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Phyll’er Up! Taking the Gag Factor Out of Green Supplements

Posted on October 30, 2015 by beeyoutifulguestposter Leave a comment

This post originally appeared in a slightly different form in our Summer 2008 catalog.

I would guess my family isn’t the only one that recognizes the importance of eating greens. How many families (and women in particular) have spent part of their days choking down a glass of green grit that tastes as though it was just scooped out of the ocean? You know what I’m talking about: that green stuff made from barley. (Or, as my father calls it, barf-ley.)

The health benefits of green powders may be great, but it used to embarrass me when my 3-year-old sister had to count “1-2-3” to get Mommy to chug it each morning.

So I say, “Can’t we have a green supplement with all the same benefits, or maybe even better, in a drink that’s actually palatable?” Well, it turns out that Beeyoutiful’s Liquid Chlorophyll fits the bill!

But exactly what is so marvelous about chlorophyll?

Cheer for the Red, White, and Green

Chlorophyll is every green plant’s blood, and it’s remarkably similar to our own blood. The difference is found in only one metallic molecule. The central element in chlorophyll is magnesium, while the core element in human blood is iron. And this differing component, magnesium, is one our bodies can easily convert to iron.

Chlorophyll such as Beeyoutiful’s is usually extracted from alfalfa, which has more vitamins, minerals, and chlorophyll than almost any other plant. Not only are you getting the green energy, but also a lot of calcium and trace minerals necessary for good health along with it.

Chlorophyll can support good health, minimizing a variety of conditions such as anemia, low energy, hypoglycemia, and digestive disorders, and it’s known for detoxifying the body (especially the liver). It deodorizes the body naturally by stopping the growth of harmful bacteria, boosting the immune system, and promoting overall wellbeing.

And if detoxifying and supporting our blood cells isn’t enough of a contribution, chlorophyll is also rich in calcium, which makes it great for menstruating women, since we lose so much calcium through menstruation. The high calcium levels also make it helpful for joint and bone problems, especially hip joint conditions.

Green and Bear It

Using chlorophyll can be fun, and not something you have to endure! Beeyoutiful’s Liquid Chlorophyll is one of the most pleasant-tasting options I’ve found.

It’s so gentle at cleansing the system that it is good for people and children of all ages, and is considered safe during pregnancy. In my midwifery practice, I recommend chlorophyll for pregnant women who are really tired and have low iron levels.

Sometimes if their hemoglobin is particularly low, I have moms combine chlorophyll with Yellow Dock and a tea of Red Raspberry Leaves and Nettle to really give them a boost (in some cases, Yellow Dock can cause diarrhea, so if that happens, I stick with just the chlorophyll). Chlorophyll is high in vitamin K, which helps build healthy blood that clots well.

One benefit of using natural options such as herbs and chlorophyll is that our bodies can so readily assimilate the nutrients they need. Traditional iron pills, by contrast, have a horrible reputation for not absorbing and causing all kinds of problems. But when you’re using whole herbs, your body can assimilate what it needs and simply excrete the excess.

The pleasant mint flavor of Beeyoutiful’s chlorophyll makes it easy to take straight or diluted in a glass of water. I’ve never known anyone yet to mind the taste! It’s great to have on hand during labor to sip on to help boost energy, and if a woman hemorrhages after delivery, chlorophyll is usually the first thing I give her afterward to rebuild red blood cells and her overall blood volume. You can’t overdose on it, and when someone has bled a lot, chlorophyll is like giving your body a transfusion since it’s so similar to our own blood.

Good for Baby, Too

In addition to being good for rebuilding blood loss, chlorophyll is also great for lactating mothers. Not only should it help support milk production, it’s also believed to increase the iron levels in breast milk. I recently saw a mom for a six week post-natal checkup, and she mentioned that, since she went back on chlorophyll, she noticed her baby wasn’t so fussy. (A lot of you who have had colicky babies might want to give it a try for that reason alone!)
I put one mother on chlorophyll while pregnant with her sixth baby because her iron level was low. It brought her count up to a much better level, and also boosted her energy. She stopped taking it after her son was born, but it wasn’t long before she came to me saying how exhausted she was.

I checked her hemoglobin again, and sure enough, it was low. I told her to go back on the chlorophyll and just stay on it. When her baby was only eight months old, to her surprise she conceived again, but could hardly believe she was pregnant because she still felt so good. She didn’t experience the usual nausea, nor was she as wiped out. Now I hear her singing the praises of chlorophyll to other tired, anemic, pregnant women!

One thing that was pointed out to me recently is that some other popular chlorophyll supplements contain parabens, a chemical preservative. Beeyoutiful’s all-natural chlorophyll, as you might guess, doesn’t have it any such additives.

As a midwife, I tend to focus on the benefits of chlorophyll for pregnant women, but you should know that its healthfulness is good for everyone. I believe chlorophyll should be in all refrigerators! It has no known side effects or toxicity levels, delivers many great nutrients, and offers a pleasing taste and more health benefits than that obnoxious glass of barf-ley!

written by Amy Leiter Brewer

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A Toolbox for Children and their Brains

Posted on November 19, 2014 by beeyoutifulguestposter One comment

This post by Esther Ramsey originally appeared in our Fall 2014 catalog.

Being the oldest of eight children, I expected motherhood to be easy. I naively thought that I could simply fix all the problems I saw other parents facing: obviously, my child would never be allowed to throw a tantrum in a store, or throw his food all over a restaurant.

And if at just sixteen I was already able to cook dinner with a baby sibling on one hip while also correcting my math homework, how hard could it be to raise a few of my own?

I remember the leather couches of the perinatologist’s office when he told us it would be a miracle if our unborn child was brought into the world without severe mental handicaps. Part of me died that day, even though the prognosis turned out not to be true, and it started a pattern of me being given grim news and then working to overcome it.

Then my son was born two months prematurely, which started us down a yellow brick road that went something like “failure to thrive”… ”developmentally delayed”… ”speech delayed”… and ”borderline autistic”. As he got older, the diagnosis morphed into things like “sensory processing disorder” and ”ADHD” (which was an improvement, but still discouraging).

If you asked any medical professional along our journey, she would have said there was no cure for the diagnoses my son has. Oh sure, there’s therapy and early intervention, and psychiatric drugs to help mitigate the more obnoxious symptoms, but nothing you can do to actually fix it.

However, I’ve learned a lot in the nine years since sitting on those leather couches, and contrary to how I felt that day, there is a great amount of hope. Science and research have come a long way, and whether you’re dealing with a dyslexic kid who is having trouble reading and writing, or a kid with Asperger Syndrome who can recite all the ingredients from every can of soup in your pantry, don’t give up.

There is a lot you as a parent can do to help, if not entirely reverse, neurological disorders.

Food, Probiotics, and Digestive Enzymes

The biggest factor has always been diet. For years, research has increasingly indicated that children with any sort of neurological impairment also have compromised digestive systems.

The gut is often referred to as the second brain because it controls so much of how healthily the brain functions. For a struggling child, the brain is like a war-torn ship trying to pump water out and patch up holes in whatever way it can, and the gut is like a 20-ton octopus attached at the bottom either helping or dragging the boat down further.

Whether the culprit originally was vaccine injury, birth trauma, heavy metal poisoning, or genetics, it all tends to swirl together like a perfect storm bent on sinking the ship.

Some kids are seemingly impervious to things like vaccines, and other kids sink like a torpedoed battleship after a simple flu shot. But diet can help to repair those holes. Both GAPS (Gut And Psychology Syndrome) and SCD (Simple Carbohydrate Diet) are the big guns of the gut healing world, with more moderate diets like Gluten free/Casein free also helping.

