norwegian_wood

I am pregnant, and "due" in January, hopefully another girl!

Everyone has heard, "Breast Is Best".

American women today, fueled by misinformation, lack of support or freedom of choice, often choose not to breastfeed their babies. The few who do breastfeed don't do it very long or exclusively. "Exclusively" means without formula supplements, juice, or baby foods. The current recommendation (American Academy of Pediatrics) is for all babies to receive only breastmilk for the first 6 months of life, and to nurse for at least a year or longer. Yet in Illinois, only 11% of babies are receiving any breastmilk by 6 months of age.

Many women feed their babies according to their doctor's advice. Most doctors will tell you "breast is best, but formula is ok too". A doctor should not be telling a woman that formula is "ok too". If they were educated on the topic of breastmilk vs. formula, they would know that formula should not be presented as an acceptable substitute for breastfeeding when it comes to infant health. Unfortunately, doctors are taught to prescribe, and formula feeding offers an easy way for a doctor dictate in specifics...he can tell you how many ounces, how often are needed to meet your baby's caloric requirements. Breastfeeding is not as easy for a physician to monitor, as you can't measure the ounces of milk a baby gets from the breast. This is not to say that there aren't accurate ways to ascertain that a baby is getting enough when they are breastfed - it just means that most doctors aren't taught that way. Physicians also recommend other unhealthy feeding practices, such as rice cereal or other solid foods before the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines of 4-6 months of age....my point is, what or how to feed your baby is usually not a decision that a physician needs to make for a healthy newborn.

Studies have found that for every year a woman breastfeeds, her risk of breast cancer declines by 4%. Considering that the average woman (without inherited mutations...which is not the same as having someone in your family who has had breast cancer) has only a .3% chance of getting breast cancer, you can see that in most cases, exclusive, extended (at least to age 1) breastfeeding can absolutely reduce or eliminate your risk of breast cancer.
If you have a daughter, it is especially important to nurse.
Women who were breastfed as infants, even if only for a short time, showed an approximate 25% lower risk of developing premenopausal or postmenopausal breast cancer, compared to women who were bottle-fed as an infant.
Source: Freudenheim, J. "Exposure to breast milk in infancy and the risk of breast cancer." Epidemiology 1994 5:324-331

Get an idea of your risk of breast cancer here, and then factor in that your risk is reduced every year you breastfeed. My risk is 0%. Maybe yours could be too.

You can read more about breastfeeding and breast cancer here.
It's not only breast cancer risk you lower by breastfeeding, also uterine, ovarian and endometrial cancer.

It's a year of your life that could save your life, or that of your child!

Finding a cure is important. There are many women who never have biological children or are past childbearing age who need to live! But to bank on a cure and choose not to breastfeed is risky behavior. Especially if you are a smoker or have used the birth control pill in the past.

SIDS

Sudden infant death syndrome is the single most important cause of newborn mortality, striking approximately two infants per 1000 live births in the U.S. Exclusive breastfeeding cuts the risk in half. Your healthy newborn has a .2% chance of dying from SIDS if they are not breastfed. Factor in prematurity, low birth weight or having had a previous child die from SIDS and the risk is higher. If your child is a twin, their risk is doubled.

If you sleep with your baby on a sofa, the risk goes up. If your baby sleeps alone in a crib, the risk goes up. If you follow safe co-sleeping guidelines, several well-designed research studies demonstrate that SIDS is actually reduced in babies cosleeping along with an aware, protective (non-smoking, non-drug-impaired) mother in a safe bed.
The Chicago Infant Mortality Study reveals that Breastfeeding Infants have 1/5th the Rate of SIDS as their formula-fed counterparts. There are two kinds of cosleeping, a conscious decision made by highly attentive parents, and that coming from factors such as fatigue from partying or drinking. When sofa sleeping and wedging dangers are removed, the family bed with a breastfeeding mother shines as safest.

In countries/societies where breastfeeding and co-sleeping are the norm, SIDS rates are astronomically lower. Central and South America's rates have the lowest incidence of SIDS (.13%, or 1 in 7,598). Raising your child in a "natural" way, by holding your baby as much as possible (avoiding hours a day in swings, bouncers, walkers, etc), breastfeeding, and sleeping safely with your baby keeps you and your baby safer and healthier than modern practices of Baby Einstein videos and bottle propping.

It's never too late to choose to breastfeed your baby...a committed woman can relactate!

