New Research on Newborn Sleep Needs: Mom's Nightly Presence is Essential

Before you send your child to the hospital nursery at night, take a look at the new research out.  Newborns who were separated from their mothers (sleeping in a different room) during the first few days showed higher psychological stress and had their sleep patterns disrupted.  The separation created anxiety measured in heart rate changes, respiration changes, and a decrease in rapid eye movement (which is essential for babies' brain development and the reason why they need to go through more REM periods than adults).  The article was posted on www.foxnews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/19/newborns-need-to-be-near-their-mothers-at-night/ ).

While I feel that this is not new information, I am extremely glad to see that research is emerging to support the concept.  Hey, if even Fox News is reporting it, then that's big strides for attachment parenting.  It has been well advised by many sources (La Leche League and Dr. Sears included) that newborns need their mother's presence.  It just does not make evolutionary sense that babies would have the ability to operate without their mothers at their most vulnerable moments in life.  They are biologically aware of this vulnerability and in desperate need for the feeling of safety.

I remember being in the hospital and having the nurses encourage me to send my baby to the nursery; I needed the rest, they said.  My absolute refusal was all they received.  It was hard enough for me to let my baby leave the room after my C-section without me, but with having to be sewn back up and all, there was no other choice for me.  I took my husband by the hand and made him swear to me that at no moment would our child be without one of us during our hospital stay.  He kept his promise.  Later, even when the doctors and nurses wanted to take him to the nursery for different medical measurements and what-not, I insisted that they let my husband go with them.  I was surprised that there was push-back from the nurses, but inevitably they gave in.  Maybe it's being a first time mother, but I just couldn't imagine leaving him to strangers, no matter what their job was.

I'll admit, we did concede once, when we were promised by an overly charismatic nurse that she would bring him back in no more than 15 minutes.  30 minutes later, I began to panic.  40 minutes later, my husband went storming to the nursery where he found our son just sitting there crying while the nurse chatted with other nurses.  She told him they were still waiting on a doctor, so he waited with them, comforted our son, and later, we promise ourselves we'd never let the nurses take him without us again (I still curse myself and that nurse when I think back on it).

Babies are so vulnerable at this stage of their lives.  It's the first chance they have to learn that we will be there for them and protect them.  I'm glad to see that research is now seeing this concept in biological responses in the infant.  So, remember you are your child's first line of defense.  And, while the world has changed and babies are safe in the nursery, their biological response is still to need the presence of their mother: the only person they actually know at this point.

Difficult Birth: Even Trauma Has A Silver Lining

I have written about positive birth stories and called upon women to share theirs with positivity.  I have asked that we stop the fear with our abilities to empower the women around us to have confidence in their bodies and their strength.  My birth story is not a pretty one.  It ended up nothing like I had hoped.  But I want to begin by saying that my story is rare, and while it was everything most of us worry will happen, it is also very unlikely to happen to most women.  Instead, it is proof that any woman has the strength to endure anything and that the only thing that matters is that your little one end up in your arms and you know you made all the right decisions to put him there safely.  Labor can be hard, but it is nothing to fear.

Before I begin, I must tell you my Birth Plan.  I went in visualizing what I wanted and hoping I would get it.  I wanted a completely natural birth; I didn't even want drugs mentioned.  I was going to use hypnobirthing and find a state of ultimate relaxation to work through the labor and "breathe down" my baby.  I wanted the lights dim and the environment quiet when my baby came into the world.  I wanted my baby placed on my chest immediately afterwards with a delayed cord clamping and delayed medical attention until we had bonded.  I wanted to breastfeed immediately.  I wanted the least amount of intervention possible despite being in a hospital.  I was very clear in my mind exactly what I wanted and certain I would get it.  The best laid plans, right?

My birth story begins around 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.  I began to feel "pressure" in my uterine area, very much what it feels like when you begin menstruating.  At this point, never having been through this before, I really had no idea what to expect and it was difficult to tell if I was having the same gastrointestinal distress I had been having for the last month of my pregnancy.  But then it went away and came back, went away and came back, and soon, I was wondering if I might be experiencing the uterine surges we all know as contractions.  After a couple hours I was sure they were contractions, but I wasn't sure if it was practice labor or the real thing.  The only thing I knew was to wait to call my midwife until they were five minutes apart and one minute long for an hour.  So we waited.  We went for a walk.  We got excited but then tried not to get too excited.  By late afternoon, they were predominantly five minutes apart so we called the midwife.

