Congratulations everyone nominated for the Dream Baby Shower!
A big thanks to
Hip to be Round
For hosting our Dream Baby Shower Expectant Girls Day Out
and
The Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU
for sponsoring the 2014 Dream Baby Shower
Without further ado, the Dream Baby Shower Winner is….
Christine Lowman!
(Read about Christine and all the other nominees here)
We had a great time giving away door prizes, eating cupcakes and getting to meet some amazing women. Pictures were taken by McAbbott Studios.
Best wishes to everyone and their new arrivals!
Photo booth fun
He was too cute!
One of our many giveaways!
Christine and her family have been showered with prizes provided by…
Science Museum- 1 year membership
$250 Gift Card to Hip to be Round
Massage Envy – Free 1 hr Massage ($80) 
All Fired Up – Gift Certificate
Romp n’ Roll – month membership
Virginia529 – $100 inVEST account
Real Life Studios -$350.00 gift certificate
Sleepytime – $50 gift certificate for sleep consulting
Shannon Milligan – piggy bank with $75 to start college fund
Nanny Van – gift certificate free registration for annual membership ($150 value).
Flying Squirrels – Baby’s first Flying Squirrels fan gear!
Fit4Mom – 1 month of stroller strides classes
ChildTime – free week of infant child care ($224)
Babbie Laddie – in-home lactation consultant (2 hours) and one follow up visit (1 hour) ($300)
Spinal Correction Center of Richmond (1) One BodyWorks Package (includes a wellness evaluation/exam, consultation and 30 minute customized massage) (2) One Full Hour Massage (choice of: Therapeutic, Deep Tissue or Swedish Massage)
Melody Magic – 1 month of free music classes
…and lots of other great goodies like:
Sticky Bellies – 12 month stickers to track your baby’s growth
Mommy’s Bliss Gripe Water and other great products from our Virginia This Morning Segment
See our past winners
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The Children’s Hospital of Richmond, Richmondmom.com and Hip to be Round are excited to announce the 2014 Dream Baby Shower!
Recognize a mom to be and shower her with prizes!
Here’s how it works:
1. Nominate yourself or any expectant Richmond mom* here from by July 29, 2014. Nominations close at 7pm on 7/29/14. *Please note: multiple nominations do not impact winning status, only votes determine winners.
2. Vote: You’ll see your nomination here on the site (we’ll provide a link during the dates!) & you may only vote once per person between and August 1 – 14, 2014.
3. Celebrate: Every Nominee is invited to celebrate with us at the Expectant Girls Day Out at Hip to Be Round in Carytown on August 16th from 2:00 pm-4:00 pm where we’ll announce the winner! Each nominee may bring 1-2 guests and celebrate with us! You will receive an invitation to RSVP.
Nominations are closed.
A very special thank you to
AND
for making the Dream Baby Shower possible.
Check out our incredible prizes!
Science Museum- 1 year membership
$250 Gift Card to Hip to be Round
Massage Envy – Free 1 hr Massage ($80) All Fired Up – Gift Certificate
Romp n’ Roll – month membership
Virginia529 – $100 inVEST account
Real Life Studios -$350.00 gift certificate
Sleepytime – $50 gift certificate for sleep consulting
Shannon Milligan – piggy bank with $75 to start college fund
Nanny Van – gift certificate free registration for annual membership ($150 value).
Flying Squirrels – Baby’s first Flying Squirrels fan gear!
Fit4Mom – 1 month of stroller strides classes
ChildTime – free week of infant child care ($224)
Babbie Laddie – in-home lactation consultant (2 hours) and one follow up visit (1 hour) ($300)
Spinal Correction Center of Richmond (1) One BodyWorks Package (includes a wellness evaluation/exam, consultation and 30 minute customized massage) (2) One Full Hour Massage (choice of: Therapeutic, Deep Tissue or Swedish Massage)
Melody Magic – 1 month of free music classes
…and lots of other great goodies like:
Sticky Bellies – 12 month stickers to track your baby’s growth
Mommy’s Bliss Gripe Water and other great products from our Virginia This Morning Segment
See our past winners
4 Years Ago
I really loved having babies. I really did. I can’t believe that my youngest is turning 4 this week. Where did the time go? Maybe that’s why (yet again) I’m having baby fever. I really miss my cute, snugly little babies that smelled so good and were so sweet…. you get the picture!