You can’t simply patch up the ship, though. While you’re using bone broths and gelatin to repair the holes, you also need to hire sailors, and stock the ship with supplies. This is where probiotics (beneficial bacteria) and digestive enzymes (to make the most of food) come in.

Ideally, you should use a wide spectrum of probiotics and switch them up from time to time, like starting with Tummy Tuneup Jr and Toothie Tuneup, then switching out Toothie Tuneup for the stronger Gut Guardian. Add a digestive enzyme like chewable GoGoZymes and you’re well on your way to better gut health.

Cod Liver Oil

High-quality cod liver oil is the great-granddaddy-heavy-hitter of the brain world. Fish oil’s effectiveness (and CLO in particular) is so well documented that you can now buy the candy flavored gummy versions in just about any store from Costco to Wal-Mart.

Unfortunately, those probably won’t do much good, as they are more “candy” than health supplement. The amount of oil is low and the nutritional quality of the oil poor due to high temperature extraction techniques that damage the vitamins. The bio-available Vitamin A in a good fish oil stimulates the brain’s pathways to connect properly, and the EPA/DHA combo of fatty acids work like building blocks in the brain.

I noticed eye contact and verbal skills increased dramatically in my son after starting fish oil. (Pro tip: If you can’t get your kids to take it, try giving it to them via oral syringe after they’re asleep, or letting them chase it with whatever juice is their rarely-allowed awesome treat.)

Giving the Brain A Chill Pill

If you’ve ever thought your child was acting like a jet engine attached to a row boat, get yourself two things: Magnesium and Vitamin B-12. In the case of my son, it wasn’t just his body that was bouncing all over the place (although some kids are like that); rather, it was his brain, and we all had to hang on for dear life as he tore through a million thought processes nobody could keep up with.

Apparently it’s impossible to sleep at night if you’re worried the door might be opened one tenth of a millimeter more than it was the night before, which may or may not allow for a new species of dragons to be let in, because we all know mythological creatures carry around tape measures to catch ignorant parents who don’t listen when their child tells them the door needs to be exactly three inches cracked open.

The imagination? Awesome. The million-miles-a-minute anxiety? That needs to go bye-bye. Magnesium and B-12 worked wonders for this. My kids like the blueberry-flavored Bone Ami, which has the perfect amount of magnesium for a child.

Secondary benefit of Bone Ami? It also has calcium, and I’m convinced it’s the reason my sons have crashed off a hundred playground slides and swings without breaking anything yet. Tertiary benefit? The magnesium helps with constipation, which can be another big digestive problem for kids with neurological disorders.

The B vitamins in general are important for brain support and health, with B-12 being especially crucial for children with learning disorders. Simply put, it acts as a freeway for all cell growth and regeneration in the brain. If those freeways are broken down, or filled with bumper to bumper traffic every day, then the brain ceases to function optimally.

You know you’ve got Los Angeles-level traffic problems in your child’s brain when he has high anxiety, is neurotically freaking out about the littlest things, and overall is just unhappy. It’s time to bring in the B-12 vitamins. Thankfully these also come in a dropper or chewables and are easy to get into even the pickiest child.

Essential Oils

This is a new area of research for me. (And there’s so much to learn!) Until recently, I only thought of Frankincense as one of the three gifts brought to baby Jesus, and then I found out firsthand that the essential oil is quite the superhero when it comes to saving the brain. It’s the heavy hitting oil for mental clarity, dispelling brain fog and clearing up pathways for optimal thinking. I line up all of my children and apply a dilution to their big toes and the base of their skulls.

Lavender and Chamomile are the other two essential oils in my tool box for kids. I keep the lavender oil bottle right on the kitchen counter while we do schoolwork, where I can easily rub it on frustrated temples when multiplication and division concepts just don’t make sense to little minds. I’ve also been known to liberally apply Lavender on myself because no one wants a teacher yelling about how obvious it is that two baskets with three apples in each equal six apples!

Lavender oil and chamomile oil also work great for those middle of the night woes where you can’t figure out what your child is crying about. For nightmares and unidentified ailments, I mix lavender and chamomile with coconut oil and massage their little backs and foreheads. My husband says the boys room sometimes smells like an apothecary shop when he gets up in the morning. I tell him it’s merely a warning sign that I’ll need lots of coffee that day!

I’ve since discovered even more powerful benefits of essential oil blends, and wrote about how they impacted my family here.

The Special Agents With Controversial Agendas

One of the biggest factors in autism and developmental delays is heavy metal toxicity and its evil twin, unhealthy yeast overgrowth. Usually one doesn’t happen without the other, although it’s anyone’s guess as to which comes first. Did the heavy metal cause the body to lose its ability to fight the yeast, or did the yeast compromise the body’s ability to chelate the unwanted metals? Either way, both yeast and metals need to be evicted.

This is the reason diet and probiotics were the first tools I mentioned. When you starve the bad yeast from their beloved sugar-fuel (or anything that turns into sugar), and you start feeding your child nutrient-dense food, those bad bugs freak out and die by the thousands.

As the body heals, it starts naturally flushing the mercury, lead, and aluminum that acted like a ball and chain in the brain. As the evil stuff is tossed overboard (sometimes literally, I’m afraid to say… so be ready with activated charcoal!), you have to repopulate the gut with good bacteria. Use kombucha, sauerkraut, kefir, and any other living, fermented foods that you can get your hands on, and supplement with even more strains of probiotics.

But sometimes those metals are stubborn and that yeast refuses to budge. The gentlest way to escalate your war against yeast and metal is to start out with diet, and then slowly add other forms of detoxification. Yeast Assassin is a veritable ninja on yeast, but it’s powerful stuff so start with a half capsule after a week of the GAPS protocol and work up from there. (Consider the Lite version, if your kids can swallow large pills.)

Chlorella binds and flushes heavy metals, but if your child’s body isn’t working properly it ends up being like a busy airport with no traffic controller: planes going everywhere with the luggage and flight paths all mixed up. Ideally, add Chlorella after your child is well past the initial detox stage and has been doing some sort of gut healing protocol for at least a month.

Even then, chlorella is somewhat controversial as it hasn’t been studied well enough to know the time frame of its chelating properties, making it a bit like trying to schedule those airplanes without a super accurate clock. A lot of people report great success with it, so I’m putting it in the toolbox even though I haven’t personally used it yet.

Last But Not Least

There’s good ol’ fashioned sunlight, or rather, one of its gifts, Vitamin D3. Recent studies show that a lot of children are deficient in Vitamin D thanks to shifting cultural paradigms and the widespread use of sun block. Kids with neuro disorders also have a harder time absorbing Vitamin D3, and research suggests they need a much higher dose than most other people.

Vitamin D3 works to moderate brain development and is responsible for the growth of neurons. Ideally I like my kids to get Vitamin D3 from playing outside, but I also give them Vitamin D3 drops not only to supplement what they’re getting naturally, but also to ensure their body has it available to use from several different resources. If I had to pick only one thing to give my children, it would be Vitamin D3. The drops are flavorless and potent, making it an easy supplement to give even babies.

Don’t Give Up

My son was re-evaluated recently for special ed, and shockingly, he’s almost all caught up to his peers. The language and social skills that were so absent when he was five are now neurotypical and age appropriate. The math and reading he once struggled to understand are now whipped through with speed (he’s still a jet engine attached to a row boat).

