Now, if you’ve never given birth before, don’t get too freaked out about this. Besides, you already know labor’s gonna hurt, right? 🙂 From ladies who’ve been through it, over in Answers, here’s what some CafeMoms had to say was the most painful part of labor. — When they said “Don’t push!” I hated that! — The shot in my back during the epidural. That hurt like hell, because I was having a really bad contraction the entire time and couldn’t move....

The chemistry is strong, you connect, you have fun. You go out again and it’s another ace in the hole. Now you start to get really excited — could this be it? Maybe you hang out a few more times, but then something changes. Either you notice that he starts to pull away and seems less engaged (commonly known as “the fade away”) or he just vanishes (a phenomenon known as “ghosting”)....

More from CafeMom: You Can Now Walk Literally Anywhere Without Shoes Thanks to These Nifty Foot Pads title: “These Nifty Shoe Ponchos Will Protect Your Kicks” ShowToc: true date: “2024-10-21” author: “Windy Rodriguez” More from CafeMom: You Can Now Walk Literally Anywhere Without Shoes Thanks to These Nifty Foot Pads

If you’ve ever spent too much time trying to perfect your cut crease or had to use tape to get your shadow to extend just so — then there’s a makeup artist with a genius invention meant to solve it all with a single stamp. “Professional make up artist Jack Nogueira developed stamp crease for her clients after seeing the need for a perfect “cut crease” technique,” reads a caption on their Instagram....

Emmett Rauch is a Phoenix 2-year-old who swallowed a button battery. After 18 surgeries, he’s still fighting for his life. His doctors suspect the battery may have spent three days in his stomach. This is one of those stories that should have us scouring our homes for this baby-proofing blind spot. Do you know where all your button batteries are? Lithium batteries are more dangerous than AA batteries because they have less casing — not that it’s a good idea to swallow AA batteries, either....

But is it really as great as the many TV commercials, magazine ads, and podcast spots make it out to be? Jess and I decided to order a bunch of Fabletics clothes and try it out. “The options were limited. Extremely limited. We all have more than one body type. Some of us are shaped like apples or pears. Some of us look like figs!” Jess said jokingly. For sizes, I chose medium (8-10) and Jess picked 2X (18-20)....

The Perfect Sculpt Butt Lift ($15, The Perfect Sculpt) And being so vastly different in our sizes and shapes, we discovered that the path to butt-appreciation was wildly different for all of us. So naturally she was a bit skeptical when she saw the underwear’s goofy design. More from CafeMom: I Tried the Lip Plumper Instagram Is Obsessed With — Here’s the Verdict “Upon first glance, I wanted to laugh at the underwear....

With the passing of time, it only seems these brands have gotten more and more creative with their sponge shapes; How many times have you walked into a beauty supply store and thought, What the hell is that even supposed to do? Turns out all those wacky curves and crannies have very specific purposes. Here they are: The tried-and-true egg shape is simple, but it gets the job done. The curved sides and rounded bottom bounce and blend wide surfaces, and the pointed tip gets hard to reach spots, contours, and highlights....

To help shed some light on that question, we asked men to spill their honest, no-holds-barred thoughts about your pregnant body — in the bedroom and out, the good AND the bad. (Seriously, be warned you might get angry.) For a peek inside the male mind and what they love (and don’t love) about your burgeoning belly, boobs, and beyond, read on. What did your partner say about your pregnant body?...

We can talk about harmony and compatibility. We can talk about mutual respect and admiration. But sometimes it’s in the little things, the actions people take and ways of being that truly show what love means. Love is and should be in all the details … even the tiny ones. More from CafeMom: 15 Women Share Which Fictional Couples Are Their IRL Relationship Goals That’s a theme within these responses — those little things are all part of the big picture, part of the definition of what makes a perfect relationship....

“Your period gives you a reliable and clear snapshot of exactly what is happening with your hormones,” explains Alisa Vitti, a functional nutritionist, author of WomanCode, and founder and CEO of FLOLiving.com. And seeing your blood — and realizing what it’s trying to tell you — allows you to “take critical actions with your diet to eliminate symptoms before your next cycle,” says Vitti. Not to mention prevent long-term probs, since unbalanced hormones lead to inflammation, which then leads to big-deal diseases....

