Are Childbirth Glamour Shots a Good Thing?

Several people have sent me links this week to birth photos entered in National Geographic’s 2011 Photo Contest (examples below).  

Here’s the thing about this.  I think childbirth, and the body, are pretty awesome and fascinating, and I wish we had more images in our collective consciousness that portrayed both as strong, vital, cool, etc.  (instead of dire, freaky, pathological, unreliable, something out of the E.R.)

And yet, I pause, sometimes, at the “beautiful” childbirth shots.  

Yes, there’s a lot of power and awesomeness here, but honestly my first thoughts are, “how does her hair look like that?!”

I like to think I was pretty much a rock star during labor (not because of how the births went, just because I did it, and I encourage all of you to think of yourselves the same way, regardless of how it went, as long as you had a baby that day) but I didn’t look like a rock star.  Or a model.  Or like anything I’d want photos of posted anywhere.  And my babies didn’t look like angelic cherubs at first, either.  Here is my daughter, moments after being born:

It’s not the shot I chose for the birth announcements.

In fact, I can remember seeing my husband holding a camera during one of my kid’s births and totally freaking out at that poor man.  (“I was just moving it! Not taking pictures!” he exclaimed)  I wasn’t upset because there was something wrong with what I was doing, or anything shameful about it.  But — because I’m a pretty vain person, I knew I couldn’t fully concentrate on what I needed to do if I was trying, also, to be camera-ready.  

In fact, it felt kind of liberating to be able to do childbirth without having to be watched and recorded and documented.  I can bring home the bacon.  I can fry it up in a pan.  I can gestate and bear two children.  And I can pull off a variety of looks.  But for f*ck’s, sake.  I didn’t want to have to do it in labor. Some people have effortless beauty that looks a lot like Magazine Beauty.  But most of the labors I’ve been at, my own included, the mom was stunning, awesome and effortlessly beautiful and deeply lovable, but not in the classic mainstream female beauty way you see in mags.  

Even if we put looks aside, there’s something about being photographed for posterity that changes how you act, how you feel, how you behave.  When you’re aware of a camera and an audience, doesn’t it affect everything?  

And why is it that the “triumphant” photos are always at the moment of birth, not the many dull, awful moments, hours earlier, where mom felt like giving up at hour 20 and managed, through her tears, to find a way to carry on?  It starts to feel like the emergence of the baby is the Money Shot, the moment besides which nothing matters, and, especially when the laboring mom looks waxed and skinny, the whole thing starts to feel a little porny to me.

And so I’m not sure how to react to the National Geographic photos.  OT1H, I love the idea of watching birth — what could possibly normalize childbirth as much as seeing it?  And thinking of it as normal totally helps you do it.  And I love seeing how many many different ways there are to be.

But OTOH, when I see the glamour shots, I worry, a little.  Are they like the impossible standards of magazine beauty we all lament?  Are we setting the audience up, a little, suggesting that it’s obligatory to look, or be, or feel a certain way, or at least to try?  

Or are we giving them powerful images to counterbalance the medicalized hospital images with women on their backs, pushing uphill like Sisyphus, strangled up in monitors and IV lines?

What do you think?

Hang on, doc! Let that baby hang on a little longer.

Here’s an article from yesterday’s New York Times about the benefits of delayed umbilical cord clamping, finding that even a few minutes’ delay reduces the likelihood that the baby will develop low-iron months later.

Here’s the background on this issue:  When a baby is born, he is still attached to the placenta by the umbilical cord.  At first, he continues to get oxygen and nutrients from the mom’s body through the cord — you can see the mom’s pulse beating in the cord.  After several minutes, if left alone, the cord will stop pulsating (and stop delivering oxygen and nutrients), and soon thereafter the placenta will come out.  

In the 1950s it became common OB practice to clamp and cut the cord immediately after the birth — while it was still delivering oxygen and nutrients to the newborn.  There was no medical reason to do this, but it saves a few minutes of the doctor’s time and, in an era where so many women asleep during the birth, quick cord clamping allowed nurses to whisk the baby off to the nursery for immediate care.  

In recent years, though, we’ve begun to see a return to the idea of delaying cord clamping until the cord has finished delivering its goods — why not let the baby’s first experience of the world be lying on mom’s belly gazing up at her, while receiving all that additional oxygen and nutrient-rich blood?  It just makes sense.   

