MAMA GLOW

Your Best PregnancyEVER !

Hwith Latham Thomas ello, I'm Latham Thomas, founder of Mama Glow- I use a holistic approach to pregnancy which I have used to educate, empower, and inspire clients to look and feel their most radiant. I have touched the lives of hundreds of women who want to experience a healthy, balanced, and fabulous pregnancy. Mama Glow is a comprehensive wellness plan containing dietary and lifestyle advice that helps optimize your glow power. Using plant-based nutrition (or “Glow Foods”), education, yoga, and other tools, Mama Glow offers a unique system to help you develop an authentic relationship with your changing body, boost energy levels and lift moods, combat common ailments like morning sickness, prepare for an easier delivery, and achieve radiant skin, nails, hair, and a vibrant overall aura. On your marks, Get Set, let's GLOW!

LATHAM'S TOP 10 TIPS FOR THE HEALTHY MAMA GLOW!

Take 400 micrograms of Folic Acid before pregnancy and during the first 3 months to promote healthy development of the brain and spine of the fetus.1

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Practice Flexibility

Exercises. Joining a prenatal yoga class is a great way to stretch and tone the muscles that will be used in labour. Gentle stretches provide you with more flexibility in the muscles and joints, which will promote an easier labour.

3.Eat Your Greens for calcium and phytonutrients. Greens help stabilize the blood sugar levels and give you the bulk fiber needed to promote glowing skin and intestinal health. Try callaloo, pak choi, mesclun, kale, collards, chard, & arugula. Buy organic

whenever possible. . 4.Massage your growing belly daily from the beginning of your pregnancy with a quality massage oil like Mama Mio’s Omega Oil or Tummy Rub butter, or Sanctuary Spa's stretch mark oil to prevent or reduce the appearance of stretch marks. 5.Pack a Mobile Pantry. Eating small meals throughout the day will keep you energized and feeling good. Pack snacks to take with you on the go, some healthy options: fresh seasonal fruit, nuts, seeds, yogurt, veggies & hummus, granola bar. 6.Engage in physical activity during pregnancy to improve sleep patterns, decreases water retention and the associated varicose veins and leg cramps. Exercise helps keep prenatal weight gain within a healthy range, and decreases likelihood of developing gestational diabetes. Try swimming, brisk walking, yoga, Pilates, or dance. 7.Stay Hydrated. Dehydration can induce abdominal contractions, inducing preterm labour. During pregnancy the body requires more water to conduct metabolic functions. Grab your water bottle and drink away, be sure to drink eight tall glasses of water daily. 8.Just Say No. Set healthy boundaries around your personal space and only do what feels good. When you strain or force yourself to do something you don't want to do- you end up feeling depleted. Start delegating tasks. You must preserve your energy and allow your body the adequate rest it needs to support you and your growing baby.

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Get Support.

Build a team of practitioners, your midwife or OB/GYN, acupuncturist, massage therapist, labor support coach or doula: to be a part of your birth team. All of these people have a function during pregnancy and some at your labour. You want to feel comfortable with who is around you so do your research. Also make sure you designate a good friend or two for your sister circle- who can help with cooking, laundry, errands in those first weeks postpartum.

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It's GLOW Time! Make a regular practice of shutting off your phone, computer, and other distractions and carving out some time to bask in your glow. Relax and take care of yourself, try a nice soak in the bath with herbs and essential oils, light some candles, cuddle up with a good book, go see a film, take a hike, bake a dessert, whatever feels good. Just be present and enjoy the moment- doing what you love. BUMP Your Blissful Birth Birth is a dance. Along the way a cocktail of hormones will cascade into your bloodstream and produce an effect that is masterfully designed to make you and your baby fall in love. Our culture views birth as a violent, painful, and disempowering experience. For generations women have taken a back seat when it comes to childbirth, allowing modern obstetrics to push a technocratic birth model that has little respect for the power of the female body, and now it’s time to reclaim our bodies as sacred sites and to trust our inner divas who know exactly how to give birth. I know birth to be a potent experience that reshaped my life, that gave me a power center that I still stand from today.

