I’ve had the good fortune recently of finding a fantastic nutritionist who specialises in pre-conception and prenatal nutrition. Even more fortunately, she has kindly agreed to developing recipes for the naturaltransition.com fertility, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, baby and mother care recipe base. So let me introduce you to Sophie Halls Anning from the very aptly named Broody Foodie. Sophie’s practice is in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney where she provides food based programs to help you prepare for pregnancy, birth and early parenting.

My 7 year old and  I took one of Sophie’s recipes for a test drive yesterday and I am pleased to say, it was a roaring success. We made some bran muffins with ginger, cranberries and walnuts. Only we forgot to buy walnuts and used pine nuts instead. They were absolutely delicious. The last two are currently being devoured by hungry boys as an after school snack.

These muffins are particularly suited to early pregnancy as they are high in folic acid and fibre, are mineral and antioxidant rich and contain ginger to help with morning sickness. Of course they make a healthy and delicious snack for anyone.  My 7 year old made them under my watchful eye, so they are dead easy to make.

Well then, enough talk. Here’s the recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• Canola oil spray
• 3 1/2 cups All Bran cereal
• 1 cup Boiling water
• 1/4 cup Canola oil
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 1 cup Full fat milk
• 1 teaspoon Lemon juice
• 1 1/4 cups All purpose flour (Plain flour)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons Baking soda (Bicarb soda)
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Ginger, ground
• 1/4 cup Ginger, candied (Crystalised ginger, try Buderim- I used more like 1/2 cup, ’cause I love it)
• 1/2 cup Cranberries, dried
• 1/2 cup Walnuts, chopped

Directions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
2. Mix the lemon juice into the milk and allow to stand at room temperature for 10 minutes.
3. Place cereal in a bowl and pour over the boiling water, then set aside without stirring.
4. Whisk the canola oil and sugar together in a bowl, add the milk and egg and whisk again.
5. Add flour, baking soda, salt, ground ginger and whisk well until combined.
6. Add the cereal, cranberries, walnuts & candied ginger and mix well, then allow the batter to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes
7. Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with the canola oil or line with patty cases.
8. Divide the batter evenly amongst the cups or cases and bake for 20 minutes.
9. To test, insert  metal skewer into the centre: if it comes out clean, they’re cooked
10. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool slightly before tucking in.

Mmmm…

This recipe and many more will make up the recipe base on the new and improved naturaltransition.com. I am currently having a touch of trouble getting the new site finished but know that it will be ready very soon.  Watch this space and you’ll be the first to know when all the new goodies, including Sophie’s recipes are in place.

Leave me a comment? You’ll make my day

I’m a little late in posting the winner of the Cushie Tushies Couture nappy and matching wet bag give away, but if we could have a drum roll while I lucky dip from the lucky elephant box…

The winner is Lucy Penhallow!

I’ll be in contact with Lucy on Monday and will also have some great news regarding naturaltransition.com

Have a beautiful weekend

xxx Julie

FRIDAY 5 MARCH 2010, LEICHHARDT TOWN HALL

It’s Birth Choices Expo time again and this time I’m going to be there with a table full of gorgeous natural pregnancy, birth and baby products for you to try out. Since the March Birth Choices Expo coincides the launch of Natural Transition’s new and improved website, I’ll be giving a free 1 yr site membership to anyone who places an order on the night. I’m not telling about the new additions just yet, suffice to say- I’m excited!

Birth Choices Expo aims to make information about pregnancy, birth & parenting more accessible so that you can make the right choices for you & your baby and experience the joy of parenting, just as you always dreamed.

Here’s a quick run down of the night:

I’ve had some very generous support from some lovely businesses in the lead up to the Expo, I’d like to say thanks to Cushie Tushies, Wotnots, Bottoms Up, Natracare and Agoo Australia. I’ll be demonstrating products and taking orders from these company’s and more on the night. See here to preview Natural Transition’s full catalogue.

I’ll also be taking bookings for my clinic services- Naturopathic consultations, pregnancy, post natal and remedial massage, baby massage instruction and labour massage instruction. Want to know more? See my clinic’s website to see what I offer.

