Guide to Essential Oils in Pregnancy

It is safe to use some essential oils while you’re pregnant, as long as you’re healthy and you’re careful with them.  Essential oils are highly concentrated substances extracted from plants.  To give you an idea, 1 drop of peppermint oil is equal to 30 cups of peppermint tea! They are powerful, so it’s important to use them sparingly.  Be sure to buy high-quality oils from a reputable seller, like Mountain Rose Herbs, Aura Cacia, or Eden’s Garden. The MLM sellers of Young Living and DoTerra have good quality oils as well, but be prepared to pay 2-4 times the normal retail price.

Essential oils are used in aromatherapy, which is a complementary therapy.  The oils contain chemicals that can be absorbed into your body.  Essential oils can be diluted in a carrier oil for massage, or put in a vaporizer for you to breathe them in.

Once inside your body, essential oils work in the same way as drugs or medicines.  Because essential oil molecules are very small, there is a possibility that they may cross the placenta and reach your growing baby’s circulation.

We do not know exactly what effect essential oils may have on a developing baby.  Studies have only tested oils on animals, with varying results.

We do know that many mums-to-be find aromatherapy helpful in easy pregnancy niggles.  These include backache, nausea or swollen ankles.

If you want to use aromatherapy oils, it is best to take the following precautions:

• Only use one drop of essential oil at a time.
• Try not to use one particular oil for a long period of time, such as every day for serval weeks.
• Dilute the essential oil by mixing the drop with at least a teaspoon (5mL) of a base oil before you add it to a bath or smooth it over your skin.  Grape seed oil or sweet almond oil work well as base oils.
• You can add drops of the oil to a vaporizer, but don’t leave it on for longer than 10 minutes or 15 minutes in each hour.  If you leave it on for too long, the smell can be overpowering and make you feel nauseous.
• It is best to start using essential oils once you are past the first trimester.  If you use them in the first trimester, always consult an aromatherapist who’s trained in treating mums-to-be.

Oils that are safe for you to use

As long as your pregnancy is going well, it’s fine for you to use:

• Citrus oils, such as tangerine, neroli, and orange, which are said to make you feel calm and uplifted. Neroli also boosts skin cell regeneration so you will look and feel great!
• German chamomile
• Common lavender is said to bring serenity, relaxation, and balance (safe to use after 12 weeks).  It is also said to ease pregnancy aches and fluid retention.
• Ylang ylang can reduce blood pressure, comfort stressed or tense individuals and is an aphrodisiac (!).
• Eucalyptus is good if you're feeling congested.  It's a great anti-inflammatory, antiseptic and antiviral to ease respiratory ailments.
• Cypress is safe to use after 5 months and can help with varicose veins, swollen ankles, and hemorrhoids.
• Tea tree oil (not in labor) is a great anti-fungal and antiviral oil to ease the symptoms of thrush during pregnancy.
• Geranium boosts energy and promotes circulation.  Safe to use after 3 months, geranium can help relieve tired legs and help you feel refreshed.
• Sandalwood is amazing if you're having trouble sleeping or feeling relaxed.  It's a natural sedative and anti-depressant and eases cystitis during pregnancy. 
• Patchouli is good for those "baby-brain" days where it's hard to make a decision, this oil is said to alleviate apathy, indecision, and confusion.
• Frankincense 
• Bergamot
• Black Pepper
• Peppermint
• Ginger
• Rosewood
• Spearmint

Some of the last oils listed are considered emmenagogues (increases blood flow to pelvis) and therefore appear on both sides of the safe and unsafe lists, depending on the source.

Oils that are not safe for you to use

Don’t use the following essential oils while you are pregnant:

• Nutmeg, which may have hallucinogenic effects and react with pain-relieving drugs in labor.
• Rosemary, which is thought to increase blood pressure, and may cause contractions.
• Basil, which is thought to contribute to abnormal cell development.
• Jasmine and clary sage, which may trigger contractions.
• Sage and rose, which may cause bleeding in your uterus (womb).
• Juniper berry, which may affect your kidneys.
• Coriander
• Pine
• Fennel

Laurel, angelica, thyme, cumin, aniseed, citronella and cinnamon leaf should also be avoided as they could stimulate contractions.

There is a lot of confusion over the safety of lavender essential oil in pregnancy.  That’s because lavender can be used to regulate periods.  Rest assured that this does not mean using it in pregnancy raises the risk of miscarriage.  However, for the ease of mind, you may want to wait until your second trimester before using it.

Clary sage can be a great way to get labor started if used by a trained midwife for a mum who is overdue.  However, don’t use this oil yourself, as overuse can make your contractions too powerful.

