Posts tagged mom health
The 10 Best Gifts for New Moms
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The 10 Best Gifts for New Moms

1. Postpartum Exercise Membership


Restore Your Core

Mutu System

Momma Strong

Abs, Core and Pelvic Floor by Natalie Hodson


2. Motherbees



3. Postpartum Subscription Boxes



The Stork Bag

Ecocentric Mom

Bump Boxes



4. Mama Glow Glow Time Collection by Good Medicine Beauty Lab



5. Bone Broth Herbs



6. Meal Delivery Service


7. Earth Mama Organics Postpartum Line



8. Postpartum Doula



9. Postpartum Kits


SweetGum Botanicals

Plainville Homestead

Green Earth Naturals


10. Duo Diary Postpartum Journal



What are your favorite gifts to give a new mom? 


This post may contain affiliate links.

An Interview With: Mothering Arts






How did you conceive of Mothering Arts?







In what ways do you hope to help new mothers?









What usually brings a mother to Mothering Arts?












You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

10 Self Care Ideas For Busy Moms
Photo by  Dominik Martin &nbsp;on  Unsplash



1. Say NO


2. Go to bed early and on a schedule


3. Demand more from your partner. 


4. TAKE time for yourself.


5. Turn off screens an hour before bed.


6. Exercise for your mood


7. Drink a lot of water




9. Stand Up For Yourself and Your Health


10. Journal



5 Tips to Heal After Childbirth



Newsflash, Childbirth is Hard


How to Help Yourself Heal After Labor





Ask for Help


Find a Support System



Physical Healing


Nutritional Healing






This post may contain affiliate links.

Black Friday Roundup: The Best Black Friday Deals for Moms


It's Thanksgiving weekend, and you know what that means - it means in most cases, all you mamas have likely been busy prepping for Turkey Day here in the US (why do we know this? Because kin keeping), but we’re hoping you get some time to yourself this Black Friday. No, not to start checking off items on your family’s shopping list (cough kin keeping cough) but for YOU. Yes, YOU. What’s Black Friday without some good Black Friday Sales meant to help new moms in new motherhood, right? So here are the best Black Friday sales for moms- sales from companies that we love because they support postpartum moms in helping them to heal, feel good, or are just practical. Sales that have nothing to do with your partner or your baby or anything else but caring for yourself. The bonus? All of these companies are women-led. Happy shopping!


Duo Diary Black Friday Sale

Part of Duo Diary’s mission is to help women take charge of their health and to demand better care for themselves postpartum. To celebrate all you do, we’re giving you 40% off all orders now through Cyber Monday. Simply shop and save using code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout.


Good Medicine Beauty Lab

If you follow us on Instagram you may recall recently seeing a post about Good Medicine Beauty Lab’s new collaboration with motherhood maven Latham Thomas called Glow Time, safe for pregnant & nursing mothers. This line (along with a lot of their other nurturing, self-care inducing, natural, icky-free products) are on sale for 40% off for their Gratitude Sale (that has a much better sound than “Black Friday Sale” doesn’t it?) Simply use code “Gratitude” at checkout.


Mutu System

As an affiliate, it's no secret that we love Mutu and are so excited to see that Mutu’s programs are 33% off from Black Friday- Cyber Monday. Mutu System’s programs are a great resource for proper exercise and healing issues like diastasis recti for postpartum women (of any age or no matter how “post- the partum” you are); Use code BF33 to get discounts. 



Life in Play Company

Despite every new mom’s best intentions that she’ll never carry a diaper bag and will just use her favorite, fashion-friendly bag, reality sets in pretty quickly that your favorite trendy handbag can't handle the new load of stuff once the baby comes. And let’s face it, diaper bags typically look and feel shlumpy and those are words no new mom wants used to describe something she is wearing. Not feeling like yourself is a big deal for new moms, and small things like being able to wear your own clothes or use your own handbag sound trivial but can make a big difference in keeping a sense of normalcy in your now-upended life. Enter Life in Play Company, who created a simple-yet-genius idea to create a diaper bag insert that slips right into your favorite handbag. Enjoy 35% off your entire order using code SAVEBIG


Restore Your Core

There are a few different programs out there geared towards helping new moms heal their physical bodies after having a baby. Restore Your Core is another program aimed at helping to empower new moms to feel better.  It's a 12 week program made up of functional exercises aimed at healing your core after having a baby. The program is on sale now through Cyber Monday. (No code needed, just shop!)