For more info on the Expo visit www.birthchoicesexpo.com.au or become a fan on the Birth Choices Expo Facebook page

Tomorrow is a national day of action for birth choices in Australia. Although things are looking better for independent midwifery in the coming years than they have in the past, there are still some cracks in the proposed changes.

I have had 3 hospital births myself but I have always considered that a choice. A choice made after considering all of my options and taking into account my personal health, gut feelings, partners feelings and geographical location. As it stands, later this year, there are women who will not have the freedom to choose as I did. They will have a Dr. telling them what they must do.

The current situation in the birth choices debate is that independent midwives will have access to the medicare benefits scheme and the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, but only if they have a collaborative agreement with a medical practitioner. While we are waiting for the definition of collaborative agreement to be released, we do know that it means that a medical practitioner will have the final say over where and how many women give birth, unless they can afford to fund it themselves. This is not really in the spirit of choice.

On the surface this may seem pretty reasonable; everyone wants a healthy mother and baby, surely a Dr. is the right person to decide how best to achieve that, right?

Consider the situation that says you may not be allowed to have a vaginal birth if your baby is breech, is a multiple or you have had a previous caesarean and it seems inappropriate to me for a doctor, working with hospital policies and fear of litigation, to make that choice for you. In these cases, a medical practitioner will probably not sign off on a home birth. The choice then becomes consenting to an unwanted caesarean, travelling long distances to another hospital that will support your choice, or going it alone. A midwife is well equipped to handle these situations and can transfer a women to hospital IF there is a need for it.

For details on the rallys being held around the country, see here.

To learn more about the Maternity services review and senate enquiry into maternity services in Australia see www.pregnancy.com.au

Special thanks to all who plan on attending the events tomorrow and to everyone who have already taken a stand on this issue.

If you have something to say, please leave a reply

All 3 of my children have shown a preference for my right breast. The left breast has an inverted nipple and a slower flow. Getting milk from it is hard work and less rewarding so it doesn’t surprise me that they have all weaned from the left waaaaaaaay before the right.

My eldest son weened form the left when I was pregnant with my middle son.  My middle son wouldn’t feed from it full stop. He never latched on. I tried and tried then gave up. I fed him for 3 years from my right breast only. My baby, now 18 months, was tricky to get on to the left right from birth. I got him feeding from it with the help of a nipple shield to draw the nipple out, but now he tells me “no” when I offer it to him.

Are there any problems with feeding with just one operational breast? Well, not really. My boys were all pudgy, happy, exclusively breastfed babies and were not interested in other foods until well beyond 7 months. The principle of supply= demand applies to one breast just as it does to two.

Many mothers try really, really hard to get the baby feeding from both breasts. They try to force the baby to feed from the least preferred side, they express on that side after feeding and in the end feel they have to give up breastfeeding because the whole ordeal is too stressful for both them and their baby. They may even be told by a health professional or family member that they can’t possibly satisfy a baby’s hunger feeding from just one breast. Let me tell you that one lactating breast will feed a baby just as good as two. A mother can successfully breastfeed multiples right?

The only problem with feeding from one breast is aesthetics. Yep, you’ll have one big breast and one not so big breast. This is noticeable to you, your significant other and anyone who looks really, really closely at your chest. If this worries you, socks are a low tech solution and I’m pretty sure there are some nice latex bra stuffers out there too.  Once you stop feeding they will go back to being the same size and shape as each other.

There are some things you can do to try to get your baby feeding on both sides when they show a preference for one over the other. Here is my action plan. If it doesn’t work out and is causing you stress, remember you can feed from one breast just as effectively as two.