The only reason to cut the cord right away is habit.  (Sometimes OBs speculate that immediate cord clamping prevents jaundice, since the newborn gets less of mom’s red blood cells.  But the study found no difference in jaundice for either group). 

What about the benefits?  By the time the babies were four months old, the babies whose cords were cut early had higher rates of iron deficiency, which suggests that premature cord-clamping has longer-term health and nutrition implications.  

That’s cool in and of itself, but there’s another wrinkle — iron deficiency is a reason I hear frequently that moms start their babies on solid foods before the half-year mark. Most moms know that AAP and WHO recommend that infants get only breastmilk for the first six months, but the moms are also pummeled with advertising of infant iron supplements.  No one wants her baby to be anemic, but how do you balance that against the universally acknowledged recommendations to delay solid food for six months? 

Well, maybe we could avoid that whole tangle, and reduce the number of babies who need iron supplements at all, by our choices in the first three minutes after the birth.

Was it good for you, too?

Great piece from Jezebel about a woman who wanted to get her freak on a lot while pg.  I had one pregnancy like this, and one that was really not like this, and now, since I’m all pseudo-scientific, I always think about what that meant — does it have anything to do with the kids’ personalities?  Or with how much weight I gained or what my milk supply was like?  

How about you?  Did you dig it while you were preg, or not so much?

Dancin Mama

Here we see a mom-to-be post-dates in a twin pregnancy as she rocks her way into labor with the help of The Black Eyed Peas.  Some points

1.  How awesome does she look?  

2.  What a great dancer she is!  I seriously could not bust those moves even non-pregnant, forget about the 40-Week-Waddle-Two-Step.

3.  And to have that kind of energy!

So we see — there are so many ways to be :-).  

BTW, in the comments section you can see that she apparently went into labor 2 days later and had a terrific birth.

Thanks to Ceridwen Morris for the original link. 

A little fun from The Onion: "Study Finds Every Style Of Parenting Produces Disturbed, Miserable Adults"

Love this piece from The Onion, and it reminds me of my favorite poem by Philip Larkin, titled “This Be The Verse”:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
  And don't have any kids yourself.

The Onion is parody, of course, but actually, when you think about it?  Given that your kids are going to end up in therapy complaining about you :-), you may as well enjoy the parts of parenting that are fun and not feel too guilty about the other crap, or overly invested in one philosophy.

Actually funny piece about childbirth

I love The Hairpin, and they’ve pulled off something amazing — this is something I have almost never seen before:  a humor piece about childbirth which is actually funny, as opposed to like every single other humor thing about birth, which are so infused with ignorance about birth / misogyny /general female body-hate that I have to stomp around ranting and eat chocolate even though I already brushed my teeth. 

And there’s a reference to Dune!  

But I have to disagree with #25.  The ultimate post-labor food is bacon-egg-and-cheese on a hard roll ordered in from the diner across the street from the hospital.  And if the diner forgets the bacon, and this omission makes the new mom burst into tears even though she was totally a rock star for the whole labor, and her husband gallantly offers her the bacon from his own sandwich, this is a great sign that the marriage will survive and thrive, even if there is a period where she kind of hates him for a while there during the f&ck-now-we’re-parents transition.

Just, yk, hypothetically speaking.

What's Up With Motherhood?

“Here are some healthful tid bits for women to savor as they embark on motherhood. Trust yourself. Rely on others. Ask for help. Seek support. Connect with loved ones. Take time for yourself. Expect to feel amazing, awful, and everything in between. Throw perfection out the window!”
—

This is from an interview called What’s Up With Motherhood, at thenewperfect.com, with Dr. Jessica Zucker, a psychotherapist who specializes in women’s health issues.   

Such important points in an article that talks about the way moms waste energy trying to be as “perfect” as the other mothers.

But what I like most in this quote is:   look at all these things that seem like contrasts:  ”trust yourself” sounds so independent, but it’s right next to “rely on others” and “ask for help.”  That’s because when you’re a mother, you’ve got to be both independent and dependent. Those things don’t cancel each other out — each one is an ingredient in the other.  

It’s one thing to hear “trust yourself” and “rely on others”, but it’s another thing to do it.  So many new moms think “trust yourself” is great advice for people who know what they’re doing, but worry that it doesn’t apply to them.  If you’re a new mom who has no experience and few role models and is bombarded by “expert advice” telling you to do a dozen mutually exclusive things, you can start worrying that your common sense isn’t enough.  Or, perhaps, you’re just too tired to hear what common sense tells you.