It isn’t always easy. We have regressions, and we have breakthroughs. My other sons have their own set of health challenges that keep me researching, and I’m sure my toolbox of remedies will have to grow and expand. Every child is different, and no two neuro disorders are exactly alike, but hopefully with the right tools, you can find the healing and support their little bodies and minds crave.

Esther is the mom of four rambunctious boys who keep her in a semi-constant state of insanity. When she is not coming up with creative ways to get bone broth and other nutrients down her kids, she’s a book addict who is convinced there is nothing that cannot be learned with enough research. She lives in Southern California where she thinks the ocean is nature’s ultimate spa, the sun is an antidepressant, and gardens are pharmacies.

Are there children you love who struggle with neurological issues? Share this post with a friend who might need it!

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Turn Norovirus into No Mo’Virus

Posted on April 5, 2014 by beeyoutifulguestposter 2 comments

Turn Norovirus into No Mo’ Virus

by Nancy Webster

A few weeks ago, our grown son came home to visit for a few days. His appetite was just returning after a serious stint of diarrhea and nausea. He said “it hit him” 48 hours earlier, soon after eating at a restaurant. Since he was certain it had been “just” food poisoning and he was now feeling better, contagion wasn’t a concern… until two days later when I woke up sick. The other seven family members still at home followed suit within the next few days.

When this familiar scene happens, a lot of folks say they’ve got the stomach flu. But they don’t. There’s no such thing. Influenza viruses do not involve the stomach but stick to making us feverish, achy, and congested. Diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, cramping, and dizziness can be caused by salmonella, campylobacter, E. coli, and many other bacteria, along with viruses or parasites.

The Inside Culprit

These days, the most common culprit of gastrointestinal illness is the norovirus. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), norovirus causes about 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and is blamed for at least 800 U.S. deaths each year.

Symptoms of norovirus include diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach cramps and, sometimes, general achiness and fever. Once exposed, a victim usually feels symptoms within 48 hours, and they last last one to two days followed by a full recovery. Complications (sometimes deadly) tend to happen in the weak and immune-compromised population, largely due to dehydration.

Norovirus is named after Norwalk, Ohio, where the first confirmed outbreak was identified in 1968. You might have heard it nicknamed “the cruise ship disease”. Its favorite haunt is where many people gather in close quarters. This means nursing homes, daycare centers, hospitals, dormitories, retreat centers, and yes, family homes, too.

What makes norovirus so famous is how easily it spreads. If an infected person- even one whose symptoms ended up to three days earlier- prepares food or drink (think restaurants and cafeterias), that contaminated food can make you sick. The virus can live on surfaces for up to two weeks; if you touch contaminated surfaces and then scratch your nose or rub your eyes or mouth, you can get it. And when an infected person vomits or flushes a toilet after vomiting or having a bowel movement, the norovirus goes air-bound and spreads when inhaled.

Norovirus is, like the flu, a family of ever-mutating viruses. You may become immune to the strain you catch, but there are plenty of other noroviruses waiting in the wings so you can suffer an encore later. It’s most often traced back to leafy produce sprayed by pesticides diluted with fecal-contaminated water, and to food handling by still-infected food workers.

Because norovirus does not have a fatty lipid membrane protecting its cell wall, it cannot be broken down by soaps or detergents. Even alcohol does not kill it, which means using hand sanitizer after a trip to the store won’t protect you from norovirus. Chlorine bleach will do the trick, but touching and breathing toxic bleach is not a wise idea for long-term good health.

If all this bad news about norovirus has you feeling hopeless, don’t despair. As long as you and your loved ones are fairly healthy, if you get norovirus it will blow through like a storm system and you’ll feel sunny again within two days. However, you can greatly reduce your risk of catching it (and other “bugs”) by following some or all of these preventive measures:

Keep Your Immune System Strong

1) Support the immune system throughout the year with a nutrient-dense diet, including a daily dose of cod liver oil and high vitamin butter oil. Cod liver oil is high in immune-strengthening vitamins A and D and butter oil is rich in vitamin K2. The three nutrients work together. If you take no other supplements, these are the most important. Consider them as necessary as food. If you cannot afford the cod liver oil/butter oil blend, Beeyoutiful also offers the option of A&D as Dynamic Duo and K2 as Katalyst. Some people are also extra low in Vitamin D3. If that’s you, or if you don’t know your levels but also don’t get much sun, you may want to add D3 to the mix as well.

2)Take in probiotics every day! Your immune system is based in your gut. A plentiful supply of good bacteria makes a strong army against bad bacteria and allows your body to absorb completely all the immune-boosting foods and supplements you take in. If you eat a portion of lacto-fermented foods (yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut and other veggies and fruits) every day, you get a dose of preventive probiotics. If you do not but are generally healthy and eat well, consider taking Acidophilus Blast. If your schedule hasn’t been tweaked yet to include regular, nutrient-dense meals or you’ve got some health issues, bump up your daily probiotic to Beeyoutiful’s Ultimate Defense or even Gut Guardian for high-potency support.

3)Beeyoutiful also carries Ultra Immune, a handy, all-in-one softgel with virus-enemies allicin (the medicinal part of garlic), elderberry, olive leaf, rosemary and oregano oil. Take one per day all the time so viruses will find you to be a very inhospitable environment. If a family member succumbs to sickness, take Ultra Immune several times per day to increase your chances of evading the bug. (Skip this one if you are pregnant. The oils taken internally may cause miscarriage.)

4)Then there’s the classic, all-round immune-booster and healer: vitamin C. Most of us don’t get enough of this needful vitamin in our diets, because our food is shipped far, stored long, and processed empty. Beeyoutiful’s Rosehip C contains acerola powder that has many extra, illness-fighting minerals. For those who can’t swallow pills, Beeyoutiful carries Gentle C, capsules of C plus buffering calcium which can be opened and stirred into drinks or soft food. And now there is new ChewC, too!

5) Bee propolis, packaged in Beeyoutiful’s Bee Immune, works hand-in-hand with vitamin C. Made by honeybees, propolis contains antiseptic plant resins, enzymes, flavonoids and other immune-supporting compounds. The combo of vitamin C and propolis is a safe option for pregnant mamas to stay well.

6) Check your lifestyle. Eat regular, nutrient-dense meals. Avoid a lot of sugar, especially if sickness is in your midst! Get regular, gentle exercise. Do not over-exercise as this stresses your immune system. Go outside every day. Sleep: it’s not a luxury; it’s a necessity! Your immune system is rebooted every night you get enough sleep. Keep your relationships solid and happy and lift your cares to your Creator. There’s no better stress reliever!

Keep Things Clean

We touch 300 surfaces every 30 minutes. The very best advice for staying well is to wash your hands well and often, especially after visiting the bathroom. Although the soap does not disinfect the tough norovirus, a thorough washing (including under the fingernails) will help the virus particles slip off the hands and down the drain. But if your children wash hands like some of mine (if they even remember!), you know some extra disinfecting is in order, especially when norovirus has struck.

Toilets, sinks, counters, floors, doorknobs and light switch covers all need a frequent wipe down when sickness hits home. Don’t forget phones and keyboards, too. Norovirus particles can live up to two weeks on surfaces. A 10% bleach solution kills norovirus, but it is very unhealthy to use. Instead, fill a 32-ounce spray bottle with water and add 40-60 drops of grapefruit seed extract (GSE). GSE is proven to destroy norovirus (it kills mold, too). Add 10 drops per load to the softener compartment of your washing machine to kill norovirus on sick clothes and bedding. Add a few drops to your dishwasher (or dish water). Norovirus particles like to hide in food stuck onto dishes. And don’t forget toothbrushes! After use, soak yours in a glass of water with 2 drops of GSE. Rinse before using again.

