Baby Constipation

When we brought baby Zara home last Wednesday, she hasn't poo for 2 days.
Being first time parents, we were trying our best not to be worried over it.
On the way home, i prayed for her, lay hands on her tummy, confess over her...
i did everything a spiritual mother would and could at that moment. :p

When we got home, her tummy was bloated and she was very uncomfortable
So i used a Indonesia traditional oil for the tummy that my friend recommended.
Having Peihua and Jo around, we googled for remedy.
Massaged her tummy, exercised her legs, did all we could...
and when she poo, we were so happy!
I never thought that for simple things like going to the toilet could bring so much joy!

However, the following day and the day after, she still did not poo..
We continue googling, exercising her legs everyday, massaging her tummy to ease the tension and discomfort..
Because she is only one month old, there's many things we cannot let her eat or try..

So here's some of the daily routines we can do and tried:
- Adding a bit of honey water to her milk (we only tried once, but realized that honey are HIGHLY not advisable for infant under 12 months)
- Constantly putting oil and rubbing her tummy each time we change diaper
- Massaging and exercising her legs in circular motion
- Diluting her milk with more water
- Praying for her

What makes meets the mark is when we tried the following:
1) Boil 10-15 grains of Ayam Chicken Brand Barley in a cup of water
2) After boiling, the amount of water should have dropped
3) Scoop out all barley grains as they will expand in the baby's tummy
4) Cool the barley solution
5) Use 30ml of the barley water to replace 30ml of the water you use to make your milk
6) The baby passed motion within 2 hours after drinking
(We only tried these once and because it's so effective, we don't advise to give this to the baby often to prevent stomach upset or diarrhea)

Subsequently, we went back to continuing with the daily routines to allow the body to slowly go into the motion of passing motion naturally.

It's been a week now and she has been passing motion naturally everyday!

Lost Fit

Are you growing up or growing out? Loss the ability to fit into all the beautiful you have bought through the years?

Many people and websites will introduce you to 'Low Carbo diet' or even the 'Anti Carbo diet' which was said to help low weight, without really knowing the reason why! Some people may even introduce you to the 'Meat and Vegetables diet', 'No salt diet' or 'Eating less than 3 meals a day'! Yes they may provide you with temporary solutions that make you loss 'weigh' and 'water', which will cause your body to suffer later. This is why very often, these diets will have an after effect of weigh re-bounce or even becoming heavier!

If you are looking for ways to fit into those dresses and jeans again, you need to first understand your body and the digestive system! The very obvious thing you should do is to EXERCISE! However, knowing the busy-ness of life, to some people, eating right is the best you can do. So let us go through our digestive process together:
Mouth
Fats --> one molecule of fats will result into 3 fatty acid molecule and one molecule of glycerol, that can only be adsorbed at small intestine
Starch (Carbohydrate) --> simple suger, glucose and maltose, that can only be adsorbed at small intestine
Stomach
Protein, vitamin B-12, alcohol and smaller molecules --> breakdown and adsorbed at the stomach
Small intestine
Fats, nutrients and sugar --> breakdown and adsorbed at small intestine
Large intestine
Water, fiber and fluid --> adsorbed or passed out at large intestine

Our body adsorbs protein and things of smaller molecules before the absorption of fats and carbohydrate. Carbohydrate are broken down into sugar molecules while fats molecules are broken down into 3 fatty acid molecules and 1 molecule of glycerol. This means that, to have high intake of fats and carbohydrates will slow down our digestion in the stomach because it adds on to the workload of our stomach and will take a longer time to fully digest our food. Carbohydrates can also result in high sugar level in blood leading to diabetes. However, your focus should not be just cutting down on carbohydrates because it provides us with the energy we need. Instead we should be looking into food that are high in protein and fiber to help increase our digestion and give our stomach a light workload!

Your favorite dress is still waiting for you!