Heart and Hands Infant Massage Classes

12/14/2021

Bringing your baby in for chiropractic adjustments can improve breastfeeding outcomes. I spoke of this during my TEDx talk earlier this month at


(Meme from themilkmeg.com)

08/19/2021

https://youtu.be/Th3h5mQvc-Y

Exciting news, my wife & I going to be parents in Jan 2022 :D During a recent scan I thought our child's heart beat sounded like a techno tune, so naturally ...

03/04/2020

From Toni Harman
Documentary filmmaker, author and online course creator.

Really good easy-to-understand article in Nature explaining the relationship between the microbiome and human health. This relationship starts at birth - the mother gives her baby a "gift" of microbes which are fed by the special sugars (HMOs) in breast milk.

"A mother’s first gift to her newborn is a healthy smattering of microbes. Some are passed along through breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact, but many microbes are acquired during passage through the birth canal. This means that if the baby is delivered by caesarean section, they might miss out on a valuable bacterial starter kit. Because a child’s earliest years generally establish the composition of a gut community that will persist throughout adulthood, the resulting disruptions can have serious long-term health consequences."

Link to Nature article >>> https://lnkd.in/ehQjdFs

To help health professionals understand the importance of birth and breastfeeding, we've created a free course.

It's available from 2nd-9th March and approved for 1 L-CERP and 1 CPD HOUR. And it is 100% FREE!

Link to free course >>> https://lnkd.in/eAGR23R

Despite evidence of the gut microbiome’s role in human health, researchers are still working out what shapes the community of microbes.

01/10/2020

https://www.gutmicrobiotaforhealth.com/en/scientists-turn-to-maternal-psychological-symptoms-after-birth-as-a-means-of-partly-explaining-milk-microbiome-variation/

Human milk contains nutrients, bioactive compounds and commensal bacteria that may improve maternal and infant health outcomes. Milk’s microbial composition varies greatly between women but the factors that might explain this variation remain unknown. A new longitudinal cohort investigation, led b...

01/10/2020

Vit K... Interesting points made about Vitamin K at birth by a brilliant pediatrician who remains anonymous:
"You know what “synthetic vitamin K” enthusiasts don’t understand? The thought that babies (and all animals for that matter) have lower levels of vitamin K at birth for a beneficial, protective, reason. I’m just going to throw these “common sense-based” thoughts out there but let’s consider them:
and BTW this goes for the Drops as well as the Shot
First, in order to absorb vitamin K we have to have a functioning biliary and pancreas system. Your infant’s digestive system isn’t fully developed at birth which is why we give babies breast milk (and delay solids) until they are at least 6-months-old, and why breast milk only contains a small amount of highly absorbable vitamin K. Too much vitamin K could tax the liver and cause brain damage (among other things). As baby ages and the digestive tract, mucosal lining, gut flora, and enzyme functions develop, baby can process more vitamin K. Low levels of vitamin K at birth just…makes…sense. ???
Secondly, cord blood contains stem cells, which protect a baby against bleeding and perform all sorts of needed repairs inside an infant’s body. Here’s the kicker, in order for a baby to get this protective boost of stem cells, cord-cutting needs to be delayed and the blood needs to remain thin so stem cells can easily travel and perform their functions. Imagine that, baby has his/her own protective mechanism to prevent bleeding and repair organs…that wasn’t discovered until after we started routinely giving infants vitamin K injections.
Third, a newborn might have low levels of vitamin K because it’s intestines are not yet colonized with bacteria needed to synthesize it and the “vitamin K cycle” isn’t fully functional in newborns. It makes sense then to bypass the gut and inject vitamin K right into the muscle right? Except baby’s kidneys aren’t fully functional either.
Fourth, babies are born with low levels of vitamin K compared to adults, but this level is still sufficient to prevent problems; vitamin K prophylaxis isn’t necessarily needed.
Finally, several clinical observations support the hypothesis that children have natural protective mechanisms that justify their low vitamin K levels at birth . I don’t know about you, but we should probably figure out why that is before we “inject now and worry about it later.”
Do you know why vitamin K is pushed on parents and their children? Because pharmaceutical companies don’t like to lose money, doctors don’t like to be questioned, the American Academy of Pediatrics dare not change its recommendations."
"Since 1985, the medical profession has known that oral vitamin K raises blood levels 300 - 9,000 times higher. The injectable vitamin K, results in vitamin K levels 9,000 times thicker than adults blood.
Baby's blood thickened with vitamin K, causes a situation where stem cells have to move through sludge, not nicely greased blood vessels full of blood which can allow stem cells easy acess to anywhere. Maybe one day it will dawn on the medical profession that not only are cord blood stem cells important and useful to the newborn baby, but that stem cells need to thin blood for a reason."
"Any fetus which gets being wrung out like a wet towel while travelling down a narrow drain pipe, can incur damage in any part of the body, including in the brain, and needs an in-built fix-it. And stem cells cross the brain blood barrier. In fact, stem cells can go ... anywhere!!! Amazing don't you think. God's design has solutions for situational problems. Three solutions, actually. The second is the fact that naturally, in the first few days, a baby's blood clotting factors are lower than normal.
But ... pediatricians consider this a ... "defect" ... so want to give vitamin K which results in blood nearly 100 times thicker than an adult's. This vitamin K injection, so they say ... (like they say immediate cord clamping is safe, and normal, and delayed cord clamping is an unproven intervention) ... is because the baby wasn't designed right, and if you don't give a vitamin K injection, the baby "could bleed to death".
It's not for nothing that the vitamin K syringe, sits right alongside that cord clamp and the scissors!
But there is an unanswered question:
"Why are blood clotting factors in babies low in the first few days after birth? Why has a baby got much thinner blood as a result?"
Might a logical hypothesis be, that thinner blood allows freer and quicker access of cord blood stem cells to any part of the body damaged during birth? After all, why should stem cells have to fight through a baby's blood which is now 100 times thicker than any adult's, courtesy of another needle?"

