought
Posted by kaarina on December 5, 2011 - 6:21pm
In my house I've always been so careful not to set up a "good" versus "bad" dichotomy.  After a movie we always discuss the reasons why the "bad guys" do the things they do.  I don't want my kids to see things black and white and I want them to understand that there is usually a reason why people act the way they do.  I try not to say "good boy", or tell them something they've done is "bad". My theory and hope is that they will learn to make their own judgements about how things should be and how people act.  A new study has shown that this understanding may not be learned at all; babies may in fact be born with the ability to evaluate behaviour and punishment for "bad" behaviour.
 
Researchers used puppets to display kindness, by giving a toy, or ill-will, by taking a toy, from another puppet.  They then saw puppets rewarding or punishing the puppets for their deeds.  The babies were then asked to pick their favourite puppet and the babies preferred those that punished the "bad" puppet.  Scientists believe that the fact that such young babies want to see those who are "bad" punished means that we must be born with an instinctive moral-sense. Hard to believe that before many babies can crawl they are already able to evaluate and judge complex social interactions. 
 
I find it interesting that the instinct to judge punishment is already hardwired to be fairly black and white and I wonder if the way I've been modeling morality is a loosing battle.  Maybe that is just the way children understand social interaction during these young years and all my effort to keep "good" and "bad" out of the equation won't matter.  Afterall, don't we as adults want to see the "bad guys" punished in the movies too?  But I guess that is my job as a parent, to raise children that are able to see the complexities and to think beyond basic instinct. 
 
The link to the article can be found here.



Beautiful Photos with Santa
Posted by Eva on December 1, 2011 - 3:04pm

Baby Eleanor with Santa

Thank you to the more than 70 families who participated in the Photo Shoot with Santa last Friday!

We raised more than $1100 for Baby Eleanor and her family.

With Santa at Mothering Touch

Thank you to Konul Rosario of The Light Within Photography who took the most beautiful photos of these babies and young children (and some moms!) You can see some of those pictures in this blog post and the rest on Konul's Facebook Page

With Santa at Mothering Touch

Thank you also to Santa, of course!




Baby Eleanor is coming to Mothering Touch
Posted by Eva on November 22, 2011 - 9:55am

baby eleanor halloween

On June 10, 2011 six-month old Eleanor Goudie was diagnosed with stage IV adrenal cortical carcinoma, a rare and deadly cancer. For the past five months, Eleanor has been an inpatient at BC Children's Hospital. With her parents by her side, she has fought incredibly hard in the face of insurmountable obstacles. She has a long road to recovery and she will continue to fight for many more months to come.

Baby Eleanor, and her parents, as Mothering Touch "graduates." We got to know them through Eleanor's early baby-hood and tried to send healing thoughts their way when we heard of Eleanor's illness. We have chosen Eleanor and her family as the beneficiaries of our Photos with Santa time on Friday November 25, from 2-4pm. We hope Eleanor and her parents will be able to join us and have photos taken with Santa that day.

The donations you make on November 25 will all go to help Eleanor's family with the expenses of travelling back and forth to Vancouver. Please be generous!




Santa Claus is coming to Mothering Touch
Posted by Eva on November 10, 2011 - 1:08pm

Santa at Mothering Touch in 2010

Santa Claus is coming to Mothering Touch! Your baby's first Christmas (or even second or third or seventeenth) is a very special time that you will want to mark with a beautiful professional photo which you can share with family and friends. It makes a great gift and a great memento of your child's babyhood.

On Friday November 25, from 2-4pm, Santa will be here to listen to the Christmas wishes of babies, toddlers and older kids too. Konul Rosario from The Light Within Photography will be taking photos.

On Friday December 9, from 10am-12noon, Santa will be back and Vivian Kereki (the wonderful photographer who did the photo contest at the Baby Fair) will be here.

This Photo with Santa Event is a fundraiser. While the photographers are donating their time for the photos sessions, we will be collecting donations for two causes we hold very dear. We suggest a donation of $5 per child. The photographers will make the photos of the children available on their website at a special holiday rate.