:)

The saddest thing I've read in forever

The Ungrateful Little Bastard Blog

Trying to pamper yourself by experiencing childbirth with all available medical technology at hand, is dangerously, stupidly self-indulgent.

I’ve seen the woman in transition, unmedicated, her face glistening with sweat, her body glowing, working harder than she’s ever worked before, her eyes with a dreamy, far away look. I’ve seen women overcome the pain and the relentlessness of the contractions. I’ve seen them rise above, and do something they dind’t think they were capable of. I’ve seen births where I am so obviously in the presence of Deity. I’ve watched babies crown, and sometimes it’s like staring at the unmasked face of the Goddess. Having birth while medicated is like having meaningless sex your entire life, with someone you don’t care about and aren’t in love with, and thinking that that’s what sex is, without ever once dipping into the Mystery of it, into the incredible beauty of two souls entwined, without ever once making love. It’s the same kind of energy. Birth is making love in a different way—and who would want to make love while numb up to their waists? True, this may not be the best metaphor in the world, and true, birth is not always (or even often) a pleasurable experience, but it’s still one that I think you should feel.

As some of you know, I had a second degree tear with Fiery's birth. It didn't hurt at all, and I didn't have the whole 'ring of fire' experience, so I wouldn't have even known that I tore if I hadn't looked. After I discovered it, I was pretty freaked out, because I didn't know what I know now about healing. So I share this in hopes of empowering the lot of you to heal with confidence. Here I will be talking about only tears that can happen at a home birth. Injury that occurs in hospital birth is too severe for me to address.

Sometimes birth tears are preventable, and sometimes you can only speculate on their preventability. There are some things which we *know* can effect tearing. Some of these things are:

* Diet Poor diet can affect skin elasticity as well as tissue healing. You HAVE to eat well during pregnancy! Vitamin E (200-400 IU) supplementation and daily intake prenatally of Vitamin C (1000-2000) may help with skin elacticity, and you need to drink lots of water!

* Labor and birth position Certain positions stress the perineum in ways it is not meant to be stressed, and can make you more prone to a tear or injury. Unless you regularly squat to pee, poop, cook, and socialize, birthing in a true full squat will likely result in a bad tear. Don't get me wrong, squatting in labor is super, but not usually for birth itself. Also, laying flat on your back can be bad as well. What positions are good will vary from woman to woman, but these two are common no-no's for tearing. Many women also tear badly on birth stools when used improperly. Being upright in a supported squat, standing, kneeling, hands and knees, and bending over standing are the best positions for avoiding tears and for birth in general!

* Slowed expulsion If the baby's head is allowed to crown and slip out slowly (breathing the baby out and allowing the fetal ejection reflex to do the work) rather than hard pushing, tearing may not happen, or it may be substantially less. Of course, sometimes a mother will have an intinctual feeling that the baby needs to be born quickly, and will find it impossible to slow the baby's entrance - which is for the best in those cases. Always follow your instinct, it exists for a reason!

* Catching your own baby Catching your own baby means that you are in contact with your perineum during the baby's birth, and will be more aware of your tissues and how they are stretching than if someone else catches.

* Waterbirth/well lubricated birth Waterbirth may provide women with less propensity to tearing. I have a theory that this may be because the water can act as a barrier to intervention: most midwives do not enter the water with you, and most waterbirth moms catch their own babies. Also the water makes tissues more pliable and relaxes the mother, as well as lubricating the birth passage. Lubrication can also be found in the form of a water based (does not need to be sterlie) lubricant such as you would use for sexual intercourse, or olive oil.

* Orgasms Speaking of lubricated birth...

* No fingers in the vagina No vaginal checks, unless you are doing them yourself!


No matter what you do, sometimes you will tear. Blondes and redheads are much more likely to tear than brunettes of any nationality. If you do tear, do not freak out! It can really color your first days with your baby with unnecessary feelings of fear or sadness. Women have been tearing and healing and going on to have sex and more babies for hundreds of years, and you can too!

On to healing:
First, hopefully you are familiar with what your perineum looks like before birth. If you have no comparison, you will be less able to know the true extent of the tear.

The most important parts of the healing process happen in the first 3 days. Before I go into treatment options, let me say that the best course of action may be the simplest: Keep your legs together and stay down! Do not sit! If you must sit, sit on the side of your ass, and only briefly. If you sit to nurse, do it slightly reclined and prop yourself up with pillows. Now is a great time to master nursing while laying down! Do this for at least 5-7 days, and you will have helped your body heal tremendously. I also recommend not looking until several days have passed (if ever!). Swelling can make things look worse than they really are. So no pants, underwear, pads, lots of stairs, riding in cars, etc. Stay in and enjoy the baby!

