Recently I haven’t been keeping very careful track of each month’s most popular posts. There wasn’t, after all, too much of a difference between January’s and February’s lists. The results for May contained some refreshing surprises. While I often use humor in my posts, all of this month’s most popular pieces are serious and research-based.
I hope this is the start of a trend toward more information-rich blogging among parenting posts. After all, the more we engage with our own children the more we need to learn about how to help them develop and the less we need other people to …read more

Cue the theme music.
Now, picture me as a female Tom Cruise except I’m taller and my performance is less wooden. My long hair is tied back in a pony tail, sweat glistens on my brow as – under the punishing desert sun – I climb up the face of a cliff without a safety harness…
Of course, I have a diaper bag strapped to my back and, if needed, I can nurse while hanging onto the cliff by my toes even while my 4 year-old is pulling onto the straps of the diaper bag and shouting, “Mummy, I want some gummy …read more

Planned or unplanned, recovering from a Cesarian Section can be complicated. New research suggests that there is one more tool to speed recovery up. The challenge? Getting the new mother’s bowels moving again (motherhood is all about glamour).
According to study results reported in Maclean’s Magazine, chewing gum may help women get their innards back in shape faster:

Early resumption of eating has been shown to stimulate bowel recovery after surgery, but has not been widely adopted. “Maybe old habits die hard,” says Dr. Bela Satija of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. “But also, some patients do not tolerate early feeding, …read more

The rate of c-sections is up, again, according to a study coved in today’s Globe and Mail. Experts blame the influence of celebrity culture, myths about ease of recovery and the impatience/convenience factor. The trend toward elective cesarian section results in longer hospital stays for mother and child, slower recoveries, and an increase in delivery and hospital costs that are 60% higher than vaginal births, the article says.