Baby Eleanor

On November 25 we will be collecting for Baby Eleanor and her family. Baby Eleanor used to come to baby group when she was very little. When she was about 5 months old she was diagnosed with a congenital cancer and since then she has been going back and forth to BC Children's Hospital for treatment. She is now 11 months old and doing remarkably well, but she still has a long battle ahead of her. We want to show some support to her and her lovely parents. So on Friday November 25, all donations made for the Santa Photos will go to Baby Eleanor.

On December 9 all donations will go to the Young Parents Support Network. YPSN is a small non-profit organization whose mission is to support and empower young parent families in the Coast Salish Territories (Victoria, BC). They provide one-to-one support for families led by young parents and as organize parenting and prenatal classes and groups.

Please come and join us on November 25 and December 9 to celebrate childhood, wonder and our connection with our community.




You Love Us... you really love us!
Posted by TechGirl on November 7, 2011 - 5:20pm

Thanks for voting Mothering Touch as one of your "Most Loved" in the CityHub category of "Specialty, Lifestyle & Life Stages"!

What's is CityHub?  It's a virtual city of businesses grouped by area of focus... and we're now one of them!

Click here to visit our CityHub page.





Great contest, great ideas, great family meals
Posted by Eva on October 20, 2011 - 11:57am

healthyfamilies

From October 4 - 18, we ran a great contest with Health Families BC to help them promote their on-line presence. To enter, participants had to “Like” Healthy Families BC on Facebook and/or follow them on Twitter AND post one good idea on our Facebook Page for how we can involve our children in family meals. We got a whole lot of great ideas. Seems to me, all the participants - and their kids - are winners when it come to good family eating habits!
But the winner of the Lululemon Athletica Gift Card is .... (drum rollllll) ... Tabitha Easton!!  Here is her really good idea for family meals:

healthy-eating-vegetables-and-fruity-01

To get my 18 month old son involved I start at the grocery store. I let him choose between which fruit and vegetables we eat that week. When it comes to preparing meals he is always at my side wanting to help. His jobs are to pass me the food from the fridge, throw any garbage away and put all the recycling in the appropriate boxes! He loves it:) He has his own metal play set of pots and pans and when I cook I put one or two food items in his pans, that way he feels like he is helping me cook...and I don't have to stress about him being near the stove:) our routine works perfectly!.....this month anyway haha. - Tabitha Easton
Here are all the other ideas - in no particular order. Thanks to all our participants!
Get the kids to help when making dinner! - Anita

I've always found that feeding my daughter the same (or roughly the same) food that we're eating helps her to feel part of the meal and part of the family. So from an early age we used a Baby Led Weaning approach and would give her large pieces of soft food that she could mouth, even well before her teeth showed up. She loved to feel like she was eating the same meal as her parents. - Sarah

Having kids help out in the kitchen is not only a great way to get them involved and a way teach healthy choices but it's also an amazing sensory integration tool ex. Making bread! - Ashley

I try to let my little one pick out whatever produce item she fancies when we're at the grocery store... it seems that if she's empowered to choose her own food, there is a really good chance she will eat it later! - Nancy

My littles ones climb up on the chair and help plate there food and take their plates to the dinner table. Table time in our house is so important. Everyone shares something fun they did that day. I also let them open the fridge the pick there snack....9 times out of 10 they pick the healthy ones.

Bring baby to the table well before s/he is onto solids. If meal time is family time then it should include everybody from the very beginning. - Chantelle

Make meals & snacks varied! - Dagmar

Have a high chair or seat for baby that pulls right up to the table so baby feels like part of the family. - Kyla

We eat at the table together. I find if I feed my little one with grown up spoons she is happier than little baby spoons. - Jennifer

During our meals with our little guy we will talk to him and practice clapping and other fun things so he doesn't get bored. We also like to wheel the high chair in view of the kitchen while we are getting dinner ready. He loves to watch us work and we talk to him about what we are doing, and what different veggies look like. Hopefully he will be cooking us meals sooner than later (haha!). Chef in the making perhaps?? - Margaret 

We shop garden and cook together as a family tge kuds get to pick what they want to plant for the season. We also talk about how the new baby breastfeeds instead of solids at meal times!!! - Heather Elise 

