Having a baby is one of the most challenging things you’ll ever do.

Going through pregnancy, labour and delivery demands a lot from a woman - physically, mentally,  emotionally, and spiritually.

From the time we see that double line on the pregnancy test, many women spend hundreds of hours finding the right antenatal care providers. We read all the books, ask all the questions, and buy or borrow all the things we think a newborn baby needs

By the way, they mainly just need you, your boobs if you're breastfeeding / bottle if not, and your body warmth.

What we often fail to prepare ourselves for is what comes after the baby is born:

the months (and in some cases years) we spend recovering from this massive life event.

Our recovery from childbirth. The all important but under-acknowledged postpartum. And the desperate need we have, both as individuals and as a society, to nourish the mother during this time more than any other.

What you eat during the month after you give birth has the power to radically improve your strength and recovery.

And, it is said in Chinese medicine, what you eat and how well you take care of yourself during this crucial time has the power to impact your health 20, 30 or more YEARS down the track.

There are other important things to think about in your Golden Month, which I mention here - but of course, being a nutritionist, I believe the food you eat after having a baby is crucial.

Nutritional requirements during recovery and breastfeeding unsurprisingly increase, and in the case of some specific nutrients, quite significantly so.

If you're breastfeeding your requirements for protein, zinc, iodine and vitamin A literally double.

And to produce milk, you need to be getting more overall calories than even during your third trimester of pregnancy; around 500-600 calories more for the first six months postpartum if breastfeeding exclusively (as recommended by the World Health Organisation), which is an extra meal or 2-3 extra snacks a day.

Of course I don't recommend calorie counting and nothing is set in stone - listen to your hunger and fullness cues and you will be fine. Note: If you have a history of or current disordered eating you may find it difficult to follow your body's hunger and fullness cues, in which case seeing a HAES or non-diet health professional would be super helpful for you.

Even if you cannot or choose not to breastfeed, extra nutrition is required to heal from childbirth and replenish your body after nine months of pregnancy.

And if your kids are more school age than newborn, you need some serious fuel to keep up with all the crazy demands asked of you, mama. You have important shit to do and you need energy and nutrients to do it.

So without going into a huge amount of detail on exact postpartum nutrition requirements, here are the three big nutritional principles from TCM you can aim to follow in your Golden Month. 

And by the way, nourishing yourself well is as crucial in healing immediately after childbirth, as it is 10 years postpartum. These three tips apply just as much years after your last child is born, as they do as soon as the baby is born.

I work with a lot of yoginis and yogis, alternative lifestyle leaders, animal rights activists, and environmentally conscious folks. I also work in the field of disordered eating.

​So naturally I often find myself in the situation where I'm chatting with somebody who is very keen to heal their troubled relationship with food... but they don't want to budge on their vegan ideals. 
 
This person may have been through the psychological hell that is a full blown eating disorder...

... OR they may fall into the spectrum of disordered eating on the end of the continuum that wouldn't be classified as a clinical eating disorder, but disordered eating and disordered body image - an issue that faces a significant number of women in Australia.
 
OFTEN, they've experienced both.
 
The big question here is, "If I'm actively recovering from a clinical eating disorder - or any other form of disordered eating - can I be vegan and still get better?"

Do you dread high pollen count days? Is spring a season of antihistamine overload, soggy tissues, and hiding indoors? Treating seasonal allergies naturally is straight forward with the right know-how.

The sleeping earth of winter is re-awakening, spring is well and truly here, and nature heralds her return. We feel an extraordinary push for life and movement within our own bodies, and we see it in the natural world. And with our own blossoming comes that of the beautiful plant world: so many, pollen-producing, allergenic plants!

The glorious feeling of taking that first breath of crisp, early spring air might be somewhat stifled if you’re one of many sufferers of seasonal allergies. All those pollens and animal hair can set off your allergic rhinitis, a fancy way of saying hay fever. Worse still: when your allergies trigger your asthma!
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Autumn is traditionally a time to make fermented foods, jams and preserves for winter. Around this time of year we begin to enjoy warming, comforting autumn meals like soups, stews, and any slow cooked foods with seasonal root vegetables. 

Labneh is a wonderful addition to any autumn meal, or just as a moreish snack with crackers and veggie sticks to keep you powering through a chilly afternoon. It's irresistably deliciously creamy, salty and tangy. It also makes a beautiful gift for friends and family, and as you make it you can infuse it with your loving energy!

So, I'm planning to have another baby.

Whilst some women shy away from telling people about their conception plans, I'm a massive over-sharer with an excitable soul! So what better way to revise my fertility nutrition basics in preparation for polishing up my own baby making equipment, than to share this information with you too.

I figure that since I've now had one kid, I have a little bit more personal experience to refer to than I did a couple of years ago, BC (before child).

​Nowadays, I also have more professional experience working with women of all sizes who have worked with me to improve their fertility - some "overweight", some "normal weight", some a little "underweight" as far as medical BMI ranges go - and nearly all have been able to fall pregnant by focussing exclusively on their HEALTH.

This experience flies in the face of the advice of many doctors, scientists, and health professionals that "overweight people just need to lose weight" in order to fall pregnant.

So before we dive into the 7 fertility boosting essentials that I work on with clients who wish to conceive, it's really important that you understand one important thing. This is so important that it's actually the first of my 7 fertility-boosting tips I want to discuss. To fall pregnant, you must...
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​When someone comes to me with low iron, one of the first foods I think of is liver. 

Yes, I know. Gross. But hear me out...
 
Liver is a true superfood – and you know how much I loathe using that word, so inundated is the health food marketing world with claims of it. So when I use it you know I really mean it.
 
And you know I really, REALLY mean it because for the decade that I was vegetarian, the very thought of eating cooked, blended organ meat would have made me hurl. Even once I started eating meat again a few years ago, the idea of liver still grossed me out.
 
That is, until I finally worked up the courage to buy some liver and cook the dreaded thing. I was heavily pregnant and iron deficient, despite having started to eat muscle meat – mostly fish - for a year or so already.
 
I remember frying the small amount of liver I had purchased, and making a batch of liver pâté. I carefully placed it into a jar. I was nervous and grossed out, but curious. Finally, I tentatively tasted it. The next thing I remember I was crouched over the kitchen sink with an empty jar in one hand, and a cleanly licked spoon in the other. I had devoured the whole jar of pâté in one sitting – or should I say, in one standing.