Per usual with a first labor, things progress slowly and my midwife didn't feel like anything I was saying was kicking me into active labor.  She told me to stop walking and go relax; see if they go away.  She told me that I should call her again if they got to two or three minutes apart.  I got into the bath, had my first real glass of wine in nine months, and tried to relax.  Things subsided a bit and moved to seven or eight minutes apart.  I figured this wasn't it and crawled into bed trying to get some sleep.  I fell asleep maybe three times for 20 minutes each.  By 3 am, the contractions were two to four minutes apart.  We called my midwife.  The thing about labor, however, is that it should be more patterned.  I should be going from four minutes down to three, then down to two, and so forth.  The fluctuation between two and four did not indicate active labor.  My midwife felt that this pattern meant we were still in a pre-labor phase and she knew I wanted to labor at home.  She suggested we could go to the hospital and get checked, but that she didn't think I was there yet.  So we waited another five hours.  Still having contractions so close together, we decided to go get checked.  The car ride intensified the contractions and my hypnobirthing came in handy at these moments as my husband reminded me to relax and breathe.  At the hospital, we got our answer...2 centimeters dilated and 60% effaced.  Back home we went.

Before arriving home, we decided to stop by my chiropractor who I had called that morning.  We went straight from the hospital and she gave me and adjustment.  I was hoping that this would speed things up or slow them down.  After checking me she thought my son was in a great position and that we'd probably see a baby by the end of the day!  Excited, we headed home.  My sister arrived to give me amazing massages and take care of me for a while and we settled in.  I went to the bathroom an hour later and my mucous plug had dropped...my first sign of fluid change meant things were moving along!  We called the midwife again midday, but the time intervals between contractions were still fluctuating.  My midwife prescribed me an Ambien.  She felt some sleep would either get things moving or stop them, and at this point, these contractions needed to put up or shut up.  With my sister rubbing my head, I fell asleep.  An hour later, I was up again.  No change.

In and out of the bathtub I went, trying to relax, trying to make it through.  It was 4 am when we returned to the hospital.  I was now 2 centimeters dilated and 80% effaced.  I felt like I was going nowhere and I was exhausted.  But I still wanted to labor at home and avoid the "clock" of the hospital.  Back home we went, and I was beginning to feel defeated.  Not afraid, but exhausted.  Things didn't slow down or speed up.  By 9 am (and nearly 48 hours in), I looked at my husband and told him we had to go to the hospital for good this time.  I now needed a clock.  I didn't think I even had another 24 hours in me.

At the hospital, I was 5 centimeters dilated.  Progress!  Things were looking up and they put monitors on me (not something I had wanted for more than 20 minutes, but we were over 48 hours in and both my son and I needed continuous monitoring).  Into the laboring tub I went.  I was trying to hold my hypnobirthing state of relaxation and began riding the contractions.  I was doing well and things felt great in the water.  Two hours later, my midwife checked me again.  6 centimeters.

Now, at this point in active labor, you should be progressing a centimeter an hour.  Normally, a centimeter in two hours isn't bad and would probably indicate a long active labor.  However, I was now over fifty hours in and exhausting fast and my water still hadn't "broken."  My midwife felt that an even longer active labor would mean I'd have no ability to make the final push.  She asked to rupture my membranes ("break my water") to move things along.  This was the first intervention I succumbed to.  I knew she was right.  My body didn't have the energy to make it much longer.  She ruptured my membranes.

When I saw the explosion of brown and the disgust on my midwife's face (meconium tainted membranes are vile), I knew I was in trouble again.  My little guy had defecated in his amniotic fluid, meaning he had experienced some form of stress.  It also meant that he had to go straight to the nurse's station in the corner of the room to be checked immediately.  If he aspirated meconium, he'd be in trouble.  No straight to breast, no delayed cord clamping.  I succumbed to another necessary medical intervention in the best interests of my son.  Back into the tub I went.

Contractions began to rock my body.  Hypnobirthing became impossible for me at this point.  To properly hypnobirth you need to enter into a state of mental relaxation.  In this state, it really is easier to let your body do what it needs to do and breathe through the experience, minimizing any discomfort.  However, when you are exhausted, it's almost impossible to achieve any mental state.  I was at the mercy of my exhaustion.  It took my husband, my sister, my mother, and my stepmother to all help me breathe through it by allowing me to concentrate on their eyes and follow their example breaths.  I wouldn't have made it without them.

I think it would be valuable to try and explain what a contraction feels like to those of you who may not know.  A lot of people will tell you it's pain, but I disagree.  Pain is a feeling your body gives you when there is something wrong.  Giving birth to a baby is not an unnatural thing.  Your body is working, but most of the time, there is nothing wrong.  The best way I could explain a contraction would be like explaining the experience of vomiting.  It's something you can do and it's something that is not necessarily painful.  It is just very uncomfortable.  Most of the time if you just make it through the vomiting, you reach the end result of feeling better and all is well.  Essentially, that's all a contraction is.  Let your body do what it needs, relax, and let it achieve its necessary outcome.   I, personally, can vomit like a champ.

Now...that's a normal contraction.  I, on the other hand, was full on into back labor.  Back labor is when the contractions are felt stronger in your back than your uterus, and this is accompanied by pain (sort of -- consider it violent vomiting)...because something IS wrong.  It means the baby is not getting into the right position.  The only thing that helped was my sister's exceptional lower back massaging through the contractions.  For the past 5 months, I had been doing Optimal Fetal Positioning and had kept my baby in the perfect position the past three months, and now, he was posterior (his back was towards my insides not my outsides).  The nurse and my midwife got me out of the tub and checked me gain.  Two hours and I was now 7 centimeters.  Progress again.  They laid me over the back of the back of the bed with hopes of helping move the baby in the right position and, again, my family helped me breathe through it.

