Wood River Midwifery

03/14/2026

Birth class with Paige

Mondays: April 20, 27 and May 4, 11 and 18

I will also likely offer another Sacred Window Primal Postpartum series in early May.

03/10/2026

This lil babe followed his own time and rhythm, to be born in the way that was just right for him! Welcome Baby Ryder!

Congratulations Kylee and Tyler! 🎉💕🙌🏽

03/06/2026

Makes more sense than current rec’s.

🚨 Recent research is challenging the CDC's strict guidelines on breast milk storage—especially for partially used bottles after feeding.

The CDC currently recommends using or discarding leftover breast milk within 1–2 hours after a baby finishes feeding from the bottle, to limit bacterial risks.

A 2026 German study (preprint on medRxiv, with 44 healthy full-term infants) tested this directly by measuring bacterial growth in leftover human milk after actual bottle feeds.

Main findings:

• Bacterial levels rose after feeding due to contact with the baby's mouth, but showed no meaningful further increase at 4 hours or 8 hours—whether kept at room temperature (~20°C) or refrigerated (4°C).

• Significant growth appeared only after 24 hours at room temperature.

• Refrigerated leftover milk stayed low-risk and stable for up to 24 hours.

For healthy, full-term babies, this suggests it's generally safe to:

• Refrigerate a partially used bottle and reuse it within 24 hours, or

• Leave it at room temperature for up to 8 hours when needed.

Unused pumped milk also proved more stable than the CDC's 4-hour room-temperature rule, with very little bacterial growth even up to 24 hours in many cases, consistent with other recent studies.

The current guidelines are understandably cautious, especially for preterm infants, NICU babies, or those with health issues, who should stick to stricter rules and check with a doctor.

For most parents with healthy babies, though, this new evidence provides real relief: less wasted breast milk, fewer stressful discards, and guidelines that better match actual safety data and everyday feeding life.

🔗 Full preprint: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.13.26346179v1.full-text

02/13/2026

02/04/2026

100%
And movement. Just as important.

01/29/2026

Most new parents come home with a baby that they do not understand, and often do not feel connected to.

I am 30 years into witnessing women and families in the birth and postpartum process. For many reasons, American society is not centered around nurturing and nourishing mothers and the next generation of humans.

We’re not around birth and babies the way we used to be. We don’t observe what the normal postpartum continuum looks like, or even know what the the everyday presence of babies feels like we unless grew up in a family with lots of children, are a stay at home mom, or come from a culture that welcomes babies and breastfeeding.

This class will help new parents understand:

🌀How your postpartum time is rich, unpredictable, and instrumental in your long term health��🧠How your baby is wired + what they need and want

💕How to meet your baby’s cardinal, non-negotiable needs, with ease and tenderness

🧠How your new mother brain is re-wiring itself and why it matters for you and your baby AND for the benefit of our species

🏠How to structure your new life to meet your primal and non-negotiable needs

🧠How the dad’s brain is being re-wired, and how to awaken his heart to connection, joy, and confidence in caretaking the new family unit

🤱Milk magic + Breastfeeding realities

🤱How the early days create the template for your long-term milk supply and the importance of early intervention with breastfeeding challenges

🎢How to roll with the normal ups and downs of your new life, heart, identity, and body (greatly reduce the likelihood of postpartum depression and anxiety)

💤 Why we need to re-frame infant sleep and prioritize deep rest and repair as the foundation for family health �
📝The importance of creating a postpartum support plan with all your community resources

🦠Microbiomes, Stuff you need/stuff you don’t, SIDS, and so much more!

Please use this link to register:

https://woodrivermidwifery.as.me/?appointmentType=88029494

I will likely offer this class again in May if you have a summer due date.

01/26/2026

Why?

🪆Because YOU are more than a set of hormones. Your experience of your body is more than the sum of your hormones. You are not a recipe. Lab tests show us one slice of the pie.

🕰️ Because hormones fluctuate all the time, day to day, especially in the years before menopause. It is meant to be a time of flux. This is normal.

📉 Because when the tests come back very low, which they often do, women panic or go into despair. “Deficiency” mindset takes over. Women feel worse.

🙆🏼‍♀️ Because I counsel and treat the woman in front of me— not the labs. The plant medicines I choose, the sleep and nutrition, the routines I want to help you prioritize and actually do — they are based on your body, your emotions, your spirit, your constitution and will not change based on what the paper says.

💰Because hormone lab testing marketed to women over 35+ is intended to secure them as long-term consumers of labs, supplements and drugs. This is a marketing game, via scare tactics. And because my experience in the functional medicine world only confirms this. I don’t play that game. You are not a profit margin to me.