And similarly, it can be hard to rely on others and ask for help, even when we “know” it’s good advice.  On the one hand, I think we all understand that the point of having 9 billion people on one planet is that there are going to be some good ones to share your life with.  But on the other hand, I think we all, sometimes, worry that needing people is a sign of weakness, something you shouldn’t admit. I do it, too, as I’ve blogged about.

So but here’s the thing.  You know what helps you trust yourself?  Relying on others.  And you know what helps you rely on others?  Trusting yourself.  

Here’s why:  When you can trust that feeling lonely or empty or confused isn’t a sign that You’re A Shitty Mom, you can open your life to other people and begin to rely on them.  And when you’re around other mothers and you become friends and your lives start to intertwine (I mean having real relationships, not just casual encounters where everyone pretends their lives are perfect) you start to see that what real mothers do, in real life, is not a perfect arrangement of beautiful Kodak moments, but a big soupy mess of decisions that are sometimes very planful and other times haphazard, where their personality, their common sense, their aesthetic sense and their quirks are the tools they rely on.  When you see other women doing this you realize — “trust yourself”  doesn’t mean “have perfect judgment about everything”; it means, “you’re going to be OK; stop agonizing so much.”

No one knows what she’s doing all the time and everyone breaks a sweat raising kids.  That’s because it’s hard.  But community helps, perhaps more than anything, at reminding us that the goal isn’t to be perfect.  I think the goal is to have tools to handle the stuff that’s just not fun, and to be able to enjoy the stuff that really, really is.

Strong Start Day 2011

When I’m teaching a childbirth class, and I begin to talk about postpartum mood issues, I see every pregnant woman tense up a little, as if stiffening the body will ward off the possibility of Depression Happening To Me.  It’s a normal reaction, I think — even in this day and age, Depression carries a stigma.  We’re supposed to be happy all the time.  We’re supposed to be able to cope.  Mothers, especially, are supposed to be able to cope.  And if they can’t, they’re really not supposed to admit it.

We don’t even like to use the word “depression.”  I can’t tell you how often I’ve been approached by new or expectant mothers who want to ask me about “Postpartum.”  They mean: “Postpartum Depression/Anxiety/OCD,” but don’t want to say those words.  Even the *words* are too scary.  The word “postpartum” actually just means the time period after you give birth — it has nothing to do with depression!  But it’s become so common now for women to say “Postpartum” to mean “Depression” that I can’t even say “postpartum” anymore to mean “the early weeks” without freaking out an entire roomful of women.    

Here is the thing.  For some moms, the ride into parenthood is bumpy.  Well, hang on, I think for everyone it’s bumpy.  What major life transition isn’t?  But for some moms it’s More Than Normal Bumpy.  Often this is a result of  unexpected birth/breastfeeding/whatever situation + fatigue + isolation + unrealistic expectations having never seen a new mother before.  For many, many of those moms, the thing that helps them pull out is company, especially the company of other mothers.  

But for others Bumpy Ride derails into Depression or other Mental Illness.  Company helps those moms, too, but they also need clinical help, whether in the form of counselling, or medication, or both.  Depression is an illness.  It requires treatment.

But, see, one of the classic hallmarks of Depression is: hopelessness.  By definition, if you feel hopeless, it seems, well, hopeless to seek help.  So, women who are depressed are singularly unlikely to go out and look for the help they need.  Often they imagine that it’s … hopeless.  So why bother?  Add on the exhaustion of being a new mom, the logistical problems of getting out of the house when you have a baby, and the general stigma about Depression and you have a recipe for Depression that lasts, and lasts, and lasts, untreated.  

:-(

It’s so sad!  Parenthood can be tough, challenging, scary, and sometimes flat out annoying, as well as all the good things.  It’s normal for women to have mixed feelings about any big life change, and mixed feelings include negative feelings.  But feeling despair, predominantly, is not something to Just Cope With.  

Women who are Depressed need others to take care of them, and one champion for mothers on this issue is Katherine Stone.  This week she is looking for your support, beginning, today, with Strong Start Day 2011.  You should support her.  You should tell the new moms you know about her blog, whether they are depressed or not.  You should talk about the stuff that’s hard even though there’s pressure not to.  It helps.