An hour later they checked me.  I was still 7 centimeters.  I had gone nowhere and contractions were rocking my body so hard that I can only explain the experience as the emotional and physical equivalent of dry-heaving continuously.  A whole lot of physical output only to go nowhere.  At this point, I'll be honest.  For the past two hours I had been thinking "this is why women have epidurals."  However, I kept going; I could do this, I could endure this for the right outcome.  When I saw that all this work I was doing was getting us nowhere I began to feel a little helpless.  I could do this if it was getting us somewhere, but I was exhausted and the idea of no end in sight was starting to wear on me.

When my midwife said "Pitocin" and "epidural," I experienced a feeling of relief.  My amazing husband, who (it would later turn out) was pro-drug the whole time but wanted to be fully supportive of whatever I wanted, tried to support my original plan.  "Are there any other options?" he asked half-heartedly.  "No, hon," I said. "There aren't."  I was done.  And the moment I decided I was done, I just wanted it all to stop.  This is the moment, my friends, where women who have no medical intervention give up and eventually die.  However, none of us ever have to worry about that.

They told me the epidural would take 15-20 minutes to kick in, and I remember thinking I just couldn't do anymore.  Not only that, but I had to sit perfectly still while they put it in and I was still having contractions rock my body.  Then all the scare stories of pain from putting in the epidural ran through my head.  But I just wanted to the contractions to end; I just wanted to rest for a minute.  So they placed my husband in front of me and had him hold my hands.  I stared into his eyes and he breathed me through two contractions.  By that time, the epidural was over and I hadn't moved a muscle.  I can tell you now, an epidural does not hurt.  It is not much different than getting an heparin lock placed in your hand for an IV.  Actually, I think that hurts more because the tubing is larger.

My midwife reminded me that it would take 15 minutes and I looked pleadingly at her.  I told her that I didn't know if I could do it.  She asked me if I felt that last contraction.  I didn't.  She asked me if I felt the next one.  I didn't.  She smiled and I felt relief carry over my entire body.  I am not a religious person, but this moment felt like a gift from God.  I am not a fan of unnecessary medical intervention, but in this moment, when I knew I was one of those statistics for whom it was completely necessary, I was grateful for western medicine.

The next two hours went fast.  I rested trying to get my strength up for the birth.  They turned me on my side to get the baby to rotate and get into the right position to move down the birth canal.  Two hours later they checked and I was 100% effaced and 9.5 cm dilated.  An hour after that, I was 9.5 cm dilated.  My midwife looked stressed.  She knew where things were headed and she didn't want it any more than I did.  She looked at me and said we needed to start talking caesarian.  I pleaded for her to give me another hour...it was half a centimeter!  She gave me her honest opinion.  Another hour was not going to get us closer, my uterus (which had been working for over 55 hours, regardless of whether I could feel it now) did not have the strength to push as was evidenced by its inability to fully open even with Pitocin.  I asked her again for one more hour and she said she would put a device in my uterus to measure whether or not the contractions were even strong enough and we'd see.  In the end though, she couldn't get it in.  My son was in the wrong position and wedging up against my pelvic bone.  My midwife knew that if we tried to do this vaginally, either he or I, or both, would have to be rescued.  In the end, it was the only choice we had.  Left alone while they got everything together to wheel us into surgery, my husband and I cried.  But now, all that mattered was my son, and it was all we could do for him.  I was officially a "failure to progress."

Surgery was easy.  It was fast, beautifully handled, and neither my son and I were in trouble during the procedure.  As they wheeled me into surgery and got prepped, I had worried so much that maybe something was wrong with him and that's how we got here.  My husband squeezed my hand as the surgery progressed.  And then, he was out, and he was screaming.  Fifty-nine hours of labor and I had a son.  They took him over to the nurse's station and my husband ran over.  I couldn't see him past a pole in my way and I remember feeling frustrated and sad.  But he was fine; ten fingers, ten toes, screaming lungs.  His APGAR ended up being an 8/9.  He was near perfect.  They brought him close so I could see him and he was so beautiful.  They wheeled him out of the room and my husband followed, grinning like a new father should.  He looked back at me and promised "I won't leave his side."  I was crying then...because I was a mother, and because I couldn't touch my son.

I laid in recovery and all I wanted was my son.  It was not long after that he was brought to me.  While babies are not often brought back to recovery, my midwife knew that I needed this.  Within an hour, he was placed in my arms and we were breastfeeding.  He latched perfectly and fed for a half hour.  The nurse was amazed.

