Tag Archives: Brand-Safe

My Water Broke At 7 Months, So I Had To Quarantine Alone In The Hospital

Pregnancy And You

Courtesy of Jennifer Indig On the evening of the fourth of July, we gathered around the dining room table for a delicious feast of steaks, corn on the cob and pasta with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella. Close friends of ours from Brooklyn we hadn’t seen since the beginning of the pandemic were visiting us in Connecticut where we rented a house for the summer. My eight and almost six-year-old daughters were looking forward to staying up past sunset to light fireworks and sparklers. Seven months pregnant, I […]

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The ‘Lose Weight By Breastfeeding’ Message Is Hurting Postpartum Moms

Pregnancy And You

Anna Shvets/Pexels Lose weight while breastfeeding? Breastfeed to lose weight? For years, women have been indoctrinated to believe the most effective way to lose weight postpartum is to breastfeed. Or that the best reason to breastfeed is for weight loss. It’s high time to call out this crap for what it is: an instrument of diet culture to manipulate women during one of the most vulnerable times of their lives — physically, mentally, and emotionally. The truth is, this message is destructive and harming new mothers in […]

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My Partner Made Me Feel Ashamed Of My Pregnant Body

Pregnancy And You

Scary Mommy and Burak Karademir/Getty Trigger warning: verbal abuse and domestic violence The hardest part of my pregnancy was my body changing. Domestic violence hit me the hardest during this time. This is why I get emotional when I legit see pregnant mommas living their best lives with their miraculous growing bods — oh, I see you. Being with someone that tugged on my thighs and looked at other women from top to bottom that were fit, built, and gearing up for spring break and me, at […]

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What We (Currently) Know About Pregnancy Risks And COVID-19

Pregnancy And You

Pierre Ogeron/Getty We have three children, and with each pregnancy, life was pretty similar. My wife, Mel, ordered the same prenatal vitamins, and she spent time with her sister and mother, chatting about how things were going. She went to work until a week or so before the pregnancy. She went on walks, and went to the store. She interacted with people. We went to prenatal appointments together. We had well-attended baby showers. And then, after the delivery, a steady and supportive stream of friends and family […]

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I Needed Someone To Take Care Of Me Like I Took Care Of My Baby

Pregnancy And You

Scary Mommy and Big Joe/Getty This is what I wish I knew before I had my daughter, Addison. This is what I wish I could vocalize to Michael throughout her entire newborn stage. We might have had a baby together, but darling, your child, your priority right now, is not that sweet precious bundle of joy. It is me. It is your wife. It is the woman who is up at all hours breastfeeding and changing and burping and soothing our absolutely perfect, beautiful, screaming, crying, new […]

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This Is Not How I Pictured My First Year With My Last Baby

Pregnancy And You

Katie Cloyd/Instagram Having a baby during the COVID-19 pandemic has been really emotional and weird for me. I had my last baby in early January. When I first laid eyes on her, I knew she was the last piece of our family puzzle. We were complete. I was totally sure that 2020 was going to be the best year of our lives as we got to know our last teammate. We spent the first couple months mostly at home. I was recovering from my third c-section, it […]

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It Only Took Seven Days For Me To Break

Pregnancy And You

Scary Mommy and fizkes/Getty Trigger warning: miscarriage How do you tell the world that you are broken and that you hope they don’t look at you with eyes that mirror the way you feel? How do you tell the world about one of your biggest failures and hope they don’t use that to define you? How do you tell the world that you are actually not okay, despite saying it for weeks? How do you process a loss when society tells you not to talk about it? […]

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Anxious About Giving Birth? Here’s What These 5 Doulas Want You To Know

Pregnancy And You

Courtesy of Summer Roger, Janet Scheller, Chauntel Norris and Calvis Williamson Giving birth in America should not be dangerous, yet more women die during pregnancy and childbirth here than in any other similarly wealthy country in the world. Most, about 60 percent, of those lives could have been saved. Of those lives lost, Black and Native American women are disproportionately represented. Meanwhile, the experience of giving birth in an American hospital costs a whopping $32,000 or so—more than any other similar country in the world, and with […]

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The New Moms Of Twitter Are Calling Out Folks Who Won’t Wear A Mask

Pregnancy And You

amil/Twitter and DjelicS/Getty I gave birth during a scheduled C-section to my twin daughters in the middle of summer five years ago. I waddled my 36-week belly into labor and delivery at 6am on July 13th, 2015, eager to see the babies who’d kicked me and evaded all ultrasound wands for the entirety of my pregnancy. Would they look like their 3D ultrasound photos? I was skeptical. I could not imagine giving birth this year, in the throes of COVID-19, with the possibility of my partner not […]

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Climate Change Can (And Does) Negatively Impact Pregnant Moms And Babies

Pregnancy And You

Scary Mommy and LWA/Dann Tardif/Getty Climate change affects all aspects of our lives, whether we realize it or not. It permeates every facet of the Earth, which means it’s directly affecting us in our daily lives. A new review of studies on the subject shows that air pollution and high heat exposure have a staggering effect on births. Both can lead to premature birth, low birth weight and even stillbirth. After a team of researchers studied 32 million births in the US, it was also clear that […]

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