• Offer the least preferred breast first. If baby gets upset and frustrated, swap to the other side and try to switch back once baby settles. If you feel like you have a slow let down on the least preferred side, start feeding on the preferred side then swap sides when you feel  you’ve had a let down.
• Finish a feeding session on the least preferred side. Once a baby’s hunger has been satisfied they are often happy to continue holding the breast in the mouth. Even if baby is not sucking, the nipple stimulation will tell your breast to make more milk in that breast.
• Offer extra feeds from the least preferred side. These could be comfort feeds, night feeds or top up feeds. Whenever you can get your baby feeding, try to get them feeding form the least preferred side. Be careful not to ignore the preferred side though, you want to avoid losing supply or getting clogged ducts due to insufficient feeding.
• Investigate issues such as a flat or inverted nipples with a lactation consultant who can give you specific advice on dealing with your particular problem.
• If you have a young baby, check the latch on the least preferred side. Baby may need a little more help getting a good latch to provide a satisfying flow. It can be a good idea to ask a lactation consultant, midwife or child health nurse to check the latch for you, though you are the best judge. If it feels wrong, it probably is.
• If baby won’t have extra feeds from the least preferred side, you can try to build up the supply on that side by expressing it either by hand or with a pump after a feed.

Do you have any tips or stories? Please share!!

New years resolutions are not usually my thing but I decided this year that January 1  is a good time to take stock and have a think about how give some forward motion to all those “I must  do such n such” thoughts swirling around in my head. My  most pressing “ must do” is to nurture my body back to health.

I have been very lax on my diet during 2009, following my 3rd pregnancy in which I stacked on about 20kg. None of which I have lost yet. That’s right, my baby is now close to 17 months old and my weight is the same now as it was 2 weeks after giving birth. In fact, I haven’t been a healthy weight since the first trimester of my first pregnancy- Umm, 10 years ago.

I’m not going to go making any promises to myself to lose all the fat,  it really is only a secondary problem. The primary problem is my love affair with sugar. I eat way, waaay too much sugar. Me sniffing chocolate is like an alcoholic getting a whiff of a favourite drink. I figure if I can solve the sugar addiction, I go a long way to dropping a lot of this excess fat I have on me. Add to this my new Wii Fit Plus, EA active exercise routine and getting back to my martial arts training and I think this flab will start to disappear, simultaneously revealing both the old and a new me.

I’m hoping to get a bit of support and continued inspiration from others out there in the same boat. I know I am a naturopath and am supposed to be the picture of good health but I’ve found that theory and practice are sometime two different things. I have recently had conversations with a few Twitter buddies about committing to a healthier lifestyle in one way or another and look forward to following their progress.

A conversation with with a twitter pal sparked my thoughts about giving away sugar and we made a loose binding agreement to give it away at the conclusion of the festive season. @AgooAustralia tweeted an invite to join her team in @fatlossathon (fatlossathon.com) and I have accepted the challenge-In theory. I have started filing out the entry form twice now and keep stopping when I get to the request for measurements and a before photo of myself in gym wear, swim wear or under wear- Ekkk!!! I will get that done today… That brings me to @phdinparenting- The bravest lady in the blogging land since she posted pictures of herself in swimwear in her post I want to be myself again. Although, I can’t say you look terrible in a swim suit Annie…

I hope that this post will find others who have resolved to bring in the new  year with a healthier lifestyle in one way or another. I’d love it if you could record your health goals in the comments section of this post and leave an update every now and then.  If your blogging about weight loss or achieving better health, please leave a link to your post so that we can support each other.

For anyone that wants to join me in a sugar free start to the new year- Here is a plan to help get us started. I’ll be committing to 8 weeks following this plan to the letter and start on the 4th of January at the same time as my fatlossathon teamkicks off. After that, I will reassess my situation and see if I need to get stricter or if I can relax it a bit.

• Take some nutritional supplements that can help with cravings, including:

- Amino acids: Tyrosine, phenylalanine, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), tryptophan, and glutamine can help. Glutamine is sweet-tasting and can be placed under the tongue after a meal or between meals to calm cravings.
- B-complex: A good quality B-complex supplement is essential for reducing cravings and supporting your nervous system through the withdrawals.
- Minerals: Some researchers claim that cravings are based on the need for minerals in our bodies. This is especially true of chromium, which has also been shown to help balance blood sugar levels.