Another option for sanitizing and freshening is essential oils. Most are anti-viral as well as anti-bacterial and anti-parasitic. Use in all the places you use GSE, although not as many drops of oil are required as of GSE. Mix 5-10 drops of tea tree or oregano oil in a spray bottle of water and wipe away. Or get fancy and mix up several oils together for maximum protection. See two great blend suggestions in the sidebar.

Don’t forget about clean air quality! Remember how norovirus goes airborne. A diffuser is most helpful in doing this job well. You can run straight tea tree or oregano oil or use your blends in it. If you don’t have a diffuser, regularly spritz your spray bottle of oils and water in the air of every room, focusing on sick rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens. I have heavily sprayed a damp cotton cloth and hung it by a fan in a pinch, too.

When It Hits

You are not defenseless when norovirus hits. There are many “tricks” touted to take away symptoms quickly and to keep family members of the first victim well.

1)Take iodine. Almost everyone in America is deficient in iodine, says Dr. David Brownstein, author of Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It. There are varied opinions about how much to take, but a daily dose is helpful for most people and will greatly boost immunity to all sicknesses including cancer, especially cancer of the breasts and prostate. Testimonies abound of stomach viruses being stopped in their tracks by taking six drops of Lugol’s liquid iodine in a little water (it tastes strong) as soon as symptoms develop. This may need to be repeated 2-3 times in a day if vomiting has already started or becomes severe.

2)Take apple cider vinegar (preferably raw). Two teaspoons diluted in water for adults and 1 teaspoon in water for children. A squeeze of fresh lemon juice in the water is extra help. This measure works best as a preventative when you know you’ve been exposed to norovirus but have no symptoms. The ACV helps get the body in an alkaline state. Viruses, like all disease, grow best in an acid state.

3)Take activated charcoal. As soon as you get “that feeling” in your stomach, take 10-12 capsules and it likely will go away. If symptoms get ahead of you, take the charcoal anyway and again after vomiting or having diarrhea and your sick time will be over much sooner than if you let nature take its course. Try to drink enough water with the capsules to help them work. The charcoal captures toxins and carries them out of your body. (Do not take charcoal at the same hour you take probiotics.)

4)Take a high-quality probiotic. Especially if you have severe diarrhea, large, therapeutic doses are required. This calls for Gut Guardian Supreme, with 50 billion beneficial bacteria per dose. The reason your stomach cramps with norovirus is because the virus irritates the lining of your stomach and intestines. Take four capsules as soon as possible and follow up with that many on an empty stomach 3-4 times that same day. Once your symptoms are gone, keep taking 3-4 capsules 2x/day for a few more days to help stabilize your gut. Then drop down to the regular, suggested dose.

5)Use oregano oil. This one is for when you know you’ve been exposed, but not for after symptoms start. Add one drop of oregano essential oil to a serving of food that contains fat (an olive oil-based salad dressing is a great choice). Be sure it is a pure brand like Beeyoutiful’s. Repeat twice daily. Oregano oil kills good bacteria, too, so don’t overdo, don’t use for more than a few days, and don’t take at the same time you take a probiotic. (Make sure you’re using essential oils correctly and very carefully!)

6)Rest your stomach. Some suggest no liquid (or food) be taken for up to three hours after the first vomiting episode and then just occasional sips should be re-introduced. If that is too difficult, try to just allow sips instead of big gulps.

Ginger drinks are known for settling the stomach. Old-fashioned ginger ale, made with real ginger and real sugar, is still often recommended, but not the ordinary kind found in most stores today. Ginger ale made by lacto-fermentation is another option, as is hot tea made from grated, fresh ginger and sweetened with a bit of honey. Our family sips kombucha when sick. And I admit we’ve even used Gatorade when homemade felt overwhelming.

Peppermint essential oil is also known for relieving nausea and indigestion. One drop in a little water, sipped slowly, may not only help your tummy but will also freshen your mouth.

Once symptoms abate, do not rush the re-introduction of food or your stomach may rebel one last time. Start with light foods. Bone broth is excellent (do not use MSG-laden bouillon cubes). We like salted soda crackers at this time, too.

7)Isolate the patient. If you have the luxury, isolate the patient to a certain bedroom and bathroom to help contain the virus. Caregivers should use disposable paper towels for clean up and wear latex gloves for extra protection. (As a mom of many in a small house, I’ve found this an impossible suggestion to carry out!)

Prevent Dehydration

The big complication of norovirus that causes hospitalizations and even death is dehydration. I have a daughter who will vomit 20 times or more when she gets sick with the same virus that makes the rest of us get sick 3-4 times. Some people seem to tend that way. Non-stop diarrhea is another problem. If your patient is very weak and faint, with no urine for hours and no tears, and sometimes with sunken temples (or a sunken soft spot on a baby’s head), dehydration is severe. If you cannot get an oral or rectal rehydration solution into them, the need for hospitalization to get intravenous fluids is essential and immediate.

First try an oral rehydration recipe to administer by teaspoonfuls every five minutes if that’s what it takes to keep it down. Pedialyte is what most pediatricians recommend. Unfortunately, it has many unhealthful ingredients blended with the needed electrolytes and salts, but those may not be a worry in the face of possible hospitalization. You can also mix up your own using a recipe approved by the World Health Organization. Be careful to follow it precisely or worsened diarrhea or imbalanced cell salts (and resultant seizures) may occur. Made correctly, this recipe works very well (see sidebar).

When vomiting prevents a patient from absorbing enough liquid, a rehydration enema is the answer. The body actually absorbs liquid faster rectally and this bypasses the upset stomach. Once, a grown daughter of mine was so dehydrated she could barely walk. I administered the following recipe using a $10 enema bag kit from the drugstore and her health was turned around within thirty minutes. This is another recipe you should store with an enema kit and the ingredients in your emergency medical supplies (see sidebar).

In spite of technicalities, my family has called norovirus the “stomach bug” forever. When we eat well, watch sugar intake, take cod liver and butter oil daily, our friends get the bug but we do not. Those are the most important ways to stay well. But when Real Life happens and the bug threatens or catches us, the other suggestions definitely lessen the damage.

(If despite the above measures your patient exhibits any of the following, call your doctor immediately: 1)No urine output in 8 hours; 2)No tears with crying; 3)Excessive thirst; 4)Dry mucus membranes in the mouth; 5)Persistent vomiting and/or diarrhea; 6)Abdominal pain, especially abdominal pain which settles in the right lower abdomen.)

With her eight children, Nancy Webster has accumulated over 156 child-years of parenting experience so far. She has many more stomach bug stories (“learning experiences”) she spared her readers in this article. Nancy assures all new parents apprehensive about how they’ll handle the gross factor of stomach bugs that pity will get them through it.

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Put A Damper on Bedwetting

Posted on November 9, 2011 by stevetallent

By Nancy Webster
I’m so glad we’ve never lived in a place where laundry lines are visible or prohibited, because for 21 years, ours were crowded with more sheets and blankets than clothes. All eight of our children were bedwetters. One child wet the bed until age fourteen, and the youngest age a Webster child got dry was six. I remember being shocked to learn that most children get dry at night about the same time they get dry in the daytime.

Bedwetting is not a problem “big boys” and “big girls” want their moms to discuss with other mothers. And back then, there wasn’t the internet to tell me that more than five million school-age children wet the bed at night—or why it happens.