When I start down that road, I need to remind myself of all the good reasons to not have another baby. So here is my list, so I can come back to it when the fever hits and knock some sense into me.
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The docs would say things to me during my prenatal care like I’m at “increased risk” and have “advanced maternal age.” Ouch.
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Thinking about another year pumping breastmilk at work just about cracks my head open.
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We’d probably have to take out a second mortgage to pay for three kids in daycare/after-school care.
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Whenever I bring up babies with my husband, the conversation ends with me whining “stop raining on my parade!”
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We have almost gotten rid of all the baby paraphernalia, like the crib, swing, and infant car seats. So yeah we’d have to get those things again. Ca-ching.
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I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to sit in the cheerio-encrusted stroller we have! Guess we’d have to add that to our list of purchase too.
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I’m just now really getting back into the swing of sleeping through the night again. I had forgotten how enjoyable it is.
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I need to happy with what I’ve got.
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Hmmm…. this “ten” list is really hard….
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OK so I can only think of eight reasons.
My head knows all these things, now if only my head would translate them in a way my heart could understand. See, I’m healthy and 36 isn’t that old, right? I could pump breast milk; it’d be a nice little break from work everyday, and what is money anyway? I think my husband could come around, and we know now what we truly need so the cost wouldn’t have to be exorbitant.
Ok….. here I go down the road. I think I need to re-read the list now!
]]>I always knew I would breastfeed. It never occurred to me not to. It never occurred to me that there was some question, because everyone I knew did it. My mom did it. My sister did it. My friends did it. It made perfect sense to me that my body made perfectly good, free food for my babies, and that I would give it to them.
I remember in my early 20’s, though, seeing that mom. The mom with a baby nursing in a sling and a toddler strapped on her back, her broomstick skirt swishing through the organic foods aisle at the grocery store, her hemp sandals flip-flopping with each step, her bangle bracelets tinkling beautifully with each graceful. As she swept her pile of reusable bags aside to make room for her Pirate’s Booty snack and variety of Yogi Teas, she absentmindedly nuzzled her baby’s cheek, her patchouli scent wafting my way as I pushed the mini-cart containing bagged salad and chips and salsa.
It never occurred to me until years later that that mom was the picture of breastfeeding in America.
Apparently, breastfeeding is viewed as something engaged in by a certain type of woman. Moms who stay at home and espouse themselves to ideals very far outside the mainstream – those are the breastfeeders. Moms who work, who watch TV, who let their kids listen to rock and roll, eat gluten, drink pasteurized milk, moms who buy Gerber baby food…those moms don’t breastfeed. And if they do, they don’t do it for long. So society tells me.
WHAT THE HELL?
I started to hear one horror story after another about moms who tried to breastfeed and failed because they
Photo: Daquella Manera
“couldn’t make milk” or whose “baby didn’t like their milk” or whose “baby had reflux on breastmilk and could only drink soy formula” or any number of other horrific stories.
I’m not saying they aren’t true, but we as a society stacked the deck against them. Chances are situation was a bigger factor than biology in mom’s low production or fussy child. If you took just the stories I heard about breastfeeding when I was pregnant, and nothing else, you would that no mom ever successfully breastfed.
So social media, and parenting sites, and just the world, created this crunchy mother earth image of breastfeeding moms that made them seem to do nothing but breastfeed and eat an occasional organic snack, dedicating their lives solely to nursing their children, all their other desires and ambitions going unfulfilled.
