What is Social Distancing and Why is the CDC recommending it?
The CDC defines social distancing as, “remaining out of congregate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance (approximately 6 feet or 2 meters) from others when possible.”
Because the CDC believes COVID-19 spreads easily throughout communities and we all have an important part to play in slowing the spread. “Community-based interventions such as school dismissals, event cancellations, social distancing, and creating employee plans to work remotely can help slow the spread of COVID-19. Individuals can practice everyday prevention measures like frequent hand washing, staying home when sick, and covering coughs and sneezes.” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/index.html
With school closings and many employers choosing to implement remote work options you may find yourself wondering just what to do to keep your family happy and healthy while staying home and practicing social distancing.
Stimulate Your Mind
Enjoy a walk through art galleries from The Met in NY to The National Gallery in London with a virtual museum tour that will let you explore art from all over the world without ever having to leave your couch.
Don’t stress the mess – just take your creative kiddos outside! While some basic supplies might be sold out right now, craft supplies are still available – stock up on sticker books, play doh, puzzles, pom poms, and a big roll of craft paper for endless, inexpensive and messy fun. Find more craft ideas here.
Check out what other animal families are up to by checking in on some live animal cams at the National Zoo or the San Diego Zoo!
School’s out, but you can keep the classroom fun going at home with Scholastics 20 days of free activities all based on engaging stories here.
Strengthen Your Body
Take your meals to the backyard to enjoy a picnic-style lunch while you absorb the natural benefits of sunshine, fresh air and Vitamin D.
Make a fun hand washing sign for your sink to learn about the importance of proper hand washing techniques and then make a video washing your hands to your favorite funny song for 20 seconds and share it with us!
Just add water! Make bathtime extra fun with bubbles, bath crayons or even add an unusual toy like legos to the tub to mix it up. If the weather is warming up, you can even take a dip in the pool outside!
Get the wiggles out with a backyard or indoor camping trip in a blanket fort with a battery-powered candle “camp fire,” microwave s’mores and sleeping bag naps!
Energize Your Spirit
Practice mindfulness with some parent-and-me yoga. Find free yoga pose printables here, cut them out and tape them to a die, roll and strike a pose! You can also adapt this to funny animal walks – bear crawl, waddle like a penguin or stomp like an elephant – as you go on a walk around your neighborhood. Social distancing does mean staying away from others, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy your backyard, a walk down the street or keeping the windows open for fresh air!
Everyone will react differently to stressful situations requiring social distancing, but you may feel anxiety, frustration, boredom, loneliness or uncertainty. Help combat these feelings by staying connected to family and friends with a virtual playdate and mental check-in day through FaceTime or video chat.
Take a break from the news and social media and instead spend that time journaling about your thoughts and feelings. When you check back in to the news, make sure to use only credible sources.
If you regularly attend therapy or take medications, make sure to have a full supply on hand and talk with your provider about continuing through teledoc sessions.
If You Also Find Yourself Working Remotely From Home
Make sure you have all necessary equipment to work from home and then organize a dedicated office space. This will help you keep your work area contained and make it clear to other family members when you have “stepped into your office” for uninterrupted time.
Stick to your normal office hours when possible to minimize any disruption to your normal routine.
Be realistic about what chores will and won’t get done while you’re working from home and set expectationswith the entire family about how these tasks will be accomplished.
Finally, if kiddos or pets end up walking in behind you on a video call play it cool, and odds are you will find some comradery with your fellow co-workers also practicing #socialdistancing because we really are all in this together!
Michelle Petkovic
Social Media Manager, Babymoon Inn
Michelle Petkovic received her degree in International Affairs from Sweet Briar College. She is a mother of one energetic toddler born at a birth center and loves spending time outside camping, hiking and traveling with her family.
Even if you’ve found yourself saying any of these things while you’re preparing your birth (and postpartum!) plans, there’s a good chance that you will still benefit from having a doula support you throughout your pregnancy, birth and postpartum! Do any of these apply to you?
My partner says, “I’ve got this!”
