Baby Steps – Why Is My Back Killing Me? Ask ten different women with new babies if their back hurts, and four of them will say yes. But those four may be hurting in four different places! During pregnancy our bodies change to accommodate our growing babies. For years, common wisdom said this was due [...]

Visiting After Birth 101 My son was born during a very big snowstorm, at the very little hospital in Bellows Falls. Clean-up had barely started the next day when a woman I barely knew popped her head in before breakfast and said, “Hey! I was getting my blood drawn and I heard you had your [...]

The day I became a mother, my life changed forever. Now, that is the most ridiculous sentence to start with. But it is also most profound. Because, if we are lucky, the births of our babies can give us great gifts, as we learn truths about ourselves. I started teaching Lamaze classes in 1986. I [...]

Mohrbacher’s Magic Number If a multinational company developed a product that was a nutritionally balanced and delicious food, a wonder drug that both prevented and treated disease, cost almost nothing to produce and could be delivered in quantities controlled by the consumers’ needs, the very announcement of their find would send their shares rocketing to [...]

Secure With Duct Tape I took pregnancy as a reading assignment. Back in “the old days” – my oldest daughter is 30 – it was hard to find a decent book on pregnancy and birth that didn’t assume you’d have a “Knock ‘Em Out, Drag “Em Out” childbirth. Barnes & Noble in Boston had two [...]

Happy Diabetes Alert Day! Happy Diabetes Alert Day! (It’s today, Tuesday, March 27.) Well – maybe it’s silly to make such a wish. But it’s not silly to be alert to the increasing diabetes rates here in the United States. For many women, the first time we think seriously about our blood sugar levels is [...]

Vermont Breastfeeding Decision makes National News Emily Gillette was nursing her little one to sleep before the plane took off. The flight attendant told her to cover up – and wasn’t nice about it. When Emily tried to explain that her toddler didn’t like to be covered up, Emily felt the exchange was getting threatening. She [...]

To be a Mother is to be….Guilty? Belinda Whipple Worth, a therapist from the Anna Marsh Clinic at the Brattleboro Retreat, recently joined us at New Moms Network at BMH. We had an interesting time talking about the guilt that comes with being a new mother – and we were all relieved that we could [...]

Changes in Parenting Always Remember: We are living in a society that can easily share research-based information. Our families learned from their relatives, plus the experts of the day, many of whom had their own axes to grind. 1. Starting solids In 1900 – babies started solids at one year In 1950 – babies started [...]