In some circumstances, it’s best to steer clear of essential oils altogether. Don’t use any oils if:

• You have a history of miscarriage.
• You have had any vaginal bleeding in this pregnancy.
• You have epilepsy.
• You have heart problems.
• You have diabetes, blood clotting problems, or have thyroid, liver or kidney disease.

It is always a good idea to talk to your midwife before using essential oils.

Adapted from the babycentre and bellybelly websites.

Breastfeeding Support

Come to Embrace Wellness Collective today at 11am for our free breastfeeding support group! We are offering a safe place for breastfeeding moms, moms-to-be, or those at any stage in the breastfeeding relationship!  Emily Mozingo will be leading the group and is a Certificated Lactation Educator Counselor (CLEC).

For more information, you can contact Emily at littlelovebirdservices@gmail.com

The Power of a Calm Birth

We are totally in love with this BEAUTIFUL viral video that shows this calm, centered mother in the precious moments before birth.  I have experienced this type of serenity in childbirth first-hand during my time as a midwife in Trinidad & Tobago where mothers gave birth in the warm island waters.  I had to figure out what their secret was and I was amazed to find out it was Hypnobirthing.  We are a huge advocate of this practice because it empowers mothers to be in control of their experience and gives them powerful methods for pain management.  I recommend taking a hypnobirthing class to all mamas!  

Viral Video Proves Childbirth Can Be Amazingly Serene

This mama looks incredibly peaceful delivering her baby in a birthing pool, giving us major labor goals.

By Zara Husaini Hanawalt

When you think about childbirth, you might imagine a woman moaning in pain, covered in sweat, tears or worse. While giving birth can be an incredibly challenging physical feat, it's also not every woman's experience. 

Need proof? This video is going viral for good reason: It shows a woman experiencing childbirth in a way that's completely unlike the depictions of it we so often see on TV and in movies. There's no screaming, no sweating, no struggle here—the mother remains completely calm and serene as she delivers her baby. 

Midwife Lisa Marie Sanchez Oxenham posted the video on Facebook, where it is getting lots of attention. Though it's not even a minute long, it gives viewers such a clear picture of how unbelievably relaxed the mother was during her delivery, which takes place in a birthing tub. 

“My client Audra’s beautiful second home birth,” Oxenham writes alongside the video, which has been shared over 86,000 times. “A midwife’s role is fluid, providing whatever is necessary for each individual birthing experience, although almost always that role is simply to offer the gift of quiet.”

This home birth looks so tranquil, doesn't it? What do you think of the video—does it make you want to deliver your baby at home or in water?

Click here to view the original article.

Pregnancy After 35

Us modern women have changed the pregnancy statistics at historic rates as we put careers first and find fulfilment on our own terms before deciding to start a family.  It seems as if Hollywood started the trend, but we find that all over the country women are getting pregnant later in life with more success than doctors of another era would have us believe.  Let's shed this stigma and get down to supportive evidence (plus a whole lot of fun and educational links)! Enjoy!

Is Having a Baby Over 35 As Risky As We Thought?

The stats that define 35 as "old" for pregnancy are pretty old themselves. Here's what you need to know.

By: Laura Kenney

Photo Credit: Kelly Knox/ Stocksy

I’ll never forget when I first saw the term on my medical record: “Elderly Multigravida.” There it was, like a death sentence, confirming all my worst fears: I was old, and dying of something very, very grave.

But, in fact, I was 35 and enjoying a healthy pregnancy with my second child.

“Elderly,” in the language of obstetrics, refers to expectant mothers who are 35 or over. (Multigravida means I had been pregnant more than once. If it were my first pregnancy, my code would have read “Elderly Primagravida.” Just as bad!) But this is just one in a litany of quasi-ageist terms knocked-up over-35’s are blasted with: There was “advanced maternal age,” “geriatric pregnancy,” and the fact that I was considered “high-risk.”

Am I being over-sensitive? As a health editor, I should be used to this, right? Or is age 35—the number that’s been creeping in the back of every woman’s brain since we first heard it in sex ed—really the age that your chances of having a healthy pregnancy nosedive?

It seems like everyone you know is over 35 and having kids, right?

I had my first child at 33, my second at 36, and recently delivered my third at age 39. When I got pregnant at 32, I was one of the first of my friends to have kids. The rest all joined in after age 35—echoing a national trend. The average age of first childbirth rose to 26.3 in 2014, up from 24.9 fifteen years ago, in part because more women are waiting longer to start families.

In fact, the first birth rate for women aged 35–39 rose in nearly all states from 2000 to 2012, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It climbed a whopping 40 percent or more in Washington, D.C., New York, Rhode Island, Washington, Oregon, Wyoming and both North and South Dakota, and jumped over 20 percent in 30 other states.

If you’re over 35, are you automatically a “high risk” pregnancy?

____ Many doctors I spoke with for this article were quick to discount the belief that age 35 draws a line between a healthy pregnancy and a difficult one.

