Traumatic pregnancy and wanting to breastfeed. How do you help?

RP got pregnant the first time she and her husband tried. She was thrilled to be pregnant, until the 5th month of pregnancy when her baby was found to have a heart defect. At 28 weeks, she started weekly ultrasounds. Deep down inside, she always felt that her baby was fine, despite the continual worry.. read more →

50 years later and still all in.

I started my career as a licensed practical nurse in 1971. I loved working in the ICU; the more acute the illness, the more drama in the clinical situation, the more  engaged and excited I became. I worked in different ICUs in New York City and in Baltimore. After marrying, I shifted my work from.. read more →

Teaching the teachers.

We humans are mammals, living creatures that make milk to feed our live-born babies. Every mammal on earth breastfeeds, in a style specific and unique to each species. Some mammals give birth to litters, more than one baby: cats, dogs, pigs, and tigers. Others, like those in the primate branch of mammals, give birth to.. read more →

Normal bone growth OR ear infection?

Today I went with my daughter and granddaughter (aged 9-months)  to their chiropractor appointment to watch the baby while my daughter gets her adjustment.  My daughter and her baby see Dr. Lydia once a month for maintenance, and after the work on my granddaughter was finished, we three were chatting. My daughter was talking about.. read more →

Have things changed since 1970?

I was a junior nursing student in college when I wrote this paper after a clinical rotation in labor and delivery at Bellevue Hospital. I am newly 20;  young and so upset by what I had to see. Not one single nursing instructor ever talked to the nursing students about the brutality they had to.. read more →

A Birth Story.

This is birth story of a student in a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor training course; a story of common care in a teaching hospital told in her own words: “A woman was told to go to the hospital because her levels were no (sic) normal. When she got checked out at the hospital the doctor told.. read more →