By the way, you should also come to a New MOMs group.  Because when you’re in the company of other new mothers, you can see, more clearly, the difference between a new mom who is feeling the normal range of “down, confused, worried and Not Loving It Right Now” and a mom who is really not coping.  This helps you sort out what’s going on with you.  You can get comfort and support if that’s what you need, and you can *give* comfort and support to the moms who need it.  And, even if everything is going splendidly, you can meet some other cool folks who’ve also just reproduced.

"You have children"

Which is why you need to remember to, occasionally, take a long shower.  Put on the stereo.  Get your nails done.  Eat a little chocolate even though you haven’t lost all the weight yet.  Ask another mom to watch your little one so you can tak…

Which is why you need to remember to, occasionally, take a long shower.  Put on the stereo.  Get your nails done.  Eat a little chocolate even though you haven’t lost all the weight yet.  Ask another mom to watch your little one so you can take half an hour in the supermarket alone and offer to do the same for her.  Get to a new moms’ group so you can meet some cool other people.  Close the door for some privacy while you pee.  Etc. 

Freebies

“In an era when many feminists are (in my opinion rightly) dismayed by the suggestion that a woman’s right to an abortion should be subject to conditions, I have been shocked by the high level of acceptance when it comes to the notion that women who formula feed should be forced to justify their choice … I have witnessed a sizeable number of women, some of whom are self-declared feminists, debating on one another’s social media profiles and calling for formula to be made illegal.”
—

The quote is from a piece by Lorrie Hearts, at the f word., which I found on Jessica Valenti’s blog from a link at The Feminist Breeder. 

This argument entirely misses the point, and it’s completely wrong to equate this issue with assaults on reproductive liberty. 

Here is why:

First of all, the post is about a hospital that has decided to stop giving free formula samples to new mothers.  Formula is still available.  Unlike the abortion analogy, here, no one is taking away anyone’s right to choose anything.  The only thing going away is FREE samples.  

This is totally unlike a legislative or judicial attack on women’s reproductive liberty.  When governments make it impossible for a woman to make decisions about her body, it is ILLEGAL for a woman to choose not to become a mother.  When a hospital stops providing free formula, it is LEGAL for a woman to choose to give formula, you just have to pay for it like you pay for everything else.  In fact, women now have more choices, because they can choose any brand they’d like to buy, and not be stuck with whatever the hospital got in free samples that week.  And when “a sizeable number of women” criticize your motherhood choices in a way that makes you feel lousy, it is of course still LEGAL to do what you’d like to do, and I suggest seeking friends who aren’t critical of you, and remembering that other people’s opinions are only that, and that ranting about infant feeding choices on Facebook is a far cry from taking your rights away.

Moreover, I so don’t get why formula feeding moms support the free-formula-giveaways.  The formula industry spends mega-dollars on all that freebie placement and marketing.  Where do you think that marketing budget comes from?  How do they make back what they spend giving away free samples everywhere?  They make it back by jacking up the price of formula.  Moms who buy formula pay for everyone’s freebies.  If less was spent on all the give-aways, moms who were buying it would pay less.

I hate when the language and ideals of feminism are perverted this way.  The formula industry is not “feminist.”  It does not exist to advance the cause and plight of women.  It exists to get your dollars.  They do not give away the free samples because they care about you and your sore nipples, they do it because they hope you’ll use their product and spend your money on them.  Period.  

Hospitals can do way more than they currently do to improve the care of new moms.  I have blogged about this before; we need systemic change that recognizes that new mothers need individualized, evidence-based, compassionate care.  But this particular thing is not an example of it.

Pillow Talk

Last month I blogged about how many hospitals undermine breastfeeding while paying lip service to the “Breast Is Best” slogan.  Recently I had an example of how this happens.

I was at Weill Cornell visiting a former student.  Her 2 day old baby had been born slightly premature and was still hospitalized, though mom had been discharged.  We sat together in the Waiting Area as she began to get the hang of nursing.  

Do you remember getting the hang of nursing?  It doesn’t happen immediately for everyone, even with help.  The door to the waiting area opened and closed a dozen times as people came and went, and each time, I saw her eyebrows knit together and her shoulders squeeze up and forward as if to provide a modesty shield.  Most of the moms I meet work up gradually to the idea of nursing in public; this new mom had to do it on Day Two because there was no private place for her.  She was hyper-aware of every random person who sauntered into the waiting area, including the coughing toddler who turned up the volume on the giant television screen. Scooby Doo was blaring.  The chairs were narrow and hard.  There was no stool to rest her feet on.    

