Natural Health after Birth: The Complete Guide to Postpartum Wellness

Provides essential advice for adjusting to the many challenges facing women during the first year after giving birth.

• Offers practical tips for finding balance between being fully immersed in the beautiful but demanding path of motherhood and maintaining a sense of self.

• Provides helpful herbal tips and recipes and includes gentle yoga exercises.

• Addresses a new mother's need to replenish her body, mind, and spirit so that she can nurture her child.

• By the author of The Natural Pregnancy Book and Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent's Guide.

New mothers need care and support to adjust to the myriad challenges facing them after birth: changing body image, lifestyle, work arrangements, and relationships. Midwife, herbalist, and mother of four, Aviva Jill Romm shares her insights into how to make this crucial time a happy one. She provides essential advice for preparing for the postpartum period, coping during the first few days after the birth, establishing a successful breast-feeding relationship, getting enough rest, eating well even with a hectic schedule, and finding time to regain strength and tone with gentle yoga exercises. Woven throughout are helpful herbal tips and recipes to make the first year of motherhood a naturally healthy one.

Natural Health after Birth also addresses a new mother's need to replenish her body, mind, and spirit so that she can nurture her child. This book provides support both for women who plan to be home full or part time during the first year and those who must return to their jobs soon after the birth. With humor and compassion, Romm offers mothers practical wisdom for attaining the delicate balance between being fully immersed in the beautiful but demanding path of motherhood and maintaining a sense of self.

"This is a superb and much needed book that should help and support all postpartum mothers." ― Suzanne Arms, award winning photojournalist, author of Immaculate Deception II : Myth, Magic and Bir

"Thirty years ago, when I had my babies, we were rediscovering natural birth and breast-feeding. But, we struggled alone during postpartum. If I had been able to read Aviva's book then, I would have cried less. Every new mother should have a copy of this book." ― Peggy O'Mara, Editor and Publisher of Mothering magazine

"Destined to have widespread appeal for its compassionate and wise advice. Thank you, Aviva, for so much vital information in one volume. ― Jeannine Parvati Baker, author of Prenatal Yoga and Natural Childbirth

"Finally, a book that addresses an aspect of birthing that has been forgotten in the western world.This book should make a valuable contribution not only to women, but to the whole family." ― Mary Bove, N.D., of the Brattleboro Naturopathic Clinic, Brattleboro, Vermont

PARENTING / PREGNANCY

“Destined to have widespread appeal for its compassionate and wise advice. Thank you, Aviva, for so much vital information in one volume.”
--Jeannine Parvati Baker, author of Prenatal Yoga and Natural Childbirth

“Finally, a book that addresses an aspect of birthing that has been forgotten in the Western world. This book should make a valuable contribution not only to women, but to the whole family.”
--Mary Bove, N.D., author of An Encyclopedia of Natural Healing for Children and Infants

“This is a superb and much-needed book that should help and support all postpartum mothers.”
--Suzanne Arms, award-winning photojournalist and author of Immaculate Deception II: Myth, Magic & Birth

New mothers need their own special care and support--just like their new babies--to adjust to the myriad challenges facing them after birth: changing body image, lifestyle, work arrangements, and relationships. Now midwife, herbalist, and mother of four, Aviva Jill Romm shares her years of experience and insights into how to make this crucial life transition a smooth and happy one.

Aviva offers solutions to situations that can seem completely overwhelming--how to get enough rest by building a support circle of family and friends; how to eat well using her 17 high-energy recipes; how to replenish your spirit with healing baths; and how to regain your strength and tone your abdomen and pelvic area with postnatal yoga exercises. Providing 80 easy-to-make herbal remedies to heal and restore vitality to your body and to stimulate milk production, Aviva carries her advice through the entire first year, including tips on how to soothe fussy babies and how to recapture your sex life.

Natural Health after Birth provides the support that is so often lacking for new mothers--support both for stay-at-home moms and those who will return to their jobs soon after the birth. Written with humor and compassion by someone who really understands the journey, Aviva Romm offers practical wisdom and concrete strategies for negotiating the beautiful but demanding path of motherhood while maintaining a strong sense of self.

AVIVA JILL ROMM is a certified professional midwife, practicing herbalist, and the president of the American Herbalists Guild. Her children are now ages 17, 14, 10, and 8. Her previous books include The Natural Pregnancy Book, Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide, and Naturally Healthy Babies and Children. She lives with her family in Georgia.

Aviva Jill Romm is a certified professional midwife, practicing herbalist, and the president of the American Herbalists Guild. Her children are now ages 17, 14, 10, and 8. Her previous books include The Natural Pregnancy Book, Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide, and Naturally Healthy Babies and Children. She lives with her family in Georgia.

What is the Postpartum?
Midwife Raven Lang once stated, "As long as the baby is still in diapers and you're up in the night, you're postpartum." Such a view reminds mothers that the demands of motherhood, which can include intense sleep deprivation and maximum amounts of energy being poured out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to another person, no matter how loved and wanted that baby is, is demanding. Unfortunately, our cultural definition of postpartum does not include this more simple and holistic view.

Rather than limiting postpartum to an arbitrarily chosen six weeks allowed for recovery, many midwives, childbirth educators, and postpartum doulas are encouraging women to see the postpartum as a fourth trimester, allowing themselves at least a full three months for physical recovery, spiritual integration, and emotional assimilation. Even three months, agree many experts, may be too short a time, with many mothers saying that it was closer to eight months when they began to feel more settled in their role as mother, and able to also regain a sense of personal identity and clarity. Three months, however, may be considered the first milestone when women begin to feel like they are getting their feet on the ground. It also gives friends and family a clear framework for setting expectations for the mother, allowing her three full months to receive active help and support. Most of all, it allows you to be gentle with yourself on those days that are more challenging, and gives you an excuse to lie around snuggling with that beautiful baby, savoring every minute as he or she blossoms before your eyes.

After the three-month milestone, one can realistically expect to continue to experience emotional peaks and valleys for many more months as hormones fluctuate, eating habits vary, sleep deprivation continues, baby's breastfeed, and you strive to keep up with your baby's changing schedule and needs. As a midwife I continue to get calls from mothers well into the first year after they've given birth, with questions about sleeping habits, teething, breastfeeding, introducing solid foods, and so on. It is always an opportunity to really check in with the mom to see how she is doing, whether she is caring for herself as well as she is caring for her baby, and to praise her on a job well done. These phone conversations are often filled with sighs of relief from the moms, as they hear me remind them that feeling overwhelmed is part of the territory of motherhood in our fast-paced society, and reflects no short-comings of their own. Expanding the definition for postpartum to include the first year after birth may initially seem like a long time, which in itself may be intimidating, but in the long run it allows you flexible boundaries and should relieve you of a false deadline that says you have to "have it together" by a certain time.