For a long time, I thought I was a crunchy person. If you don’t know what that means, you probably are not
one. A “CRUNCHY” person is defined by urbandictionary as follows:
Adjective. Used to describe persons who have adjusted or altered their lifestyle for environmental reasons. Crunchy persons tend to be politically strongly left-leaning and may be additionally but not exclusively categorized as vegetarians, vegans, eco-tarians, conservationists, environmentalists, neo-hippies, tree huggers, nature enthusiasts, etc.
Modified derivative of granola.
Nothing about that definition seems absurd to me, and for a long time, I thought I was pretty crunchy. I
make an above average effort to recycle. I think hybrid cars are awesome. I once used tea tree oil. I take probiotics. I don’t litter. I think that the preservation of our natural resources is our responsibility. Crunchy, right?
So I had a baby. There I was thinking I was this crunchy mama. And then… I met that mom in person (that
mom being a collection of those moms who truly do embody crunchiness). That Mom was so much crunchier than I was. I worked full-time after my maternity leave. I didn’t make baby food. Or clothes. I don’t buy organic anything. I believe that the market for supplements is a bit of a racket by the supplement makers that convince people that putting more things into their body is somehow more helpful than a healthy diet and exercise. I take a variety of prescriptions. I think homeopathic medicine can be hokey. I let my children watch TV. Before they were two. Kind of a lot. We eat chicken nuggets and pizza. And chocolate. Kind of a lot. My kids go to day care.
Compared to that mom, I was something I never would have described myself as before meeting that mom.
I was mainstream. Absolutely, positively mainstream.
You may wonder what I am getting at here. And, in fact, I have labored over how to phrase this writing so as to be inoffensive to both the crunchy moms and the mainstream moms (and those who fall somewhere in the middle).
I am not only a mom who breastfed, but a breastfeeding advocate. And it’s not because I think that formula
feeding is bad (GASP! The breastfeeding counselor just said formula isn’t bad!). I don’t honestly believe it is scientifically the better choice, but I also know plenty of awesome kids who had formula and are just fine.
But I also know that our mainstream world wants us to believe that breastfeeding is really hard and inconvenient. Especially for working moms. Especially for moms who aren’t that mom. That moms who work are doomed to fail, so why not just go ahead and use the “easier” choice?
Oh by the way, the formula companies (who sponsor the mainstream world) want you to believe that breastfeeding is harder than formula feeding.
But you don’t have to be crunchy to breastfeed. You don’t have to be a stay-at-home mom to breastfeed. You don’t have to eschew television and synthetic fabrics and meat and social acceptance. You do have to want to do it. You do have to commit to doing it, find a support system, and believe that it’s possible. And there are lots of people who are willing to help. Pretty much any breastfeeding mom I know would help you. And Breastfeeding USA has trained volunteer counselors , who are chomping at the bit to get your call and help you. And lactation consultants, midwives, OB’s, and maybe even your mom. And I assure you… none of them will tell you to wear hemp or eat tofu if you want to breastfeed.
So get it out of your mind that you have to fit some kind of mold to be a successful breastfeeder, because you just don’t. I don’t and didn’t. Breastfeeding moms are moms whose breasts make milk… so pretty much any mom who wants to.
Megan Hartless is a mom of two sons and one stepson. When the boys aren’t keeping her on her toes, she is volunteering as a Breastfeeding USA Counselor in Virginia’s Staunton-Augusta area, blogging about breastfeeding, and running a monthly support group for nursing moms. In her “spare time,” she has a full-time job as the Associate Director of Financial Aid at Mary Baldwin College.
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through group support
Women entering pregnancy can now benefit from an expanded, multifaceted group approach to prenatal care offered at Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center.
CenteringPregnancy® is a nationally recognized program led by certified providers usually nurse midwives; it augments individual prenatal visits with group sessions and gives expectant women better control of their pre-natal care, through a group setting.
