Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The best take on breastfeeding in public I've heard so far

In response to a PopSugar article called "Dear Breastfeeding Moms, Is It Really That Hard to Cover Up?" one facebook user shared this poignant response and social commentary (reposted with permission). A longer version can be found here.

First lesson: Lactation is an innate part of reproduction. Barring medical complication, lactation is the next step after delivery. At times induced (which is so awesome I can't even... But I digress) the point is, lactating may be innate, but nursing is not. Nursing is learned activity. Learned. Contrary to myth, women aren't born with the instinct to know exactly what to do. Mom and child are getting the hang of this together. Primates (that's us) require observation and exposure for continued success and sustained efforts. Normalizing is vital. Seeing nursing moms and children matter. It's empowering and necessary. The choice to cover should only be preference of mother/child. Never infringe on their comfort.

Second: Modesty deals with arbitrary sexist standards birthed from coverture. There is nothing indecent about feeding a child. If you see a child nursing and modesty comes to mind, the issue is yours. And sure, we sometimes view breasts sexually. Welcome to the amazing world of a human body. Where we use our mouths and hands sexually too. I certainly hope you aren't thinking of those as sexual when kissing and holding a child. Think about it.

Third: Those of you asking for your discomfort to be respected, pay attention: My rights to nurse my child without cover DO outweigh your nonexistent right to not be offended. This is fact of law. You hold no such right. The public square is for the public. There are more than enough offenses we all must tolerate, including bigoted, uneducated, ignorant ones. Alas. Learn the difference between what is a right under law and what isn't.

I'm a little confused why you think I ought to hold in high esteem the ignorant aversions of a stranger in regards to nursing? Of course I won't respect that kind of ignorance. That person's offense is not my business or issue. And I'm certainly not going to cater to it over the right of my child to eat without a cover over his face or the breast he is feeding from. Why would I? Why would you even expect me to?

Should we have respected the aversions people had to others drinking from the same fountain? Should we have said "oh, respect their bigotry, their opinion matters too". Of course not. Again: Of course not.

I am not going to respect the view that women and children be treated as second class citizens that are shamed under cover into hiding because an idiot has an aversion to seeing a human mammal feed from a human mammary gland. Never.

And quite frankly, you shouldn't either.

Fourth: Images are empowering. They matter.

We live in an age where rants of TMI is the norm. We post pictures of our pets, our food, our shoes and yes, we share images of our families too. But when women share photographs of the moments they share nursing their children, scorn rips defiant calling women exhibitionist. It shouldn't matter what motive a woman has, but if we needed a reason, there are plenty of them. The images are empowering to many who are looking. They normalize breastfeeding as just another memorable moment a parent is having. And they encourage those who don't understand why critics didn't just keep scrolling.

Fifth: Human mammals require milk beyond infancy. Milk is a developmental requirement custom to species. Jaws alter, cheek fat diminishes, milk teeth drop, mammals wean. Until then, it's nonsense to suggest there would be anything weird about a human mammal expressing human milk from human mammary glands. What's weird is that we'd drink milk from another species after the wean. But alas, cheese. The age of weaning is a spectrum, not an arbitrary line. And telling my child he is weird because your child didn't nurse through those years is absurd.

Finally:
If you're concerned about children being exposed, perhaps your answer is to teach them anatomy.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Bed-sharing: What your pediatrician won't tell you

Here's how the typical American story goes: Mom and dad take baby home. When nighttime rolls around, they put baby in his crib and head to their own bed. Baby gets hungry some time later and starts stirring. He starts smacking his lips, moving his head around looking for mommy's breast. He doesn't find it and starts to wail. This pulls mom (and dad) out of sleep, and mom drags herself to go pick baby up and try not to fall asleep as she feeds him. She will repeat this several times a night for months.

What ends up happening is that moms will fall asleep with the baby in her arms on the couch, in the glider, or in her bed. This can be dangerous if the baby slips out of her arms into soft couch cushions. But there is an alternative. Safe bedsharing, or as this article calls it, "smart bedsharing." I'm convinced that if you took out all of the unintentional bedsharing (any instance of falling asleep with baby in an unplanned, unprepared way), the data would show that intentional bedsharing is as safe as "safe sleep" (ie: putting the baby on his back in an obstacle-free separate space).  

I had already made the decision to bedshare with my newborn daughter by the third day she was home. Like most new parents, I was under the impression that the baby has to be in her own space. I tried to put her down, but she wouldn't cooperate. She simply slept best on me. For the first two nights, I slept on the couch the whole night with her on my chest. (Read: very dangerous!)

Then I hired a post-partum doula. She, of course, would not advise me to bedshare. I'm pretty sure it's a liability issue. Nobody will advise you to do it. Yet, every parent I talk to says that they bedshare(d) with their infants, whether or not they intended to. Many sheepishly admit they did it, adding that it's inevitable.

If bedsharing is inevitable, then can we please talk openly about how to do it safely and its benefits? And while we are being real, let's admit to ourselves, collectively, that far more infants die in car crashes from sleep-deprived parents on the road than die in bedsharing accidents? Yet, we aren't really telling parents to stay off the road.

I'll start by saying what I love about bedsharing:

1. It helps establish milk supply. With the baby next to me or sleeping on me, I get plenty of skin-to-skin contact with her. This helped to establish my milk supply in those early days.