• Accept the cravings and give them a chance to pass. Eat fresh fruit sparingly in response to pesky cravings. They will lessen over time and will disappear altogether after about 2 weeks.
• Keep a food journal- For at least a week, write down everything you eat. You are less likely to eat something you know you shouldn’t if you have to record it somewhere.
• Don’t use any artificial sweeteners. They are worse for fluctuating blood sugar levels than sugar itself and do nothing for helping you to beat the sweet tooth. They are also carcinogenic- you don’t want them. Stevia is the only sugar substitute that is not harmful in some way and can be used if you really must have a sugar substitute. You can get it from a health food store.
• Eat low glycaemic index foods. There is a good data base at glycemicindex.com. It is maintained by the University of Sydney and is actually a great site to learn about all things glycemic index.
• Eat some protein with your meals and snacks. This can be as simple as adding a handful of nuts and seeds to your breakfast cereal.
• Ensure you eat before you get ravenous.
• Add spices to your food. Cinnamon, cloves, and bay leaf can help reduce sugar cravings.
• The herb Gymnema can be helpful in curbing sugar cravings but it is not suitable for those who suffer from hyopoglycemia. If you get light headed and shaky with your sugar cravings, don’t even think about using Gymnema, it will lower your blood sugar levels further.
• Read labels and avoid anything that has sugar or corn syrup in it as an ingredient.

Well, I think that is a pretty good start. Do you have anything to add?

Please don’t forget to leave your resolutions and blog links in the comment section below

To good health in 2010!!

It turns out we know quite a lot about how alcohol works in breastmilk. What we don’t know is how it affects a baby’s health, for that reason the safest recommendation is no alcohol for breastfeeding mothers. However- It is better to drink and feed than to not feed at all, even for one night out. So here is what you need to know if you plan to drink alcohol as a breastfeeding mother.

Time taken for alcohol to clear from breastmilk depends on your weight. For an average sized women, it conservatively takes 2 hours to get rid of each standard drink. That’s 2 hours for 1, 4 hours for 2, 6 hours for 3 etc. The smaller you are, the more time it takes to metabolise each drink.

• Alcohol becomes present in your milk 30-60 mins from the time you start drinking.
• The only way to reduce the amount of alcohol in your breastmilk is to wait it out. Once you stop drinking, the amount of alcohol in your blood and breastmilk will start to drop.
• There is no point to expressing milk while you are drunk to throw affected milk away (the ol’ pump n dump myth). You just need to wait enough time for the alcohol to clear from the milk. Express only if you need to for comfort. If you express while affected by alcohol, throw it away because the alcohol will stay in the milk once removed from the breast.
• For very young babies, it is best NOT TO DRINK at all. Babies under 1 month old cannot metabolise alcohol, their liver is still maturing. Also, to establish a good supply and avoid feeding difficulties you need to be available to feed a newborn at their whim. This may mean that on the day you decide to have a drink baby decides a feeding marathon is in order and wants to feed every hour.  In this case, you don’t have time to metabolise even 1 standard drink between feeds. This may seem a little harsh but, if you wouldn’t drink while pregnant, it’s not that much more to refrain for another 4-8 weeks while your baby develops the ability to cope with the alcohol and you get feeding and supply in synch.
• Binge drinking is never a good idea for anyone- breastfeeding or not. But, if you plan to go out and write yourself off, or if you sometimes accidently do so- freeze milk to leave for your baby and find someone take care of your baby until you are no longer affected by alcohol.
• Breastmilk with a small amount of alcohol in it is still better than formula or any other breastmilk substitute. So if baby is hungry, you have no expressed milk, you’ve had a drink or 2 and think you still have alcohol in your milk, feed anyway.
• Alcohol can affect your let down and slow the flow of milk. This may make baby a bit fussy at the breast.
• Babies that are affected by alcohol in the milk may fall asleep quicker but wake more frequently and suffer tummy upsets the next day.

If you want more info take a look at the new guidelines put out by the Australian Breastfeeding Association in conjunction with Dr Roslyn Giglia from the Curtin University of Technology.

Any tips, comments, questions, critiques and tweets are greatly appreciated. Got something to say on this topic? Leave me a comment, pretty please.

This post is for all those pregnant sisters out there that have lost their ankles and feel their feet wobble when they walk.

