Breastfeeding and Lullabies ♪♫♪♫

Nursing your baby is one of the best things you can do to get her off to a healthy start in life. Research and common wisdom tells us that Mommy's milk is meant to feed a newborn baby and no baby is ever going to be allergic to Mommy's mild. It almost seems like a miracle to me that the whole process works so beautifully---usually!

Sometimes new mothers or mothers who have had difficult pregnancies get tense and anxious and have trouble getting their mile to "let down." This happened to me after my first child was born: my breasts were full of milk and my baby was crying but the milk would not "let down" into my breasts so that my daughter could satisfy her hunger!

So how do lullabies play a part? Women have been softly singing, humming and crooning to the infants since the beginning of time. The benefits of mother singing to her baby, rather than playing a CD or radio, is that THIS is the same voice that baby has been hearing for the past nine months and is the voice that makes baby feel safe and secure. When baby calms down, mommy calms down and before you know it, the milk is flowing. Is this immediate and instantaneous? Of course not. It's a process and can take days depending on how anxious the mother is.

My recommendation is that mother listen to my lullaby CD during pregnancy so that the melodies come easily to her when she sits down to nurse baby! You can order the CD or you can download these classic lullabies that have been passed down from generation to generation! Do let me know how it goes!!

Cloth Diapers - The healthy choice for newborns and their environment

By: Rob Parker
You have to think that life must be pretty difficult as a newborn. After all, so far you’ve spent your whole time in a warm and wet environment; basically bumping around naked, not really worried about anything. Then all of a sudden you are thrust out into this cold, bright place, your means of nourishment is cut off, and you have to learn to breath in a whole new way in a matter of seconds, and then they wrap you in plastic!While some people may have the time to set a schedule for their newborns so that they can get them cleaned every time the baby produces waste, for many this simply isn’t feasible. A new generation that rejects unnatural products both for the environment and for their children are choosing to use cloth diapers instead of disposables for catching the bodily waste that newborns produce. Let’s take a look at the benefits in health and in terms of our eco footprint, that choosing cloth diapers for your newborn can mean.Less diaper rash. Cloth diapers simply can’t hold the same amount of waste, either solid or liquid, that a disposable diaper can. While at first blush this may seem convenient, the fact is that the healthy choices for our children are never convenient. The amount of waste that can build up in a disposable diaper can cause newborns, infants and toddlers significant pain and discomfort in the form of a rash. Using a cloth diaper mitigates this occurrence.Renewable. The biggest benefit as far as the environment with cloth diapers as that by being washable, they are far less likely to be thrown out than disposables. Most disposable diapers contain quite a lot of plastic and other materials which will not break down for hundreds of years; a quick look at just how many disposables the average newborn goes through in a day is enough to make anyone’s spine creep when the eco impact is considered. The fact that you can use cloth diapers again and again, also means there is less impact on your bank account!Less chance of an allergic reaction. As allergies are becoming more and more severe, many new mothers are finding that the synthetic materials used in disposable diapers cause their newborns to have a reaction. Not a very great way to start out life! Choosing cloth diapers made of non-allergenic material will greatly reduce the chance of a reaction from your baby.As with so many are finding today, the old ways of doing things are proving to be the smartest for a new generation. Cloth diapers are a flash from the past, but perhaps they are a part of taking care of a newborn that should never have been left behind.
Article Source: http://babyboomerarticles.com

The womb's "sound carpet," baby loves it!

Have you wondered what your unborn child really hears? According to Giselle E. Whitwell, a pre-natal music therapist in Los Angeles, "Uterine sounds form a "sound carpet" over which the mother's voice in particular appears very distinct and which the prenate gives special attention because it is so different from its own amniotic environment. These sounds are of major importance because they establishes the first patterns of communication and bonding. Some researchers have discovered that newborns become calmer and more self-regulated when exposed to intrauterine sound (Murooka et. al 1976; DeCasper 1983; Rossner 1979). The soothing sounds of the ocean and water are probably reminiscent of the fluid environment in which we began life. Tomatis suggests that the maternal heart beat, respiration and intestinal gurgling, all form the source for our collective attraction to the sound of surf and may have to do with our inborn sense of rhythm. Prenatal sounds form an important developmental component in prenatal life because they provide a foundation for later learning and behavior. With fetal sound stimulation the brain functions at a higher level of organization."
Stay tuned for more fascinating information about the growing baby's sonic environment!

Infants can un-Ravel classical music!