My birth plan had fallen apart.  Everything had gone wrong in my mind.  There was nothing wrong with him, but with me, as I endured the diagnosis of two small a pelvis.  My poor son just couldn't figure out how to exit the womb.  But at the end of it all, it was that first moment we had together that mattered.  And it was all the moments that came before my labor, and all the moments that would come after.  That's the silver lining.  It's not just that you have an amazing child, which you do and that is a miracle in itself; it's that you still did everything you could to do the best for him.  At first, before I processed what I had been through, I was afraid that this birth had undone all that I had worked for to bring my son into the world in the best way I thought possible.  But nothing can undo any amount of love you give your child.  All that preparation for the perfect birth plan left me calm and fearless as I went into labor, and it kept me calm and fearless throughout all I endured.  Hypnobirthing gave me confidence, eating well and staying healthy kept my body and his strong, and focusing on any kind of plan made me bond with him and prepare for the experience.  He felt all of that.  And from the moment he was on my chest, the world was right again.  He felt all the love that I put into my pregnancy and, despite those brief moments of stress trying to get out, he would feel nothing but that love from that point forward.  And now I know one thing, I can and will be the greatest pillar of strength to give him whatever he needs.

I also learned a lesson.  The first lesson of my parenting experience.  A lesson I knew intellectually, didn't truly comprehend the magnitude of.  Children create themselves from the very beginning.  You have to be ready to adapt and change with them, and plans can only go so far.  Our birth experience was essentially that; I had to adapt to his needs, no matter what.  In the end, it's always about what's best for him, and only he can tell me what that is.

It Takes A Village

I have a baby boy!  He is laying softly in my arms, sleeping like a little angel.  He is now nearing a week old, and I have a thousand things I want to write about (and I will!) but a lot less time!  I have learned so much, utilized a lot of what I know, and re-evaluated what I thought I knew.  And what I know for sure: I couldn't have done or be doing anything about it without my village.

Before my son's birth, I had a lot of family members saying they wanted to be present and help take care of me afterwards.  This is rare and makes me a very lucky person.  As we neared the birth, however, people's plans started changing and they became very worried that they should leave my husband and I alone.  I heard the words "bonding time" a lot.  Frequently, people would ask what I want or needed.  If you are already a parent, you know that this is a question you just can't answer the first time around.  Who knows what you are going to need?

I have the answer now.  I need a lot of support; I can't imagine my husband and I doing this without it.  My son was the result of an emergency c-section, and so we needed even more support than we could have guessed.  I had medication prescriptions to be filled, I was moving very slowly, and my husband not only had to learn to take care of a newborn but a post-surgery wife.  Grocery shopping, making dinner, and buying the things we didn't even know we needed all seemed like impossibilities on top of trying to figure out what this little guy wants and needs.  As a mother who always wants her son held during the day, just having someone to hold him for an hour has become a tremendous assistance.  My family members, and most especially my father, have made all these things easier than we could have imagined.  All of a sudden, every fear people had of interfering with our "bonding" was laid to rest.  The truth is, help and family around you lets you do that bonding.  Every second spent grocery shopping or making dinner would have been one less spent learning our son and helping each other become parents.  And so, because my family has made sure to dedicate their time to helping us make this transition into parenthood, we are far more relaxed and intuitive parents already.

My father was the only one who never asked whether or not we thought we needed him.  He knew we needed him (and I can only say that I can just wish for each woman out there to have such a father, or someone, willing to take such great care of his family).  Whether it was his fear of my suffering post-partum depression like my mother or the influence of his own Indian culture that drove this instinct, I do not know.  In India, unlike the western world, there is no question of making sure that a new set of parents have the full support of their family.  A mother (or both parents) will come stay with her children for at least a month after the birth of a child.  In India, families (parents, children, grandchildren) often live together in the same house based on the reality that it really does take a village to raise a child.

From the perspective of those ever-threatening post-partum hormones, having people around you is one of the most important ways to work through it.  The one day my husband I had completely alone was a bit of a shock to me and my hormones took over more than I realized.  Having people to talk things out with each day really lets you process what you are going through, and even more so, helps you stave off the loneliness that can sometimes accompany a major life change.  Going it alone just makes everything seem harder.

So, if you are soon to be blessed with a little one (or just have been), then the one thing I can say is make sure you call upon your village.  Don't be afraid to tell people you need them.  Build your village now, and welcome their assistance and advice (even if you don't take the latter).  Remember, you will have a very cute little bundle to tempt them with.  And if you have been as lucky as I have, don't forget to thank your village for everything they do!

Making the Circumcision Decision

When I found out we were having a boy, I have to tell you, I was relieved.  While most people feel that girls are easier to raise as young children, as a Montessori teacher, I know I have the skills to handle what any young boy can throw at me.  My biggest fear?  The teenage girl.  Don't get me wrong, I hope we have a girl one day.  But for my first foray into parenthood, I was very glad to see those little testicles on the sonogram screen!

