Real Talk

February Is CHD Awareness Month :: Know The Signs February is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Month. Here are some statistics: - There are 40 types of congenital heart defects. - 40,000 babies are born in the USA with CHD every year, that equates to 1 in 100 children. One child every 15 minutes will receive a diagnosis. - Around 25% of children who have CHD will need heart surgery or other types of interventions to survive. - CHD is a leading cause of death in infants and children, twice as many children will die from CHD as they will from all forms of childhood cancer combined. Yet childhood cancer research funding is five times higher than CHD research funding - Baton Rouge does NOT have a...

Banned Books I Encourage My Teen To Read By definition, book banning is the act of removing materials from a school or library as a result of objections from groups or individuals who say they need to protect others from the difficult information or ideas contained in the books. These controversial topics include everything from sexuality and religious views to information on racial and social injustices. I am a strong believer that for the most part, reading should not be censored. Growing up, I gained a wealth of knowledge and empathy through books. Learning about different views, experiences, and life paths from books has shaped me into a woman and mom who is able to spread my empathy to others around...

Setting Your 2024 Goals - and Keeping Them! If you close your eyes and reflect on 2023, or the many years before, can you recall making resolutions at the start of a new year? Did you keep them? Were they life-changing, achievable, and worth the effort put in? Did they require sufficient sacrifice, altering of annoying habits, and financial investments for the betterment of self? New Year's goals are nothing new, and roughly 4/10 of us set goals every year. And with that said, most of us have historically set similar goals. According to Forbes' New Year's Resolution Statistics, the top goals set for the new year include some form of fitness goals, finance goals, and goals for improving mental health....

To The Daughter Of A Mom With Mental Illness… It’s with utmost sincerity that I write to you, daughter of a mom with mental illness. With genuine and heartfelt empathy, I pen this article in hopes of helping you know that you are not alone, and your worth is far more valuable than you were raised to believe. What you have experienced growing up as a child of a mother who had mental struggles is awful, and it is not uncommon for your sense of trust, self-worth, and reality to be distorted as you have grown. But it doesn’t have to be an indicator of your own future relationships and family. How do you know if you’re the daughter of a...

Natural Vs. Medicated :: My Perspective From Both Sides After having 4 kids it’s safe to say I have quite a bit of experience giving birth. My first two babies, I opted to be pumped full of that game changing drug, the epidural. After finding out I was pregnant with number three, I decided to challenge myself and go all natural, pain med free. I did the same with my fourth. So as a mom whose been on both ends of the spectrum here’s my take on them both. Epidural:: Best if you don’t have a high pain tolerance or just don’t want to feel much of anything at all. Not going to lie, those epidurals with my first and second knocked me...