Even for those who have made the switch to cloth diapers, letting go of disposable wipes can prove to be a tougher sell.  We all love the convenience of those wipes that pop up one-at-a-time in those convenient containers, but they are not exactly easy on our wallet, or the environment.

What if you could have the best of both worlds? Well, with a little creative folding, you can create pop-up wipes out of cloth, saving both money and landfill space.  To get started, grab a pile of baby washcloths (or a half yard of terry fabric, cut into 8” x 8” squares), an old disposable wipes container, and perhaps some Tea Tree Oil and Chamomile (optional.)

Instructions:

Step 1: Lay out the first cloth, then place the second cloth halfway over it

Step 2: Fold one cloth over the other

Step 3: Lay another cloth over the side you just folded over (here it is the blue side)

Step 4: Fold the opposite side over the cloth you just laid down (here we will fold the whales over)

Step 5: Keep laying and folding until you have a high enough stack

Step 6: Place the wipes in an old disposable “Pop Up” style container

Step 7: Make a solution of 2 drops Tea Tree Oil and 2 Drops of Lavender Oil in 2 cups of water.  The Tea Tree oil has anti-bacterial properties that will keep the wipes fresh longer.  Pour the solution over the wipes until they are soaked through

Voila!  Close the container and pull the first wipe through.  You have just made a cheaper, greener solution to disposable baby wipes!

TIP: Pre-moistened wipes work particularly well when your baby is going through a large number of wipes each day.   If your baby is older and you do not need as many wet wipes hanging around, leave the wipes dry.  You can still pull them up one-at-a-time, but you will not have to worry about the water getting stale if you cannot get through your stack fast enough.  Instead, just spray your baby’s bottom with the wipe solution from a spray bottle, or wet the washcloth in the sink before use.

Do you have your own wipes solution, or a special way for making cloth wipes more convenient?  Please share!

Most new mothers are inundated with formula samples and coupons everywhere they turn.  Signing up for those free baby magazines can automatically place your name on a mailing list that formula companies use to target new mothers.  Several free cans will probably show up in the mail, and many hospitals give out free bags full of formula upon discharge.  The latter violates the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative set for by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, so beware of any maternity ward that sends mothers home with formula bags.

Even mothers who plan to breastfeed may keep these samples hanging around “just in case,” but the mere presence of infant formula can sabotage even the most committed mother’s intention to nurse her baby.  In the first few days of life, babies are designed to live on colostrum alone, but many mothers fear their babies’ are hungry.  Because the mother’s milk may not have come in yet, she thinks she needs to formula feed and breaks into her free samples.  On the contrary, the best she can do is to keep breastfeeding, which stimulates the milk supply.  Some mothers are simply exhausted and stressed, and think that giving the baby a bottle, or two, or three, will help her get some sleep.  An even better way to get some sleep is to learn side-laying nursing.  Breastfeeding is a supply and demand system, and every bottle of formula the baby gets is one less feeding the mother’s body is told to make.

Soon, all that supplementing has caused the mother milk supply issues or plugged ducts, and the breastfeeding relationship is heading out the door.  Not long after, the formula samples run out, and the parents find themselves gulping at the $23-$28 price tag of those cans of powdered formula.  New babies go through approximately two cans of the powdered stuff per week, which quickly adds up to nearly $200 per month to feed the little bundle of joy.  Formula companies do send new parents checks or coupons for huge discounts off infant formula, but only for the first few weeks.  Before you know it, those checks stop showing up, leaving new parents to eat the full retail price of that formula.

At the end of the baby’s first year, the “free” formula samples have now cost the parents around $1,500 just in formula alone.  If your town’s water is questionable, you will also need to buy nursery water.  Because breastfeeding helps protect babies from illness and infection, we also must factor in the costs of any extra doctors visits or medicines the baby may need.  It also takes time to mix bottles, along with washing and sterilizing them, which requires more time and energy than simply feeding baby straight from the tap.

After two children, I learned the hard way the very best thing I could do for the breastfeeding relationship was to reject any offers of “free formula” and remove all samples or coupons from the house.  I found that if it was not there, I was not tempted to use it, and we worked out our nursing struggles by breastfeeding more, not less.

What was your experience with formula samples? Did you use them or throw them away, and how did it impact breastfeeding?

Get Yourself a Doula.

Trained labor support is worth its weight in gold, especially through a VBAC.  If your previous birth ended in a cesarean after a long, hard labor – or, if you never got to labor at all – you may need an experienced support person present through your VBAC to help keep you strong, and to help you understand what’s normal. 

My recommendations for finding a doula that’s right for you:

• DONA
• DoulaMatch.net

And on the topic of support people – make sure the people you are allowing into your birth space are wholly supportive of your needs, and understanding of your desire to have a VBAC.  When dealing with family or friends who may not support your choice, keep the discussion about your birth to a minimum.  Provide them with good information about VBAC during your pregnancy if they’re interested, but keep in mind their opinions have no place in your birth.  It is your body, your baby. Do what is right for you, and ignore any negativity.