I’ve spent a bit of time with my little sister and her belly baby over the weekend. My dear pregnant sister seems to wearing well for 32 weeks pregnant, but she is suffering from some nasty swollen ankles. The kind that make your ankle bones disappear. She has the all clear from the birth centre midwives- no reason to suspect it is anything sinister, just one of those pregnancy things.

Caution: If you have swelling in the hands and face as well as the ankles, or, if you have one leg more swollen than the other, or, swelling comes on quickly- Please get checked out by an appropriate health professional as it could indicate a more severe health concern.

As far as normal annoying pregnancy tankles go, it is caused by a combination of a much greater blood volume and high levels of progesterone which cause your body to hold on to excess fluid . Also, your growing uterus puts pressure on the veins in the pelvis, which impairs the return of blood to your heart. In turn, this leads to swelling in the legs, ankles and feet.

This is a pretty common pregnancy discomfort and almost always goes away after delivery. One of my favourite things about the immediate post partum period is being able to urinate again in one steady, satisfying stream. I remember several loooong wee’s after my last birth and I wondered how on earth I could have had that much to get rid of. It was all the excess fluid I was carrying in my legs finally finding a way out. Ahhhh…

Hopefully you can find some relief before baby is born with these suggestions:

• Stay off your feet. Avoid standing or sitting with your feet on the floor for long periods. Don’t cross your legs. When you can, sit with your feet up and occasionally rotate your feet at the ankles and wiggle your toes.
• Spend time lying down with your legs elevated.
• Avoid tight clothing, cuffs or jewellery around your ankles and wrists.
• Sleep on your side and elevate your legs slightly with pillows.
• This one is not easy in the hot Sydney summer but do your best. Stay cool. Heat can aggravate swelling during pregnancy. It might be soothing to apply cold-water compresses to swollen areas.
• Soak in a large bath or pool of cool or warm water- Not hot. You need to be fully immersed upto your neck for a minimum of 10 minutes .
• Get some exercise. Yeh, I know just what you feel like in hot weather but it will help. Take a walk or swim laps in a pool.
• Drink herbal tea containing nettle leaf. It is a really safe and nutritious herb to use in pregnancy, is a kidney tonic and is great for helping to clear excess fluid. Today’s shameless plug: Natural Transitions pregnancy tea contains nettle and other herbs that may help reduce puffy ankles.  It tastes great and is specifically formulated to be safe for all stages of pregnancy. Dandelion tea is also a useful and safe diuretic that can help too.
• Nutritional helpers include rutin, hesperidin, quercetin and vitamin B6. The first 3 are bioflavonoids, the best food sources of these include buckwheat seed, fruits and fruit rinds, especially citrus fruits (orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime) and berries such as blueberries. Vitamin B6 is best found in spinach, bell peppers, garlic, tuna, cauliflower, mustard greens, banana, celery, cabbage, asparagus and other green vegies.

According to the Cochrane review I just read (based on small scale studies) compression stockings don’t work but reflexology works well.  So why not try a pregnancy reflexologist. I would also recommend acupuncture as a treatment modality to try. It can be so effective for pregnancy related discomforts and is very safe when carried out by someone with proper training.

That’s it from me. There are other things I might use with a patient after a proper consultation but that is my list of DIY’s. Does anyone else have a suggestion that might help the pregnant sisters out there see their ankles again before baby is born? If so, I’d love to hear ‘em. I love comments- please leave me one;-)

I’ve been busy as a beaver making up some Natural Transition sample bags and vouchers to go into the gift bags at Sydney’s birth choices expo. I’ve filled, sealed , stuck,  printed, cut, stuck and then done it all over again and again. I’m happy with the outcome:-)

It looks like it is gong to be a fantastic event for anyone who is pregnant. It will be a wonderful opportunity to see what ELSE is out there.

So. If you are in Sydney and your pregnant or just interested in birth- please support this magnificent event.It is FREE.

Drop me line by leaving a comment below and let me know if you are attending. I may see you there- and I’m desperate to know how my sample bags go down

Here’s the info:

Friday October 30th 2009, 6-9pm, Annandale
Interested in Natural Birth, Homebirth & Natural Parenting?