Conventional Non-Wisdom

Oh, there were the reasons for my children’s wetting I heard from my mother. She said to withhold liquids two hours before bedtime and to make them wash and hang out their wet sheets and PJs by themselves, “because they’re just too lazy to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.” Desperate, I admit, we even tried that.

We also tried “lifting” them, which means before we went to bed, we prodded and mostly carried them to the potty, and then tried to get them to wake up enough to pee, thinking that would get their bladders empty enough to make it through the rest of the night. It rarely worked, and basically, we were just reinforcing the problem, because they weren’t really awake when they peed.

When one of our boys wanted to go on a Cub Scout campout, we even resorted to a nasal hormone spray from the pediatrician—but it didn’t work, poor kid. We also tried avoiding spicy foods and citrus fruits, two of the categories some said were culprits in creating the problem.

The approach that helped the most was an alarm system combined with behavior modification. The company which rented us this $1,000 set-up explained their theory that bedwetting, or nocturnal enuresis, is caused by a person sleeping too deeply. When the very, very loud alarm went off, my husband and I would wake up while our sleeping child (then nine years old) snoozed on. We’d rush into the room, flip on the lights, jiggle and call to and even soak with a wet, cold rag the face of our child until he woke enough to get out of bed to turn off the alarm himself. Then, before he could go to the toilet to finish urinating (the alarm usually stopped his flow), he had to turn on the bathroom light and splash cold water on his face until he was awake.

After using the bathroom while fully awake, he had to return to the bright room, change the sheets (we double-sheeted with a plastic shower curtain liner between sets), and reset his alarm before turning off the light and getting back in bed. He also had to keep a chart of how each night went, and this was mailed to a “counselor,” who encouraged him with praise letters.

In the daytimes, he was to practice the nighttime routine so it became automatic at night (but when semi-asleep, he screamed and fought us for weeks before the automatic happened). He was also to practice bladder-stretching exercises in the daytime by drinking as much water as he could and holding his pee for something like ten minutes after he thought he couldn’t make it any longer. I offer these tips, because they can be used with any bedwetting alarm system, and might be needed before you conquer the big WHY of bedwetting.

Non-Conventional Wisdom

Our child who took the longest to get dry at night also suffered from polyuria (excessive urination) during the daytime. Sometimes he had to pee every 15 minutes. The pediatric urologist had no clue why this happened.

Then, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, creator of the Gut and Psychology Syndrome Diet, taught me the why I’d sought for so long. She contends that enuresis and polyuria are the result of abnormal gut flora. These flora produce a variety of toxins, many of which are excreted via the urine. Toxic urine irritates and inflames the lining of the bladder and urethra, making the bladder unable to hold much.

This problem sometimes results in chronic urinary tract infections and cystitis (bladder infections) if the gut dysbiosis is not addressed. Antibiotics to treat the infections only exacerbate the problem in the long run, even if they ease symptoms for a while, because the antibiotics destroy good bacteria in the digestive system.

For the sleeping child (or even teen or adult), the irritated bladder may empty without waking the person, because the bladder was never full and so never produced the sensation of needing to urinate. If a gut healing program like the GAPS Diet (see “Addressing the GAPS in Your Health” in this catalog) is instigated, bedwetting will likely worsen (or start) in the first stages as die-off of bad bacteria increases toxin levels in the body, making the urine even more problematic for the already irritated bladder. This is why it is important to control die-off using a slow build-up of probiotics and various foods as they are reintroduced on the GAPS Introduction Diet. The GAPS diet can ultimately bring complete relief from enuresis, polyuria, and chronic urinary tract infections.

Meanwhile, Dr. McBride recommends the use of alarms, drinking a comfortable amount of water, and temporarily avoiding foods high in salicylates and oxalates, which won’t be hard when following the GAPS Intro Diet. She also says to take cranberry supplements to reduce inflammation in the bladder.

This is where Beeyoutiful’s easy-to-swallow Cranberry Power Cleanse vegcaps come to the rescue. They’re a combination of cranberry extract with uva ursi. The cranberries contain powerful compounds called proanthocyanidins, which discourage harmful bacteria from clinging to the lining of the urinary tract. The herb uva ursi has long been used for its healing power over urinary tract infections, cystitis, and even kidney stones.

This is a much more efficient, healthy and taste-less way to ingest cranberry benefits. Most cranberry juice is sweetened and watered down—i.e., made less effective—yet pure cranberry juice is nearly undrinkable for most people. For kids who can’t yet swallow pills (I was fourteen before I learned!), the caps offer the added benefit that they can be crushed and mixed with food.

When I volunteered our twins for a sleep study research project, I learned from the administrator that sleep patterns tend to shift as adolescence begins. The result is that a sleeping child usually is better able to notice the sensation of needing to urinate and becomes able to rouse herself to make it to the bathroom. This is why most (but not all) children eventually “grow out” of bedwetting. They do not, however, grow out of other gut-caused health issues, which will eventually worsen if not addressed. So I encourage you to see bedwetting as an early sign that your family can benefit from following the GAPS Diet.

Meanwhile, see the sidebar for homemade laundry soap recipes to save you money on all that extra laundry.

[Sidebar]

HOMEMADE LAUNDRY SOAP

Liquid Version

1/3 bar soap*, grated

½ c. washing soda**

½ c. Borax powder

15 drops essential oil (optional)***

In saucepan, melt grated soap with 6 c. water. Add washing soda and Borax, stirring until dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into 2 gallon bucket. Add soap mixture and stir. Add 1 gallon plus 6 c. water and stir. Let mixture sit 24 hours to gel. Will be lumpy/gooey. Stir briefly before using. Use ½ c. per full load of laundry. Can also transfer to empty liquid laundry soap containers for storage.

Powdered Version

2 c. finely grated bar soap*

1 c. washing soda**

1 c. Borax

Mix well. Store in airtight container. Use 2 T per full load. If desired, add a few drops essential oil*** to wash water.

_________________________________

*Suggested soaps: Fels-Naptha, Octagon, Ivory, Sunlight, Kirk’s Hardwater Castile, Zote, or homemade lye soap. Don’t use heavily perfumed soaps.

**Washing soda is not the same as baking soda. You will find it and Borax in the laundry aisle.

***Suggested scents: lavender, rosemary, orange. Tea tree or eucalyptus will kill dust mites.

Nancy Webster is one of Beeyoutiful’s regular researchers and writers, a homeschool mother of eight, and leader of the Southern Middle Tennessee chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation. She is the moderator of Beeyoutiful’s health forum, www.MerryHeartMedicine.com, where you can ask questions and learn from others about this topic and many more. Nancy lives with her family on their “partially working” farm in Tennessee.

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Health

Steph’s Letter Fall/Winter 2011-2012

Posted on November 9, 2011 by stevetallent

Hello Friends!

I’m so thankful to be able to sit down and write this long overdue letter for this long overdue catalog. It started as a Spring catalog, then a Spring/Summer, and now it is officially our Fall/Winter edition. Seems like I often talk about how busy things have been over the past season or what new and exciting things are happening in our lives and in Beeyoutiful. This “season” of our lives is no different and even BUSIER than any other time I can remember.

This past January, some close friends gathered with us to celebrate the New Year. As the last minutes of 2010 ticked away, we took turns sharing the desires of our hearts for the coming year and the various things we were going to ask God to do in our lives. When it was Steve’s turn, he shared that he was asking God for a child this year. Those of you who read my blog know about the struggles Steve and I have had with multiple miscarriages and a couple of adoption opportunities that didn’t pan out. Little did we know the answer to Steve’s prayer would happen so soon!