“Expectant women are more empowered today than 10 or 20 years ago in making their own health care decisions, and CenteringPregnancy helps them achieve this by bringing women out of isolated exam rooms and into groups for their care,” said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of women’s services, Bon Secours Virginia Health System. “CenteringPregnancy has a proven track record of ensuring healthier babies and healthier, well-informed new mothers. While moms often desire to be in the driver’s seat of their pregnancy, labor and delivery by making their own choices, they also can find pregnancy to be isolating and intimidating at times. CenteringPregnancy provides a supportive setting of women who often share the same ‘pains and passions’ of pregnancy.”
After completing their first obstetrics appointment at a Bon Secours-affiliated practice or clinic, women receive information on CenteringPregnancy and are offered the choice to participate in the program. Women are grouped by similar due dates. In each weekly session, they receive a private, prenatal check up by a certified nurse-midwife, including weight and blood pressure monitoring. This is followed by a two-hour group educational session led by a certified nurse-midwife. The weekly sessions enable the women to discuss health concerns and expectations in a supportive setting. Weekly topics including nutrition and healthy lifestyles, labor and childbirth options, breastfeeding, pregnancy discomforts, newborn care, child development and more.
Through this unique model of care, women become empowered and feel confident to play a more active role in their pregnancy and overall health. They have access to all their charts, ultrasounds and lab work, and they are acutely aware of how their pregnancy is progressing. Each woman is supported physically, spiritually, psychologically and socially, through bonds that develop within the group.
Initiated in the early 1990s by a nurse-midwife in Connecticut, and today with sites nationwide, the CenteringPregnancy model has resulted in positive health outcomes for pregnancies, specifically increased birth weight, fewer preterm births, shorter postpartum hospitalizations, and fewer unnecessary visits to the emergency room. The satisfaction expressed by both the women and their providers support the effectiveness of this model for the delivery of care.
“Women often are each other’s best teachers, and groups enable them to share a wealth of information with one another,” said Jean Curtacci, RN, a certified nurse-midwife and a group leader of CenteringPregnancy at St. Francis Medical Center. “The women in my groups are more willing to express what they’re really feeling, and they feed off of each other. The experience also is enhancing the way I provide prenatal care in a traditional setting, because I am learning more about what these women are going through in any given week of their pregnancy.”
“CenteringPregnancy has proven to be a really powerful process for a woman’s pregnancy, and it’s changing the way women are receiving their prenatal care,” said Graf. “New mothers especially are seeing this group approach as what prenatal care is, and will be in the future. The support setting will enrich their prenatal health, and the bonds they form will play an important role in each other’s lives. We see this as a new paradigm in the way prenatal care is delivered in the future.”
CenteringPregnancy comes to Bon Secours as a result of its 12-month qualitative and quantitative research, revealing how women today are more empowered than the previous generation of women to seek options and resources to pursue their own health needs. To support this, Bon Secours also is introducing other new programs this year, including Moms in Motion®, a nationally recognized fitness program.
Bon Secours is an advertiser with Richmondmom.com
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We can think of at least 5 reasons why you will want to snag this deal from Hip to be Round in Carytown:
1. You’re pregnant (obvi).
2. You got the pregnant co-worker in the office Secret Santa.
3. Your friend is has a new baby and is compliaining that nothing fits right and if it fits right she can’t breastfeed in it.
4. You’re not pregnant, but you secretly like the Michael Stars maternity tees better than your regular non-maternity tees because they are longer and fit better.
5. Your friend/sister/sister-in-law is expecting and you’re after the coveted “Godparent” status.
Whatever your reason click here because we’ve got the hook up for great savings at Hip to be Round
Coupon valid December 3, 2013 to March 1, 2014. Offer expires December 9, 2013 so get it while you can!
You can always save $15 off $75 or more at Hip to be Round
when you use your Savvy Saver Card
Hip to be Round is a sponsor of Richmondmom.com
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50% of postpartum women experience this problem and more than 60% of them don’t get help.
