Prenatal Care

I have a strong belief that a healthy child starts as early as two years prior to birth. Women who eat well and exercise have a much better chance at having a healthy baby than women who wait until they are pregnant to start this process. There are some basic rules that comprise good prenatal care:

- Eat as many fruits and vegetables as possible. A good and reliable option to add to your prenatal is JuicePlus+.
- Daily doses of omega-3 fatty acids (krill oil is my choice)
- Eliminate or reduce stress and stress causing substances (e.g. caffeine, sugar and sugar substitutes)
- Educate yourself on alternative medicines such as homeopathy.
- Keep toxic chemicals and traditional household cleaning products out of the house and away from your body. Seventh Generation has a very good line of "green" household cleaning products that I highly recommend. For personal care products: Weleda Baby Care, Jason Natural Cosmetics and Dr. Hauschka Skin Care


Health Hazards In Your Home

It is great to have a clean and freshly scented home. Unfortunately, the cleaning supplies used by most of the population are full of harmful chemicals and release toxic fumes. Your house should be clean but not at the expense of your family's health. For information on what is harmful around your house, please go to Healthy Child Healthy World . Also, check out their virtual house to find articles about potential risks to a child's health and how you can avoid these dangers.
Please be aware of hard plastic. Polycarbonate plastic is known to leach a hormone-disrupting chemical called bisphenol A. There is a concern that exposure to this chemical in utero causes neural and behavioral effects. A safe alternative is using stainless steel bottles.



Breastfeeding

When your beautiful baby comes into the world, they should find some good old fashioned breast milk waiting for them. No matter what formula companies advertise, there is nothing better than breast milk. Breastfeed your baby for at least 6 months and there will be a lot less visits to the doctor. It has also been clinically proven that breastfeeding increases your children's IQ.
Throughout breastfeeding, mothers should refrain from caffeine as it has cardiovascular and neurobehavioral effects on infants. Infants are exposed to the effects of caffeine for up to 100 hours because their little bodies can't eliminate the caffeine as efficiently as adults can. If for some reason you are unable to breastfeed, try making your own milk-based formula from Weston Price Foundation. If making formula seems too much work, choose the organic brand formulas and stay away from the soy based ones. After weanning my daughter I started making my own formula. The recipe below takes me 2 minutes to make and should be given once a day. For other feeding times exclude the egg yolk and fish oil:

Recipe for an eight-ounce bottle
1/2 cup organic rice milk
2 TBS organic brown rice cereal
1 org egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon probiotics
1/4 teaspoon fish oil
1/2 cup goat milk or raw whole milk

Heat up the rice milk and cook the rice cereal in it. Remove the pot from the stove and whisk in the egg yolk (without the skin) to pasteurize it. Add the probiotics and fish oil and top it off with cold milk.


Vaccines

If you are going to vaccinate your child, read about it first. The more you know about vaccines the more prepared you are to make responsible decisions that can have a long-lasting positive effect in your child's life. You can then either forfeit the shots all together or have them administered so they aren't such a shock to your baby's system (many parents who vaccinate wait until their child is at least one year old, and extend the time between shots - as well as eliminate some of them.) Check your states' laws; Here in California, parents don't need to vaccinate their children to enroll them in school. On the back of the California School Immunization Record there is a personal belief waiver that takes care of that. You can also prepare a personal waiver letter yourself. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an interesting article about immunizations that every concerned parent should read. You can also go to the following websites for more information on the subject:

http://thinktwice.com/

http://www.informedchoice.info/cocktail.html



Dealing with Common Childhood Illnesses

The first thing that should come to your mind when your child is sick is that their immune system is in need of a little help to find balance again. There are several names for diseases but the truth is that there is only one reason for them, and that is a weakened immune system. What parents aren't aware of is that the gut is responsible for 70% of your immune system. That makes probiotics a "must have" item in your house. The only thing you can do when your child gets sick is to make sure they have a healthy diet, take a good immune booster, have a daily intake of probiotics, get plenty of rest, drink lots of liquid and if necessary, take homeopathy. Also, the old stand by chicken soup is actually very effective, just make sure you use a whole organic chicken, carcass included.
Below, you have the homeopathic combination remedies that I recommend:




Sleep

I believe creating a routine can help your child have a better night sleep. Feeding, bathing and going to bed should be done at the same time every day. Your child's biological clock is set by you, so get the chalk board out and write their schedule down. Just remember to tone down after 5pm. All the activities should be calming ones. There are some things you can do that might help your kid relax. Below you have a list of my personal favorites



Feeding Your Child

This is not as complicated as most books on the subject make it out to be. Your child should simply stay away from sodium nitrate (found in most deli meats), food coloring, hydrogenated & partially hydrogenated fats and refined sugars. They shoul eat homemade meals with organic vegetables, fruits and grains, use coconut oil, olive oil and grape seed oil. For a daily whole food vitamin, I suggest JuicePlus+ Gummies. For supplements, I strongly recommend a daily intake of probiotics and omega-3. The efficient way to incorporate them in your child's diet is to simply blend them in an all organic smoothie. If you manage to do that, your kid will stay healthy and disease free until he moves out to college. Below, you have some of my choices for supplements:























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