A new study in the journal Birth has found that babies exposed to synthetic oxytocin (commonly known as Pitocin) and fentanyl epidural during labor were significantly less likely to suckle while skin-to-skin with their mothers during the immediate postpartum period. This time is often called the Golden Hour, and is extremely important for mothers and babies for a variety of…
As the second post in this 3 part series on mammalian birth, I’d like to talk with you today about cats. Yep, cats. More specifically, though, about why cats have such a positive (paw-sitive?) effect on human birth. So I’ve been wanting a cat for a while. We have a dog who has become a bit lonely after his parents…
Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences Senior Brady Beard has amassed over 100 hours of community service through many local organizations including Reading Partners. For two years Brady has volunteered with Reading Partners at Mark Twain Elementary School, working with a young girl named Renee. Brady said she hopes to work for a non-profit after college mainly because of her…
Babies and young kids can sometimes sleep so peacefully that we forget they are even there. It can also be tempting to leave a baby alone in a car while we quickly run into the store. The problem is that leaving a child alone in a car can lead to serious injury or death from heatstroke. Young children are particularly…
What is your favorite U.S. National Park? Which one would your children say is their personal preference? How familiar are you with the vast number of choices available within the grandeur of our national treasures? A simple suggestion is to get the laptop, google U.S. National Park Service websites and maps (try National Geographic) and sit down as a family…
Life from Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness (National Geographic Books, March 2015) was not the book Tulsan and food blogger Sasha Martin set out to write. Initially, Martin had planned to take readers on a cultural adventure through recipes from around the world based on her Global Table Adventure blog (www.globaltableadventure.com). While a taste of food from…
With revisionist origin stories being all the rage these days, it was only a matter of time until one of Disney’s most iconic villainesses got hers. Although the end result fails to reach the same heights as, say, “Wicked,” most kids will be entertained. Directed by long-time visual effects supervisor Robert Stromberg, “Maleficent” revisits 1959’s “Sleeping Beauty” from the perspective…
Perhaps the only major downside to “X-Men: Days of Future Past” is that it may have caused the summer movie season to peak just as it was getting started. A rarity in blockbusters today, this film is as much about exploring the psychology of its central characters as it is about jaw-dropping spectacle. The result is the most fun that…
Here’s a new hashtag for you: #CAM2014. What is it, you ask? Well, it’s the hashtag for Cesarean Awareness Month, of course! Cesarean Awareness Month began in an effort to bring awareness to the 1 in 3 women who give birth in the United States by cesarean delivery. Consider the fact that the World Health Organization recommends a c-section rate…
Dylan Harmon was 18 months old when his father, Tulsa Police Officer Jeremy Harmon, noticed the baby tapping out a perfect beat to Tom Cochrane’s “Life is a Highway.” Eric Schaefer still wasn’t speaking at age 2, but he was singing as if life were a musical — in full sentences. And Mariah Robinson was just 3 when her father…
Look, I’m not going to complain this whole blog post. I’m actually looking back fondly on all of the extra time I was able to spend with my children since this whole snow mess happened. And by extra time, I mean every minute of every day. And by every minute of every day, I mean it because my oldest sleeps…
R ecently I was at a get-together where my children were the oldest ones there (3 1/2 and 15 months). Most of them were newborns or still pretty young. It’s a very odd feeling when your baby isn’t the baby. She looked so big! And usually I’m trying to protect her from the big kids, not the other way around….
Last week, I blogged about the International Day of the Girl. With a sense of irony and sadness, Malala Yousufzai, a 14-year-old Pakistan girl, was shot in the head by the Taliban that same day. You see, the Taliban believe girls should not be educated, or for that matter, even leave the house. Malala believes differently and has risked her…
Forgive me if I’ve used that title before. It seems to be the story of my life lately. I guess the reality is that Endings and Beginnings could be the story of anyone’s life because life is about change. I just got back from my middle child’s graduation from Knox College. It was lovely. It was absolutely Gilmore Girls-esque. If…
“The Hunger Games” is extremely violent. You know this if you’ve read the book or seen the movie. If you haven’t, I’m telling you it is violent. I’m not going to get into the details of the book or movie, except that I enjoyed them both very much. Although the book was more realistic than “Harry Potter” or “Twilight”…at 30-years-old,…
Today, I woke up with a sick stomach and just followed it up with a glass of V8 and FOUR cornbread muffins. That’s right, I’m pregnant. So far, this has been the complete opposite of my first pregnancy. I had a little nausea with the first one, but nothing extreme. Of course this time, while I’m running after an almost…
The Food Pyramid is out and My Plate is in. We talked to OSU Medical Center Dietician Anna Reinwand about how to translate the My Plate recommendations to real life family dining.
The first time I ever wore Isaac, he was a month old and I was with a friend at Mayfest. Not long after I loaded him in the stroller, stowing our 10-pound diaper bag beneath, he began to fuss. It was my first all-day outing with my new baby boy, and I was afraid I’d have to pack it in…
I’ve been wearing Benjamin in a mei tai all summer. Many wraps and slings are African-inspired, but the mei tai is Asian-inspired. It’s simple and utilitarian, and you can carry baby in front, back and on your hip. In this video, Nicole demonstrates how she carries Umbria in front. Mei Tai Baby and BabyHawk are popular mei tai brands, but…
South Korean-born American Theresa Reese and her African-American husband Reginald tell their children every day that they are beautiful, that being different is okay, and that being different is beautiful. “It’s different trying to raise a child that doesn’t look like anyone else,” Reese said, “but I just love being a parent to three different kids.” Theresa was adopted out…
I’m a democrat, a solid democrat at that. I voted for President Obama, I even sported an Obama 08′ sticker on the back of my Honda. Although I can find humor in the SNL skits and even DVR’d Oprah when she was a guest, I’m not a fan of Sarah Palin. But today I saw the PSA with Bristol Palin…