Urinary stress incontinence can occur when sneezing, coughing or exercising and embarrassment usually prevents women from getting help.
Cora T.Huitt, P.T.,D.P.T., B.C.B.-P.M.D. and Women’s Health Physical Therapy have a new treatment option to help a problem hidden behind decades of silence. InTone™ is a new device with combines biofeedback with muscle stimulation and exercises that provides fast, easy treatment which can be done in the comfort of your own home. After daily 10 minute sessions, with voice-guided instruction and progress is automatically recorded recorded. InTone™ offers a money back guarantee; and Huitt from Women’s Health Physical Therapy is the only physical therapist in Virginia who has special training to provide patients with this treatment.
You can contact Women’s Health Physical Therapy by phone 804.379.3002 or whptrichmond@gmail.com
For more about urinary stress incontinence and other treatments provided by Women’s Health Physical Therapy, visit their website.
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When your body is changing, you may wonder if you should wait and buy maternity clothes later in your pregnancy or get them from the beginning. When is the right time to pick up a few maternity basics?
The answer is simple: start as soon as you are uncomfortable.
Many women start feeling that their pants are uncomfortable right around 10 – 16 weeks (but that doesn’t mean your pants can’t feel a little tight at 8 or 18 weeks). Maternity pants can look and feel great and there is no point in being uncomfortable when a better option is out there.
Here are 5 tips toward buying maternity pants with confidence:
Paige maternity jeans, available at Hip to be Round
1. Ask for help. Even if your favorite brand makes maternity, you’ll find items are retrofitted or made by a different designer altogether so it might not have the fit you’re used to. Ask the salesperson what the best selling style is and why. You’ll be surprised to hear there’s a lot more that goes into designing maternity pants than you think!
2. Check the fabric content. Most denim right now contains a certain amount of stretch fabric like Lycra or Spandex to retain shape and provide a comfortable fit. The more stretch, the more you can go with a fit that feels good “right now”. For example: a pair with 98% cotton and 2% elastine (stretch material like Lycra or Spandex) will have enough stretch retain it’s shape, but you will likely need to size up for a good maternity fit since they won’t grow with you. Denim with a 78% cotton, 20% poly, 2% spandex blend will be noticeably more stretchy and you’ll be able to purchase a pair that fit closer to how you normally wear them.
One thing to remember: heat damages elastine over time. That means that if you’re putting your jeans in the dryer to “shrink them down” you are actually damaging their ability to retain their shape!
3. Give yourself a little “insurance room”. This is especially true when shopping in your first trimester. This does not mean you need to buy a size up or have a baggy fit, but you do want a little extra room to grow. Here is one way to check: while wearing the jeans, use your thumb and index finger to grab a pinch of the fabric near your hip. If you pinch your skin, it’s not going to give enough room to grow, If you can grab a full handful of the fabric, try the size down. If you have just enough to comfortably hold between your fingers you’re probably just right.
5. Sit. Find a spot to sit in your pants and lean forward. Maternity pants offer the least flexibility right were the pant meets the panel (which is an important spot if you plan on sitting any time soon), if it’s digging in, it’s too tight. While it feels low, the panel should start right above the pelvic bone, cradling the belly and allowing you to sit comfortably.
5. And this is a biggie: Don’t be tempted to purchase regular jeans in a size up. It always seems like a good idea at the time, a cheap pair of jeans to wear in that “in between stage”, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are buying a pair of jeans for only a few weeks. Eventually, since non-maternity pants are not meant to adapt to your growing body, they’ll have trouble staying put or be ill-fitting in the behind and before long, you’re going to need another pair. if you need a temporary stop-gap, try a Bella Band, meant to extend the life of your pre-pregnancy jeans. The better (and more comfortable) investment is to purchase a good pair of maternity jeans from the start that will adapt and grow with you.
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