The Mommy Plan, Restoring Your Post-pregnancy Body Naturally, Using Women's Traditional Wisdom

After birth women need a plan to follow to heal their body. The plan and guidelines are in this book! Specific guidelines and recommendations surrounding a mother's diet, activities and personal care after childbirth are presented in detail. How food is used as medicine and why certain foods can negatively or positively affect the healing capabilities of a post-baby body are answered. The traditional recovery guidelines presented in this book have been adapted for a western diet and lifestyle making it easy and cost effective. Suggestions of how staple meals can be adapted to the recommended nutritional guidelines as well as sample recipes and shopping lists are included. Book review by REVIEW BY MIDWIFERY TODAY I thought I would read this book, take a few notes, write a review and then be done with it. Turns out I am going to order a copy for my new-mother friend and keep my copy easily accessible to be used frequently as a resource. What Valerie Lynn has created within these pages is more than just a plan - it is a philosophy of care and attention that focuses on the needs of the mother so that her new child will be welcomed into an environment where the mother is calm, rested and supported. Borrowing from the Malay culture whose comprehensive postnatal practices revere the physical, emotional and nutritional needs of the recently birthed mother, Valerie outlines in exquisite detail the way these ideas can be applied to modern day households. No vague generalities in this book - there is almost a prescriptive quality to the suggestions, recommendations and recipes that Lynn provides. During pregnancy is the optimal time for a woman to read this book so that this mother-to-be, her husband and her family can learn how to develop a consciousness of the new mother's needs before they manifest themselves in unhealthy ways. Birth professionals are ideally positioned to The Mommy Plan and to underline the importance of safeguarding the early postpartum period.