Breast milk contains stem cells!

I thought that this was such amazing news, I just had to share the story!

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20081102-16879.html

A few paragraphs from the article:

But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk.

He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her development into adulthood.

“We already know how breast milk provides for the baby’s nutritional needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably performs many other functions,” says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist at The University of Western Australia.

He says that, in essence, a new mother’s mammary glands take over from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a baby’s genetic destiny is fulfilled.

“It is setting the baby up for the perfect development,” he says. “We already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and that there’s a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well into adult life.

“The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast milk versus formula don’t become apparent for decades. Formula companies have focussed on matching breast milk’s nutritional qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance.”

It was Dr Cregan’s interest in infant health that led him to investigate the complex cellular components of human milk. “I was looking at this vast complexity of cells and I thought, ‘No one knows anything about them’.”

Isn't it amazing? Research is always continuing, yet we still know so little about what is actually in breast milk. New discoveries are being made all the time! And now they find evidence that stem cells are in breast milk, and help to guide a child's physical development. All I can think, when I read this sort of news, is that WOW.... Heavenly Father sure knew what he was doing!!

The to-do list is shrinking!

Several weeks ago, on a mothering bulletin board I like to frequent, my "due date club" posted our to-do lists, for getting ready for the baby. It seemed pretty overwhelming at first, but I'm getting there!!

Today, since Jesse had the day off, Jesse and I knocked off number 14: doing a major cleaning of our bedroom and adjoining half-bathroom. What a relief to get that particular one done! Everything looks so nice. Of course, when he was vacuuming, he sucked up the tablecloth from his bedside table, which made the belt on the vacuum burn, and the room stinks pretty badly now. So after I'm done typing this, I'm going to go light a scented candle in there, hoping that it helps before bedtime!!

1. Go through baby clothes, make sure there are enough 0-3 month pieces. Done!
2. Clean out dresser drawers to make room for baby clothes. Done!
3. Wash baby clothes and put them away.
   
4. Purchase Official Birth Kit. Done!!
5. Purchase and assemble supplies for homebirth into one location. In progress, nearly done.
   
6. Sew pouch carrier. Done! Just have to see if it will fit after the baby is born, now!
7. Wash Ergo carrier and Ring Sling.
8. Sew Boppy slip cover.
9. Sew DIAPERS!! (Okay, I was originally going to sew Newborn size diapers, but I've given up on that idea, and I'll either use disposables or buy a cheap system for newborns, and do my own sewing for size small, which should fit the baby by 1 or 2 months old, at most.)
10. Sew baby blanket(s) with already purchased fabric. One super soft fleece blanket and matching toddler pillow done! Still have one patchwork blanket to go, ideally.
    
11. Sew at least 1 pair of baby moc's (est time: 2 hours tops).
12. Finish up the maternity sewing, silly! Time's running out! (honestly don't think I'm going to get around to sewing the top, but maybe I can adapt it to non-maternity, since I like the general style and fabrics I picked.)
    
13. Pick a name for the baby. I think this might be done! DH and I both like Alexander Boden right now.
14. Clean the house, especially get the bedroom and master bathroom in ideal condition. Due date: 36 weeks. Hoooooray! It's done!! Just have to keep it clean, now!
    
15. Clean out the fridge/freezer.
16. Get the mattress OFF THE FLOOR!!!! Getting out of bed is getting too hard! Done! Whew!
17. Finalize plans for help with other children during the birth.
18. Review Bradley Method techniques with Jesse.
19. Pull out the co-sleeper and rearrange the bedroom to work with a baby.
20. Wash car seat cover.

Many things on this list will go quickly. Three of them are simply laundry. Which I'm planning on doing tomorrow. My homebirth supplies are down to very basics, like making sure I have a small bottle of olive oil on hand, or printed directions to the hospital/phone numbers for emergency personnel (just in case!), etc. And all the supplies need to be gathered into the same location. So things like the olive oil, a crock pot (for compresses), a cookie sheet (for laying out supplies), just have to be transported from one room of the house to the other. Simple enough. The sewing, obviously, will take the longest, but I'm not stressing myself about it. And I think I have a pretty good idea in mind about childcare during the birth. I want Melinda and Jacob to be there, if they want to be (and Melinda has expressed a very strong interest in seeing it happen!), but I also need someone on hand in case they're too wild and bothering me, or get upset and need some soothing, etc. I don't want Jesse to have to be in that position, and leave me, which means I need to have someone over. My new Visiting Teacher is a stay-at-home mom of young teenagers, and she told me she'd be more than willing to help if I wanted to ask her (she sounded excited, honestly!), and she's very available because of her children's ages. Unlike most of my other choices, who I love, but have young kids of their own to consider. So I think my best option at this point is probably my Visiting Teacher...I just need to talk to her and make it final. And get myself more comfortable with the idea of having someone I'm not yet very close to in the apartment when I'm in labor, lol.