Ice should only be used in severe cases of swelling or hematoma. Ginger tea hot packs can be very soothing, and they help stimulate circulation and promote oxygenation of the area to help with healing.

If you have bad swelling, start with cold compresses for the first 24 hours. A condom (with lubricant washed off) filled with water and frozen makes a perfectly shaped, long lasting compress. Wrap them in paper towels before freezing so they don't stick to things in your freezer. You can also make great ice packs by taking sanitary pads, cutting them in half, and dribbling them with a comfrey leaf infusion before freezing. If you want plain pads, you can use cloth menstrual pads or disposable ones, get them wet (don't soak them, this makes them hard as a brick!) and freeze them in a bowl so they have contour. These are good things to prepare before labor. After 24 hours, switch to warm compresses, as warmth facilitates healing, and cold only reduces swelling.

Fresh comfrey leaves (check ebay!) make a great healing poultice. This can be made in advance and frozen in an ice cube tray then thawed one at a time as needed. If no fresh comfrey is available, steep (not boil!) dry comfrey for an hour or more.

Comfrey root (again, ebay!) can be simmered for 40 minutes, then soak cloths in the infusion, and apply warmed (strain for root debris). It's awesome. Or, put comfrey leaves in a blender with some water and whirl for a few seconds and apply to perineum, it's like a gel.

I liked adding garlic, sea salt and uva ursi to my poultices. Just throw it in a large pot of water with the leaves and steep it (overnight is best, but for at least 30 minutes). Amounts used are a whole cup of sea salt (don't be afraid, it won't burn at all), a whole bulb of of peeled garlic whizzed in a blender, and uva ursi (1/2 cup or as much as you want). To make the poultice, get some 4x4 inch gauze pads. Spoon the mixture onto the pads and make a burrito for your underpants! Leave on the area for 25 minutes, 3-4 times a day. Apply them warm for added benefits.

You can put any of these strained infusions in a squirt bottle to rinse your perineum after using the bathroom. Keep any unused mixture in the fridge for up to three days.

Other supplementation to help healing can be in the form of daily vitamin C with bioflavinoids (500mg), vitamin A (25,000 IU), vitamin E (1200 IU), and zinc (15-25 mg). Also you can take homeopathic Arnica (30C 2x a day) to help reduce bruising and swelling and relieve trauma.

Seaweed! Using food quality seaweed from a health food store, Cut a piece of seaweed that is twice the length and width of the tear, fold in half, and moisten with water. Place it down the center of the tear and bring the edges of the tissue together, carefully aligning them. Then cover the entire length of the tear with a patch of moistened seaweed. Replace it after using the bathroom, each time. It may sting a little for a minute, but it's just the salt water in the seaweed and it will not be uncomfortable for long.

After 10 days, vitamin E from the capsule can be applied directly into the area if there is still discomfort.

Times that you may want to seek a second opinion or medical help:
Excessive bleeding from the tear site
Prolapsed uterus (when the uterus is out of the body, VERY uncommon and not life threatening)
A tear that extends into the anus (extremely uncommon in a birth where no instruments are used)

I know someone will ask, so I have to give my opinion on perineal massage. Studies are inconclusive about the effectiveness, and it is not comfortable when done 'correctly'. So I don't advise it, but it's your vag, do what makes you confident!

So, so SO much more great information can be found in these two (affordable! easy to understand!) books: Saving the Whole Woman (which makes a great case for avoiding sutures), and the Tear Prevention & Treatment Handbook from Midwifery today, full of useful treatments, tips and opinions.

When you had sex for the first time, your vagina changed, you 'popped your cherry'. Birth is similar. Your first birth or tear will 'pop your birth cherry'. Your vagina may look and feel different even after healing, but most women agree that sex after a natural birth with a tear vs. an episiotomy is better than it was before the birth! Sara Wickham put it well when she said, "Birth is a rite of passage that takes women's bodies on a journey. We become marked with the symbols of our passage into motherhood and retain the cellular memories of the experience. Whether we judge these marks as good, bad, or neutral, we hold them as women whose bodies tell the stories of our lives. To what extent does the fact that we often judge all tears to be bad affect the way that women percieve their bodies, their tears and scars?"