“We’ve learned that there’s nothing magic about age 35,” Sarah J. Kilpatrick, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Cedars-Sinai, tells SELF. “I would never tell someone that just because she’s 35 she has to see a high-risk doctor—only if there’s something in her history, or something that happened during her pregnancy that warrants it.”

Some doctors even downplay the phrase to their patients. “I try not to use the term ‘high risk,’” says Prudence Hall, M.D., ob/gyn and founder of the Hall Center in Santa Monica, Calif. “You tell a patient ‘you are high risk’ and that’s going to set up the condition. You want to be straight and informative, but I don’t think we need to use terms that can be derogatory.”

The stats that define 35 as “elderly” are pretty old themselves.

Thirty-five became the go-to number for advanced maternal age between 20 and 30 years ago, says Kilpatrick. At that time the chance of having a baby with Down syndrome was one out of 200 for a 35-year-old woman. The risk of a miscarriage due to amniocentesis—a procedure used to diagnose chromosomal abnormalities, which involves extracting amniotic fluid with a needle from the sac surrounding the fetus—was also one out of 200.

“The risks match at age 35,” says Kilpatrick, “and that’s how this age became the cut off for advanced maternal age. It’s stuck because we use that as measure.”

Today, a 35 year old’s odds of giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome is one in 350, according to the National Down Syndrome Society. And, studies have found that only one in 1,600 women will experience a miscarriage from a second-trimester amniocentesis.

So the numbers that define age 35 as advanced maternal age are no longer valid.

That said, your chances of having a baby with a chromosomal abnormality do increase with age. But there are awesome tests for it now.

A 20-year-old woman has a one in 2,000 chance of conceiving a child with Down syndrome. That chance increases gradually with age to reach one in 350 for a 35-year-old woman, one in 100 by age 40, and one in 30 by age 45.

Source: [National Down Syndrome Society](http://www.ndss.org/Down-Syndrome/What-Is-Down-Syndrome/)

“There are many genetic abnormalities that a child can have, some minor and some that may even be lethal, but the reason why we place special focus on Down syndrome is that some babies with Down syndrome will have completely normal antenatal ultrasounds,” says Shannon Clark, M.D., a Maternal-Fetal Medicine Specialist and founder of Babies After 35.

Because of this, women over 35 are offered additional chromosomal screening testing, including a quad screen blood test and detailed ultrasounds. There’s also the newer cell-free DNA blood test, which screens fetal DNA in the mom’s blood for Down syndrome and a few other chromosomal disorders with a high degree of accuracy. This test can be administered as early as 10 weeks, and can tell you the sex of your child, too.

If any of your screening tests show high odds for Down syndrome or other chromosomal disorders, you can opt to undergo more invasive testing such as chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis, which can tell you for sure.

And there are age-related health risks that are valid concerns during pregnancy.

Pregnant women are monitored for a litany of conditions that can harm mother and baby, including diabetes and/or high blood pressure. Women over 35 also have higher odds of delivering prematurely, requiring a cesarean section, having placenta previa or preeclampsia and experiencing pregnancy loss.

“As we age, there is the potential for developing medical diseases; an aging woman who becomes pregnant is no exception,” says Clark. “A woman who has these or any other pre-existing medical conditions in addition to being advanced maternal age will be monitored more closely during her pregnancy.” ____

But if you’re over 35 and generally healthy, your pregnancy should be too.

“Traditionally 35 and older is considered a high risk pregnancy,” says Hall. But since that number was coined 30 years ago, Hall points out that we’ve gotten healthier as a population. If you eat right, exercise, don’t smoke and have a healthy weight, your odds of developing a harmful pregnancy condition drop dramatically.

“Age has less to do with the health of your baby versus the health of your body. A 40-year-old women could be healthier than a 20 year old, biologically.”

Bottom Line: Age by itself should not be major criteria for a high-risk pregnancy, says Kilpatrick. “It’s really age plus whatever else is going on with that woman.”

This article originally appeared on Self.com

Happy International Peace Day!

"Embrace" Documentary Screening!

I have scheduled a screening of this amazing documentary about loving our bodies at Movieland tonight at 7:30 pm. However, in order to make it happen, we have to have reserved tickets to do so! $11 a pop, and it also allows us to meet the filmmakers and enjoy this important film as a tight community. Reserve your ticket now and we can make this happen! Reserve your tickets here ASAP!
To reserve--http://bit.ly/293QhCx
And here is the amazing trailer! https://vimeo.com/172004856

Doula Meet & Mingle

Don't forget to come out TONIGHT starting at 6pm for our Doula Meet & MIngle! Every doula is there to provide educational, emotional and physical support both during and after pregnancy. Some have backgrounds in physical therapy, others in yoga or massage, but they all share a passion for giving you the support you need!