In February, we were surprised to learn that we had another little one on the way—in me! Because my thyroiditis doesn’t make for good gestation, we researched and adjusted our supplementation, lifestyle, and diet to do all we could do to give this baby a chance at life. We also prayed a lot and were elated when we made it through the first trimester, the point at which we’ve experienced all of our past problems.

Steve and I treated ourselves to a sonogram for our sixth wedding anniversary in May and found out we’re expecting a baby boy. We’re still rejoicing and counting the days (the approximate days, anyway) until his arrival sometime around the end of October. This little guy’s timing has been pretty remarkable, and his official due date is his Daddy’s birthday. Wouldn’t that be cool! Whether he shows up on his due date or not, though, just the idea he’s targeting Steve’s birthday seems like another remarkable affirmation of that wonderful New Year’s Eve prayer.

Big-sister-to-be Noelle is beside herself with joy that we will be adding another child to our family. She’s going to be one of the most amazing (if perhaps a little bossy) older sisters ever. I’m really grateful for her kindness, care, and sensitivity to children younger than she. Her brother is going to be a very fortunate li’l guy to have Noelle to show him some of the basics of life.

In the midst of our baby news, we got an offer on our house, which has been listed for sale off and on for more than two years. We’re still waiting to see if the deal will actually go through, so our personal lives wait for the financing wheels to turn and the fate of our house and a potential move to be determined.

Meanwhile, we actually did move Beeyoutiful! Thanks to our new quarters, almost all of our staff work in the same building together. Office staff, customer service reps, the shipping department, and the Beeyoutiful storefront are all in one place on the Centerville, Tennessee town square. So if you’re ever passing through middle Tennessee, give us a call or e-mail, and come visit the store!

In addition to the big business move to Town Square, we took a particularly interesting business trip. I mentioned in our last newsletter that Beeyoutiful premiered its first exhibit booth at a Weston A. Price Foundation conference in Pennsylvania. Following that, we made a second appearance at the Health Freedom Expo in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was really great to meet some of our customers face to face in the exhibit halls and also get acquainted with other people interested in nutrition and a natural lifestyle. We hope to do more conferences in the coming year if we can squeeze them in between “big life” events like baby’s arrival and moving.

As I confessed at the beginning of this letter—and as many of you no doubt noticed all on your own—this edition of the Beeyoutiful catalog is late. Very late. Part of it is due to overly busy life, but part is due to our attempt to adjust the production schedule and adjust the management of it all. As I write this, I’m weeks behind the deadline for my letter submission, which has caused our harried catalog project manager no small amount of stress. So a big, public thank-you to her and everybody else who works so hard to get these out the door for everyone to enjoy! Especially because our whole publishing crew has to work over, under, and around such a distracted individual as I have been lately, the thank-you is even bigger and heartier than usual.

An aspect of the new and improved plan for publications is something I think most of you are going to like a lot. Our goal is to provide more educational content and less “catalog” data on products. Right now, we walk a tightrope on space, attempting to preserve sufficient room to list all of our products in an orderly fashion while keeping enough space available to provide the educational articles and resources you love. The end result is our “cata-zine.” With the new priority on educational and helpful content and the adjustment of the production system, we hope to give you a more enjoyable reading experience. We also plan to put together an additional piece that will be purely a catalog with products, descriptions, and pictures updated about once a year. Those of you without internet access or who still prefer to browse products in a hold-it-in-your-hand-full-color-glory printed form will have that available in addition to the twice yearly Beeyoutiful Living magazine.

A recent conversation reminded me of one of my jobs years ago as a customer service agent for a large cell phone company. In an instant, I had flashbacks of what it was like to try to provide service to one of the most frustrated, miserable, verbally abusive, and all-around difficult group of consumers imaginable. The memory made me cringe, and I was flooded with gratefulness for the wonderful people we’ve been blessed with in our Beeyoutiful customers.

You all have made it such a joy to for us to share our journey and experiences as we learn more about tools to live a healthier life and strive to share them with you in the form of educational resources as well as the products themselves. From the bottom of our hearts: Thank You! We truly value the relationships and friendships we’ve made through the years, and it is a special delight to know so many who have experienced healing from chronic health conditions and others who have successfully baby-stepped their way into healthier eating habits and fuller, more satisfied lives. May you continue learning to better care for your family’s health as you enjoy the offerings in this edition of Beeyoutiful Living.

Grace and Peace,

Steph Tallent

steph@beeyoutiful.com

Health

Addressing the GAPS in Your Health, Part 2

Posted on November 6, 2011 by stevetallent

Part 2

Nancy Webster

* This is the second part of a two part series, you can find the first article at “Addressing the GAPS in Your Health”

Part 1 of this article (Winter 2011) explained the reality that health problems are not necessarily genetic but can be related to diet and particularly to digestive health. Our “second brain,” the gut determines much of our mental, emotional, and physical health. The Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) Diet restores a dysfunctional gut and allows people to enjoy a wider range of foods.

Sometimes I envy people who don’t like to cook. They open a can, zap a box, or bring home fast food. Meal prep is fast, and their kitchens stay clean. But often, especially as those people age, a hefty collection of medicines occupies the bathroom cabinet.

The kitchen at my house is rarely caught up. Over-sized stock pots of bones simmer on the stove. Gallon jars of fermenting kombucha, and water and dairy kefirs line the counter. Homemade butter and lacto-fermented sauerkraut keep the food processor whirring—and constantly in need of cleaning. What’s more, for truly healthy eating, there’s no such thing as grabbing fast food, which means always thinking ahead to the next meal, especially if we have to be away from home during meal time.

In her Nourishing Traditions cookbook, Sally Fallon says if you can’t take the time and trouble to cook nutrient-dense, properly prepared foods for your family, you should drop other activities so you can. That sounds harsh, but it is truly the best gift you can give your loved ones, particularly if they have health issues the GAPS Diet can help.

Filling in the GAPS

Friends regularly ask me about various health problems, because they know how much I like to research alternative treatments. My family now jokes that my standard answer has become: “Do the GAPS Diet!” When they hear my suggestion, some folks object that they don’t have any digestive issues, so gut-healing is irrelevant. That’s a misconception, however. Because it is so beneficial to health in general, GAPS does help!

Another major objection I hear is from those who don’t want to give up grains and potatoes. They get side-tracked by just going gluten-free, which is something of a fad these days. Although gluten is often the culprit that starts leaky gut problems, it is not the only source of the problem.

Gluten-free crackers, cookies, mixes, and such simply replace gluten flours with other starchy grains like brown rice. Those starches continue to feed the out-of-control bad bacteria responsible for a leaky gut. Plus, other grains are rarely prepared properly to deliver the benefits they can offer. Most should be soaked and/or fermented. Without that step, they still contain phytates and other digestive inhibitors which keep the body from assimilating vitamins and minerals in food and supplements.

Even celiac patients will benefit from the GAPS Diet, and they may find that eventually they will be able to tolerate some gluten-containing grains.

Supplementing the GAPS

Although the GAPS diet brings a lot of healing on its own, it is greatly enhanced by the use of a few supplements. I’ve explained below (in order of importance) the four most crucial ones.

1) A quality probiotic to boost the population of good bacteria in the intestines. Probiotics are good strains of bacteria. Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, creator of the GAPS Diet, offers an excellent probiotic which does not contain any starches, although many find the cost of her product beyond their budget.