"It wasn't until I was pregnant that I became overly conscious of how much I only wanted to have positive things around me; people, food and energy! I also saw how easy it is to think of birth as a series of decisions that someone else is making for us. But we women are powerful and almighty and Mama Glow helps show us just how empowered we can be all the way throughout this glorious time in our lives!"

STAND AND DELIVER

. A baby learns whether the earth is a safe place within the first day of life. How you are born is very important. Much attention should be placed on how a baby comes into the world and how a mother is born into the role of caretaker. She should be respected and treated as a client, not a patient—there is a difference. How do we establish a normal birth process? It starts with knowing your birth options and knowing what is the normal course of labour and believing in it—standing up for what you want and deserve, and delivering on your terms. --Alicia Keys Grammy award winning recording Artiste

FREE TO BE! MOVEMENT DURING LABOUR

A woman has to be given the right to move instinctively. In a home birth and birth center this is encouraged, but not as much in hospitals. If a woman is in bed during her labour, she loses the advantage of having gravity on her side. And two common birthing strategies, continuous electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) and epidural anesthesia, keep you lying on your back. To get moving while in labour, try the following:

• Request intermittent monitoring versus continuous—it’s fine as long as you’re not high risk.

• Try all noninvasive pain management strategies first: a massage, counter-pressure, shower or bath, vibrator, changes in position, pressure points.

• Use a birthing ball to move and swivel your hips and try walking to increase the contractions if they slow down.

OPTIMAL POSITIONS FOR BIRTH

Pain is purposeful. It guides you instinctively into the movements and positions that make you more comfortable and help the baby navigate your pelvis. When an epidural is introduced, that feedback mechanism is lost and you are no longer aware of what is happening below your waist. When you are upright in a squat, your pelvis is 30 percent more open. Hello! That is major, considering what you are about to push through, honey. To avoid the supine, lying-on-yourback position, try the following: • During pregnancy, spend time in positions that help the baby position itself correctly. These include Child’s Pose, hands and knees (Cat and Cow), sitting forward in a chair with your spine nice and tall, sitting cross-legged, or squatting.

• Avoid an epidural or other interventions that would render you immobile, and enlist a skilled birth coach/ doula for your support team to help you try to find more comfortable positions.

• Ask for a squat bar, which fits right onto your bed and helps women to assume a more upright position during the pushing stage.

• Try the side-lying squat position. This is a favorable way to rest and try the first few pushes when it’s time to deliver.

No matter what your birth outcome, feeling empowered, supported, and informed is essential. My experience of pregnancy and birth was blissful and one that inspired me to write my book, Mama Glow: A Hip Guide to Your Fabulous Abundant Pregnancy , foreword by Dr. Christiane Northrup, which is an essential guide for an empowered pregnancy. For more glow tips check out my book and website www.MamaGlow.com

LATHAM THOMAS: MAMA GLOW

Latham Thomas is a maternity lifestyle maven, wellness & birth coach, and yoga teacher on the vanguard of transforming the maternal & women's wellness movement. A graduate of Columbia University & The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Latham is the founder of Mama Glow a holistic lifestyle hub for women to explore their creative edge through wellbeing. She is co-founder of the Mama Glow Film Festival- a platform for maternal advocacy through film and philanthropy, and recently launched the Mama Glow Salon Series- a platform for birthing conversations around cocktails, panels, and discussions. . She lives in New York City with her son Fulano and their turtle Climby. Latham will publish her first book- "Mama Glow: A Hip Guide to Your Fabulous Abundant Pregnancy", foreword by Christiane Northrup, M.D. in November of 2012 with Hay House. Latham is helping to green the planet one belly at a time.

www.mamaglow.com Twitter: GlowMaven