Get them involved in the kitchen and cook together! - Karen 

Our little guy is only 15 months and sometimes doesn't last too long at the table. We try to have a good variety of food options to keep his interest and lately his interest in mastering the use of cutlery helps as well! - Sarah

Let you kids have a say in whats for dinner!!! If they pick something fun to eat then pair it with something healthy as a compromise! - Lucy

We get our daughter to help out in the dinner. She loves to "add" stuff when we're baking. Now only if it would work with veggies:) - Michelle

I am a full time nanny for 5 children (all 5 years and younger) and they love helping make snacks and lunch, and especially love picking fresh fruit off the trees and helping wash them and get the dishes out. - Liz

Involve kids in the entire process--from shopping at the grocery store, to growing fresh veggies, to actual meal preparation. Kids are so much more willing to try things that they've had a vested interest in. And of course, having a family dinner every evening, with the TV and computers off and everyone sitting around the dining room table engaging in good old fashioned conversation! - Dona

My tip for involving kids in making meals is to let them help you prepare the food. Talk to your kids about what the food is made of and why it is healthy (or not) for you to eat and how it makes your body stronger. - Melissa

Love this contest! To get my 1 year old daughter to be involved and feeling like part of the family meal we all share our plates with her but taking things from our own and adding them to her tray. My little Amara will eat anything she sees her Mummy and Da enjoying! - Beth

Excited for this contest! I always involve my 2.5 yo in the kitchen, safely. He gets things from the fridge, throws things away, recycles fr me. He gets little bits of things to try at the same time. It's less formal & less intimidating to try broccoli if you don't have a plateful staring you down. - Mira


In my quest to get the Lululemon Gift Card...I involved my baby in family meals by having everyone sit at the dining table including the baby. At the beginning the car seat sat on top of the table, then B moved to a high chair and now his own chair (or occasionally still Mama's lap) :) - Amanda

My tip is to always eat meals as a family at a table. We lose so much family time if we never eat as a family. Also when they are old enough I also think that its a really good idea to bring them on a farm tour so that they can see how their vegetables are grown. I took a group of kids one summer and they were amazed to see the different ways food grew. - Traci Ann 

We do our best to eat the same or similar things and eat together. It can be a little hard since Jaxson has intolerances but we do our best. For instance we had french toast last night with strawberries and banana so Jaxson had rice bread with strawberries, banana and Jam :) We do our best. - Cara

One Good Thing that I do to involve my baby (8 months) into the family meals has been to re-organize our dinner schedule and our entire eating experience as a whole. Before I was pregnant my boyfriend and I would eat whenever we were hungry and always in front of the television. Now, to help all of us make healthy choices and to set a good example for our son, we've made a schedule to eat together every night at 5:30pm. The tv set is turned off and all the computers and cell phones are taken away from the table. Hopefully we are setting the example that dinner time (or any meal time) is a time for family to enjoy each others company, enjoy some good food and conversation, and establish a link between happy families and healthy eating habits. - Katie
Use the fact that vegetables comes in so many shapes and colours to your advantage and make funny faces or interesting shapes out of them on your kids' plates. - Lisa

My 17 month old son is a great help in the kitchen: adding ingredients, mixing and stirring, taste testing, pressing buttons, 'washing' the dishes and throwing the odd bit of plastic into the garbage. His 'job' is to take the cutlery, and anything else not hot or breakable, to the table. Then we all sit down and eat together. - Elizabeth 

Before our daughter was old enough to sit in a high chair, she always sat in one of our laps or in her bumbo during meals so that she was included even at a young age. Now that she has started solids, we have earlier dinners so we can all eat together as a family and at least one of us always sits down to eat with her at breakfast and lunch. - Andrea 

We have a garden where we grow berries, peas, beans, garlic, carrots, kale and potatoes. Naomi (3) loves to go into the backyard and pick the the ingredients for a salad and then pull a chair up to the counter and help wash the veggies and spin the salad spinner. We eat breakfast and dinner together. - Heather 