Food for thought!

If you have any suggestions, please add them in the comments! I will add to this post over time as I have time.

In Jan Tritten's editorial, "Out of the Pot, Into the Fire," (Midwifery Today, Issue 63) she wonders whether the reason that there is an unassisted birth movement is that midwives have failed women. Well, it is true that midwives sometimes fail women, though it is not only through their own faults or negligence or naiveté; it is partly because in order to survive they feel it necessary to practice in ways they might not otherwise. If one needs medical assistance, a homebirth midwife is certainly better in many cases than a doctor, so concessions to the medical establishment are justified so that women may continue to have that choice. Still, in some places it is illegal to attend women at home as a midwife, and in others the restrictions are vast. One must either, like Gloria Lemay, become a law-breaker and risk imprisonment and loss of livelihood, or one must bow to the powers that be and risk hurting women. Midwives are in a hard place, and the remedy will not be easy to come by.

The other way midwives fail is in my mind even less easy to remedy and is not even technically their failure, nor even something necessarily that needs to be fixed (depending on one's perspective,) but simply a consequence of living in a society where we are all so isolated from our communities and neighbors and even our families. It is enormously difficult for women in our culture to create the age-old scenario portrayed so movingly in Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. I recently had a conversation with a woman training to become a midwife -- she was touched by the magic and strength she was finding in her sisterhood of midwives, but noticed with confusion and concern that these qualities were only partially conferred (if at all) to the laboring woman. Her state of pregnancy is the reason for the existence of this sisterhood in the first place, yet the birthing woman has only a tenuous link to the sisterhood, for nine or ten months and probably only through one or two members. This is not enough time or occasion to build the deep bonds that conscientious, spiritual birth demands.

While all midwives are acutely aware of their weak political position, they seem, for the most part, oblivious to the fact that they seem to offer something to women that they do not have to give, and that pain sometimes results from this. They perhaps do not spend enough time among those they serve, asking and listening. Reading birth stories is not enough: they are often glossed over (due to the sentiment that a record of such a sacred event should not be filled with complaints,) or made up simply of measurable facts ("at two a.m. I was four cm. dilated.") To know these women's true stories it is necessary to get into the nitty-gritty of their conversations. (And with the internet it is easy enough to eavesdrop on as many of these as one cares to.)

Feedback from clients is not enough either. After the birth that I now consider to have been traumatic, I wrote the midwife a note thanking her for "all she does for women." A year later, pregnant with my second child and trying to come to terms with my growing feelings of anger over the way I was treated and managed, I was encouraged by my new midwife to talk to the first midwife. It was agonizingly difficult to even make the call to arrange for a meeting. How do you tell someone who has devoted her professional life to helping women that she has hurt you? How do you convey the hurt when it is subjective and personal? I fumbled with my words, trying not to hurt her in my attempt to explain. She didn't get it, not really. She saw the events of the birth differently; she did what she had to do. She wouldn't be held responsible for my pain. I now know that I am far from alone in this experience, judging from my conversations with other women; I have heard similar stories countless times.

Finally, midwives talking amongst themselves, the sisterhood, is certainly not enough, because it is far too easy to create a mythology of midwifery tailored to one's own fantasy when one does not consistently and constantly consult the source of one's calling -- the birthing women themselves. They would tell you that the mythology is beautiful, even in some respects an ideal to reach for, but that it fails to acknowledge the ramifications of certain basic truths about the nature of birth. Such as:

-Birth is a sexual event. Even if a woman cannot acknowledge this emotionally, she cannot intellectually deny the biology which puts birth neatly on her body's sexual continuum, along with making love and breastfeeding. The same hormones, we now know, are involved in all. And birth is closest to sex itself because it involved the genitals. The going in is sexual; the going out therefore is also. (Unless, of course, one feels that sexuality is at base phallic. And is it any surprise that in our culture this is just the case?) So birth is sexual, like it or not, and in our society we do not have a healthy model for revealing our sexuality in a group of people, especially people we do not know all that well. So for some women, to acknowledge the sexual nature of birth is to necessarily reject the presence and involvement of anyone they are not normally intimate with.

