I gave a little babywearing presentation again yesterday to a small group of moms to 6-12 months old. Again I was a bit aprehensive that they would listen or be attentive to babywearing as it seems so many believe that after the infant stage babies are no longer supposed to be held and the revious experience with wearing has been with a Baby Bjorn type carrier that is akward and uncomfortable the more the baby grows. I explained the advantages, the fun of baby wearing and then the different types of carriers… they then had the fun of trying them out for themselves. That is where the real transformation takes place. While watching me they are scared that the wraps and slings are not safe and say that their babies are too big and heavy (even though I use Colin to show them many of the positions)… When they try them on they realize how the weight disappears and love the handsfree that they never experinced with the carriers they tried in the past. Each took me card and I have a feeling that I will be getting a few phone calls…
I also had a very interesting conversation with a mom there who is also a nurse and remebered me from an interview I did about breastfeeding in a local paper when Colin was tiny and had thought that the sling was an amazing idea. That day was also the day that she found out she was expecting her daughter.. Another conversation with her and the others came upon unassisted birth with the explanation that she had a very fast birth with her first and had trouble making it in time to the nearest birth center and said that next time she would be having a homebirth, assistance or not and we explained together how birth can be a very different experience when compared to the hospital. Surpising (or not) she is also a nurse…
I came back home for a few minutes and then needed to leave to get Simon at the bus, come back home to get my 4 season tires, grabed a sandwich at Dunkin Donuts and went to the garage to leave the car to get the tires and oil changed and a fellow volunteer picked me up from there to go give a prenatal. (she wanted to see how they where done before she will do one by herself)
The Pre-natal was cool.. the moms were all interested though the dads were a bit distracted talking about missing the hockey game a few times… The nurse that was there is really cool. I have already given a pre-natal with her and we get along very well… I mentioned this last time I did it with her also, she finds it so hard giving these classes because sh doesn’t agree with many of the things that she is supposed to say. (She believes in Co-sleeping, Being a volunteer however, and not having the same “responsibilities” I have a bit more leway in that area and can at least instill an idea of questioning in the moms when it comes to the automatic pill prescription and automatic Vitamin D even in a summer baby…
When it was over I asked the nurse if she could check my Blood pressure just to see if I have been getting comparable readings. The fellow volunteer that brought me left and got a ride with the nurse. We talked quite bit while we cleaned up after the meeting and one thing that came up was the misinformation that moms often get in the hospital when they give birth. She said that they have also seen the same especially since the new pediatrician arrived and they have seen many moms get conflicting ideas from her. This of course is the same doc that I felt like hitting a while back… I am glad to find to have found out that they are gathering a lot of info and will be confronting her soon.
I also told her that I was going unassisted at the moment i my pregnancy and she had many questions about it. One of the things she asked about was the clamping of the cord then I explained that I beleive things would have been different with my last birth if the cord would not have been clamped and cut immediately (Colin had trouble breathing and I had a bit of hemorraging) She said that she was concerned of the “new trend” of wanting to delay cord cutting because she heard from others that because of the baby getting more red blood cells that Jaundice would be more frequent. I told her that I didn’t believe that to be true and she said that she is very open to knowing more and to please send anything her way… (I found some studies within a few minutes of searching when I got home), she also said that she would love to get together with me to discuss more about it all which would be a very cool thing to do…
Anyways… the day turned out to be quite interesting and I found support from people that I really didn’t expect…
Especially after my first birth, at a hospital, I had to be quite firm in enforcing my desire to delay cord cutting until all blood had moved into my baby, but as soon as it had, the midwife instructed my mother to cut the cord. I had planned to delay cutting the cord until several hours after my second baby’s birth, but hers too was cut (by my mother) shortly after it stopped pulsing. I think it would be nice to stay connected by the cord to my baby until after the placenta came out.
With my first, the doctors insisted on cutting the cord immediately because of meconium in the water. With my second, I just saw a midwife, no doctor; I told her about this. She said meconium is all the more reason to leave the cord intact; if you have any question about Baby’s ability to breathe, why cut her off from Mommy’s oxygenated blood supply? Midwives know how to suction babies while they’re still attached to Mom. My second baby — born at home — did have jaundice, but my highly skilled midwife could see it was not the serious kind of jaundice. It’s been thirteen months and we still haven’t needed any medical advice or intervention. I highly recommend the book, “How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor” by Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D. — my midwife turned me on to it.