Using a cheap-o version from the drugstore, however, is not the answer. You’ll likely be wasting even the lesser amount of money you do spend. Bargain varieties often contain dead bacteria because of improper, less expensive processing methods and shelf storage.

Fortunately, Beeyoutiful’s Tummy Tune-Up represents a happy medium. It contains eight viable strains of the most vital bacteria, and remembering to take it is easy because it doesn’t require refrigeration. That means you can leave it in plain sight. While Tummy Tune Up contains a miniscule amount of starches, it is an excellent, budget-friendly alternative. (By contrast, Beeyoutiful’s Ultimate Defense is not a good companion to a strict GAPS diet because it contains fermented grains.)

2) Cod liver oil. Although everyone should be taking this supplement regularly, it is especially important for those on the GAPS Diet. We believe that Rosita Extra Virgin Cod Liver Oil is the very best available, but it, too, is costly.

As a fine alternative at a much lower price, I highly recommend Beeyoutiful’s cod liver oil gelcaps. They’re not fermented, but the oil is processed without the high heat or chemicals often used to produce drugstore brands.

3) Essential fatty acids, while needful for everyone, are vital for GAPS patients, especially if autism spectrum issues are involved. Beeyoutiful’s Omega Balance 3-6-9 is a cost effective blend of borage, flax, and fish oils that wonderfully fill this need.

4) Digestive enzymes. Because the GAPS Diet focuses on treating the digestive tract so as to heal the body of other ills, digestive enzymes should be taken at the start of every meal, especially when meats and fats are included. Beeyoutiful’s Digestive Enzymes are a good choice.

Two Steps to Cross the GAPS

An effective GAPS Diet is implemented in two stages: The Introduction, which has six distinct but relatively brief phases, and the Full Diet, which usually is best followed carefully for at least two years before slowly moving back into the entire spectrum of healthy foods, including some grains and starchy vegetables.

Many people find a good way to help their families switch gears from SAD (Standard American Diet) to GAPS is to jump into step two, the Full GAPS Diet, for awhile first. This is what our family did. Even at this level, I immediately started losing weight and feeling spunkier and more “with it,” largely due to the elimination of grains.

However, after we “practiced” with the Full Diet for almost six months, we then moved our family’s “critical care patients” into the GAPS Intro Diet. That’s when we started to see calmer behaviors and improvements in attention span.

These steps and the foods permitted for each are outlined in detail in the book Gut and Psychology Syndrome (available at www.gapsdiet.com). A cookbook and a quick guide to the diet are also available at the GAPS website. In addition, you’ll find a helpful yahoo support group, plus testimonials.

There are some common mistakes GAPS dieters make that can negatively affect the outcome of this healing protocol. These include overdoing no-grain flours (like nut or coconut), not eating bone broth every day (see recipe in Winter 2011 catalog), and giving up too soon. Our family plans to do GAPS again, because we made some of these mistakes and saw the negative results particularly in family members who most needed the help. In addition, we re-introduced dairy products too quickly, another common deterrent to steady healing.

I encourage you to try GAPS now if there are any health issues in your family. Some of my older children need this diet, but I did not know about it yet when they were still living at home, eating our food. Unless an older teen or young adult is very convinced of the benefits, he or she will find it difficult to pass up pizza and chips with friends. If you can do GAPS while your children are young, their little bodies will heal much faster than older bodies with accumulated damage from a leaky gut—and you can have total control over their diet.

Worth the Effort

Those who have tried this eating lifestyle in earnest testify to its benefits. A once skeptical, fifteen-year-old friend with severe eczema is now so excited about her rash-free skin and weight loss from GAPS that she’s using babysitting money to buy her own probiotics!

Another friend’s six-year-old, fidgety, impulsive daughter with a blinking tic calmed down and focused better within five days of starting GAPS, while her father reported that his foggy-headedness decreased and his physical endurance increased within the same period.

A homeschooling friend in Chicago watched her violent twelve-year-old son with Asperger’s become a thoughtful student and advance from second grade level work to sixth grade within a year of starting GAPS. Testimonies like this abound.

The GAPS diet is highly recommended by The Weston A. Price Foundation. WAPF recognizes that many modern people have compromised digestive systems due to bad diet, antibiotics, chemicals, and more. Once the diet has had time to improve the body’s inner workings, using WAPF guidelines for nutrient-dense cooking is likely the best way to add a wider variety of foods to your menu.

One thing GAPS will not do, however, is shorten your cooking and cleaning time in the kitchen. In truth, the effect may well be the opposite. But it will help your children focus and control themselves so they are better able to help you—and eventually do much of the kitchen jobs themselves. What you put into your kitchen now may get you out of it later!

Products Mentioned in this Article:

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Health

Part Ways With Postpartum Blues

Posted on November 6, 2011 by stevetallent

by Mary Ewing

“Pack an extra change of clothes for baby and yourself.”

“Sleep when your baby sleeps.”

“Have a diaper ready and waiting before you start changing in case

he ends up going again…um, make that three or four ready!”

“Keep a nursing station in several rooms with snacks, water, and reading supplies.

That way you stay nourished, hydrated, and well read.”

These were just a few of the sage tidbits passed along to me before my first baby was born. And while they came in handy, what I did not realize until after the birth was that no one had even come close to preparing me for the realities of what it’s like to have an infant to care for.

I was ready for myriad diapering problems, knew chapter and verse about nearly every possible philosophy on how to get babies to sleep, was up on most spit-up and peed-on stories, but no one had sat me down and shared serious probabilities like:

∙ I would need an entire six weeks to recover after having the baby;

∙ I may have a lot of inflammation, maybe even a tear to heal from;

∙ Nursing may not be the entirely glowing and bonding experience it is touted to be (although it was bonding and often glowing, it was also at times uncomfortable and hard work);

∙ I would need to eat a good deal of nutrition-dense foods so my baby would get enough to satisfy her;

∙ My body would not be the same again for a long time, if ever.

I was not prepared for standing in my hospital room 24 hours after having our first daughter, battling nausea (from blood loss), continuing pain (I tore badly), exhaustion, and being disillusioned that my body looked really bad. On top of all that, I now had an infant who was totally dependent on me for her survival.

I don’t say this to discourage you from having children, because I gladly endure all of this to have my four kids (and hopefully more in the future)! I’m writing this because I wish someone had forewarned me, so I could be a bit more prepared and not so shocked by the “new normal.” Had I known there were things I could do to boost my blood supply immediately and eliminate some of the nausea and exhaustion or that there were simple things to help with some of the pain after labor, I would have definitely had a leg up in starting motherhood.

With what I learned, my subsequent postpartum recoveries have gotten progressively better. So pull up a cup of tea, and let me share with you a few things out of my postpartum experiences that may help you avoid the unnecessary problems I encountered my first time around.

Diet Not Thyself!

For nine months, I relished having a good excuse for my expanding waist line. Once I held my baby, though, I was ready to fit immediately back into my “real” clothes. I remember looking at my middle right after that first birth and literally crying at how terrible my abdomen looked. I was ready to jump on the diet band wagon—and I did. Wrong move.

Even though I was due to be a bridesmaid in three weddings just months after having her, my Emma would have been better off if I hadn’t tried so hard to “get in shape” for the events. She was fussy and not satisfied with nursing so I, like a lot of people, thought my milk was just not very good. I began to supplement immediately. What I have since learned is that when I was dieting—i.e., starving myself—I was also depriving Emma of the rich fats, proteins, and other nutrients needed to help her feel satisfied and full. Therefore, during the postpartum weeks and throughout nursing times, you should not try to lose weight by limiting foods.