I went to the nurse’s station to ask for a pillow to help position the baby.  When a baby is positioned correctly, he gets plenty of milk and the mom will not be in pain.  That is called:  breastfeeding working.  Squeezing the mom into a lousy office chair where she can’t get comfortable or latch the baby may as well be called:  why not give up now?

When I asked for the pillow, the nurse looked at me with an expression that said, “Honey, this is not a hotel.”  She let a long pause go by, a long, very awkward pause, as though to shame me for asking her to do an errand.  Finally she said, “I’ll look.”  After a long while, during which my client tried her best, contorted on the lousy chair, the nurse returned saying, “We don’t have any.”  

I said, “You don’t have a pillow for the mother of a hospitalized two day old baby?”

She started to walk away, and I said, “Can we get a blanket then?”

There was no blanket either (of course, formula was available, though; the baby had been given it at almost half her feedings.  Hospitals that aren’t Baby Friendly accept free samples from formula manufacturers.  No one donates free samples of breastfeeding pillows, comfy furniture or kind, gentle support people).  

In the end, we got a bed sheet, which I rolled up to form a not-big-enough bolster.  My client showed tremendous courage and perseverance; she tuned out the people coming in and out and managed to get the baby nursing well, and talk to me about her birth, all while squeezed into the lousy chair in the lousy room.

She was brave and determined, and I admire her enormously but seriously?  Why should she have to be so heroic?  It is heroic enough to cope with an unexpected premature birth.  It is heroic enough to have a new baby, period. You shouldn’t need to be heroic to get the baby fed.

What if she’d been too anxious to tune out the noise, too exhausted to deal with the uncomfortable chair?  What if she’d just been a normal woman, not especially brave or persistent?  The “best” practice is to persevere at nursing, but honestly, the logical choice for this mom was to give up once the toddler started coughing and the nurse couldn’t get us a pillow.  Not because breastfeeding is so impossible; breastfeeding isn’t impossible at all!  But the hospital setup was making it awful for her.  The hospital setup was making it seem more provocative, more difficult and much more complex to manage than it needs to be, so it became something to surmount.

She was tired, worried, and uncomfortable.  New moms tend to be, even when things are going well.  But being tired, worried and uncomfortable makes you less able to cope with a loud room, no privacy, no pillow, endless logistics.  Why are we supporting hospitals that ignore that?  We can talk endlessly about breast being “best” but when we set it up that you have to be a superhero to do it, we are setting people up for failure.

Here’s what we should have instead:  

  • A private, sunny Nursing Room for new moms.  It should be separate from the waiting area for loved ones of laboring women.  
  • The room should be stocked with whatever you might need to nurse a baby:  comfortable chairs, foot stools, a water cooler, and props for breastfeeding moms — pillows, etc. You shouldn’t have to ask.  Just like in a bathroom you shouldn’t have to ask for a sink as well as the toilet, yk? (Can you imagine if you went to the bathroom and there was a toilet but no sink?  And that if you asked for a sink they said there was one, but it was way down the hall, around the corner, past the elevators and through the fire doors?  And on the way to the sink you passed ten signs reminding you that hand-washing was “best”?)
  • No TV, and a good soundproofing door so that the frantic noise of the hospital isn’t a constant distraction.

oh, and of course:

  • personnel who are knowledgeable and trained in normal infant feeding, and who can grasp that a new mother who wants to feed her hospitalized baby, needs to be cared for.

All hospitals should be Baby-Friendly.  Let’s get on that.  Until that is the standard, though — ask for what you need.

Childbirth is Natural

     Back in the 1970s, a lot of oat-filled snacks appeared in my lunch box, labelled: “all natural,” “naturally sweet” etc.  At the time, we all thought we were sort of virtuous and extra healthy for eating these. 

     The thing is, “natural” didn’t, apparently, mean anything on food labels; it was just a phrase marketers realized people like.  Granola bars had as much sugar as cookies, though we all thought of cookies as “dessert.”  When I learned that the phrase meant nothing, I felt a little cheated.  After all, the granola bars claimed to be from Nature’s Valley!  

     But then I thought — isn’t any valley just a natural formation between hills or mountains?  Are there unnatural valleys?

