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Mother’s Day is almost here, a great time to continue to celebrate the great loves of our lives: our mothers. While mothers and grandmothers are being celebrated, let’s not forget to acknowledge the moms-to-be this Spring!

Wish the expectant mother-to-be in your life a great pre-Mother’s Day on her behalf with a great gift to help her along her pregnancy, and to let her know that she’s celebrated too!

And here’s some more Mother’s Day help, here, and here.

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Maternity leave for a new parent averages usually up to 12 weeks after giving birth, leaving time for bonding with your child, getting adapted to a new role as a mother and time to heal physically (and maybe emotionally) after the process of childbirth. As those weeks wind down, you may find yourself unprepared to pick up where you left off at work.

Use these ten tips to help you get back on the bandwagon at work post-baby without all the strain, stress, and shock of leaving your newborn.

Image via @MamaGlow_MGFF

While there’s a plethora of products geared to the millions of women who get pregnant every year, there’s a surprisingly low number of items created with a holistic approach. Latham Thomas founded Mama Glow to fill that void. A holistic lifestyle hub for women to explore their creativity, Thomas released a new book last month, also called Mama Glow, on pregnancy and wellness.

Alicia Keys, Tonya Lewis Lee, Veronica Webb, Rebecca Walker, and Karyn Parsons have all endorsed the book, which includes tips to help reduce stress, covers birth plans, labor coaches, and midwives, has recipes for homemade pampering treats like coffee sugar scrub, and even includes a postpartum wellness plan. Maybe the Duchess of Cambridge could use a copy?

We talked to Thomas about how every pregnant woman can get her Mama Glow on.

Madame Noire: What made you want to launch Mama Glow?

Latham Thomas: Mama Glow is a movement born out of necessity. I saw a gap in hip holistic lifestyle and pregnancy market and I wanted to put the “hot mama glow” back into women’s health. I wanted to offer women a safe haven to explore nutrition, yoga, and birth doula services all under one roof, and create a platform for maternal advocacy while doing so. Mama Glow was born.  I was pregnant with my son and wanted to provide services that I thought should have been readily available to me during that precious time.

MN:  How did you fund the startup?

LT: I started Mama Glow with my own money. I don’t wait for anything. I am a single mother and know a lot of moms probably feel daunted by finding the resources to fund their dreams. But the truth is when you really commit to that mission, the connections, resources, money, and angels come in to help facilitate your goals. Keep the faith; God is my business partner.

MN: What were some of the obstacles you faced with starting Mama Glow?

LT: My biggest challenge is time management, still. I want to do it all and there are a mere 24 hours in a day. I have support luckily.

MN: Tell us about the book?

LT: Mama Glow is a comprehensive go-to guide for a balanced lifestyle that will have you looking and feeling your most radiant for the next nine months and beyond. It’s divided into sections — In the Kitchen, On The Mat, and In Your Life — that address food, movement, and self-care practices to get your glow on.

MN:  Do you feel African-American moms are overlooked as a market?

LT: I think we collectively have not claimed our health as a priority. Statistically black women suffer disproportionately from cancers [like] breast and ovarian, diabetes, heart disease, [and] obesity. The market caters to what people decide is of relevance. If we don’t spend our money on health-related products and services they won’t be directly marketed towards us.

MN: What do you think are some of the major concerns for African-American moms?

LT: I think health concerns are a risk for our community and what I typically see across the board are fibroid tumors, which I address in Mama Glow. I offer a cleanse program to get your body baby-ready. This is something we need to think about. Stress and poor diet are major factors for reproductive challenges.

MN:  Any new developments for Mama Glow?

LT: We have a new partnership with Morgan Stanley so will be launching two exciting new iterations of our Mama Glow initiatives — The Mama Glow Icon Gala and The Mama Glow Film Festival — for 2013. I will launch a consumer products division and develop some TV opportunities.

MN: What is your favorite thing about being an African-American mom?

LT: I am born of a legacy of strong women. We all are. I love being Fulano’s mama. When my son climbs into bed to cuddle in the middle of the night, I’m reminded that even though he’s 4 foot 6” tall, he is still a little boy and will always be my little angel.

And for more on the topic of maternal health and pregnancy, check out a recent story Madame Noire Business published here.

Image via AudraLowe.com

Move over Oprah. Since 2007, Audra Lowe has been hosting the nationally syndicated lifestyle New York-based TV program,  the The Better Show show and hosts The Broadway Channel.

In her 25 years of broadcasting experience, Lowe has covered the gamut, from news to sports to entertainment. L.A.-born Lowe previously hosted Fox Sports’ FoxWire and the entertainment show, FoxNOW.  Lowe is still a sports fanatic; basketball and NASCAR are her favorites.