2. Significantly improved sleep. I wake up when she starts to get hungry, rather than waiting for her to be all-out crying. This means that everyone gets better sleep -- mom, dad, and baby (and any others within earshot).

3. Baby gets comfort from sleeping next to mom. She also gets cues from mom, such as regular breathing.

4. Varied sleeping positions. After she nurses, I'll position her on my chest or on my stomach so that she can be on an incline after feeding -- helping her get burps out. This allows her and me to get right back to sleep without the discomfort of bubbles in her belly. 

5. Both mom and baby love snuggling. This is a scientific fact.

In contrast, putting baby on her back in her own space results in poor sleep for everyone involved (at least in my family), more gas and discomfort, less skin-to-skin, no breathing benefits, and it's less fun for both mommy and baby. But it is reportedly the safest position to reduce SIDS and suffocation deaths.

Here's the truth: people will end up bedsharing. But if it is not recommended or talked about, then parents will not do it intentionally and thus not safely. I mentioned to our pediatrician that I was bedsharing with our daughter, and told her that I was fully aware that the recommendation was to put baby on her back in her own space, but that I had already looked into the matter and had come to a decision. This would have been a great opportunity for the doctor to educate me on making bedsharing as safe as possible. Instead, she went on and on about the guidelines for safe sleep, trying to talk me out of it.

Back to our doula: After recognizing that safe sleep guidelines all recommend back sleeping, she worked with with me to make the bedsharing environment safe. We inspected the mattresses in my home and determined the best one for baby (on the firmer side -- not the pillowtop one). We made the bed with a tight fit with jersey sheets. We pulled down the blanket to mid-bed. We chose a small pillow for me that would be placed under my head, but with my head at one end with the other end away from baby. We tried out several positions -- baby facing me, facing away, on chest, on stomach.

Guidelines for safe bedsharing:
  1. Mattress is firm. Pillowtop or memory foam mattresses should be avoided. Feel a crib mattress for comparison. 
  2. Fitted sheet is tightly tucked so that there are no folds. 
  3. Minimize blankets. I use the top sheet plus one blanket. 
  4. Keep blankets at waist level. You can wear a long-sleeved shirt for warmth up top (though you may want to wear a nursing top). 
  5. Place baby on her back. I also place the baby on her side facing me, but you will have to determine your level of comfort. 

Pretty in Pink: The real challenge for gender stereotypes

My daughter was born on the same day as the princess in England. We chuckled at the coincidence and promised our daughter that she would never be a princess. Instead, she would be free to make her own choices and pursue her own passions, whatever they may be. And she will certainly be able to dress however she pleases. When I was a little girl, I used to wear shirts with bugs or dinosaurs on them. While I recognize that my influence may not be stronger than the influence of her peers, I secretly hope that she will not be one of those pink-clad, princess-obsessed little girls who is endlessly fascinated with sparkles.

Lucky for me and parents like me, the feminist movement has brought us this: Princess Awesome. It is a clothing company that had wild success getting funded through Kickstarter. The HuffPo article headline read: Moms Launch Stereotype-Bashing Clothing Line That Challenges What It Means To Be 'Girly'. Full disclaimer: this project was started by a former colleague and I wish her great success. I do, however, challenge that it is "stereotype bashing." I think the prints are cute (flowers and ninjas, adorable!), but they are still, alas, dresses. And it is still, alas, called "Princess Awesome."

Our society is fully ready to accept little girls wearing dresses with ninjas and math symbols. What we aren't ready for is little boys wearing dresses and flowers.

My husband and I noticed this trend when opted to wait until our child's birth to discover her sex. We thought it was medically irrelevant during the pregnancy, and my siblings had all done the same with their first child. When we received presents, we noticed a curious thing: folks were willing to give outfits that were clearly meant for boys, but nobody would commit to giving a more traditionally "girly" outfit.

Why are we culturally okay with little girls wearing footballs and trucks, but we would never see a little boy in a frilly dress?

I found an online discussion in an online forum on BabyCenter, where all walks of life come together to discuss everything, and I mean everything, about babies. A user poses this question:

"Can anyone come up with a good reason why dressing your boy child (infant toddler or older) in pink, frilly, flowery cloths is not common practice?" She goes on to say that, while she considers herself to be free of gender biases, especially for infants, she doesn't think she could bring herself to dress a little boy in girly clothes.

Someone responds: "Pink is fine on boys if the clothes have the boy style to them. Flowers...not so much. It just doesn't jibe well for them. It's not biased just can't see a boy with a flowered shirt. And frilly on a boy? Nope can't do that either."

But this response doesn't really hold up.  For one, our perception that flowers and pink are girly is entirely cultural. There is nothing masculine about blue and feminine about pink, and not all cultures even share this view (read more here). For another, it's not even really possible to tell whether babies are male or female once they have a diaper on.

So here's my challenge to anyone who considers him or herself a feminist: Instead of lauding ideas such as dressing up girls in math-print dresses as progressive and "sterotype-bashing", let's really challenge what we are willing to accept. Ask yourself: would you put a dress on a little boy? If you saw a little boy in a pink tutu, what would you think?

I'll end with a story. A little boy wanted a princess-themed birthday party when he turned five. His parents didn't see any reason why they shouldn't oblige his wishes, so they did it. By the time he was seven (when I met him), he was so embarrassed about the party that he was unwilling to talk about it. That's what needs to change.