But then, I realized, there was one decision we had to make that suddenly made me nervous.  I hadn't thought about it until my midwife asked me: "are you going to circumcise?"  Circumcise?!  What a decision to make!  I know a lot of people have very strong opinions about this.  Some people are very supportive of circumcision for religious reasons, while others feel that it is the standard and should just be done.  Arguments have been made that circumcision is in the best health interests of the male.  Other people, however, are extremely against this procedure, calling it male genital mutilation and suggesting that it lowers sexual arousal.  And me?  I had no idea what I thought on the matter.  I don't have one!

I remember turning to my husband and saying "you make this decision, you have one."  But I knew that couldn't possibly be the end of it.  Even though my husband is circumcised, he didn't want that to be the reason for our decision.  So we began to look into it further.

I started with the medical reasons.  I figured, if the medical community can tell me unequivocally that it is the healthy decision to make, then that's the decision to make.  Unfortunately, it turns out, the medical community can't do that.  According to the policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics:

"Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision. In circumstances in which there are potential benefits and risks, yet the procedure is not essential to the child's current well-being, parents should determine what is in the best interest of the child."

That brings me right back to square one.  There is little research that suggests circumcision helps with hygiene.  The medical benefits suggested have been lower risks of HIV transmission, penile cancer, and urinary tract infections.   But the research is not strong enough to make the medical community say that circumcision is the best decision.  Nor does it make them believe it outweighs any risks of complications from circumcision, like infection, bleeding, psychological trauma, and mostly, pain.  Granted, these risks are very minor, but at the moment, the same could be said for the actual amount in which circumcision lowers the risks of STDs and cancer.  There is some research that says that circumcision lowers male sexual arousal, but then again, that research isn't conclusive either.  So, back and forth they go, leaving the medical community in no position to tell you what's best.

Next, I figured we 'd look at the rate of circumcision.  Would it be better for our son to be more like everyone else?  Currently, 80% or more of American men are circumcised, but that seems to be changing drastically.  According to the NY Times, the rate of circumcision is down from 56% of newborns in 2006 to 32.9% in 2009 (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/health/research/17circ.html?_r=1&ref=health).  So, it appears that not circumcising our son would put him in the majority for his peer group.  Why this is, no one really seems to know.  Some people think the attitude for the shift could have to do with groups pushing more education about the issue, while others think that the growing light being shed on female genital mutilation has led many to wonder why it would be ok to cut boys but not girls.  It could also be that with all the research giving little conclusive evidence to the medical value of circumcision, people are having a harder time making that decision.

Once I knew that doctors couldn't help me make my decision and that our son would not be a pariah in the larger community, I felt like I had a lot of information but was still back at square one.  No one was going to help us make this decision.  We were just going to have to decide what the best decision was for us as a family.  We had to decide whether or not it was worth it to us.  My husband came to me and said "you know what, I don't think we should do it, I just can't think of a reason."  My emotional reaction to this statement ended up being relief.  I hadn't even realized that was how I felt deep down.

A day later, I was sitting around the table talking to some family members about having to make this decision when I got even more information.  My brother came running into the room and said "you're not going to circumcise are you?"  Suddenly, I realized it had never dawned on me to ask about my own family members and the decision they had made.  I discovered that neither my brother nor my father are circumcised as this is not a tradition in Indian families (my father is Indian and my mother is British).  In fact, circumcision is not practiced in Hindu families and I learned that my grandmother (who was devoutly Hindu when she was alive) was very much against it.  Hmm, was someone going to make up my mind for me?  At the same time, my brother made it very clear that he has no qualms about being uncircumcised and has never felt strange because of it.

At the end of the day, neither my husband nor I are very religious.  So I really don't think we could make this decision from that perspective.  We also are not very big on what everyone else is doing, so while it worked out in our favor that the attitudes in the states are changing, I don't think it really influenced our decision.  I think the reason we finally made the decision not to circumcise is that neither of us could really find a good reason to circumcise our son.  It seems painful and not altogether necessary.  When he's older, we figure, he can always make the decision for circumcision.  But, if we make that decision now, he can never unmake it.

The way I see it is that the best way to make this decision is to make an informed one, and then, do what's best for your family.  In the end, that's all you can do.

How Does The Baby Know When To Be Born?

It's countdown to birth and the anticipation can throw a person into some serious thinking.  Especially the first time around, when you have no idea what it's supposed to look like.  But then, it turns out, I'm not the only one with questions.  I was driving in the car with my father today and he says to me: "you know, I've never really thought of it before, but how does the baby know when to be born?"  I laughed, because this question has been plaguing me for the past few days.  What is it that we are waiting for??  I asked my mother later if she knew, and she couldn't come up with any real answer.  So, being the "googler" that I am, I began to look for the answers.