     The funny thing is, it’s the same thing with childbirth.  When I’m teaching, invariably a student will use the phrase “natural childbirth,” either to say, “I want a natural childbirth” or “I’m not interested in natural childbirth.”  

     We all know what it means.  And yet, it’s just as empty as the granola bar packaging, and I dislike it just as much, and I suggest we stop using it altogether.

     Because isn’t all childbirth natural?  

     What could be more natural than reproducing?  For adult women who like men, reproduction is so natural that you have to work to avoid it.  Whether you’re partnered or not, your body prepares for pregnancy a dozen times a year.  If you get pregnant, the natural culmination is birth.  Somehow, whether it’s a vaginal birth or a c-section, spontaneous labor or induction, pain medication or no, the natural conclusion of the labor is that the baby comes out.  

     I said “we all know what it means,” but that’s not exactly true either.  Sometimes people use “natural” childbirth to mean “no c-section,” and it’s just a way of avoiding the word “vaginal.”  

     Here’s the thing about that:  I do know that regular people who aren’t childbirth educators aren’t, usually, comfortable with the word “vagina.”  And I remember, when I was a lawyer, one time when the guy in the office next to me (who had overly-long greasy hair and a chronic post-nasal drip, so I’d hear him hawking phlegm, daily, as he berated first-year associates with the door open) told me about his wife’s birth and managed to say “vaginal” eight times, gratuitously in the span of two minutes.  

     The image of him schnuffling beside his wife and her vagina — eight times — was really gross, and I felt, distinctly, that the point of this, for him, was that he got to say “vagina” eight times to the cute, young associate next door, which pretty much sums up why I didn’t like the practice of law, butanyway.

     Still, in truth, if he’d said “natural” it wouldn’t have been much better.  My objection was to him and his slavering TMI, not to the word “vaginal.” 

     So, I get it on the “vaginal” birth thing, but, hey folks, get over it.  Say it quickly, or just say, “I gave birth,” and lets have that mean vaginal birth without having to talk about your Nether Regions.  It might help us remember that c-section is supposed to be a last resort.

 **

     Some people use “natural” to mean “no pain medication,” but that’s tricky, too.  The idea is that a woman who relies on her own internal coping tools is closer to “nature” than someone who gets an infusion of chemicals injected into the epidural space.  But both women — all women in labor — naturally respond to pain by looking for *some* way to cope with it.  A woman who doesn’t use medication isn’t more stoic, she is just using different, non-chemical tools to get through the labor.  It is natural to look for pain relief.

     And the meds argument is tricky:  If you have Pitocin but no epidural, is it natural?  

     Suppose you have no medication at all, but you have IV fluids because you were dehydrated at the beginning of labor?  Natural? 

     Suppose you go into labor on your own labor at home in the tub and using massage and stuff, and, after 4 days of labor, are still a few centimeters dilated and request a c-section because you’re too exhausted to carry on?  Unnatural?  To me, the natural response to exhaustion is to look for something to help you deal.

     And, on the other hand:  suppose you planned to have an “all natural” birth but your placenta is completely previa and there’s no option besides surgical birth.  Do you lose your all-natural status?  Points for having wanted it?

** 

     I hate the way “natural” can sound like a badge of honor: “She went all natural!”  If “natural” is good, it seems like all the women whose labors don’t fit into the “natural” box are less entitled to bask in the accomplishment of having made it through a pregnancy and, somehow, gotten a baby out.   And that’s unfair.

     And I hate the way “natural” is, sometimes, a dis.  “I don’t feel the need to do it all-natural,” some folks say, as though “natural” means “martyr.”  It’s not being a martyr to rely on non-medical tools for pain.  It’s not selfish.  It’s not a birth fetish.  It’s not crunchy/granola.  People have different ways to deal with pain, period.  

 

     In the end, though, it’s all meaningless – “natural” doesn’t mean any more in the birth world than it does in food labelling.  All valleys are natural, but that doesn’t mean you’re in the mood for a granola bar today, right?  Childbirth is natural too.  

      Here’s what’s unnatural:

  •  Being pregnant and not having any curiosity about what is going to happen at the end. 
  • A healthcare system that treats women like they can’t comprehend labor unless they are doctors, or probably aren’t smart enough to make good choices for themselves. 
  • Maternity care that is routinely managed in a way that leaves many women thinking their bodies don’t work properly. 