First, let’s be clear, we can’t say this enough – A. Doula. Does. Not. Replace. Your. Partner! Your partner is amazing – we can already tell that by how involved and engaged they are. However, a doula can help support your partner or free them up to help you. Your partner knows you better than anyone, and while a doula will work to get to know you better throughout your pregnancy, they cannot provide the same level of intimacy that your partner can. Doulas know birth. They are trained in the physiological aspects of the natural birth process and can be like a handy cheat sheet of all the things you learned in your childbirth education classes. There’s no pressure to remember every phase and stage of labor on your own! It’s also important to remember that your partner is going through an emotional transition too and may benefit from doula support or even just a reminder to drink some water or use the restroom from time to time. Just like they’re looking out for your needs, a doula keeps your partner’s needs in mind as well.
“It’s not my first rodeo.”
Just like each baby is different, no two birth experiences are exactly the same. Your first birth may have left you with high expectations or a need to emotionally heal, but either way, your first birth experience will have an impact on how you enter this one. Those are all things that you can talk through with your doula leading up to birth that will help them provide the most personalized support possible. The second time around you may also be thinking about how your oldest child can be involved in your birth experience. A sibling doula can be a dedicated support person for your first child by getting to know them ahead of time and being on-call for when you need them during labor. They can help children feel safe when mom is “roaring like a lion” or even help them to bake a birthday cake or draw a birthday card to welcome baby.
“My midwife already supports my choices, so I don’t need additional support.”
Shout out to all of the supportive, loving and knowledgeable providers who engage in shared decision-making and honor your choices! It is SO important to have a care team that fully understands and respects your wishes. A midwife and doula work together, but actually hold very different roles. They’re both professionals who understand the physiology of birth and work to make sure you and your baby are fully supported throughout your pregnancy, birth and postpartum. Midwives are medically trained to examine, diagnose and provide medical support and care for healthy, low-risk pregnancies. Doulas provide emotional, physical (such as touch and massage), and informational support for the birthing person and their family.
Why did you decide to hire a doula? What impact did that decision have on your birth? Tell us in the comments.
Michelle Petkovic
Social Media Manager, Babymoon Inn
Michelle Petkovic received her degree in International Affairs from Sweet Briar College. She is a mother of one energetic toddler born at a birth center and loves spending time outside camping, hiking and traveling with her family.
People often instinctively avoid medications – both prescription and over-the-counter—when pregnant or breastfeeding.
The good news is that that most medications are safe for breastfeeding.The really good news is that you can easily look up medications and even environmental substances to see what’s known and what’s safe.(links below)
The best news of all is that there are dedicated researchers who continue to study the amazing attributes of breastmilk (the human variety in particular) and how some substances get through the mom’s body into the milk and how they affect babies.Dr. Thomas Hale of Texas Tech University is a champion in this field with his Infant Risk Center.You can even help, especially if you or a friend needs a medication that’s on the list of drugs under study and can provide breastmilk samples.
The bad news is that if you ask a medical provider, you may get poor advice!Many doctors, particularly in specialties that don’t see breastfeeding often (like urgent care, emergency and surgery) will advise mothers to stop breastfeeding either temporarily or permanently.The medical field is just starting to improve on its education and advocacy for breastmilk, including the risks to babies who aren’t breastfed.
Here’s where you can go for accurate information when you need it:
www.mothertobaby.org This FREE source is super handy.You can email them, call, text or IM on any substance exposure, including medications.The University of Arizona is part of their team!
https://www.infantrisk.com/appsDr. Hale and the Infant Risk Center have up-to-date apps that are really handy. It summarizes information on medication safety for pregnancy and breastfeeding. This is the one I recommend to professional colleagues – it’s one of the few “paid” apps I keep!
The Arizona Breastfeeding Hotline:1-800-833-4642There’s a lactation consultant always available to answer your question, even in the middle of the night. It’s a FREE call, and the lactation consultant can talk to you about any questions or subjects related to breastfeeding at any stage.
The Babymoon Inn Midwives!Just give us a call, we’ll be happy to chat about your question.
Olga Ryan MS-NL, RN
Director, Babymoon Inn Tucson
Olga has been in Perinatal nursing since 1995 and in birth center nursing since 2006. She has been studying leadership her whole life and recently joined the Babymoon Inn team as director of the Tucson location.
Unable to find significant research about the benefits of delaying the newborn bath, nurse Courtney Buss spent six months observing and recording outcomes for babies whose first bath was immediate or delayed.
