October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Before I started teaching prenatal yoga I didn't hear much about pregnancy loss. Part of that was circumstance. I was simply around fewer people who were currently navigating the journey of having children. Part of it was something else. Something more cultural. We just don't talk about it. When it does come up it tends to be in passing. A parent mentioning that their mother had a miscarriage decades ago. A family member a

Next week is National Midwifery Week, October 4th through 10th. It exists to raise awareness of the vital role midwives play in women's health, pregnancy, and childbirth. It also felt like the right occasion to learn something I honestly didn't know much about: the history of midwifery itself. What I found was both fascinating and, in many ways, not surprising at all. A History as Old as Birth Itself National Library of Medicine - History of Medicine, Public domain, via Wikim

Before kids my yoga practice meant driving to a studio, rolling out a mat for sixty to seventy-five minutes, and driving home. Mostly hot yoga because that's what we have in the Grand Valley. It was a whole thing. That version of practice feels like a different lifetime now. Not because yoga isn't still part of my life. But because what yoga looks like has completely changed. And honestly that shift has taught me more about the actual practice of yoga than any studio class ev

September is NICU Awareness Month. I want to start by saying something clearly: if you are navigating a NICU stay right now, or if you have in the past, no breathing exercise or grounding technique is going to make that experience okay. It is one of the most frightening and disorienting things a parent can go through. The tools in this post are not a substitute for that acknowledgment. They are small, practical ways to support your nervous system through something genuinely h

September 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day. I don't usually lead with that kind of directness. But this topic deserves it. Content Note: This post discusses suicide and maternal mental health. If you are struggling, please reach out. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7. Just call or text 988. The Numbers Nobody Is Talking About In Colorado, unintentional overdose and suicide have been the top two causes of maternal mortality every year since 2016. Thirty

September is National Yoga Month. Which I also only recently learned was a thing. So here we are. When most people hear the word yoga they think of the physical poses, the asanas. Maybe meditation. Those are two real and valuable components. But yoga is a much larger system than what happens on a mat. And many of its core principles apply directly to parenthood in ways that feel less like ancient philosophy and more like practical daily wisdom. Breath Is Life Let's start with

A few weeks ago we kicked off Breastfeeding Awareness Month by talking about the full spectrum of infant feeding. Today we're closing out the month by spotlighting the resource you should know about before baby arrives: the lactation specialist. I bring a lactation specialist into every prenatal yoga series because this topic is too important to leave until after birth. Understanding your options before baby arrives means you can make informed choices, communicate your prefer

In the last post we talked about mommy wrist and the strain that repetitive holding and feeding puts on your wrists and thumbs. This post is about what's happening further up the chain. Because mommy wrist doesn't exist in isolation. It's part of a larger pattern of postpartum upper body tension that starts long before baby arrives. The Nursing Hunch: How It Starts Most of us are already hunching before we ever hold a baby. Hours at a computer. Looking down at a phone. Sittin

Nobody warned me about mommy wrist. I went to a lactation class before my son was born. They mentioned posture and the strain that feeding positions put on the upper back and shoulders. Good information. But mommy wrist was a completely different level of discomfort that I was not prepared for. There were days in early postpartum when I could barely hold my baby. When I mentioned it to other moms, so many of them had experienced the same thing. One family friend told me her w

August is National Breastfeeding Month. This year's theme is RISE: Resilience, Interdependence, Self-Determination, Empowerment. All five of those words apply to every feeding journey, not just breastfeeding. Because however you feed your baby, it takes all of that. Every feeding journey is different. Some routes are chosen intentionally. Others are shaped by how the journey unfolds. And almost none of them go exactly as planned. The Spectrum Feeding a baby looks different fo

We talk a lot about rest during postpartum. Sleep when the baby sleeps. Nap when you can. Rest is recovery. All of that is true. But rest is not the same thing as sleep. And understanding that distinction might be one of the most practically useful things you can take into the fourth trimester and beyond. What Rest Actually Is In a recent prenatal yoga class I asked the group how they relax. One mama shared that she pretends to nap. She lies down, closes her eyes, doesn't ful

I want to be upfront about something before we dive in: I'm a yoga teacher, not a pelvic floor physical therapist. This post comes from personal experience, my yoga training, and a genuine belief that every postpartum person deserves better information than "this is just how it is now." The Reality of Postpartum Pelvic Health Pelvic floor dysfunction after birth is incredibly common. Studies suggest that up to one in three women experience urinary incontinence after having a

Writing about what to expect in the first 40 days is genuinely hard. Because everyone's experience is so different. And honestly, thinking back on mine, it's mostly a blur. So instead of a tidy checklist, here's what I can offer: some honest observations, a few things nobody told me, and a reminder that your experience is allowed to look completely different from what the books say. Your Body Is Doing A Lot Let's start with the physical reality because it often surprises peop

We've talked about how mindset is the gatekeeper for labor. Turns out it doesn't clock out once baby arrives. The stories we tell ourselves shape how we see and move through the world. That's true in birth and it's true in parenthood. And honestly, it's true in life in general. Those stories are heavily influenced by the people around you. How do they talk about children? About parenting? About what this season of life is supposed to feel like? Let's be clear about something

In the excitement of a new baby arriving, something happens that more people need to talk about honestly: mom gets forgotten. Not intentionally. Not maliciously. But the focus shifts to the baby and the enormity of what just happened to the person who gave birth gets glossed over. Nine months of pregnancy. The physical event of birth. The hormonal crash that follows. The complete restructuring of daily life. A colleague once shared a story that has stayed with me. After deliv

We've talked a lot about the mental game of labor. The mindset, the surrender, the advocacy. But birth is also an intensely physical event. And your partner isn't there just to witness it. They're there to move with you. This post is about the practical side of showing up. How a partner uses their own body to support yours when things get intense. Whether that person is your husband, your mom, your sister, or your best friend, their physical presence can change the trajectory

We spend a lot of time preparing the pregnant person for birth. The movement, the mindset, the pelvic floor. But birth is rarely a solo experience. And the person standing next to you in that room matters more than most birth prep content acknowledges. This post is about partners. Specifically the ones who are present, willing, and showing up for the journey. Every support system looks different and a birth partner doesn't have to be a spouse or a partner in the romantic sens

We talk a lot about the transformation of becoming a mother. It's impossible to ignore when you're the one physically moving through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. The changes are undeniable and visible. The transition into fatherhood is quieter. More subtle. And honestly, less frequently celebrated. With Father's Day coming up it felt like the right time to change that. It Takes Two The experience of parenthood looks different for each partner. Biologically, emotionally,

Every time a baby is born, so is a parent. We talk a lot about the transformation of becoming a mother. But the shift for dads and partners is equally profound. It just looks different. And it doesn't get nearly enough attention. Parenthood is one of life's most transformative experiences. And a child has a way of holding up a mirror. Whatever you've been working on, or avoiding, gets amplified when a baby arrives. We keep getting the same lessons until we finally learn them.

We spent March and April mapping the physical landscape of birth. The pelvis as a three-story house. The spine as your structural frame. The core as your internal support system. Then in May we took a turn into the mind, because you can have the most mobile pelvis in the world and still stall if your nervous system is stuck in a stress response. Before we move into new territory, fatherhood, postpartum, infant feeding, and everything that follows, this post brings it all toge