Although she is concentrating on her own career, Lowe takes time to school others on the ins and outs of broadcasting. For the past 15 years, she has conducted broadcasting seminars for aspiring journalists, athletes, musicians and financial executives — anyone looking to enhance their interviewing skills. She spends a great deal of time as an adviser to the Center for Sports & Entertainment, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing skills of youth by exposing and preparing them for diverse careers in the sports and entertainment industry.

Think Lowe is busy enough? She’s also a wife, mother and emerging entrepreneur, launching a line of products (such as maternity t-shirts) and endorsements that appeal to women of all ages.

Madame Noire: What is the most rewarding part of hosting Better?

Audra Lowe: When guests, tell me how comfortable I make them feel. It’s also rewarding knowing that, with our research, tips and guests, we may have helped someone with a part of their life. I get an overwhelming amount of viewer feedback that makes me realize that what we’re doing is effective, and is helping someone who needs a little motivation.

MN:  You have been with Better since 2007. What do you still find exciting about your job?

AL: Had this been any other show, I may have been bored by now. But the fact is, no two days on our show are ever alike. Meeting celebrities isn’t what’s exciting to me. Meeting celebrities with substance is. Take actor, Tony Danza. I grew up watching him on TV and the other day, he sat down next to me in the makeup room and started chatting like we were old friends before our interview. In a matter of minutes, I realized just how intense and passionate he is about teaching and he didn’t want to talk about his TV career on the show as much as he wanted to focus on education. Taye Diggs—yes, he promoted his show but he was also so conversational, fun and engaging. We talked about being parents and he got so comfortable that we now call it “the Taye Diggs lean” on the couch!

MN:  They used to say that an on-air career is shorter for women because people don’t like to see older female newscasters. Do you think this is changing?

AL: I wish I could say it is changing but personally, I think it’s either the same or—in some cases–getting worse. I wish executives would understand the value of “women over 30” and what they bring to the table.

There’s a certain glowing beauty about a woman who is with child. It’s a precious time of choosing names and decorating nurseries, but more than that, it is a time in a woman’s life that is filled with excitement and joy.  With all of the challenging bodily changes you’re experiencing and every developmental milestone occurring to the life growing inside of you, it can be a frightening experience to believe that your pregnancy is progressing any less than perfect.  Unfortunately, sometimes things can go very wrong, and although there is no exact way to prepare for the pain, you can be aware of warning signs of complications and find ways to move past especially difficult circumstances.

Miscarriages can generally be described as a spontaneous termination of pregnancy.  Miscarriages affects up to 25 percent of all women and typically happen between four and six weeks.  Miscarriages can happen for a variety of reasons including fetal abnormalities or the egg attaching in the wrong area in the first place.  Recent studies have shown that many miscarriages that occur early can in no way be prevented by the mother.

Miscarriages can occur between the fourth and sixth months of pregnancy and are usually caused by abnormalities present within the mother such as chronic illnesses like lupus, diabetes, fibroids, or the abuse of nicotine, alcohol or other harmful substances.  Symptoms of a miscarriage include moderate or severe spotting within the early weeks of pregnancy, severe abdominal pain, passing anything that resembles tissue during your pregnancy or the sudden absence of pregnancy symptoms like nausea or breast tenderness.  Trust your intuition; you know your body best and if you have the slightest suspicion that anything isn’t quite right, you should seek medical treatment.

Weight gain and swollen ankles may make being pregnant the last thing a lot of women want documented in pictures. But just because things may get bigger and spread and you’re a walking contradiction for nine months, both nauseous and famished at the same time, and sweating even in the dead of winter, it doesn’t mean you look a mess (and even if you do, you’re about to bring a life into the world; that in itself is beautiful). Rest assured the following celebs were gorgeous before and after, and they probably have lots of help looking super Hot even during contractions, but even so, there’s something about pregnancy that just makes them look that much prettier.

Pregnancy, if it occurs at a time when you’re ready to handle motherhood, can be one of life’s biggest blessings. But for some women, up to nine months of gestation can be a curse on their fashion sense. Rather than allowing a temporary big belly to handicap your style by limiting you to waistband pants or tacky, too tight tops, experiment with color and fabrics. You’d be surprised how many retailers are selling maternity clothes in the trends and looks everyone’s clamoring for–but with a just a little more wiggle room. Some notables with the chicest fashions featured include A Pea in the Pod, ASOS.com, Old Navy, Motherhood Maternity, Nordstrom and more.  After your second trimester, stock up on these mommy-to-be essentials and take your maternity wear from a baggy mess to three trimesters of being best dressed.

Dress from A Pea in the Pod