WEEK 31 – PLACENTA ENCAPSULATION & GOLD COAST WEEKEND

Weekly Baby News

Baby Size: 41.1cm – 1502grams (1.5kg)

Filling out of the body, arms and legs is on the hugely on the agenda and your bub is becoming proportional to the head size. Bub can grow another 1kg before birth, which compared to earlier months is still a lot of growing. In fact the average full term weight of a newborn is 3.4kg. Keep in mind as your baby is rapidly growing you too are going to put on weight, it is normal for mum to gain 0.5kg per week in the 3rd trimester

Mamma changes: Dry and itchy skin may continue or begin, especially on the abdomen as the skin is growing and stretching, keep your skin moisturised with your favourite natural non-toxic cream or I’ve been using walnut oil that seems to be working best. Carpel Tunnel may present for some mums due to the excess oedema compressing the nerves, in this instance Hypericum (St John’s Wort) Oil is very helpful for nerve pain. Leg cramps may also worsen or begin, ensuring high magnesium and calcium foods are consumed in your diet and increasing supplement support per your naturopath.

Naturopath Advice

Maternal iron and haemoglobin (as previously mentioned) deficiency is common in pregnancy and needs to be addressed due to the increased risk of cognitive and behavioural problems for your child. Finding an iron supplement that suits you and that you can digest can be difficult so best to check with your naturopath for the gentlest supplement on your gut, rather than grabbing a chemist or cheap retail brand. We also want to ensure iron levels are adequate for mum due to the potential high levels of blood loss during birth. Symptoms of deficiency can be fatigue, changes in mood and cravings. To assist the prevention of deficiency it is best to avoid gluten as it binds to iron and reduces the absorption. Interestingly iron deficiency can also be linked to housing worms, while there is no proven safe and recommended pharmaceutical quick tablet there is the option to use herbal medicine, or wait until post birth to treat. It is good to ensure any pets in the house are up-to-date with taking their worming tablets so they aren’t passed onto the pregnant mum in the house.  Taking powdered Nettle or Withania herbs or as herbal teas are great to help build the storage of iron. Speak to your practitioner for therapeutic treatment that would suit your requirements best.

Placenta Encapsulation

Have you heard of this? Or does it gross you out? Well don’t be quick to judge until you learn about the abundance of benefits it has to offer for you and bub. And besides we need to be thankful as the encapsulation processes never use to be an option and there was and still are more bizarre ways of consuming placentas.

Interestingly humans are the only mammals (besides chimpanzees) that don’t commonly eat their placentas that then sadly would miss out on the nutrient dense goodness that they provide. The health benefits are hard to pass up as it increases energy, enhances breast milk supply, balance hormones, assist healthy sleep and reduce instance of insomnia, replace nutrients lost from birth including iron, protein and needed fats, reduce healing time post-labour, accelerate the return your uterus to pre-pregnancy state, also dramatically lessens the risk of post-natal depression. When you think about it there is no more perfectly suited supplement that you could be taking after birth that would be more individualised and natural more than a organ that you independently grew and nourished for 9 months.

Thankfully consuming your placenta is no longer something only traditional cultures do, with becoming quite common in western society, even if you don’t want to make public that you are going to embrace the benefits of encapsulation, please consider it from the perspective of your health and bubs.

There are numerous midwives, doulas or experts that prepare you placenta for you to make it very easy. They will pick it up after the birth and return within a few days all encapsulated for you. There are also options whether you’d like the placenta prepared from the traditional Chinese medicine method or from raw. Both methods are dehydrated and then grounded to make it easy for encapsulation. Local to us on the Sunshine Coast is well known Natalie from Placenta Vitality, you may have seen her recently on 60mins. Click here for her link to webpage. Plan ahead and book your placenta in as I have.

My Journey

Week 31 and baby plus belly is certainly growing, I have currently put on 10kg, which seems bizarre. I am feeling super pregnant and starting to understand the little challenges of having a bigger belly. Slowing down movements is a huge one, which a month or so ago I knew I should be moving slower with laying down, getting up, rolling over etc but I could still do it quite quickly as I normally would. However now I do have to take my time, I am embracing slow whale movements without the choice to do it quickly or not. Saying this I am feeling quite energetic throughout the day and have been super keen for daily walks, even though I do get shortness of breath quicker, I do feel quite flooded with healthy vitality. This can also be connected to dropping all sugar and gluten for my birth prep, other than limited natural sugars from low GI fruits. The only ‘symptom’ I may have is that I do feel my belly is super tight and quite a bit of discomfort, also making me feel like I have to hold it up from underneath at times, however I guess it is just to do with the growing and stretching – all apart of the pregnancy package.

This week we headed down to the Gold Coast to catch up with family and friends. This will be our last little trip/weekend away before Button arrives. As much as I don’t miss living on the Gold Coast I do look forward to visiting now and then to see everyone and also embrace the abundance of health eating-out options. Not to mention the shopping that is a tad better than Sunshine Coast shopping, especially for individualised boutiques and local designers in the ample markets around the place. Sheeds and I went to a cute little baby shop in Tallebudgera Valley called Madison Jane, where we were able to grab a few cute items plus I found a stroller/pram liner. I didn’t even know this was a thing that you buy haha however the colour was nice, I probably best get a stroller now to put it in!

It was fabulous to catch up with old friends who now have kids themselves, and to reconnect as we are all in a new chapter of life. Makes me think how funny life is and the journey of relationships we travel upon, plus beautiful to know that even though some friendships grow apart at times they can always loop around and cross paths again in the future when the timing is right. Sheeds and I do feel super blessed for the friendships we have and are reconnecting with as we approach this exciting new chapter in life.

This week I also ticked off some of the to-do list including creating an event for our Non-baby-shower catchup with friends (just an excuse to see our friends before bub arrives), which was nice and easy with Facebook, I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner. Also finished my Blessing way invites and delivered to the small group of beautiful souls in my life, this was a little more effort however definitely worth it and enjoyable.  And I booked in my placenta encapsulation with Natalie from Placenta Vitality who lives locally.

Overall it was a very productive and rewarding week and finished off with a nourishing/relaxing weekend.

Yours in Health

Talita x