THE MOTHER HUGGER - Postpartum Doula Hayley

05/06/2022

🙌 ❤️

17/05/2022

💙

Did you know that Dads also experience hormonal shifts and structural brain changes following the birth of their baby?

Researchers have found that emotionally
🤩involved fathers experience:
🤩increased oxytocin (the love hormone)
🤩increased dopamine (the happy hormone)
🤩reduced levels of testosterone (aggression,
s*x drive hormone)
🤩higher levels of prolactin (breastfeeding
hormone)
🤩higher levels of vasopressin (bonding
hormone)

Research has also shown that men who hold their
baby close within the first 24 hours following birth, report better bonding. Dads should definitely enjoy skin to skin too, just a half hour of skin-to-skin for dad essentially rewires their brain. I encourage dad to have his first skin to skin not long after birth, while mum enjoys her first (unforgettable and well deserved) shower.

Other benefits of skin to skin include:
🥰calms and relaxes both dad and baby
🥰regulates baby's heart rate, breathing, temperature and blood sugars; helping bub to better adapt to earthside life
🥰enables colonisation of baby's skin from the
natural flora which exists on dads skin, thus providing immunity and protection against infection.

"The brain also appears to undergo structural changes to ensure that fathers exhibit the key
skills of parenting. In 2014, Pilyoung Kim, a
developmental neuroscientist at the University of
Denver, put 16 new dads into an M.R.I. machine:
once between the first two to four weeks of their
baby's life, and again between 12 and 16 weeks.
Dr. Kim found brain changes that mirrored those
previously seen in new moms: Certain areas
within parts of the brain linked to attachment,
nurturing, empathy and the ability to interpret and react appropriately to a baby's behavior had more gray and white matter between 12 and 16 weeks than they did between two and four weeks."
- Dr Anna Machin, evolutionary anthropologist.

Beautiful capture - by
Repost from

14/05/2022

Motherhood. The level of tired is real!

14/05/2022

Today, the TV was on for that little bit too long.

Today, the two of us are comprised almost entirely of bread-based concoctions.

Today, more wees ended up on the floor than in the loo. And I didn't do a good enough job of hiding my irritation.

Today, I apologised too much and you forgave too easily, as children often do.

But tonight, we lay in your too-small toddler bed hugging tightly in the dark.

After twenty minutes of chatter, it fell silent. But then, as always, you blurted out your closing statement for the day. It usually involves batman.

Tonight, however, you said "You are warm like summer, Mummy. You are mine very own hot water bottle."

Minutes later, you fell heavily into a sweaty slumber, leaving me to soak in your words.

I gazed at you a while. I hoped that if I stared at you long enough or hard enough, I might commit this version of you to memory. That I might preserve you in all your three-year-old cuteness.

And my tears fell. Part-guilt for a rubbish day, part-relief that your enduring memory of it is mummy feeling warm like summer.

And with these cuddles the day was saved, redeemed.

I was convinced in the early days that I had approached sleep all wrong, that I was doing you a disservice by not 'teaching' you to fall asleep by yourself.

But now, on the harder days, I am certain that this so-called bad habit of mine is the one thing that I have done right.

📷: .shima
Words by: Karen McMillan (Mother Truths)

Taken from "Warm Like Summer: Little Stories of Early Motherhood" Available to buy worldwide: https://linktr.ee/mother_truths

07/05/2022

And you are MY sunshine ☀️.

I was showered with hand-picked gifts and declarations of love today.

Absolute oxytocin-boost-overload, and I loved every minute. 💕

Holding on to these precious moments and wishing they’d last an eternity. 🌸

Happy Mother’s Day, mums.

01/05/2022

Oh, and her infinite wisdom 🙌 💕.

After having babies, women are in a permanent state of postpartum. Our minds and bodies will never return to the previous state of ‘maiden’.

This is an incredibly profound transition and one that requires loads of support.

If we don’t make time of honor rest, we simply do not get a break. Without a break, we give from already-depleted sources. We will have nothing left to give.

Finding ways to up your oxytocin will also benefit you.

Maybe it’s getting to blow dry your hair. Or just having a tea in the sunshine. Perhaps it’s finally booking in that pedicure. Or it’s hugging a pet. Maybe it’s napping with your baby. Or even getting to eat a meal alone without disruption. 😂.

Burnout shouldn’t be a flag we fly to prove our worth, or prove just how much we can ‘handle’. No one actually wins.

In a society that glorifies that the exhausted woman, know it’s ok to say ‘no’ to things that don’t bring you joy. Your beautiful nervous system needs your protection.

23/04/2022

M A T R E S C E N C E

"The process of becoming a mother, coined by Dana Raphael, Ph.D. (1973) is a developmental passage where a woman transitions through pre-conception, pregnancy and birth, surrogacy or adoption, to the postnatal period and beyond.

The exact length of matrescence is individual, reoccurs with each child, and may arguably last a lifetime!

The scope of the changes encompass multiple domains: bio-psycho-social-political-spiritual, and can be likened to the developmental push of adolescence.”

- Dr Aurelie Athan, Columbia University

Pic

22/04/2022

🌿 Happy Earth Day 🌿

Today we celebrate the mother of all mothers. May we continue to make small changes for our planet and future generations to come.



Pic from

18/04/2022

🌊 Nervous system reset 🌿

Two solid hours of digging in the sand, using their imaginations, and floating about in the water is just what we needed on this final day of school holidays. 🌊 ☀️

Of course it ended with a (happy) sand fight and me threatening to throw out their Easter eggs if they continued, but, you know, it was still a great day. 🙈😵‍💫😂

17/04/2022

This is on point.

via Modern Day Wonderland