As it turns out: Nope. The state of your fingernails can actually tell you quite a bit about the state of your body overall. It’s kind of like this — if the eyes are the windows to the soul, the fingernails are the window to the, uh, inside of your body and stuff. Okay, that didn’t work. But you get the idea. If you’ve got any of the following things going on with your fingernails, consider this a head’s up … Indentations Known as Beau’s lines, these dents run across the nails and can be signs of growth interrupted by severe illness (sometimes a high fever) or malnutrition....

There’s no one right way to parent, but apparently quite a few moms and dads believe that their methods are better than others’: The survey, which was conducted by University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, found that most of the mothers who participated had been criticized for their discipline style; approximately half were judged for sleep and nutrition-related choices. The breastfeeding vs. bottle-feeding debate affected almost 40 percent of moms surveyed....

Tell me if you disagree, but I think few things are yuckier than slurping a cloudy cup of water laced with alkanolamides, Jello remnants, dead skin cells, various bodily fluids, as well as gosh-only-knows what else. Bathwater. It’s repulsive. But my tots guzzle it at every opportunity, despite my attempts to gross them out by describing exactly what’s in it. Parents magazine interviewed a bunch of experts to try and explain this and other weird toddler phenomenon in the February 2009 issue, and I wanted to share some highlights: Drinking bathwater To your toddler, it’s like she’s at a big tea party and she’s sitting in the teapot....

If you’re looking at the breast vs. formula debate from the outside, maybe it seems that simple. Women make milk, and studies have shown the milk is superior to the factory-made stuff, so if we cut off the supply line to formula, surely we can drive women back to breastfeeding. More from CafeMom: Pregnant Women Are Living, Breathing, Feeling Humans — Not Just Baby ‘Hosts’ It’s one of the basics of economic theory — limiting supply of one product can force demand of another....

And sometimes that really bums me out. The truth is, I love my kids. I like being home when they get back from school and taking them to their activities and supervising their playdates and watching them ride their bikes. But I am not creatively fulfilled by being with them. I need to write and teach yoga for that. It has taken me a long time to accept that truth, but there it is....

Unfortunately, goody bags or party favors are a must. You don’t want to have the kid who didn’t give them out at his party. It’s a major faux-pas in kidland; a definite don’t. We have 10 cool, inexpensive ideas that won’t have you up all night swearing up a storm in your head as you stuff those bags with crap. Promise. We adore IKat’s magical goody bag wands. They’re perfect for both boys and girls … ideal for magicians, knights, princesses, fairy godmothers, you name it!...

Here are 10 pink desserts that’ll make your sweet tooth, and your boobs, really really happy. Cake Pop Recipe Ingredients: 1 (18 ounce) cake mix, desired flavor, prepared according to package 2 -3 eggs (or whatever your package calls for) 1/3 cup oil (or whatever your package calls for) 0.5 (16 ounce) can frosting, any flavor 7 ounces white chocolate candy melts (or any flavor you like) candy sprinkles (optional)...

It comes with the new mom territory: living through challenging, ridiculous, maybe even mortifying moments they may or may not have been fully prepped for. Thankfully, these are moments new moms can simply chalk up to the hazing process that is new motherhood. (This too shall pass — promise!) Ultimately, these are amazing stories to share with other, even newer moms to let them know they’re so not alone! Whether they were being thrown into the deep end of breastfeeding in public, peed themselves before regaining post-baby bladder control, or grappled with a diaper explosion in the worst possible place, new moms have been through it all....

Something to keep in mind: “Best if used by” dates have more to do with the food’s quality than its safety. “Use by,” on the other hand, usually means you should consume the food before that date, as explained by public health and safety organization NSF International. But even so, just because a food has “expired” past that printed date doesn’t necessarily mean it’s unsafe to eat. There are a few exceptions — and if you’re aware of them, you can avoid wasting both food and money....