  

Instead of talking about “natural childbirth,” lets do this:

      When you’re pregnant, become educated about the physiology of labor, about medical tools available to address problem situations, and about all manner of ways to deal with pain.  You do not need an advanced degree; a high-quality prenatal class will suffice.  As you approach the birth, make sure you have access to at least one gentle, loving support person besides your caregiver, to be with you in labor and help you navigate your birth.  

      Afterwards, if you don’t feel like talking about the birth, don’t.  But if you do, I suggest that you say “I gave birth,” to mean a vaginal birth, or “I had a c-section,” if you did.  If you used pain medication and would like to talk about it, say, “I had an epidural,” (or fentanyl, or whatever), and if you didn’t use medication and would like to talk about it, you can say, “I didn’t use pain medication,” or “I had an unmedicated birth.”  If you’d like to add other info, you can do so specifically.  

      Does this sound wordy?  It is.  Childbirth is intimate and private and a big deal.  Your experience of bringing a child into the world and becoming a mother is more than can be captured in any two-word phrase.  You don’t need to tell anyone your personal business.  But if you want to, it’s OK to tell the story.  

 

"Breast Is Normal"

Here’s a really interesting recent piece by Ceridwen Morris on the “Breast Is Best” slogan.  We’ve all heard “Breast is Best” for years, but, come to think of it, doesn’t it sound a little too “goody goody” to you?  Do you really need to be “best” at everything?  Some breastfeeding folks point out that calling breastfeeding “best” makes it seem like an extra special A+ you might not feel you need to go for, instead of what it is:  the normal way our species feed our young.  You give birth and your breasts get milk.  Whether you use them or not, we are mammals.  

But once we describe breastfeeding as plain old “normal,” what does that make formula?  When we call breastfeeding “beneficial,” formula feeding sounds “normal”.  If breast is normal, formula is:  worse.  Inferior.  Not as good.

I know this is a touchy subject, but before you click “unfollow,” let me finish.

Here's another article I saw today, noting that 96% of US hospitals fail to support, or undermine breastfeeding. 96%!!  No, hospitals don't say “Don't Breastfeed!”; they undermine it with inconsistent and misinformed practices, and by not implementing WHO's 10 step plan to become “Baby Friendly.”

It matters. Moms trust hospital caregivers and assume the hospital staff gives appropriate, state-of-the-art feeding advice.  But when moms are discharged without establishing breastfeeding, or having been given inconsistent or misinformation, many go on to wean, saying they “couldn’t” breastfeed / didn’t make enough milk /  etc.  Often they don’t realize the whole endeavor was sabotaged in the first days after the birth, by misguidance, inconsistent advice and inappropriate practices in the hospital.    

Then, moms who’ve weaned feel criticized by pro-breastfeeding advocacy that describes breastfeeding as “normal” or formula as “inferior.”  And we all dance around, trying not to hurt anyone’s feelings.  

Here’s the thing.  We shouldn’t hurt Moms’ feelings.  There is no use making any new mom feel like crap about herself, or suggesting that breastfeeding is the be-all-end-all, or that there is no place in the world for formula, or that it’s evil.  There’s a place for formula.

We need to support mothers’ choices, and respect their individual situations.  We don’t support them when we get sidetracked on a “did she or didn’t she” discussion of infant feeding, or act like mothers who formula feed are weak of character or inadequate.  But we also don’t support them when we pretend breastfeeding isn’t the normal way human young are meant to be fed, species-wide. 

Instead of Mom On Mom Criticism, here is where to focus our energies instead:  We MUST change what happens in the hospital. Hospitals’ newborn protocols are a crucial element of breastfeeding outcomes and all but 4% are failing.  Why are almost no hospitals “Baby Friendly”?  The answer has to do with money and time.  To be “Baby Friendly,” a hospital cannot accept free formula samples.  It must develop a comprehensive breastfeeding policy.  It must provide staff training.  It costs.  And if formula is “normal” and breastfeeding  ”extra-specially beneficial” then, that cost seems too much to bear.  Especially since  most exhausted and overwhelmed mothers will blame themselves if breastfeeding doesn’t work, and most won’t turn back to the hospital, saying, “How could you have failed me in those early days when my baby and I were fragile and needed your help, support and information?”