Once you're pregnant, and assuming you read a few books, take a childbirth education class, or ask your doctor questions, you begin to learn that there are signs that will tell you labor is imminent.  You start "nesting" or "carb-loading."  If you are allowing your doctor/midwife to check your cervix in those last few weeks, signs of your cervix effacing (thinning) and dilating (opening) will give you some clues that things are hopping into gear.  Losing your uterine seal (commonly called the mucous plug), or the pinkish/brownish discharge of your birth show (commonly called the bloody show) will also be fluid signs that you may be going into labor.  Finally, if your membranes release (commonly called "your water breaks"), then you have definitely reached the stage of imminent birth.  And, unlike the movies, less than ten percent of women experience membrane release before their labor contractions begin, so at that point, you've probably already gone into labor and are very aware of it.  However, none of this tells you why or how the baby has decided to come out, and it certainly wasn't a conscious decision on your part (or it probably would have happened sooner)!  So, how does it happen?

It looks like, as far as science knows thus far, the full story is pretty much a mystery.  However, there is one part of it that we have discovered.  According to researchers at UT Southwestern Medical University in Dallas, the development of a specific fetal lung protein signifies to the mother's body that the lungs are mature enough to survive outside of her body.  Surfactant, a lung protein, is essential for survival and breathing outside of the womb.  There is a protein within this lung surfactant that serves as a hormonal signal for labor and makes this signal once the surfactant has been properly developed.  It's a lot to think about when a doctor is asking you if you want to induce after 37 weeks.  While babies may be able to technically survive outside the woman at this point, their lungs have still not signaled full maturity.

So ladies, if you are starting to get fussy like I am, and baby hasn't arrived, just know that he needs the extra time getting his lungs ready.  And when baby is ready...it's eviction time!

The Prenatal Chiropractor: A Pregnant Woman's Best Friend

Whenever anyone asks me about pregnancy, I always try to remember that all women are different.  I'll tell a woman about my experience, but I'll tell them other stories I have heard too.  Every pregnancy is going to be different.  However, if you were to ever ask me if I have one recommendation for pregnancy, I have one response: a prenatal chiropractor.

Some people are very pro chiropractics, while others are very skeptical; this, I know.  But whether or not you agree with everything about chiropractics, I really believe that, for pregnancy at least, chiropractics is not only the great preventer, it's the great solution as well.  Worried about breech?  The answer is chiropractics.  Have back pain or round ligament pain?  The answer is chiropractics.  Having a hard time walking or staying mobile?  Having a lot of swelling?  Having hip pain or pelvic pain? The answer is chiropractics.  The American Pregnancy Association cites the possible benefits of chiropractic prenatal care as:

• Maintaining a healthier pregnancy
• Controling symptoms of nausea
• Reducing the time of labor and delivery
• Relieving back, neck, or joint pain
• Prevent a potential caesarian

A prenatal chiropractor's goal is to keep your pelvis in balance and reduce stress on the uterus and supporting ligaments.  By releasing your Psoas, a muscle deep in your abdomen, your chiropractor can reduce pain and help support your flexibility.  When a uterus is out of balance and the ligaments are strained, it is difficult for your baby to find the right position and can often lead to breech or posterior birth positioning.  The first can lead to a caesarian while the latter can lead to long and painful labors.  The best position for your baby to settle in by the third trimester is anterior (butt facing your stomach) and leaning slightly to your left side (feet in the upper right hand part of your stomach).  It is far easier for your baby to settle into this position if your uterus is properly balanced.  This position is the easiest way for your child to "corkscrew" out during labor and is often the reason for shorter labor and delivery times.  If you are looking at a breech baby, a chiropractor can help you rotate your baby, but it is far easier to begin going early in your pregnancy and prevent it from happening altogether.

As a pregnant woman, I have been able to stay active and only in these last few weeks have I really even developed a very slight waddle.  I have much less back pain than I did when I started going to see my chiropractor (around 20 weeks is when I started getting pains), despite the fact that this baby is much bigger now!  My baby has settled into that wonderful Left Occipital Anterior position and we are all ready to go.  I also look forward to my weekly visits with my chiropractor (you can choose to go less than this, but this frequency works well for me) and feel so much better.  When my little guy first dropped, it was almost immediately following a recent chiropractic adjustment.  I just cannot recommend anything more!

The one thing to remember is to find a chiropractor that does pre-natal.  If you are in the Northern Virginia are, I highly recommend Sana Chiropractic in Reston!

Has anyone out there had any really positive prenatal chiropractic experiences? 

The information above is from:

http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancyhealth/chiropracticcare.html

Pregnancy Must-Reads!

These are the books that I have been reading during my pregnancy.  So many of them have been helpful that I just had to share!

What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel:  This book is the standard, but it's great for all that general information that you need.  It lets you know what's going on with the baby's development as well as the changes in your own body.  I used it for a good general overview of each month and the weekly emails from the website were helpful and informative as well.

The Expectant Father by Armin A. Brott and Jennifer Ash:  This book gave my husband a lot of good information.  He would read each month before we hit it and it very much helped him think about his experience through the process and stimulated some great conversations between the two of us.  It really helped him understand what is going on with me!

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin:  This is, hands-down, the best book I read during my pregnancy.  The first half of the book is all positive birth stories.  They are not all perfect and happy, but instead a true stories with a very empowering and positive focus.  The second part, the most valuable part in my opinion, is all the information gathered by the world's best midwives.  The information in this part is all about natural birthing and ways to avoid interventions.  It also helps you understand everything you need to know about these interventions in case you are faced with a doctor presenting any of them.  If you read any book, read this one!

