Mastitis and Maternal Maladies

This is a little graphic, so read at your own risk. I hesitated putting this out there, but I have had a number of friends ask me about this, so I figured why not share and hopefully help those who had/are having very painful nursing experiences like did! If you are/were really determined to nurse, don't give up. It took me 4 months before we figured it out and it finally wasn't painful excruciating.

Also, don't blame yourself if you have read up on nursing and prepared and are still having trouble. Nursing isn't easy for a lot of people (like me!). In my true nerd fashion I probably read about half a dozen books, cover to cover (while pregnant), about how to nurse properly. Nevertheless, I still seemed plagued by about every problem you could possibly have while nursing. Some things just aren't up to us, but instead of being discouraged and quitting, you can turn it into an opportunity to learn.

In order to prevent this post from becoming dreadfully long, I will give a brief summary of what happened to me and different treatment and prevention methods I learned through various sources. I am no doctor, but many of the things I learned, I learned from nurses, doctors or lactation consultants.

Nursing was tough from the get go for me. I couldn't get my Son to latch properly. As a result he more or less chomped to squeeze the milk ducts. This triggered a milk overproduction and as a result I contracted my first bought of Mastitis 4 weeks later. Hot spot, redness, hard, painful lump, fever, chills, enlargement everything. I awoke in the middle of the night with terrible fever and chills, got antiobiotics, did hot compresses, hot baths, hot showers, pumped and nursed like crazy and finally got rid of it. Latch was still incredibly painful and I got a yeast infection, but it did not transfer to my son (thrush). I used vinegar washes, baking soda washes, gentian violet and ointments to get rid of the yeast. Then I contracted Mastitis again. Followed the same protocol as before... BTW, it took me the full 10 days of medication to get better, so don't stop early. I was becoming completely exhasperated and watching about 50 youtube videos and reading 100 websites a day on proper latch, when a LC finally found out that my son's frenulum (that stringy connective tissue between the tongue and bottom of the mouth, you can feel it if you lift up your tongue and stick your finger underneath) was too short, preventing a proper latch. Got the frenulum snipped (frenotomy- can be done by PED or ENT and the dr/lactation specialist can check/do it at birth if you ask). As an aside, a frenulum that is too short can cause speach delays/impediments if not snipped. If the child is an infant, the procedure to get it snipped takes about 2 seconds and is done by an ENT, if you wait too long, the child has to be put to sleep and recovery takes much longer.

Once we figured out our latch, everything went much more smoothly. Here is a great website that demonstrates proper latch and several ways to get there, with pictures: http://kidshealth.org/parent/pregnancy_newborn/breastfeed/nursing_positions.html#
and here's a youtube video by Lansinoh that I found helpful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oQHe1eYsnE

My advice for the following conditions. I always try the homeopathic remedies before using antiobiotics...
Mastitis-
1. As soon as you feel the lump/clogged duct/hot spot or see the redness get in the shower or bath and massage/squeeze the area.
2. Apply a hot wash cloth to the area and nurse/pump that side until the breast is empty
3. Take a hot bath with Epsom salt and squeeze the affected breast in the bath to express the milk.
4. Alternate hot and cold compresses
5. Get antibiotics (dicloxicilin worked for me)

Yeast, can be the topical cause for the infection Mastitis:
*1. Do a vinegar rinse where you mix 1 tbsp vinegar with 1 cup boiling water, wait for it to turn warm and soak the nipple
2. Make a "Triple Nipple" ointment with bactraban, polybactin and mupirosin. All of these you can get from the drug store (lactation consultant told me about the TN cream, I asked what the active ingredients were and we sort of "made our own" together with these creams)
3. Some have success with nystatin. I stay away because it has sugar in there and yeast thrives on sugar so it seemed counterintuitive to me, but I know it works for a lot of people. Some studies have also shown yeast developing a resistance to Nystatin, which is bad.
4. Sun bath topless! Yeast hates sunlight.
5. Gentian Violet is very powerful and will definitely kill the yeast, but it's the stuff that leaves purple stains everywhere.
6. Take a probiotic
*7. Combine 1 tbsp baking soda with 1 cup boiling water, allow to cool and apply to nipples.