When our daughter was 4 months old she started to show an interest in what we were eating. Feeling as though it was too early to start her on solids we gave her an empty bowl and spoon to entertain her so we could make it through our dinner. By the time she was 6 months old and ready for solids she had enough practise getting the spoon from the bowl to her mouth that she could feed herself! - Aiko 

I like to get my son, who is 2, to help with prepping our dinner. He can help tear up greens, measure rice, choose a pasta shape, etc. Then when it ends up on his plate, he seems more interested in eating it when I remind him that he helped to make it. - Rebecca

When preparing meals, I always have my one year old son close by and show him all of the vegetables and fruit I'm using. He usually holds them and plays with them (and sometimes tries to eat them!) We aim to have all meals as a family. :) - Ashley

To get my 15 month old involved in dinner - we always have her nearby when cooking or bar b queing - we show her what we are doing and talk to her about what we are eating. We always have dinner as a family without tv or any other distractions. - Brittany

In order to involve my daughter in family meals, I have her do stuff she enjoys. She loves to set the table, choose fruit & veggies from the crisper, wash produce, and of course pick stuff from the vegetable garden! - Kerri 

One way that I include my toddler in our family meals is to bring him out to the vegetable garden and have him help harvest the vegetables we'll be eating. When we're eating we always sit together and ask each other about what we did that day. - Jen

I always eat with my 10 month old, and dinner is a family affair. When I'm busy preparing something in the kitchen, and he wants to see what's going on I put the high chair in the kitchen, put him in it, and give him his own cooking show! - Izabela

To involve our 11 month old, I let him explore the fridge with me while I pick out the ingredients to use for dinner. When he picks something up, I tell him what it is and talk about what properties it has. He loves playing in the vegetable drawer! -  Jennifer

We start by having our baby's sit in a high chair with toys/plastic plate or cup while we eat. Then once they start solids we let them play with the food while we eat. Now my daughter helps me prepare dinner and my 16 mo son watches and says "mmmmmmm! I think eating together as a family is most important! - Vashti 



The Vital Importance of Touch
Posted by Eva on October 11, 2011 - 1:15pm

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From our Baby Massage Teacher - Sheila Hobbs
Starved of touch babies will die. Deprived of adequate, loving touch children will grow up with varying degrees of difficulty making social connections, forming loving bonds and/or experiencing intimacy of any kind. This is the extreme outcome, the negative results of tragic dysfunction. Given a normal degree of physical touch and cuddling infants grow strong and healthy, developing into fully functional adults. What then is the benefit of infant massage – of giving more than adequate touch?
A variety of studies using both average and at risk children show the same types of outcome, improved bonding, less illness, decreased stress, better weight gain, less digestive issues and better sleep patterns. There is also evidence for improved speed and quality of physical and emotional/mental development. How does touch do this? 
When we are massaged, and this applies to both children and adults, we experience decreases in our cortisol (stress hormone levels) and an changes in our white blood cell counts (indicating better immune function). There is also an increase in oxytocin levels, as we see with breast
feeding, which encourages bonding. One of the nice things is that massage is not limited to moms but can be done by dads, grandparents, aunts and uncle – whoever might want to increase their connection to a child.
These three basic hormonal and cellular changes are the causal factors for all the rest of the changes. Being less stressed and not getting colds and flus (or any other diseases) contribute to better digestion, leading to weight gain. Better digestion mean less gas/colic and constipation. Reduced stress leads to better sleep – both faster falling asleep and better quality of sleep. All of the benefits discussed above contribute to a healthier, happier, more comfortable baby, which is a more connected baby – connected to itself and its body, and to its caregivers. This all means, of course, healthier, happier, better connected parents as baby sleeps through the night, cries less and responds more easily. Everyone wins.
Shoving aside all this great science and physiology, infant massage give you and your baby a structured way to experience positive touch and quiet, enjoyable time together. Another reason to look into each others eyes and get to know the people behind them, allowing you and your child to move forward together.
When I am teaching infant massage I love being able to give babies and their loved ones a way to connect to each other and enjoy the fleeting peace that comes as both parent and child sink into the calm quiet of a good massage. I am so lucky to be able to share my knowledge in return for sharing the wonder of watching the newest members of our world experience something beautiful.