A Message from our Editor, Issue #57- Mamatoto
The East African language Swahili has a word that captures the inseparableness of a mother and her newborn child: “Mamatoto.” It means “mother-baby,” and it shows us that the mother and baby share an experience as being fundamentally one.
My Baby is Unsettled: How Chiropractic Helps
Most new parents struggle when their baby is unsettled. It’s hard enough to adapt and care for a tiny human, but it takes an immense amount of energy and patience when that baby is uncomfortable and unwell. As a chiropractor, I know that c...
Co-Sleeping
There is a lot of controversy regarding co-sleeping with children. In some cultures, it is normal and expected that families sleep together. In others, co-sleeping is taboo. In Western societies it is typical to encourage separate sleeping quarters...
Sleeping Like a Baby
Sleep. No other word can generate such an emotive response in so many parents of young children. The “baby sleep industry” is worth millions—a myriad of products from pharmaceutical to musical, mechanical, and material adorn the shelves, lurin...
Playful Wisdom
In the quiet moments when Carly melts into my arms, there is attunement, resonance, shared meaning, trust, respect, appreciation, curiosity, wonder, all moving, changing, and so much more—embodied, nonverbal, silent. This silent, reciprocal a...
How to Reboot Your Nervous System for Optimum Performance
Have you ever seen a healthy newborn baby appear bored? Of course not. Babies radiate awe, joy, wonder, vitality, energy, life, and rejuvenation. It’s their natural state. But it’s your natural state, too. You are always in touch with the vitality of...
Five Reasons Your Birth Can Affect Your Baby and Your Parenting
When I meet a new mom, dad, and baby for the first time at a consultation for colic and sleep, I always start by asking them to tell me about the birth. Mostly I’m met with confusion, wrinkled eyebrows, and curious looks. Very often they ask me w...
This Is a Mother's Love
I recall vividly the first night our son, Harper, slept at home with us. He was all of two days old. He slept right next to us in a tiny hammock thing. The idea that he was now on the outside of my body was so bizarre to me that no matter where he...
The Last Time
From the moment you hold your baby in your arms, you will never be the same.You might long for the person you were before,When you have freedom and time,
Considerations For Pregnancy, Birth and Early Mothering
The more we understand about the human microbiome, the more fundamental it seems. Pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding seed a child’s microbiome, and therefore have long-term effects on his or her health. More research is needed to explore h...
Hear My Cry
Why “cry it out” may be one of the most misguided parenting philosophies of our generation.Babies cry. Then they angry cry. Then they stop. Imagine you’re hanging out by a riverbank with some co-gatherers a couple million years ago,...
Dads and Birth Trauma
Dads have birth stories, too—and some of them are pretty rough. Maureen Campion unpacks the birth trauma no one else is talking about.
Beyond Babywearing
Do you wear your baby? Nurse your toddler? Sleep in a family bed? If you do, chances are you’ve been influenced by an obscure little book penned more than four decades ago. Many of today’s Attachment Parenting principles were first brought to the...
The Birth Pause
If a “pregnant pause” is a breath held in a story, a moment’s stillness where we linger between what has been told and what is yet to be told, then what we are calling a “birth pause” might be thought of as a breath at the moment of birth: a...
Grounding for Babies
Caregiver meditation to help us calm infants and be present for them. It’s no secret that babies feel what their mothers feel, both inside and outside of the womb. In much the same way, they sense their caregivers—which is...
If You Lay Down, The Baby Will Never Come Out
An Overview of Traditional Native American Birth PracticesAs I celebrated Thanksgiving this year, I couldn’t help but remember the culture and heritage of America’s indigenous people, a culture mostly lost because of the establishment of...
Modern Myths about Tongue-tie
The Unnecessary Controversy ContinuesTwenty-three years ago, when I was doing my research on tongue-tie’s impact on breastfeeding and developing the Assessment Tool for Lingual Frenulum Function, the most problematic attitude I ever...
Finding Our Feet
Developing Necessary Tone in the Body and Finding the Way to Being VerticalDevelopmental movement works on the body and the brain. The movement of infants is driven by their senses and their drive to thrive. As a baby grows, these forces,...
There is a Bed, a Family Bed, Where Everyone is Sleeping
Recently, I went on yet another business trip. Fortunately, this was the first business trip I’ve made in some time, almost a year if memory serves correctly. I have traveled several times a year over the past 10 years or so—sometimes more, som...
Safe Co-Sleeping with Infants
As you make your own decision about where and how your infant should sleep, here are some of the issues to be concerned with. What constitutes a “safe sleep environment”?