*Remedies 1 and 7 can also be used to treat baby. Just take a cotton swab and swab their mouths.

As a disclaimer, I either tested out the theories above and they worked for me, or I vetted them through a doctor. The one link per symptom or treatment I posted wasn't my sole source of information. I just know a lot of people look for confirmation, so I thought I would post a few. This is not a super in depth post, but if you have more questions, feel free to comment/email me! Hope this helps 1 person, just a little bit. Thanks for reading.

Incredible Edible Eggs

How did the egg get up the mountain? 

It scrambled up

I love it when this happens. Every once in a while it seems Kroger does a purge of all of their Organic very perishable items in their "Nutrition" section. The other day I went and all of their Organic Valley Organic Eggs were on sale as managers specials. Even Alton Brown says these are the best kinds of eggs to buy. So naturally, I bought about 2 dozen and figured this would motivate me to come up with delicious ways to use them... and to use them in a way that wouldn't make me sick of them. Some families probably go through 2 dozen eggs in a week, but we just don't eat that many eggs. A lot of the baking I do, I do with flax egg or chia egg (it's an experimental phase...).

Anyhow, these are the ideas I came up with to use all of these eggs, in different ways, to be consumed at different times, and even stored if need be. I tried to pick ideas/dishes that showcased the egg, since they are the organic ones and you really want to showcase that fresh flavor and not hide it in a baked dish. (these egg pictures I found on pinterest and almost fell over laughing. I used them to add a little life to the post haha).

What day do eggs hate the most? 

Fry-days

1.     Boil 6, and eat them for a snack or make some egg salad (I make mine with plain greek yogurt for a healthier alternative to mayonnaise)

a.      How crazy is this: Alton Brown said the better way to eat a “hard (boiled) egg” is to actually bake it in the oven at 325 for 30 minutes. Just stick them in a muffin tin to prevent them from rolling all over the place and bake away! It makes a creamier egg yolk, if you eat them J.

2.     Make deviled eggs if you have a gathering/party you are hosting. It's a classic that never seems to die.

3.     I made a bunch of healthy egg "muffins" for breakfast that will last for about 5 days in the refrigerator or about 2-3 weeks if you freeze them. Here is my recipe for them with kale and peppers, but the concept is simple: scramble some eggs, pour them into a muffin tin, add stuff to them, and bake!

4.     I am a huge nerd and food experimenter, so I made pasta. It took 4 eggs, sorry no link. I watched Anne Burrell make it on food network and took notes. I told you I’m a nerd. But I mean, have you seen how much homemade pasta costs?! It's upwards of $7 a bag with 4 servings! I am going to buy my own Selmolina (whole) grind it in the vitamix and make some pasts to see if I can taste the difference. I know many think I am crazy for cooking like this, but it really isn't that time consuming. It just takes some forethought.

5.     Angel Food Cake (I didn’t make, but it takes 12 egg whites, I suppose use the yolks for a custard or pudding?)

6.     Host a brunch and make a frittata, or a dutch baby pancake? How about a peach dutch baby pancake ;)…

7.     Quiche’s are also really great egg dishes that you can freeze for 1-2 months.

8.     Storing Eggs: After you whip up the eggs, you can pour them into ice cube trays and freeze them. Or, if you wanted you could just freeze the whites, they will stay “good” for 12 months! Plain yolks don’t freeze well. Here is more information: http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/eggstorage.html

9.     Make meringues with the egg whites. Or try to make Macarons like I did. And then become obsessed with making the perfect macaron, which is an art form in of itself, and extremely time consuming and difficult.

10.  Branch outside the comfort zone and try making ethnic dishes you wouldn’t otherwise make. Like egg drop soup, flan, popovers?

11.  My husband suggested that we go out into the driveway and he throws them at me. Hmm, not to be a spoil sport, but that was not a plausible option for me...

What happened to the egg when he was tickled too much? 

He cracked up

I suppose since a picture is worth a thousand words, I will spare you any more egg jokes ;)

That's just nuts

So cool! I found these roasted mixed snack nuts on sale for 75% off, which made them just over $1 each.