Our second edition is out now! Shop now-->


This post may contain affiliate links.

The Story Behind Morskap- A Postpartum Health Site
woman looking out.jpg

By guest blogger Yana, creator of Morskap, A Postpartum Health Site. You can find out more by visiting

In the course of incubating a new human, I discovered a sea of helpful (though not ideal) resources on how to become pregnant, surviving pregnancy and labor, and taking care of a new human who is limited to a binary means of communication (to cry, or not to cry, that is the question). What I felt missing was a resource specifically focused on postpartum recovery.

Having gone through the biggest bodily and emotional change of my life, I had lots of questions:

  • How long before I heal given my mode of delivery?

  • What exercise can I do in the meantime?

  • What special postpartum exercises (kegels?) should I do and when? Are there helpful equipment for that?

  • Which things will never go back to normal?

  • What’s the most flattering and comfortable clothes to cover this beast in?

  • Is it normal to feel [choose your own adventure]? Is it normal to still feel that? How about now?

  • OMG breastfeeding! So painful and everyone talks about it as if it’s wonderful and beautiful. Can I skip it? Is it taboo to even ask?

  • How do you best split parenting responsibilities with my partner?

  • What are some things to think about when going back to work?

  • What emotions to expect around all of the above issues?

Some of these questions I’ve talked with other moms about, but I found that the answers varied based on things like preexisting health, how each pregnancy and labor went, the personality of the mom, her partner, and the baby. I live in a city where women often don’t have children until they feel like they are in a good place in their careers. So my network of moms wasn’t large enough to cover each possible scenario. Some things I just wasn’t comfortable discussing in person. In the beginning, I didn’t feel like talking with anyone. I felt like I didn’t have the time to do it. Searching for answers online seemed like a good idea, but it turned out to be too time consuming. There was sooo much noise!

So I created a consolidated resource for questions around being a new mom: This resource explains why new moms may be sweating a lot at night, why running may not be a great idea if experiencing pelvic pressure, and lots of other things that I and some of my friends were curious about after birth. I thought that it may be helpful to other moms that don’t have the time or inclination to search for the best answers. New moms are grappling with caring for a little one, possibly trying to go back to work, and generally staying optimistic (remember: every fifth mom suffers from postpartum depression!).

Hope you find Morskap helpful and feel free to reach out to me at if you have feedback.

3 Women Owned Companies That Will Help You Regain Function After Childbirth
lose baby weight

Everyone likes to imagine that after you have a baby, your stomach magically shrinks back to pre-pregnancy size, you magically lose the baby weight, pop on those skinny jeans, and saunter out of the hospital feeling the same as you did 10 months ago.

Except, not.

Look, there is a whole lot of stuff no one tells you about how to recover from childbirth (we’ll save that for another post), most of all being that your body does not know what the heck just happened. And guess what? It doesn’t really want to figure it out. At least not for awhile.

You just spent the last 10 months not feeling like yourself, and have now entered...more time of not feeling like yourself. You are DYING to get back into your old clothes, and no, it’s not vain or caving to society’s unrealistic demands of bouncing back after baby. Let’s get real: you want to know what to do to lose the pregnancy weight because you want to feel like YOU again.

But we also know you can’t just jump right back into spinning classes or other workout routines. Getting back into workouts post baby takes time, and most importantly, function. 

Because one of the things no one tells you about having a baby is that you lost function. A lot of it. And if you want to start exercising again after having a baby, getting back that core function first is important, or things can get dicey real quick. There are, thankfully, a few fabulous women-led companies out there that are completely focused on helping you regain function.

So, once you are cleared for exercise by your doctor, here are 3 bad-ass companies that will help you get on track:

Restore Your Core

A system created by Lauren Ohayon. A gentle, practical program to help you reconnect with many of the areas you’ve probably lost connection with. Slower paced and thorough, she gives you the complete foundation you need before you even think about doing any other type of exercise.

Mutu System

This is probably our favorite (full disclosure, we are a Mutu affiliate because we are so obsessed). This program was designed by Wendy Powell after two challenging births and recoveries. She trained, researched, got certified, and now helps other women around the world understand what changes have happened to their bodies after having a baby and how to get back function. Includes a 12 week program complete with simple daily core exercises, along with ‘intensives’ done a few times a week to burn calories. Want to know how to lose the baby weight in your stomach? This program nails it.  