Recent research is suggesting that even infants can detect slight changes in a piece of classical music. Canadian researchers say babies can remember complex classical music, even after a two week delay. Their findings were detailed at a recent meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

said Beatriz Ilari of McGill University in Montreal.
For her study, Ilari, a violinist, music teacher and doctoral candidate, chose the "Prelude" and "Forlane" from "Le Tombeau de Couperin" by Maurice Ravel.
"First, because it's unusual," said Ilari. "It is a beautiful piece of music, also a piece that, for people who are trained in classical music, we know it's considered very complex," she said.
Researchers gave a Ravel CD to parents, either the "Prelude" or "Forlane." Parents were told to play that piece to their seven- to eight-month-old infants three times a day, for 10 days. The CDs were then collected. After two weeks of not hearing that music, babies were tested at a McGill laboratory.

The test consisted of listening to 20-second excerpts of music, eight from the familiar piece mixed with eight from the unfamiliar one. During testing, the baby was seated comfortably on a parent's lap in a three-wall pegboard booth.
A red light was mounted on each side of the booth, to the left and right of the baby. One light would blink to attract the baby's attention. Once the baby looked at the light, a musical excerpt would come on through a loudspeaker hidden behind the light.

The excerpt would keep playing until the baby turned its head away, in another direction. Listening times were recorded for each excerpt and added up for each piece.
The researchers found that babies listened 20-30 percent longer to the music piece they had heard at home, compared to an unfamiliar piece.

"We had a lot of parents, many unfamiliar with classical music, say that they really liked Ravel," said Ilari. "They asked to keep it after the study, because it was helpful in putting their baby to sleep, or calming the baby at feeding time," she said.
Some parents who introduced music to their kids at very early ages say there are a wide range of benefits. Victor and Adele Ronchetti's ten year old son Victor picked up a violin at age four and hasn't put it down. He's now in a young artists program at the Juilliard School in New York.
"Listening to music is great," said Adele Ronchetti. "I think playing an instrument is terrific. It keeps you away from the television set. You never hear about anybody who plays the violin building a bomb in their basement. I mean, I think it keeps you on the right track socially, it builds your self esteem. I think it's good for so many things," she said.

Is this your first Mother's Day?

I'll never forget my first Mother's Day as a mother! My baby daughter was barely a month old and I was ecstatic! She was so beautiful and so perfect...exactly what we wanted! The relationship between mother and child is indescribably significant and life-shaping. Having a strong, loving and accepting relationship with your Mother is a crucial factor in having good mental health and a successful, productive life.

One of the easiest ways to establish a good nurturing relationship with your infant or child is to sing to her or play carefully chosen music. Lullabies are the classic babysongs. The music that a baby or child hears from or with Mommy is significant and comforting for the rest of that child's life! Don't know any lullabies. I have created a Lullaby CD which I offer and recommend to you this Mother's day. To purchase, click HERE! Happy Mother's Day!

Did you have a preemie? Contribute your story to my new book!

I am collecting stories for a new ebook on preemies! I want to hear from any parents or grandparents who suddenly found themselves with a preemie and learned some valuable lessons about caring for their preemie! Of course 'm especially interested in hearing solutions that included music!

By Fall of 2008 I'm hoping to coming out with a new Ebook called something like "The Musical Guide to Caring for your New Preemie." I will price it very reasonably and even give it away when possible! If you send me your story I'll behappy to credit you and even put your baby's picture in it if you like!

Please share this with friends and family who might want to participate. You will also be entered in a drawing for a grand prize package that will include ALL of my latest CD's and Ebooks! Don't miss out on this!

Sincerely,

Dr. Alice Cash

Benefits of music during pregnancy

Michel Odent, M.D., believes that women have a profound need to sing to their babies but that the medicalization of birth has upset this process. In the past, women all over the world have sung lullabies to their babies. These were very important because as we now know the fetus is having first language lessons in the womb. The inflections of the mother tongue are conveyed not only through speech but most importantly through song. The singing voice has a richer frequency range than speech. In fact, studies in other disciplines such as linguistics and musicology (e.g., David Whitwell, 1993) point out that there was a time when speech was song and therefore singing is the older of the two. Babies born of deaf mothers miss these important first lessons in language development. French pioneer Dr. Alfred Tomatis mentions being intrigued by the fact that song birds hatched by silent foster mothers can't sing. What the baby learns in utero are the intonational patterns of sound and the frequencies of a language in his/her particular culture. Frequency is the level of pitch measured in Hertz (Hz.) This range varies between 16 to 20,000 Hz. There is very little distortion of the mother's voice as heard by the fetus whereas other external voices sound more muffled, especially in the higher frequencies. According to Rubel (1984), the fetus is responsive first to lower frequencies and then to higher ones.