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by Diane Wiessinger, Diana West and Teresa Pitman:  While this book will be even more helpful post-partum, I think it is a good read for before giving birth.  The beginning talks about the important aspects of natural childbirth and how your body is best designed to bond with your baby and repair itself.  The first few chapters were essential in my creation of a birth plan.  Then the book provides a lot of information for the start of breastfeeding that will likely be very important in the hospital.

Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie Mongan:  For anyone looking for a childbirth education class, I highly recommend Hypnobirthing.  However, even if you don't take the hypnobirthing classes, this is a good read.  It has a lot of information on how society arrived to the idea of pain and fear in childbirth and has a lot of great techniques for learning to release that fear.

The Complete Organic Pregnancy by Deirdre Dolan and Alexandra Zissu:  For anyone looking for the most organic pregnancy this is a great read.  It starts out telling you all the things you need to know to avoid chemicals before getting pregnancy.  Then it continues to help you minimize toxic exposure throughout your pregnancy and after.  You can easily pick and choose what you would like to follow, and it is extremely informative.

The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin:  I had my husband read this book in preparation for becoming the birth partner in the birthing room.  It is a fantastic read for whoever you would like to have helping you.  It has much of the information in it that you would expect from a doula.

Extreme Granola and Holier-Than-Thou Opinions

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine gave birth to a beautiful little boy, her second child.  Going into the experience, she was very much looking forward to breastfeeding more exclusively this time around.  In the hospital they went for it, requesting no bottle feedings and helping the little guy learn to latch.  All seemed successful, until she got home.

At home she began to experience blisters on her nipples and bleeding.  Her son became colicky, cluster feeding without any real relief to his cries.  Breastfeeding was extremely painful and involving a lot of blood.  Within forty-eight hours, my friend had contacted the doctor, lactation consultants, and La Leche League.  The doctor discovered that her son was missing his upper frenem.  This is the thin band of tissue connecting the upper lip to the top of his mouth.  Because of the missing frenem, her son is not able to have proper control of his lip and so it curls under rather than latching on.  After looking at all her options, it came down to two: she could get her two week old child surgery or she could start pumping and switch her son to drinking breastmilk from a bottle.  She chose the latter.

When she called me, she seemed a little saddened by the decision, but she felt like she had done everything she could.  At the end of the day, he needed to eat.  And, since he was still getting breastmilk, she felt it was not a complete loss.  I was very supportive of her.  My intention with our son is to exclusively breastfeed and I am only hoping that there will be no issues with that.  But, if life interferes with my plans, as it often does, I think I would likely made her decision.  I know that she worked hard to figure out all the options to make the best decision for her family, and that should be applauded.

So, I can tell you, when a week later she is confronted by the holier-than-thou opinions of a breastfeeding mother trying to make her feel that she made the wrong decision, I feel very protective of her.  This mother went as far to go to a La Leche League member and come back saying that she should do the surgery now and gave her a list of reasons including future dental health.  She was completely unsupportive of any other decision.  I know she was trying to help, but she just made this new mother feel terrible.

Now, I am a strong supporter of breastfeeding.  I'm sure at some point in this blog, I will go on and on about it.  I am a strong supporter of a lot of things I will likely go on and on about.  However, I am an even stronger supporter of a parent's right to make the best decision they can for their own family when it is informed and with the best of intentions for the family.  And, while I believe you can present options to people, I think you also have to be equally supportive of their right to make any decision they do.  As a teacher, I always worked towards helping parents make these difficult kinds of decisions and my goal was that whatever decision they made, it was in the interest of their child rather than themselves.

In the world of natural living, we are always having our decisions second-guessed by more traditional belief systems.   Every decision I have made as a parent thus far has been contradicted by someone whose opinion I never asked for.  The best thing we parents can do for each other is share information, but reserve the judgement.  Every family is going to make a different decision, and just because they don't make your decision doesn't make their decision wrong, or yours.

We also have to remember that alternatives to natural living were made for a reason.  While I strongly believe most of them are over-used, there is that small percentage of people for whom there needs to be an alternative.  Caesarians, epidurals, inductions, bottle-feeds, and medication all have their place in the world.  We can do everything we can to protect ourselves from these interventions, and we can continue to work towards helping prevent them from overuse, but at the end of the day we have to remember to support our friends when they have run out of options.

Calling All Birth Stories! Supporting the Empowerment of Pregnant Women

As the countdown goes from months to weeks to days, so increases the looks of concern, wishes of good fortune, and general expectations of labor anxiety.  The most common thing I have heard, after answering when I'm due or how much longer I have, are the parting words "good luck."  For the most part, I have come to see this as a benevolent understanding that I am about to embark on something as physically taxing as a marathon, and thus the words for my good fortune make sense; the same words you would offer any athlete before the big day.