Anyway, I'm starting to feel close to ready. A little excited and a little nervous, too! I'm just about 35 weeks now - which means baby could be here in as little as 2 weeks, although 5 would certainly be more realistic when considering my history. Melinda and Jacob have both been doting on babies recently, which is fun to watch (although Melinda gets very confident and tries to carry around small 5-month olds by their armpits!! Ack!!!).

Also, we have babysitting lined up for this coming Saturday, and Jesse and I will get to go out for a nice last fling before the baby comes! We decided to go to the art museum and dinner afterwards. If my body can keep up with me, it should be a lot of fun!! And if my body doesn't keep up with me, well, we won't have the kids to worry about, so we can sit down and take all the breathers I need! :)

The life of plywood, part 2

I originally posted in the Just Life post, near the end, that we recently bought a cheap piece of plywood to use between our mattresses in order to get our bed back up off the floor. Well, when we bought the wood, it was bigger than we needed it to be, so Jesse had them cut it at the store, and he went home with two pieces. One, we used for our bed. The other has been floating around while we figured out what to do with it. It measures 2 feet by 4 feet.

It just so happens that when our bed was on the floor, we had the box spring vertical against the wall, since we had nowhere else to put it, and we didn't really want to throw it away. We covered it with a large blanket that my Grandma had made for me as a wedding gift. So we basically had a queen-sized box spring as our headboard and wall decoration in one. Follow me so far? Anyway, when we put our bed back on the frame, the wall behind our bed suddenly looked extremely bare, and white.

I finally had an idea come to me for that extra piece of plywood. And today, I put it into action! We headed out to JoAnne's Fabrics today, and took advantage of a President's Day sale: We bought a piece of upholstery fabric for 50% off, and then used a coupon for an extra 10% off the total purchase. The whole family made the trip, but Jesse wasn't up for offering opinions on which fabric to pick. He kept shrugging his shoulders and saying, "I don't know, I can't really picture how this is going to look in the end, anyway...."

So finally I settled on a fabric that I liked, despite the fact that it pretty much matches nothing in our bedroom. Because, let's face it, nothing matches in our bedroom, anyway. We've got navy blue cheapo curtains, a hand-me-down dresser that has chunks of veneer missing and a mish-mash of knobs on the drawers, navy blue sheets and pillowcases (although right now, we're sporting beautiful red striped and green patterned Christmas pillowcases that Jesse's sister, Rachel, made for our family), and a brown and cream quilt that a different Grandma made for us, also for our wedding. And then we have a rocking chair in a forest green color, and our "bedside tables" are covered in blue cloths. So, nothing matches. And as a result, I just decided to pick something that I liked instead of worrying about trying to match something in the bedroom.

I also grabbed some batting-by-the-yard, and then we picked up a couple packages of small flat thumbtacks. And at home, I went to work: I laid the fabric face down, then the batting, then the extra piece of plywood on top. And started thumb-tacking the fabric to the back of the plywood. After the first few, I could tell my thumb was going to get sore quickly, so I grabbed a hammer to help. But even with that help, I still had to get them started with my thumb, and boy is it sore now. Yes, a staple gun would have been immensely less painful, and much quicker, but hey- we're cheap, remember? We don't have a staple gun. So thumbtacks worked just fine.

Here is the end result on the back, with all the lovely thumbtacks that made my thumb nearly get a blister:














And the front, where things actually look nice:














And then I finally manage to drag Jesse away from his computer, so he could help me screw some wire into the back, and then help me hang it on the wall. And here is our new "art" above our bed. Yay! It's so fun to do a quick project that makes a nice difference in your room. I really do like the fabric - it's very peaceful and calming, and I'm really finding that I like green a lot. Maybe enough to make it my "favorite" color. Maybe my favorite house color, at least. I still love love love blues for clothes. Oh, and for the record, Jesse really likes it, too, even though he couldn't picture it before! He said, and I quote, "It looks great, Becky." and "Nice picking, hon!" :)


















































Sure, maybe it's not super fancy, as far as projects go, and it's certainly not an entirely redecorated room, but it was still fun to do, and I really appreciate the wall not being completely bare now. And besides, we used the extra piece of plywood and gave it a new life! Now it's not stuck in the back seat of Jesse's car, or relegated to become a junk piece of wood for Cub Scouts to practice their skills with screwdrivers and nails. Nope, it's become a lovely piece of art! :)