Why are any of us giving our business to hospitals that fail us in *any* area of care?   Write to your hospital and request that they become “Baby Friendly.”  If you are pregnant, take a prenatal breastfeeding class with your partner.  If you’re in NY use this website to look at breastfeeding outcomes in your hospital (scroll down to find the percentage of babies who are “fed exclusively breastmilk” as the AAP recommends).  If the breastfeeding rates are low, bring contact info for an IBCLCwith you to the hospital when you go into labor.  You may well not need her, but if few babies leave your hospital exclusively breastfeeding, why would you trust what the maternity nurses tell you about breastfeeding?  Consult with an expert when you have questions.

Breastfeeding is not simply a matter of what fate has in store for you.  You, your partner, and your support people are factors in the outcome.  Get educated; ask for help; reach out when necessary.  Reach out to the right folks.

P.S. For those in NYC:  Only two hospitals are “Baby Friendly”:  Harlem Hospital Center and NYU-Langone Medical Center.

Breastfeeding Doll, redux

I went to the gym today, where, from the treadmill, I can watch 7 TV screens and listen my Ipod all at once.  That kind of overstimulation cures what ails you, I say.  While I ran, before me, on CNN, was a piece about the breastfeeding doll.  

Haven’t we already been through this?  This doll came out a couple years ago already, but it makes news every few months.  I blogged about it  last time it freaked people out.  Here’s a summary:  It’s a doll.  If you hold it to your chest, it makes sucking noises.  People are agog and aghast.

I don’t get it.  Have you ever played with children?  Even if you haven’t, it’s no secret that they like dolls.  When they have dolls that look like babies, they pretend to be the parents.  They pretend to do stuff parents do, like change diapers or burp the baby, or soothe it if it’s crying or feed it.  If they don’t have a doll, they do it with a teddy bear.  Dolls have fueled children’s imagined parenting since the beginning of time. 

No one finds dolls creepy until you get breasts involved, and then there’s some sort of collective freakout, as though playing at breastfeeding is weird, sexual or might be “too much” for poor fragile girls.  WTF, people, we are talking about pretend breastfeeding, not lap dancing.  

It is not weird.  It is not sexual.  How exactly would it harm girls?  These are girls who are already pretending to be mothers.  Do we think girls don’t know about breasts?  Guess what, they do!  And they also know what breasts do — they make milk.  In fact, that might be all they know about them.  

And I think that’s the point here.  When you watch the news clip on CNN, the journalist is obviously upset (“I’ll burp you,” she says fiercely (uh, to a plastic doll!), “But I won’t nurse you!”), but also totally titillated.  We are talking about breasts, after all.

To girls playing at motherhood, breastfeeding is a way to cuddle and feed the baby.  It’s pretty simple, and that’s as it should be.  To adults, though, breasts are for all that and also for sex, and that’s as it should be also.  Adults are a lot more complicated than kids.  I think these periodic stories about the Breastfeeding Baby Doll occur from a collective feeling like, “we need to take our minds off the heat wave/economic crisis/whatever — hey, lets talk about breasts for a while!”

So, that’s fine — I think we’d probably all be happier if we all talked about breasts more often — they’re awesome and beautiful and sexy and extremely useful in so many ways!  But lets leave girls and dolls out of the discussion.  

P.S. If you’d like something else as fodder for your breast-y thoughts, how about this poem by Charles Simic?  I first heard this twenty years ago and of course imagined the hard, full breasts of young women, but you know what?  It works if you picture them as full lactating breasts, too :-).  Breasts are versatile that way.

P.P.S.  If you’re pregnant and going to the gym in this heat, rehydrate!

P.P.P.S.  Thanks, Terry, for reminding me the name of the poem :-)

Back-To-Work Talk for New Moms in Brooklyn

Work and Life:  A Workshop for Moms on Maternity Leave
Tuesday, July 26, 2-4:00 p.m., $60. Limited to 12, register:  (718) 855-7808 or by email to zebulonk@earthlink.net

In this 2-hour workshop, we cover all the stuff you need to know but dread discussing:

 

  • Finding and maintaining excellent childcare
  • Breastfeeding and pumping issues
  • Sleep issues for working moms
  • Finding “me-time”
  • Negotiating boundaries at work
  • Getting “everything else” done and being … happy
  • Co-parenting with your partner when you’re both employed
  • “Will My Baby Still Love Me?”  (yes!  yes yes yesyesyesyesyes)

Questions?  Email me:  meredith (at) amotherisborn (dot) com