By the time we welcomed my third baby into the world, I was so flabby that my midwife could actually put her hand between my abdominal muscles, but by then, I also knew how to manage my diet the right way for baby and me. What you can do after a birth is to eat the same diet I suggest for pregnancy.

The Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonaprice.org) nursing mother and pregnant mom’s diet provides both you and your baby with a fantastic, balanced array of nutrients to help you both: you to heal and restore and your baby to grow and develop. It also offers the added benefit that, because it disallows all junk foods, you should better achieve your optimum weight. Add to that the calorie-burning properties of nursing, and there is a real possibility you actually will achieve a slim waist (just don’t make that your primary goal).

Many people recommend a postpartum exercise plan to help with slimming down, but please be cautious about over-exercising during nursing. While functional exercise is tremendously beneficial to maintain functionality and movement, I would caution against extreme exercise routines or rigorous training regimens—especially long distance running—because most such approaches burn too much fat. This can deplete your fat reserves which are needed to help your baby. Find a functional routine that encourages moderate cardio exercises and flexibility.

Oh So Tired!

Tiredness comes with the territory when you have a new baby. Your infant needs constant attention, and tending to her is only made more exhausting if you already have other children that need you, too. Despite what everyone says about sleeping when your baby sleeps, you still need to wash clothes, shower, and cook. The blood loss that comes with a birth also contributes to your exhaustion. And while I can’t solve your laundry problem, I can suggest some great supplements for extra energy and help with post-birth anemia.

Beeyoutiful’s Liquid Chlorophyll is terrific for boosting blood cell formation. This will help your body produce what you need to replace what you lost. In addition, it’s a great anti-inflammatory which will help decrease inflammation caused by birth. For my last two children, I’ve started taking Liquid Chlorophyll within minutes of the birth and have not experienced the nausea and vomiting I did with my first two children.

Regardless of which sleeping philosophy you choose for your child, remember this as you are helping your little one adjust to life: your baby has lived in a warm, peaceful place for nine months, always soothed by your heartbeat and your movement. Taking a baby out of that and expecting him or her to self-soothe immediately is an unreal expectation. The first few weeks should be a time of holding and teaching a baby to soothe. Don’t set yourself up to fail by expecting yours to be a perfectly scheduled baby from day one. Soothing skills must be learned, and you are the teacher. So give yourself and your new one some time to recover and to enjoy each other, even if that means a few more days until you attain your perfect schedule.

The Pain that Didn’t Go Away

Once the birth trauma is past, it can be disappointing to find out how much you still hurt. You ache all over and have afterpains—and it tends to get worse with each baby. With my first two children, I used a large amount of narcotics and other pain relievers. But I was super excited to use Beeyoutiful’s Ow!-Ease to reduce soreness with my most recent baby. I rubbed the salve on my abdomen and back to relieve pain. Combined with Bromelain, using it eliminated any need for prescription or over-the-counter pain medications. I was thrilled because this not only prevented my baby from ingesting the drugs but helped me stay more alert and able to care for the baby. (Note: Ow!-Ease is not for use on broken skin. Do not apply it to any cuts or abrasions, and use it with care around the baby. Thoroughly wash your hands of any residue before handling your infant.)

Miracle Skin Salve was my second, equally loved, friend. I wish I had known of Miracle with my first baby. I had such bad lacerations I couldn’t walk without pain for over a month. Thankfully, I haven’t experienced such bad ruptures since, but I have had a lesser one which my midwife still thought may need stitches to heal properly. Wanting to avoid suturing, I applied Miracle Salve liberally to the one-inch tear, and when my midwife did her five-day checkup, she was amazed to find that the tear had almost healed. Although she cautioned me to take it easy, she said I was free to resume normal activities. Not only had Miracle helped heal the tear super-fast, it had completely relieved the pain. Other than the first day, I felt no discomfort at all. Definitely worth having—and spreading—around!

Getting Your Hormones to Behave Again

Emotions are raging, skin is dry, your body is rearranging itself, you’re hot then cold, your world feels like it will never be the same again. Thankfully, time does help, the support of family and friends is invaluable, and there are some great supplements that can relieve a lot of the symptoms—or at least make them tolerable.

Beeyoutiful’s Red Raspberry Leaves has probably been a friend throughout your pregnancy, and it can still be your friend now. It helps tone your uterus and allow it to shrink back into its regular size and place. Raspberry also helps some women increase milk supply. I love the convenience of the capsules, especially since adjusting to life with a new baby can be hectic. Although I love to drink red raspberry tea, it is much simpler to use the capsules and be assured I’m getting an appropriate amount each day.

Evening Primrose Oil is my next favorite. Unfortunately it has taken me four postpartum periods to realize what an asset this simple fatty acid can be for a recovering mom. I had horribly dry skin after having my latest baby. A nutritionist suggested I add Evening Primrose Oil to my regimen. After just 24 hours of consistent use, I saw a marked decrease in skin dryness, and my emotions seemed a lot quieter. My skin regained its turgor and softness within three days of starting EPO. I also realized the hot flashes had stopped, my breasts were no longer tender, and I felt much less soreness. In addition, EPO helps relieve hemorrhoids, and the oil’s fatty acids are tremendously important in relieving postpartum depression.

I’ve outlined below a few other helpers that are important during this time.

Magnesium Citrate. Your body is working hard to keep up with the demands of your newborn baby and her growing body. As a result, the reserves in your own body can get depleted. Magnesium levels in particular are often reduced quickly. One of the biggest symptoms of this is “being snippy.” There are, of course, a load of potential reasons to excuse your snippiness, but wouldn’t it be nice to alleviate the need for them with just a few capsules? Magnesium helps relax muscles, including your baby’s. A baby lacking magnesium is often fussy, so by taking your daily magnesium, you can relax both you and your baby.
Tummy Tuneup and Digestive Enzymes. You may have worked on your digestion prior to and throughout pregnancy, and it isn’t time to stop yet! Anything you take into your body will also help your baby as he adjusts to eating, drinking, and eliminating. These two supplements will help build baby’s digestive tract, as well as help her process anything in your breast milk she may be having a hard time digesting. It also helps you because the last thing you need right now is an upset stomach! I have not only taken the Tummy Tuneup myself, but from Day 1, I give it to my children. For a nursing baby, I sprinkle a small portion on the nipple just prior to nursing. My goal is to get an entire capsule in my wee one each day.
Colic Calm Gripe Water. This one is for the baby! I learned about Gripe Water when my son was small and very colicky. After I spent weeks walking and rocking a screaming child, my mother-in-law found this great bottle of gold. After giving it to him just a few times, we were both in heaven, and I’ve never since been without it while there is an infant in our house. It quickly relieves pain and helps baby rest. I’ve recommended it to many friends who are always quick to sing its praises. Several key ingredients help calm the digestive system, bind with eliminate and the offenders, and relieve pain. It is safe for daily use or can be used for breakthrough problems as well.

Wouldn’t Trade It for the World

Even with the pain, exhaustion, long days and long nights, irritability, depression, unknowns, and emotional moments, I still would not trade a second of mothering for anything. In the midst of all that happens after birth, you won’t get these days back again. The sweet cuddles, the tiny baby melted onto your chest as he sleeps, the smells of a newborn, the tiny clothes, and adorable grunts and coos will only last for a few short weeks before they’re gone forever. Cherish and enjoy each minute. Love on that baby, and take care of yourself. Hopefully with a little help from the friends I’ve introduced you to, you can look back at these times and have only good memories of your recovery!

Products mentioned in this Article:

Colic Calm Gripe Water