I have no idea why, as I don't believe nuts go bad. Maybe it was an overstock. I didn't want to be obnoxious and buy all of the containers, but I did buy 6.  I figured we could use one for their intended purpose of a snack mix, but the rest I separated and turned into 2 jars of peanut butter and 2 jars of Almond Butter. I separated the rest and got about 1 cup each of pecans and cashews, which I intend to use in dressings (Dr. Fuhrman has these really cool salad dressings and sauce recipes that use nuts and nut butter instead of oil). I also have about 2 cups of Brazil nuts that I will discover a use for, I'm sure.

I used little dollups of the flax oil to lubricate the nuts in the blender to make them easier to blend. Next time you see nuts on a big sale, stock up! There are always tons of uses for those bad boys. Plain, butters, milks, dressings (here's a tahini dressing I made in my cooking blog), vegan cheeses (Here's one I made using cashews) etc. I will try and post more dressings I make with nuts in future posts.

Cool Kroger Secret

So I had a pretty successful grocery trip to Kroger and bought all of the following fresh veggie packs, all marked down. Pretty exciting.





I also learned that Kroger does their mark downs on all produce 3 days out from the "use by" date. The tricky thing is that they only have 1 employee who marks down one section (in the whole store) per day. The secret here is, if you see that produce (or any food) that is within 3 days of their use by date, you can find a store representative and they will mark it down for you! Neat huh? and maybe a bit shameless... I think that as long as you aren't obnoxious about it, it isn't really a big deal.
Since I conveniently found 5 different vegetable packs, it was easy to plan the weeks meals. I enjoy cooking and making up recipes, but the Olympics are on, so I made it easy on myself :). Plus I work, so I need all the time I can get to root for Team USA!!
Day 1: I made peppercorn steak fajitas with the fajita pack (sliced red and green bell peppers and onions). Sides were Arborio (we ran out of Jasmine, oh no!) rice and black beans that I mixed with corn, peppers and tomatoes.
Day 2: I made a sweet and sour pork stir fry with the pineapple and pepper produce pack. Sides were grilled corn on the cob and broccoli slaw with sesame ginger sauce. I wasn't thinking and accidentally did 2 veggies sides because I had the broccoli slaw pack and ginger sauce left over. Oh well.
Day 3: We made grilled chicken sandwiches and we used the hamburger pack fixins produce package and I roasted the already seasoned brussel sprouts with a bit of olive oil and had sweet potato wedges as the second side.
Day 4: Pasta day! I made pasta and mixed the noodles with the vegetable primavera pack (which I sautéed beforehand). I topped mine with marinara and made some meatballs and french bread on the side.
Day 5: Pizza day. I had the pizza portobellos and Will ordered Dominos ;). Annnnd I had ice cream for dessert. So glad I made the healthy choice for dinner...
I bought 4 spinach boxes and had different salads throughout the week for lunch. I also tried that wasabi arugula for fun and it was really good. Very spicy, but very good. I might detail some salad recipes in future posts, but they are nothing super exciting. I just think it's fun to make different dressings and add different toppings, depending on what I feel like :).
Meal planning like this is what I meant when I said I planned meals according to shopping trips in my Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank post.

PS, right now at the Richmond Hill Kroger they have a bunch of Organic Horizon milk (gal and half gal) with a sell by date of August 7, 2012, which means they are eligible for mark-downs tomorrow. They are pretty good with milk mark downs because people tend to freak out about milk going bad. I can't make any promises that people won't buy them all today, but there were about 2 rows of each at noon today and from my experience, people tend to buy milk from the back, as they are the fresher cartons.

