To create the perfect birthing environment there are five elements that will help you feel relaxed and secure to birth your baby.

We’ve put together some useful information if you are electing to have a C-Section or if you are worried that you may end up having one. Remember it is always your choice even if you have had an emergency C-Section the last time.

We have put together a list of things for all you lovely ladies who are electing to have a c-section, that you may like to take with you to hospital.

Do you know what you’ll need with you at your birth? No? Mild panic now setting in? Don’t worry - we’ve put together these two lists to help you know what to bring for you and your new baby at your birth.

I’ve just had a catch up with one of LushTums students, who is now a friend, and we were talking about “how, when and what for exactly” does retuning to exercise look like for most women post having a baby.

Writing a couple of paragraphs on my birth experience has proved to be quite tricky. Not least because I have a wriggling 11 week old in my arms who is happily feeding (I send out apologies for "bremailing"…

So, are your bags packed?

Forget what your due date is, a baby is considered full term at 37 weeks and so midwives recommend you have….

During the school holidays my usual Mum & Baby Yoga courses are suspended so that I can spend time with my own children. I wanted to do a one off session in the park to bring as many mums together as possible and…

Not many things get me ranting… Well ok, maybe evil Nestlé, the Daily Mail, scaremongering articles about birth, the Daily Mail, Katie Hopkins, the Daily Mail…

When our mums’ generation gave birth, it was standard practice for them to spend the following ten days in hospital, recuperating. Their bundles of joy would be brought to them for feeding, but otherwise…

Can toddlers sense pregnancy hormones? If mine can, he’s pretty darn pissed about it. This is my irrational “mumsnet” thought of the day as I collapse in a nauseous, exhausted, emotional heap after a fairly horrific few hours of parenting.

With my first pregnancy I avoided alcohol, blue cheese and unpasteurised cheese, pâté, cured meat, runny eggs, rare steak and caffeine — all the really good stuff. Oh and ibuprofen, which I think also counts as the good stuff now I’m in my thirties and don’t get out as much as I used to.

Ok, I’ve done it. I know I shouldn’t say it but I have. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of weeks now, and I just couldn’t wait any longer. It feels wrong but now I’ve done it, it feels so right. Don’t judge me but… I’ve bought some bloody maternity jeans.

Morning sickness has ramped up a gear and I feel like I’m perpetually on that pirate ship ride at a travelling fairground. The one where you stop for a moment at the top and think you’re going to be OK, before you face another bilious plunge that sends the wind through your…

At the risk of sounding like a smug bitch, I am on top of the world at the moment. I feel physically much better and emotionally less fragile, which has lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders and made things infinitely better, in stark contrast to the last few fairly horrid weeks.

I need to open with an important disclaimer: if you are feeling particularly nauseous, constitutionally fragile or emotionally sensitive then we have an awful lot in common, and perhaps this week’s post may not be for you right now. If you are keen to plough on regardless, then please do feel free to settle in with a mug of ginger tea and a suitable receptacle, just to be on the safe side. Going in? OK, my apologies in advance.

As a child I was always a lover of fairground rides and would fearlessly relish any opportunity to whoosh through the air or plummet to the ground, whether at a shiny, big theme park or a slightly shabby, local fairground.

“Please attend with a moderately full bladder for this examination.” As a reasonably intelligent adult who pees several times a day and who has attended two previous pregnancy scans and a routine ultrasound, you would think I’d know how to do that by now, but no. What is moderately full? How much water is too much? What if I don’t drink enough? How long does it take to go through, anyway? What if I’m called early? But what if I’m called late? Oh, God.

I have just been to my first pregnancy yoga session and am basking in the afterglow. Pregnancy yoga was one of my absolute favourite things about being pregnant with my eldest and it felt like the most positive and wholesome way for me to make time for myself and connect with my baby.

After our scan we started to tell friends and family the news that we are expecting our second baby. We had confided in one or two people not long before the scan, which was largely due to unconcealable puking and my inability not to be a miserable bitch, both at their worst around weeks 9, 10 and 11. Luckily, these joyous side effects have died down a bit, and now that we know all is well it feels like a good time to share our exciting news.