12/07/2019

The next Heart & Hands Infant massage class is confirmed for Jan. 11th. at 10:30 am at the Corvallis Birth & Women's Health Center 2314 NW Kings Blvd, Corvallis, OR 97330 You can sign up to hold your spot. no payment is required to hold your place, you can pay in person.https://www.schedulicity.com/scheduling/LHAVRV/classesLet me know if you have any questions.XO Anastacia

11/22/2019

“Kissing your baby changes your breast milk. Did you know that the undeniable urge to cover your baby in kisses serves a biological purpose? When a mother kisses her baby, she samples the pathogens on baby’s face, which then travel to mom’s lymphatic system. Mom’s body then creates antibodies to fight those pathogens, which baby receives through breast milk. What?! Amazing, right?”

http://www.mothering.com/articles/10-things-might-not-know-breastfeeding/ 📸: Dusktildawnphotography

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10/27/2019

I have always said babies don't like it when you hold them while sitting and have recommended many times to get an exercise ball to sit on so you can sit and bounce, so they don't know you are sitting. Now here is the science to back it up, go figure, Moms know.

Hold your babies, people!! Preferably up, as far as the child is concerned... and much to the dismay of tired parents around the world who are exasperated at an infant’s insistence at holding them standing.

A study by Esposito et al. (2013), published in the Journal of Current Biology, demonstrated for the first time that the calming response to parents holding them is a coordinated set of central, motor, and cardiac regulations and is a conserved component of parent-infant interactions in mammals.

Using electrocardiograms (ECG) to monitor twelve healthy human infants’ heartbeats, along with their behaviour and vocalisations, they recorded mother-infant pairs during behavioural tasks that consisted of the child lying in a crib, being held by the mother who was sitting on a chair ( ), or being held by the mother who was walking continuously ( ).

The researchers found a sustained elevation of heart interbeat intervals due to carrying in awake infants could not be explained by any known cardiac vagal reflex, including the orienting reflex (brief period of heart rate deceleration by mild sensory stimulus), suggesting that carrying evokes a sustained heart rate reduction in concert with the rapid behavioural changes in human infants via a novel mechanism.

The researchers furthermore found that in mouse pups, carrying induced calming responses similar to those in human infants, even though maternal carrying methods differed. This draws parallels between the carrying-induced state evoked in human babies and other mammalian young such as cats or squirrels who adopt a still, compact posture with their hind legs drawn up when maternally carried. The reduced mobility, reduced distress vocalisations, and reduced heart rate appears to be adaptive.

The calming responses evoked by carrying are thought to be an evolutionary measure to increase the survival probability of the infant in cases of emergency escape by the mother and child, and so ultimately works to strengthen the mother-infant relationship. There is adaptive value in this behaviour in carer-infant relationships and, as a consequence, infant survival.

The study found that the effects of carrying on the infant’s parasympathetic nervous system were significant, and it provides a scientific understanding of this physiological infant response that could be beneficial for parents and early childhood educators to understand.

Considering the physiological response of the infant when being carried may lead to greater parent and carer patience, reduced frustration and an increased appreciation of age-old parenting techniques such as and parenting.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(13)00343-6