Spend a community evening with like-minded people.
October Guest Speaker: ROBIN GRILLE – Author of Heart to Heart Parenting – Speaking from 7pm

* Meet with Midwives, Doulas and other Practitioners
* Find out the Dad’s Perspective with ‘Men at Birth’ table
* Discover Products, Services and Support for Natural and Holistic Parenting
* Receive a free Expo bag with special offers
* Fantastic raffle prizes to be won
* Admission is FREE

Friday October 30th 2009  &  Friday March 5th 2010, 6-9pm
Annandale Neighbourhood Centre, 79 Johnston Street, Annandale 2038
Why do we need events like this? We need choices in birth and people need to be able to explore them. Why? See my post 7 week old embryo warned not to be late.

If you want more info on the expo see www.homebirthsydney.org.au

Hope to see you there!

If only I could have been sick at a time when husband was able to take care of me. If only I did not have to nurse 2 children through horrendous nausea, vomiting and violent cramping- it may have been somewhat easier to deal with. I may have taken full advantage of the bed rest and even been able to ham it up a bit. This was one of those times that I wished I wasn’t the grown up.

Middle son did a great job of looking after himself, getting his own breakfast, making his own school lunch, he even made his own dinner one night. Hooray for Sanitarium Not Burgers! Did you know you can cook them in the toaster? Whack it on a bread roll with some lettuce and voila- a 7 year has made himself a vegie burger.

Since Gastroenteritis is the word of the week in my household, I thought other Mums out there might be interested in a natural therapies approach to kids with gastro. This is info pulled from my ‘Using Natural Therapies for Infants’ guide which can be found in the members area of naturaltransition.com. It will only cost you a $1 donation to my favourite charity if you want to check out the member’s tools and resources. Forgive the shameless plug for my site… Plug complete.

This is how a naturopath deals with kids and gastro when she has her own head out of the toilet.

Seek medical attention if:
- Your baby is under 6 months old and has vomiting and diarrhoea
- You think your child is dehydrated
- Your child has severe stomach pain
- OR you are worried for any other reason

Signs of dehydration:
- Your child is not passing urine
- Sunken eyes
- Cold hands and feet
- Hard to wake up

What to do:
-Cuddle, sick kids need lots of cuddles.
- It is important to replace fluids lost due to the vomiting and diarrhoea. It is important for the fluids to be taken even if it seems to make the symptoms worse. As I told my son- it’s far nicer to vomit water than gastric juices.
- Offer extra breast feeds to your baby. Allow your baby to breastfeed as much as possible. Young babies can become dehydrated very easily and mostly want small amounts often. Let baby have tiny bits as often as they want.
- For non breastfeeding children you can also give small amounts of water or diluted apple juice often or the re-hydration drink outlined below. A mouthful every 15 minutes is best if your child is vomiting a lot. Keep in mind that Mums breast milk is absolutely the best fluid for sick children. It is easily digested, contains lots of friendly, helpful gut bacteria as well as immune factors specific to the particular virus they have.

Fist shaking curses to you lady

Infection control
- Your baby or child is infectious so wash your hands well with soap and warm water, particularly before feeding and after changing nappies.
- Keep your child away from other children as much as possible until the diarrhoea and vomiting has stopped. That’s right, don’t take them to play group until they are completely better. You might need to get out of the house, but all those other families don’t want it. I’m fine with having caught a virus from someone who didn’t know they were infectious, but to the person who took their kid to play group knowing they still had diarrhoea- Fist shaking curses to you!!!

Diet
- As I have already said lots of breast milk is the best remedy for a baby with gastro. You may need to limit the number of sucks baby has to just a few sucks every 5 mins or so to help them keep it down.
- You can make your own rehydration drink for non breastfeeding kiddies by taking 1L of filtered water and add 1 dessert soon of either glucose syrup or sugar and 1 teaspoon of sea salt. Drink this slowly.
- If a non breastfeeding child is vomiting very frequently and does not appear to be tolerating fluids, try to give 0.5ml per kg of body weight every 5 mins with a syringe.
- If your child is old enough for solids, once vomiting has settled begin giving foods slowly. Start with small amounts of well cooked white rice and cooked apple or pear. Clear soup broths are great too, especially organic bone broths if your a meat eating family- lots of electrolytes and minerals. Easy to digest.
- Introduce other foods slowly. Avoid green veggies until your child appears to have recovered.

