So here we are, Gabrielle back on oxygen and any progress we had made the past week in hospital, feeling completely undone. We had more issues with the hospital, a CPAP pipe melting on us and my milk being thrown out as the nursing staff didn’t relocate it when we moved wards. This was another devastation and this one also caught me off guard. When I was told my milk had been in the fridge for 3 days and therefore needed to be discarded, I was disappointed but not yet heartbroken. As the reality sunk in even more over the next few hours, that’s when the tears flowed. All of those hours spent pumping to give my baby liquid gold and rather than freeze it (as they had been with all my other exc
As I awoke later that morning after just a few hours of sleep, I had a million questions running through my mind. What was wrong with Gabrielle? How long would we need to be in hospital? What was the next step? How soon could we see the doctors that day? What tests were they planning on doing? Grateful for my years of navigating the hospital system and dealing with doctors and nurses for work, at least this side of things didn’t daunt me. My main objective, do all that I could to get us out of there ASAP. This may sound counterintuitive to most people who are likely wondering why wouldn’t I be glad to be in hospital with access to doctors and healthcare professionals who could help look afte
So it’s time to share some more of Gabrielle’s story... It’s been an eventful 7 months! After an amazing home birth experience, which I would do all over again (you can read more about this on my earlier blog), we had a blissful first 24 hours at home. Gabrielle slept and we thought all was well, the only issue was she was yet to latch and feed. Because of this I, or my midwife, was expressing my colostrum and syringing it into Gabrielle’s mouth. She didn’t seem overly fussed by it, but into the next day, it was beginning to irritate her and it didn’t appear that much was going down. She had a consistent gurgle which isn’t that unusual in a newborn, however it wasn’t lessening. So from the t
Why is Gut Health so Important? The topic of our gut has become more commonplace over the past few years, as people begin to take the management of their health into their own hands. Touted as the ‘second brain’, our gut is a lot more complex than most individuals purport to know. Not only is it involved in digestion, but our gut is also responsible for digesting our emotions (more on this later). As well as this, there are demonstrated links between our gut health and our weight, immune system, mental health, skin condition, autoimmune diseases and even cancer. If your gut is out of balance, there can be significant ramifications for other organs and important cellular reactions that are re