However, while most strangers are more sensitive with their remarks, I have found that not all are, and even less so are the people who know you a little better.  And so, it brings me to the number of birth stories, comments, looks, and behaviors that tell us pregnant women to be afraid; be very afraid.  We all know how these stories go, whether or not we have been pregnant.  Everyone has heard a horrifying birth story.  Everyone "knows" that birth "has to be" painful.  It comes along with the endless remarks of "you're going to want" or "just you wait."  It seems that so many of the pregnant women who have come before us have had terrible experiences, and they cannot believe it could be any other way.  Despite the fact that EVERY pregnancy is different (and this is true of even the different pregnancies the same woman might have), women seem to believe that everyone is going to experience the same things that they did.  The most crucial part of this being that the experience of labor is going to be, well, excruciating.

When I discovered Hypnobirthing, I became aware of the very idea that these stories, ideas, and perpetuations of anxiety, have contributed to the continued experience of painful birth experiences for women.  Biologically, it makes so much sense.  Decades ago, an obstetrician named Dr. Grantly Dick-Read outlined what he called the Fear-Tension-Pain Syndrome.  After all of the horrendous and painful experiences he had witnessed of well-to-do women in hospitals, he became privy to the experiences of lower class women giving birth outside the hospital.  Previously he had only seen women writhing in pain, but outside the hospital, he began to see women giving birth with serenity and even, laughter.  The famous line of one of these women he observed: "It didn't hurt.  It wasn't meant to, was it, Doctor?"  Dr. Dick-Read became a proponent of natural childbirth, and he began to hypothesize that it was fear that ultimately led to the painful experiences that women have in childbirth.  By going into the experience believing that it should and would hurt, women immediately put themselves into a state of tension.

When the body is in a state of tension and stress, it has a very simple "fight or flight" reaction.  The body releases hormones that redirect blood flow to the parts of the body that are needed for fight or flight.  The uterus is not one of these parts of the body.  The result is that the uterus, which needs the entire attention of the body to facilitate labor, has now lost most of its blood flow, restricting the ability of it's muscles to open up the cervix.  The result: a baby trying to descend and continuously pushing up against a cervix that is having a very difficult time dilating and a uterus that has to push and pull even harder to solve the problem.  Sounds painful, doesn't it?

So what is the solution to all this pain?  As simple as it seems...going into birth with a positive fearless attitude and being able to relax to allow all blood flow to the uterus are the keys to a calmer and less dramatic birth.  Hypnobirthing Childbirth Education was the method I used to learn more about this process and prepare to walk into the labor room with my head held high.  It has taught me to relax and believe that I can do this with all the ease in the world.  I can be primal and natural.  But, despite all the moments a person spends in class or at home focusing on relaxation techniques...you still have to walk out into the big, bad, world; and all of its opinions.

And so, I'd like to make a call to all those women with stories out there.  If you have a terrible birthing story, consider that maybe your experience could have been empowered had the women around you supported your primal abilities and the belief that you could do it without pain!  Consider what might happen if all women stopped spreading the horror and began to empower each other.  Imagine what would happen if we took back childbirth!!  Let's tell the positive parts of our birth stories, share positive stories we have heard from other women (if we don't have our own), and help women achieve calmness and excitement about birth.  Maybe then we will have even more positive birth stories to add to the mix.

As for me, I'm going to walk in with my head held high, no matter what anyone thinks I should know or be prepared for.  I am not afraid.  I am ready.

And I will let you know what THAT birth story looks like when it comes.

Waiting for Baby...Already Following The Child

I am about to embark upon parenthood.

Any day now, my son will make his decision that it is time to descend from his snuggly, albeit cramped, safe space in my body and enter into the great, big world.  He won't even know that he made the decision; he won't even know why.  But, I am already very aware of one thing: it is his decision.  And so this is my first taste of accepting true parenthood.  There are things we can control, and things we cannot.  We cannot control who they are or the decisions they make.  We can only provide them the very best possible place to explore the world.

In the Montessori classroom, we call this venture "preparing the environment," but it takes on a different meaning in the larger world.  I've prepared my body, trying to give him the very best food and nutrients that I can and protecting him from all those things that would be harmful to his development.  I haven't always been successful (damn soy chais and chocolate!), but for the most part, I have made all the necessary sacrifices.  For the duration of the breastfeeding experience, I will continue this sacrifice in the hopes that the support of his development will help shape him as an individual.  I have spent time researching what to buy: what he needs, what he doesn't need, what's economically sound, and what's environmentally safe.   I have designed a nursery (I'll share more on that later) that I think will serve all of his developmental needs with a calm and, I have to say, beautiful space.  And while I have scrambled, and nested, and made my body the best home I could, the impending nature yet uncertain timing of his birth brings me back to reality.  There is one thing that is certain.  This little person is about to change my life.  But I can't change him.

So, here I stand, about to become a mother.  About to discover who this young child is.  And I am full of anticipation, both nervous and excited.  And the only thing I can tell you for certain...I can't wait to follow this child.