Brittany Belcher, Birth Doula

11/18/2025

So sweet!

11/05/2025

From one of the biggest homebirth studies done.

11/02/2025

10/28/2025

10/19/2025

09/01/2025

08/20/2025

The food you eat and the water you drink do not magically go directly to your breast milk. What you eat and drink goes first to your stomach to be broken down and then into your intestines to be absorbed and processed. Your digestive system breaks nutrients into parts small enough for your body to absorb and use for energy, growth, and cell repair. The muscles of the small intestine mix food with digestive juices from the pancreas, liver, and intestine. Special cells in the walls of the small intestine absorb water and the digested nutrients into your bloodstream. Your blood carries molecule-sized components such as simple sugars (carbohydrates), amino acids, white blood cells, enzymes, water, fat, and proteins throughout your body. As blood passes by the breasts, milk glands pull out these nutrients for milk production and pass some of them to your baby. Not all molecules are small enough to pass through into milk. (That’s why some medications are safe to take while breastfeeding and some are not. Molecules that are too big can’t get into the milk while really small molecules can.)

Nuts, seeds, beans, and grains all have plant based proteins. Meat and dairy are animal based proteins. Both plant and animal proteins carried in your blood can make it into your milk. Sometimes these proteins can affect baby’s digestive system, causing symptoms like reflux, gas, colic, and blood or mucus in the poops from iritations to baby’s intestinal lining. Diary proteins are the most common cause of upset in the stomach, however research suggests that the proportion of exclusively breastfed infants who are actually allergic to something in their mother’s milk is very small. (https://bit.ly/3rFHotE). Fussiness and gas alone are not enough to diagnose a cow milk protein allergy.

In general, there are NO foods that need to be avoided because you’re breastfeeding. Every baby is different in the foods they are sensitive to. IF your baby always seems to have a reaction when you eat a certain food or a large amount of a certain type of food, cutting back on it or cutting it out temporarily may be helpful.

08/08/2025

I will also die on this hill!! 💜

06/25/2025

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If a provider starts doubtful discussion about your hips or pelvis during prenatal appointments, that’s a good sign to RUN. No seriously, time to hire someone new. There is no evidence to support making any predictions or interventions based on the perceived “size” of a woman’s hips, frame, or pelvis.

None.
Zip.
Zilch.

All comments like that tell us is how very ignorant that “expert” is in basic female physiology and the physiological birth process.

Unless a woman is *severely* malnourished (we’re talking rickets), has sustained a complex pelvic injury, or has a significant deformity, her pelvis or hips should not enter the discussion of her “ability” to birth. That is, of course, unless the discussion is the provider exclaiming over just how ✨magnificent✨ it is that her pelvis moves and shifts at the end of pregnancy and all throughout labor to accommodate the birth of her perfectly sized baby through her perfectly sized body.

I recently heard a woman recounting that during birth the OB on call was predicting her “bony” pelvis wouldn’t be able to birth her baby.

First: I should hope her pelvis is bony. It’s LITERALLY MADE OF BONES.💀🦴

Second: The pelvis moves, opens, and changes shape during pregnancy and birth. Its size can even be intentionally influenced by the mother, opening an additional 30% depending on her position! (Note: Flat on your back is NOT one of those positions.)

Third: She went on to birth her baby through that bony pelvis just a few hours later.

If there are signs during labor or birth that there are positional issues or baby needs some adjustment or a nudge, there are lots of techniques to implement to help that baby through. Good doctors, midwives, and doulas know when to wait and when to suggest a position or two to help things along. But the vast majority of women will instinctively get into the best position in the moment when labor is not messed with and when her body has the physiological freedom to do so.

God didn’t forget about your hips, sister. He designed every detail of your body and of birth, your beautiful bony pelvis included.

🤍

05/31/2025

This is a baby 11 weeks after conception.

Human life is miraculous.

05/15/2025

New baby on the way?

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