Healthy Eating without Breaking the Bank and NOT Using Coupons

Cooking can be expensive, especially if you love experimenting. Cooking healthfully, let alone organically, has almost become cost prohibitive. Why on earth are 4 ears of corn $5 at Fresh Market?! I understand there is a drought, but come on. Those bad boys are $0.50 at the Farmers Market!
I am a pretty stubborn person, and I love to cook. When I noticed prices steadily and dramatically climbing on the foods we loved, I was determined to find a way to eat the same foods without suffering financially. I never found coupons useful because they are often for processed foods. Plus I have NO patience for coupons. So this is the first of (hopefully many) posts on resourcefully shopping for healthy and/or organic products. Warning: it does require quite a bit of effort, and multiple grocery store trips throughout the week, but if you are a foodie and eating healthfully/organically is important to you, it will be well worth your while. And once you slide it into your routine, it becomes much more manageable. Do routine things routinely and your productivity will improve, as will your quality of life. I don't want to get on a soap box, I just wanted to share what works for me and hope that it works for others out there too!
So here are a few tips/things I do that go against the grain of main-stream thought, but work for me.
1) I always buy what I can on sale. If it's meat, I buy a bunch and freeze it. If it is produce, I buy it and make sure I plan to use it either the same night, or within the next couple days. If it is produce like spinach, you can even freeze it and use it in smoothies.
2)  I go shopping and buy the produce/products that are on sale/in season and plan my meals around that. The less expensive the produce, the better it is because it is in season! If it is a special occasion, or I feel like experimenting, I don't plan a meal I have no ingredients for. (Spices or vinegars are an exception. I will go out and buy a spice if I need it for a recipe. )
3) As much as I love to, I don't do all of my shopping at specialty stores like Whole Foods (great stock to possibly invest in btw, google it NYSE:WFM). I go to a variety of stores, as they always have their different sales or specials. Most grocery stores also have an "Organic Aisle/Section" that is great. It also prevents me from going nuts/being overwheled by all the delicious choices! If there is a particular or weird ingredient I need, I will try and shop locally or even on the internet.
4) I subscribe to a more European school of thought and grocery shop probably 4 or more times a week. To help make this routine, I usually stop by on my way home from work. They are not long trips, and often I go for the express purpose of perusing the organic aisle to see if anything is on sale. Kroger has these awesome "Managers Specials" where they mark down items to at least 50% off. Some version of Organic Yogurt is always on sale. So I buy a couple containers at a time instead of a whole weeks or two weeks worth. It's great for variety too :). Often, the smaller organic milks go on sale because people most commonly buy the Gallon. Publix almost always has a BOGO.


5) I buy produce when I can from Farmers Markets. Their produce is always pretty competitively priced, especially for the quantity you buy, and it is always in season.
6) If there is a non-perishable, very versatile, and/or freezable item on mega sale I buy in bulk. An example here would be nuts. Sometimes they go on sale for as much as 75%-90% off and you can use them SO many ways: plain, as flour, ground into nut butters, dressings, smoothies etc. And they refrigerate and freeze for forever.
7) I almost never throw any food away. If it is a fruit or a vegetable and it looks like it might go bad soon and I won't have time to cook it, I will either chop it up and freeze it, or puree it and freeze it. (I learned this after making and storing my son's babyfood.) For example, if it is zucchini, I puree it and freeze it and might use it for zucchini bread. Bananas I definitely slize and freeze. Bananas are awesome, you can re-purpose them in SO many ways; in bread, as a natural sweetener, in oatmeal, in smoothies, pancakes, smothered in chocolate or peanut butter. I will buy old bananas on sale just to cut them up and freeze them. You can pretty much puree and freeze any fruit or vegetable. If you absolutely cannot think of any way to repurpose some of them, they make great, flavorful additions to soups, broths or sauces!
Like I said, this method of shopping requires a bit of time and effort, but if you think about it, it takes up the same amount of time, it's just more spread out. I never spend more than 20-30 minutes in the grocery store and my bills are almost never more than $50. I remember as a kid going on marathon trips to the grocery store that lasted for hours and resulted in 3 figure bills routinely.
Another reason I enjoy this style of shopping/cooking is that I am not an inherently creative person. My creativity is born of either necessity or resourcefulness. This kind of lifestyle forces creativity and it is really fun and exciting for me to explore so many new ways of doing different things.

The Joys of Cloth Diapering- The Set Up

Cloth diapering was the catalyst, for me, for this minimal waste, natural, holistic way of life. I don't judge anyone who uses regular diapers at all, in fact I use Seventh Generation Organic (biodegradable) diapers when I travel or go out for long periods of time. I just wanted to do my part in reducing the amount of little poop filled pacakages that accumulate and don't biodegrade in a landfill. It's just a personal choice of mine and it has been very rewarding.
From my cloth diapering adventures, I discovered new, natural ways to treat rashes and other diaper area problems. I really enjoyed researching the problem, discovering what caused it and troubleshooting a solution on my own, instead of just slathering on some prescribed cream whenever there is a rash or funny looking mark down there. It just bothers me that I don't know exactly what makes those creams work and why. There's always a why with me. There have been occassions that I haven't been able to clear things up on my own and I have gone to the Doctor, but I like giving it my own shot first.