-The birthing woman is deeply open and vulnerable to the energy around her. Midwives are quick to point out that it is for just this reason that the typical hospital environment is not conducive to normal birth, but somehow assume that the midwifery model of birth is the solution, case closed, as if midwives themselves do not have wildly varying philosophies, personalities, and approaches to birth management. Something as innocuous as the midwives gabbing among themselves at a birth, or as well-meaning as showing the woman's mate how to be affectionate with her, or as "necessary" as taking on a tough tone to get a "hysterical" woman under control, can have a devastating effect on the mother's psyche, undermining her confidence and hindering the labor. Considering that the midwife can never really know what is going on inside a woman and what constitutes normal birth for her -- the midwife is limited by inherent physical and psychic boundaries, after all -- and given that she brings her own preconceptions about birth along with her (none of which may have anything to do with her client,) the midwife's guesses as to how her actions will affect her client are a groping in the dark at best. Some women intuit or know from past experience that with attended birth there is a very real possibility of inadvertently inviting well-meaning but nonetheless harmful influences into one's deepest self, with serious implications for the process of birth and the postpartum period; for some women this risk outweighs any desire or need for support.

-Birth is transcendent. Women often argue that to have someone else worrying about the practical aspects of birth frees them to experience the miracle and spirituality of it. But it can also be argued that most of us are incapable of being free from self-consciousness while being observed. Whose prayer or work of art or love-making is as true and deeply affecting when watched or directed as it would be if happening spontaneously and in complete privacy?

-Birth and bonding go hand-in-hand, and the alchemy of birth is such that strong attachments are created. Imagine -- the midwife has listened to your fears and conceits more attentively than anyone else, and you are feeling very fond of her, and already grateful. Now she is sitting between your legs and touching your genitals while murmuring soothing words to you. She tells you that you need to maintain contact with her by looking deep into her eyes. She is supporting you through the most intensely felt event of your life, witness to your most primal self, your screams, your shit, your loss of control. Now she is the first to touch your baby, and the one ultimately responsible for your baby's life. As the baby emerges the bonding hormones are flooding through your body; of course they're supposed to for the baby, but there also is the midwife smiling at you, praising you, hugging you. And then you are expected to let go, just like that. Oh, it was only a business relationship! She was hired help! Those feelings of abandonment, the sense of loss -- it is all irrational, you know that. But still, unbidden, the grief rises in your throat. And you don't tell anybody, because, well, you know, you don't want to appear needy -- it's embarrassing.

From the midwife's perspective, it is wonderful, no doubt, to be such a beloved part of the community, to be regarded as a wise woman, to be privileged to take part in women's lives and bask in the energy of their births. Through all her connections with women and their bodies and being the recipient of their admiration and love, the midwife also has the rare opportunity to approximate a "Red Tent" type of community for herself -- a group of women that have become most special to her, that fulfill her own emotional and spiritual needs. But there is always going to be the woman for whom the midwife is an unwilling recipient of attachment fueled by bonding hormones and a business relationship dressed in gestures of love. The midwife cannot remain a part of her life either because of time restraints or because the midwife simply has no basis for reciprocating her client's feelings.

Can we honestly blame the woman who declines to participate in something that for her ultimately means loss of her spiritual and bodily integrity, or of a relationship meaningful to her?

In the end, midwifery is never going to be able to supply what some women need, and does by its very nature interfere with the fulfillment of that need. Even the best midwife in the world is not going to be able to overcome that. I can tell you this from experience: the midwife who attended my second birth is as good a midwife as anyone could hope for. For me she was wise, knowledgeable, kind, and reassuring. Best of all, she agreed that I should define her role in the birth, a condition most midwives would refuse outright, or at least be very uncomfortable with. It was, consequently, a very good, empowering birth; I was truly grateful, and my gratitude endures to this day. She did not fail me, in the sense of being negligent. Regardless, I chose not to invite her or any other midwife to my next birth.

This is very simply not an issue of how midwives can improve themselves in order to "save" women from birthing alone. For anyone who cares about birth and women, and not just about her own desires and ego, it is important to understand and acknowledge that unassisted birth is a valid and whole choice in its own right -- because while a woman may not need a birth professional to catch her baby, she may benefit from other things that person may be able to offer, not least of which are understanding and acceptance. All of us outside of the mainstream birth machine have something in common: the danger of becoming victims in a political climate that is hostile to our choices. Let us be a support to one another, not just in philosophy but in action also, for the sake of freedom for all women to choose exactly how and by whom, if by anyone, our bodies will be handled.

By Linda Hessel

My predictions:
I will have this baby between February 12th and February 15th.
Baby will weigh 7 pounds 8 ounces.
Baby will be a girl.