Momma Strong

A whole package of exercises for postpartum -exercise- cleared mommas who want a little more intensity. Her library is full of programs to help heal diastasis, get the core stronger, plus daily 15-20 minute videos of higher intensity workouts meant to burn calories, but not in a way that will re-injure or make things worse.

What postpartum programs have you tried and loved? Drop it in the comments below!


This post may contain affiliate links.

Don't Visit Your Friend Who Just Had a Baby Without Doing One of These
Postpartum Care

If you are reading this, chances are you've had a baby, or know someone who has. (Otherwise, you are really lost on the internet). Anyone who has ever had a baby gets bombarded with people who want to come visit and meet the baby. All well and good, except for the fact that during this 'visit' one of the parties is recovering from one of the most major events a human body can go through, and most likely doing so with a smile on their face. 

But sometimes visitors mean well and plain old just don't know what to do to help. If you've never had a child, how would you know what needs this person you are visiting has? You can't! I get it. People don't understand why having a baby suddenly means you don't have time to eat, shower, sleep or any other REALLY BASIC HUMAN NEED. But that's OK. You don't need to understand it, just know that it's real. Oh, it's so real. And when your basic sense of human-ness is missing from your day to day life, it is a really amazing thing to have one of those needs met. So here's a list of helpful things you can do when you visit a friend or family member who just had a baby.

1. Bring food. Lots of it. Frozen. 

Since sleep and feedings are now the absolute #1 &#2 things on the mind of the person who just had a baby, eating starts to fall somewhere down the list to, I don't know, #5 or #6. So when you open your freezer and find a meal that you can just microwave and shove down your throat before the baby's next feeding, it is THE greatest thing in the world. Chili is a really easy one to make and to bring- it cooks easily in your crockpot, then freezes easily in one or two cup servings that a new mom in your life can easily reheat for herself. 

2. Bring Snacks in Bags or Jars. 

Its a giant joke that nature has played on new moms- nursing moms need to eat a lot of healthy calories, but they don't have any time or energy to make any of those kind of calories. Also, sitting down and eating a meal becomes a bit of a foreign concept for awhile so snacking becomes a great way to keep a nursing mom's blood sugar steady throughout the day, while allowing more opportunities for healthy calories and fats. The catch? She doesn't have time to make snacks. Homemade granola is one of the easiest - you can put it in a mason jar or ziploc bag that a mom can just keep nearby. Another great option is trail mix- nuts, dried fruit, dark chocolate, etc. Or lactation cookies (they are real and they are fabulous). 

3. Bone broth

It's said to restore, warm the body, and help a new mom recover and heal. Bone broth is high in minerals and proteins and, as long as you are using pasture raised/grass fed bones, high in healthy fats at a time when a new mom needs all of these things in spades. Bone broth is also super easy to make- time consuming, since it needs to simmer for 12-48 hours, but easy (literally, throw some bones, veggies and an acid like lemon in a pot and that's it. Here's an official recipe from the good folks at Motherbees), so cook up a batch and freeze in individual cup size servings for the new mom in your life to reheat in a mug and easily sip. You could also buy bone broth from companies like OSSO GOOD, which happens to have a bone broth called "Nourish the Mama" with Chinese herbs. Need I say more?

4. Bring a gift FOR THE MOM

Most visitors who show up with gifts bring gifts for the baby, which is fantastic, but in the spirit of remembering to care for the new mom, try bringing a gift JUST for the new mom. Sometimes it's a gift to help feedings, to help her with something baby related, but in the end it's something that will make her life easier. A Duo Diary is one of the best gifts you can bring for a new mother because it is one of the only products out there that easily combines the baby's wellbeing with the new mom's. There are also gifts like the book from the aforementioned Motherbees, "The First Forty Days" which help guide a new mom's nutrition for the first 40 days postpartum. 

5.  Offer to watch/hold/feed the baby so she can go take a shower and maybe even a nap

What a new mom needs more than anything (whether she knows it or will admit it) is nurturing, being allowed to heal, and given some nourishment to get her through the hard first few months. Try doing one (or all!) God bless you. If you do all, God bless you. That woman is lucky to have you in her life!) of these items for a new mom in your life and see how much they appreciate it...whether they are too tired to show it or not.