After one month, she found that delaying the first bath for 8-24 hours resulted in the following outcomes:
Hypothermia rates decreased from 29% to 14%
Hypoglycemia rates decreased from 21% to 7%
Breastfeeding rates increased from 51% to 71%
Vernix, which is the white, waxy substance covering newborn babies, keeps babies warm and helps control blood sugar. Because the baby’s body doesn’t have to work hard to stay warm, energy is conserved that can be used for breastfeeding instead.
We often use the term “undisturbed birth” to describe a birth free of interventions and other stress-inducing factors that disrupt the natural hormonal process that takes place in a physiologic birth.
But as research shows, that period of minimal disturbance should continue after baby arrives as well, for at least an hour that is often referred to as “The Golden Hour.”
Allows the baby to begin breastfeeding Permits body system regulation Allows the baby to receive better oxygen Initiates motherbaby bonding
To facilitate this undisturbed hour, Erickson recommends
There should be a warm blanket placed over both mother and baby to slow the production of the adrenaline hormone in her to avoid interference with oxytocin and prolactin hormones being produced. The environment should be quiet.
Height, weight, head circumference, and the newborn exam can all wait. So can the eager relatives waiting to hold the new baby! For a healthy baby, the best place to be immediately after birth is skin-to-skin on its mother.
To read more about the benefits of an undisturbed first hour, see the full article.
Nearly one in ten woman suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after giving birth, a sobering statistic reported by The Lamaze International “Listening to Mothers II” survey of more than 1,500 mothers.
In an article for Women’s Health Today, Kathleen Kendall- Tackett, PhD, IBCLC, FAPA explores the topic of birth trauma, its prevalence, and its effects on breastfeeding and the postpartum period for mothers. A full 9% of women in the Lamaze study met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD.
“If the number of women meeting the full criteria for PTSD does not seem very high, then let’s compare it to another number. In the weeks following September 11, 7.5% of the residents of lower Manhattan met those full criteria (Galea et al. 2003). Take a minute to absorb these statistics. In at least one large study, the rates of full-criteria PTSD in the U.S. following childbirth are now higher than those following a major terrorist attack.”
Kendall-Tackett looked at similarities among women who experienced PTSD after birth.
“In a meta-ethnography of 10 studies, women with PTSD were more likely to describe their births negatively if they felt “invisible and out of control” (Elmir, Schmied, Wilkes, & Jackson, 2010). The women used phrases, such as “barbaric,” “inhumane,” “intrusive,” “horrific,” and “degrading” to describe the mistreatment they received from health care professionals.”
Breastfeeding following a traumatic birth may be negatively impacted, or it can be a healing experience when the mother is provided with assistance and support, Kendall-Tackett said. She cited a study by Beck and Watson where women described their breastfeeding experience after birth trauma:
“The first five months of my baby’s life (before I got help) are a virtual blank. I dutifully nursed him every two to three hours on demand, but I rarely made eye contact with him and dumped him in his crib as soon as I was done. I thought that if it were not for breastfeeding, I could go the whole day without interacting with him at all.”
“My body’s ability to produce milk, and so the sustenance to keep my baby alive, also helped to restore my faith in my body, which at some core level, I felt had really let me down, due to a terrible pregnancy, labor, and birth. It helped build my confidence in my body and as a mother. It helped me heal and feel connected to my baby.”
To help women who may be experiencing PTSD or struggling with breastfeeding after a traumatic birth, Kendall-Tackett recommends the following:
Recognize the symptoms Refer women to resources for diagnosis and treatment, which may include psychotherapy, counseling, and journaling Anticipate potential problems, like a delay in the mother’s milk coming in Respect boundaries Continue working to reform birth in the U.S.
If you feel like you or someone you know are experiencing PTSD or are struggling to process a traumatic birth, please call Babymoon Inn at 602-314-7755 so we can support you in getting the help and resources you need.
Babymoon Inn is a full-scope midwifery practice and wellness center with locations in Phoenix and Tucson. Our team is committed to improving maternal outcomes and providing personalized, evidence-based care to all people.
Energize Your Spirit 
Babymoon Inn is a full-scope midwifery practice and wellness center with locations in Phoenix and Tucson. Our team is committed to improving maternal outcomes and providing personalized, evidence-based care to all people.