If you need more support — join your local ICAN chapter, and/or get on the national listserve.

Finally, relax.

Now that you have prepared yourself to have a better VBAC, that is probably exactly what you’ll have.  Visualize your beautiful birth.  Will your beautiful birth into existence.  Even if life throws you a curve ball, or if your baby does truly need to be born by cesarean for some reason, the steps you have taken to empower yourself can help the experience remain as satisfying, beautiful, and safe as possible.

What did you do to prepare yourself, and/or your family, for a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean?

Before you even get pregnant, start searching out a supportive VBAC provider.

Simply asking your provider if they support VBAC may not be enough.  The answer may be flatly no, but it could also be “Yes, but…”  Ask any potential provider about his or her VBAC rate, what types of restrictive policies they place on VBAC moms, and what his or her overall philosophy is on normal, natural birth.  If you are not comfortable with the answers you get, keep searching.  A little work on the front end could save you a lot of stress, and possibly a surgical birth, on the back end.

Get Informed about Normal, Healthy Births.

Birth itself is a normal, biological event, where mother and baby usually fare better without (often unnecessary) drugs and procedures.  While learning about natural birth, you will see that women possess a powerful, innate wisdom about how to birth their own babies.  Through your studies, you will learn to believe in yourself, no matter what may have sabotaged your previous birth.  You may find your previous cesarean could have been avoided by avoiding certain practices and procedures.

My recommendations for the two essential natural birth books:

• Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth
• Birthing from Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation

Learn About Interventions, and about VBAC itself.

Being an informed consumer is one of the single most important steps in preparing for any birth, especially a VBAC.  No matter if you are laboring in a hospital, birth center, or right at home, you need to have a basic understanding of the machines that go “Ping!”  The more informed you are, the better equipped you are to make the choices that you are comfortable with — even in a pinch.

My recommendations for learning about commonly used birth interventions and VBAC:

• The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth
• Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First
• The VBAC Companion: The Expectant Mother’s Guide to Vaginal Birth After Cesarean

What did you do to prepare yourself, and/or your family, for another baby in the family? Do you have a birth plan?

In the nearly two years since my VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean), I have had the pleasure of bearing witness to a plethora of other VBAC stories through my connection to the birth community. Many mothers know they want a VBAC, but they may not be clear on what steps to take to get there. Over the next few days I want to share some tips on how you can have your own beautiful VBAC story, but first I want to share my story.

My labor began just moments after I arrived for my last scheduled day of work before maternity leave.  I felt a hard contraction, then my mucous plug came, and intense, steady surges followed.  Things seemed to be moving quickly, so as soon as my husband got into work, we turned around and headed for labor and delivery.  I wanted to labor at home because I felt that it would increase my chances of having an intervention-free birth.  However, since we took the train to work, I would have had to labor on the train to get home.  The hospital was just a cab ride away.

We were checked into labor and delivery where we met out doula.  I hired her at 37 weeks pregnant after it became clear that my doctor was no longer being as supportive of my VBAC plans as he had been originally.  There was no medical indication for his shift, he simply did not like my birth plan.  I wanted someone at my birth to help support my informed choice to avoid interventions unless medically indicated.   Though I handed out bound copies of my birth plan to everyone I came into contact with at the hospital, the staff was not honoring my wishes to labor in the birth tub.  I tried sitting in the shower, but the hot water was broken in my room.  I had planned to go natural, but requested the epidural when I felt my pain relief options were being limited to that.

Just as it had the first time, the epidural slowed my labor. My first son’s birth ended in a cesarean after my obstetrician chose to induce me for being 5 days past my due date. My body was not ready, and I only made it to five centimeters in that birth.  I started to get worried the same thing would happen again.

At the end of the workday, the doctor said he wanted to go home and told me I needed a cesarean. He said it was a “failure to progress” and I told him it was a “failure to wait.”  I sent him home and kept laboring.  By the next morning I made more progress, but it did not satisfy him.  He then told me I had no choice to but consent to surgery, and I told him I was not consenting until I felt like it was the only option.  He spent the next few hours trying to coerce me into it; telling me my uterus “just might not work” and that I was asking for my baby to be born with “cerebral palsy”.  My baby’s heart tones were fine, there was no sign of infection, and my only major issue was the stress the staff was putting me under.  The doctor did not see it that way, however.

After hours of fighting, my husband finally took my doctor into the hall and explained that I would not be consenting to unnecessary surgery.  My doula showed us a trick to get my labor moving again, which included shutting off the epidural.  By the time the sun set on the second day of my labor, I was finally in transition.  At 10:01 pm, 38 hours after my labor began at work, my son Jules was born vaginally after only five pushes.  He weighed 9 pounds, 10 ounces and was as healthy as any baby could be.

What’s your birth story? Are you facing a birth after an earlier cesarean? I’d love to hear from you.