Supplements
- You can give slippery elm powder to baby’s from 6 months onwards. Add 1 teaspoon of the powder mixed into 1/3rd cup of water and feed to your baby on a teaspoon or syringe into the mouth. This will help to bulk up the stool, reduce cramping and reduce the frequency of bowel motions.
- A children’s acidophilus/bifidous supplement will help to maintain healthy intestinal flora and can be useful during the illness and is certainly important once symptoms have passed to help rebuild a stripped digestive system.

Homeoepathy
See the members resource ‘Using homoeopathy for Infants’ for general guidelines and safety considerations.

Veratrum album
This is helpful when you see the following signs:
- Profuse painful diarrhoea that is forcibly evacuated followed by great weakness.
- Despite feeling very chilly, the person is craving ice and cold drinks.
- Often profuse sweating with chills
- May experience projectile vomiting.

Arsenicum album
- Leading remedy for diarrhoea caused by food poisoning or from viral diseases
- Diarrhoea is worse after eating or drinking, and is usually accompanied by nausea, vomiting and burning or cramping pains in the abdomen.
- The person is usually exhausted by the diarrhoea, but he or she is also restless, fidgety, and generally anxious.
- May have a fever with chills, and regardless, they are chilly and very sensitive to and aggravated by cold.
- They can be very thirsty but can only handle drinking sips of fluids at a time.

Chamomilla
- This remedy is useful in infants who experience diarrhoea, especially when they are extremely irritable during their illness.
- Typically, the diarrhoea is foul smelling and green or has white or yellow mucus. The child will be in great pain
- Holding and carrying the child is the only thing that provides temporary relief. Often this will only work for a short period of time.

Podophyllum
- This is a great remedy for acute diarrhoea.
- It is indicated when the person experiences a sudden urgency for a stool (it may even drive the person out of bed early in the morning). Hard to notice in a baby but you may pick up on signs that indicate this.
- There are profuse, offensive-smelling stools, and great rumbling and gurgling in the tummy before the stool.
- Typically, the release of the stool is painless, but in-between stools the child may experience cramping that may cause them to curl up.
- The child will experience a large thirst for cold liquids.

Reflexology routine to help gastro
Only try this is your baby is happy for you to play with the feet. Use a very, very gentle pressure and keep the session very short- no more than 5 minutes on each foot. You want to avoid overstimulating an already overstimulated system. A good sign that the baby has had enough is when they pull their feet away. As with all things baby if let them show you the way, you’ve got more chance of going down the right track.

See ‘Using reflexology with your baby’ for complete guidelines on using reflexology with your baby.
Use this nifty little reflexology chart to locate the suggested points. If you don’t find what you need on that chart just click on it for a more comprehensive one.

1. Relax both feet with relaxation techniques and end with a thumb press on the solar plexus point in both feet.
2. Gently work each of the reflex points suggested below

Babies’ feet are much smaller than an adults and the reflex points are much closer together, so finger movement is very minimal. It really doesn’t matter so much if you hit the right points if baby is finding the touch relaxing, it will help.

- Throat, oesophagus, thyroid and parathyroid areas
- Mouth area
- Pituitary, pineal, and hypothalamus
- Spine with emphasis on the lower spine area
- Stomach
- Pancreas
- Spleen
- Sigmoid colon
- Up the descending colon to the waist line and pelvic line (both feet)
- Kidney
- Liver
- Gallbladder
- Adrenals
- Ileocecal valve
- Up ascending colon and across the transverse colon

3. Finish with some relaxing massage, rubbing the whole foot and finish with a thumb press on the solar plexus point in both feet.

Have I missed anything? Do you have any natural remedies for kids with gastro? As usual, I’d love to hear about them. Please leave me a comment if you’ve read this far Yes, I am begging.