🦋 Because menopause is a portal, not a pathology. Perimenopause is like a second adolescence, it’s a big wild ride, a journey to discovering the new you. Because my wish for all women feeling the heat is to feel some space, some pause, some breathing room to consider their self-care and medical care choices outside the nefarious menopause market and the current medicalized menopause vortex of our time.

💥Because if you do choose to use HRT, there is no medical basis for using labs to inform treatment. Treatment is based on symptoms and time, not tests.

01/18/2026

Winter Postpartum Class Series starts Monday February 16th

I teach the basics of maternal, paternal and neonatal physiology, including breastfeeding, sleep, healthy attachment, and caretaking the mother. Essentially-- what everybody is wired for, what babies need and expect, and how to support mothers, babies, and new families in our modern life.

It is important for fathers/partners (or other designated postpartum helper) to attend all classes, but especially the first class, as that will cover their role and specific instructions.

As with all of my classes, there is 'Pay From The Heart' fee structure, $200 to $400, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Payments can be made anytime after the class has started.

This class is open to everyone. You don't need to be seeing me for maternity care in order to come.

Please register if you plan to attend:
https://woodrivermidwifery.as.me/?appointmentType=88029494

12/01/2025

Critical nutrient in pregnancy. Needed for oxytocin signaling and receptor formation, which is required for normal birthing and to experience the unparalleled states of bliss and love that women (and babies) can experience after birth.

11/19/2025

There is a reason our hearts melt when seeing the fellas wrapping their babies, snuggling them close and adoring them.

Smelling their baby. Feeling their baby’s tiny wiggles and sighs against their chest. Cherishing the preciousness of their 7 pound vulnerability. Being flooded with oxytocin and dopamine and endorphins and all the feel good hormones that connect them biochemically to their baby, and reward them for close and present contact.

We watch, knowing that our men are transforming. Becoming simultaneously softer, more attuned, and fiercely protective. Our babies’ brains are being wired for love and attachment.

We feel delighted, safe, and secure. We can rest, knowing that baby is tended, safe and secure.

11/19/2025

People have become terrified of giving their babies whole food because of the risk of choking. A very real risk, yes. But common sense can prevail; babies should be allowed to explore taste and textures without the goal of chewing, swallowing and getting calories into them.

They don’t need to be given powdered supplements as was done in the study. Older babies are perfectly capable of gumming large chunks and fistfuls of foods that they can taste without swallowing whole, or that can be mashed up. They should have good body control and stability and be able to put the food in the mouth themselves. (“Baby led weaning approaches”)

Those micro exposures early on shape the gut-immune landscape of the child. There is a big difference between the gut-immune landscape of babies fed rice porridge thickeners in milk and babies exposed to actual fruits and vegetables, phytonutrients, fish and game, etc.

It takes more time to safely introduce foods to a baby this way. Babies require time with our presence and love.

💕

Could the answer to the current allergy epidemic in our children be as simple as feeding them blueberries? A rigorously run infant RCT suggests that adding blueberries as one of the first solids may nudge immune balance in an anti-allergic direction and help allergy-type symptoms settle during the first year—while also shifting the gut microbiome in potentially favourable ways.

The first year of life is a critical window for establishing immune competence and preventing allergic diseases. Dietary exposures during this period can influence the induction of immune tolerance, epigenetic programming, and gut microbial succession.

In a double blind, randomised, placebo-controlled feeding trial in Denver, USA, exclusively breast-fed infants (n=61, start age 5–6 months) received freeze-dried blueberry powder (10 g/day) or an isocaloric, colour/flavour-matched placebo until 12 months of age.

The blueberry group started out with more respiratory/allergy-like symptoms at baseline yet showed a greater resolution over time vs placebo (trajectory p=0.05). Immune biomarkers: IL-13 (pro-allergic/Th2 response) fell significantly with blueberries (p=0.035); IL-10 (anti-inflammatory/regulatory) trended up (p=0.052). However, the changes in these cytokines could not directly explain symptom changes. However, specific gut microbiome changes at 12 months correlated with the cytokine changes, hinting at gut-immune crosstalk.

In a companion paper in the same cohort, blueberry introduction altered gut microbiota composition/diversity (trends toward higher alpha diversity; increases in short-chain fatty acid-associated genera such as Subdoligranulum/Butyricicoccus and reductions in potentially unfavourable organisms such as Escherichia/Streptococcus).

The findings align with broader evidence showing that diverse, fibre- and polyphenol-rich complementary diets plus early allergen introduction help shape the gut-immune axis toward tolerance.

For more information see: https://bit.ly/4i7mr2M
and
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40944184/

11/14/2025

Baby Knut is here! He emerged from his mother amidst the aurora, with the whitest blond hair I have ever seen on a newborn. Named in honor of his Norwegian ancestor 🇳🇴 ✨ 🪢 He adores his parents and is luxuriating in endless love and snuggles ♥️