Anyhow, I figured I would detail my set up in my first cloth diapering entry, just in case anyone was as confused and as clueless as I was when I first started.
I started with an extra long changing table, with two drawers underneath for storage, and it is slightly higher than waist high (roughly 3 feet). My husband built this one. The drawer on the left holds all of my covers (I use bum genius) and the right side holds all of my inserts. I used to wash, stuff and store all of the diapers in both drawers, but that got to be extremely cumbersome and bulky. It takes almost no time to quickly stuff a diaper right when I need it. Below the table are 4 labeled cloth bins where I keep all of his clothes. We kept the table green so we could just change the handles if we wanted to for different genders!

This is the left side of the top of the changing table. I have a standard changing table pillow with a plush cover so it isn't freezing when I set a baby on it. To the left of that is a wipe warmer. Sounds silly I know, but I use wet baby washcloths (when I can) in place of wipes. This warmer stores them beautifully and keeps the rags warm so I'm not putting freezing cold wet cloth on sensitive baby areas! You never know what chemicals are in those wipes... even the organic ones. Plus sometimes a substantial diaper deposit requires SEVERAL wipes, but only one washcloth. It works like a charm. The rags don't get mildewy or moldy because I go through them and wash them about every 3 days.

This is the right side of the changing table. Here is where I keep any saline I might need, cloth diaper friendly diaper creams (Calendula is amazing), towels... and unfortunately other paraphernalia that happens to accumulate (like shoes in this picture).

I have a little red bucket (with lid) for the wet diapers and a blue one for soiled diapers. After you knock the solids from a soiled diaper into the toilet, there is usually very little to clean. I usually rinse them off with a hose outside and then put them in a bucket. I did try and install a sprayer onto our toilet, but unfortunately that did not turn out as planned.

To wash the diapers, I do a cold soak cycle with 1/4 cup of borax or good old fashioned baking soda. Then I do a heavy duty hot wash with 1/4-1/2 of a scoop of Allens Naturally detergent. After that I line dry the inserts and shells in the sun to natually bleach away whatever didn't come out in the wash! I try to soak over night and wash in the morning to maximize sun time!

Sometimes even Little Man helps clean his diapers ;).

DIY Wooden Pallet Sandbox

Our neighborhood is currently undergoing a period of expansive growth. Homes are sprouting up all over the place, which is a good thing. It's good to see some life in the economy. With construction sites, come large amounts of garbage. However, if you look closely, much of that garbage is very usable and (sometimes) good quality wood!
After observing these wood piles steadily growing, I decided to hop over and ask the site workers if the wood was garbage and if I could have any. I didn't know what kind of wood I would want or what my projects would be, but I figured it would be fun to do a project with it. They waved towards a pile and said I could take whatever I wanted.
Among some other pieces, wooden pallets seemed to be a good bet to me. They were already box shaped, had several slats and seemed pretty sturdy. If nothing else, I figured I could stick some wheels on the bottom and use them to move heavy equipment, as we do not have a dolly.
I started perusing the internet for wooden pallet ideas and saw tons of ideas for furniture, raised garden beds, storage etc. Here are a few. I mean, isn't it wild what you can do with wooden pallets?!

Anyhow, around this time, my toddler was taking a big interest in sand. Sand everywhere. At the beach, the sidewalk, the road. He loved this gritty stuff. So I thought, why not make a sandbox? Seemed easy enough, I mean it was already a box. I just had to figure out a way not to let the sand fall out through the bottom.

I selected a pallet with no top. I had some left over landscaping fabric from my wooden pallet garden, so I just used an industrial stapler and stapled 2 layers of that over the bottom. I set that in a shady area and bought 3 bags of sandbox sand from Home Depot (it is less than $3 per bag...) and dumped it in there. SUPER easy. Probably took me longer to take pictures, write this post and import them than the project ;).