Postpartum

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Please Stop Commenting on My Body

https://www.mothering.com/articles/please-stop-commenting-body/

Pregnancy and childbirth bring a lot of changes to a mother’s life. This goes without saying. Your body changes. Your family increases by one. Your brain changes. Your heart changes.

I found, that with these changes, something else happened: people felt like they could comment on my body.

I know. Pregnant women are beautiful. And there is something so exciting about a woman on the verge of becoming a new mother. I find myself smiling at pregnant moms or moms with newborns. And I enjoyed being smiled at when it was me with the large belly or the wee baby in a sling.

The reaction is automatic. I want to say: “You look GREAT!”

Some better things to say would be: “How are you feeling?” “You seem so happy/calm/excited!” “How about this weather?” Even “That’s a cute shirt.

I also felt beautiful when I was pregnant. And in many ways I loved hearing “You look great.” But it also somewhat diminished how I felt. I felt vital and strong and happy and nervous. I loved my taut belly and my growing breasts. I secretly hated the stretch marks that took my once smooth, white belly and zigged it through with dark purple.

And people did say I looked great. And one family member good-naturedly told me my butt was getting big. (Which actually really hurt my feelings, despite the fact that I enjoyed my bigger butt.) But comments on butts aside, I liked hearing how good I looked.

But the postpartum period is problematic. Look at how we treat celebrities. We all marvel at how quickly they get their “pre-baby bodies back.” No one needs to say that it is unrealistic to expect anyone to present with washboard abs mere weeks after delivering. And even if I know intellectually that that is an impossible standard and that surely no small amount of photoshopping or working out or dieting or styling helped achieve that enviable postpartum look, it doesn’t change the fact that women’s bodies are routinely objectified.

(click link at the top to read blog on mothering.com)

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10 important rules when spending the holidays with a newborn

https://www.mother.ly/child/10-rules-when-spending-the-holidays-with-a-newborn

The holidays are almost here. The next months will be filled with twinkling lights, delicious food and the gathering of friends and family. This is a joyous time, but it can be a stressful one, too. If someone in your life has recently become a parent, they likely have a few extra concerns on their minds. From keeping the baby healthy to figuring out their new normal, they have a lot going on.

I know you love them and want the absolute best for them and the baby. It’s just that sometimes when there’s a new baby, it’s hard to remember what we should or shouldn’t do; because #allthesnuggles

(Click link at top to read the post on mother.ly)

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Pregnancy Is Literally As Hard As An Endurance Sport

https://www.scarymommy.com/pregnancy-hard-endurance-sport

As it turns out, I am closer to an endurance athlete than I ever imagined. That’s not my opinion, that’s what six researchers found in a study published by Duke University that focused on finding a limit to human endurance. Apparently and shockingly, pregnant and lactating women live in the limit zone. What the what?!?

(Click link above to read the article)

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Third Stage of Labor – The Most Taboo Part of Childbirth

https://www.motherrisingbirth.com/2019/09/third-stage-of-labor.html

The third stage of labor is everything that happens after the baby is born, the part of childbirth that doesn’t make it to the movies.  The delivery of the placenta, the most taboo part of childbirth, encompasses the third stage of labor.

Compared to the rest of labor, the third stage of labor is the shortest and easiest of all the stages.  Labor is over, your baby has arrived, and now everything is over.  Or is it?

(Click link at top to read on motherrising.com)

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The More I Learn About Breast Milk, the More Amazed I Am

https://www.thestranger.com/features/feature/2015/08/26/22755273/the-more-i-learn-about-breast-milk-the-more-amazed-i-am

Before I had my daughter, I wasn’t particularly interested in mother’s milk. Now I’m literally awake at night thinking about it.

To produce breast milk, mothers melt their own body fat. Are you with me? We literally dissolve parts of ourselves, starting with gluteal-femoral fat, aka our butts, and turn it into liquid to feed our babies.

Before and after giving birth to my daughter 10 months ago, I was inundated with urgent directives from well-meaning, very insistent health practitioners, parenting book authors, mommy bloggers, journalists, and opinionated strangers that “breast is best.” The message was clear: In order to be a good mom, I had to breast-feed.

But breast-feeding is more than being a good mom. And breast milk is much more than food: It’s potent medicine and, simultaneously, a powerful medium of communication between mothers and their babies. It’s astonishing. And it should be—the recipe for mother’s milk is one that female bodies have been developing for 300 million years

(Click link above to read this great article by Angela Garbes)

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I prepared so much for my baby that I forgot to prepare for my own transformation

https://www.mother.ly/life/i-prepared-so-much-for-my-baby-that-i-forgot-to-prepare-for-my-own-transformation

   

 

    

(Click to read the blog on mother.ly)

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SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT, SELF SOOTHING AND ‘GOOD’ BABIES: WHY WE NEED TO STOP SETTING MOTHERS UP TO FAIL

https://raisedgood.com/sleep-through-night-self-soothing-good-babies-stop-setting-mothers-to-fail/

“Is he sleeping through the night?” asks a stranger.

“She’s too clingy. You really need to stop picking her up.” says a friend.

“Is she a good baby?” asks a woman at the park.

“He should be self-soothing by now. Consolidated sleep is critical for healthy brain development.” proclaims a sleep trainer.

“You’re creating a rod for your own back.” exclaims a grandmother.

“I hope you’re putting her down drowsy but awake.” advises a mother at a meetup.

“Feed, play sleep! Feed, play, sleep!” chants a daycare worker.

“You’re not nursing him to sleep are you? That’s a bad sleep association. How do you expect him to learn to fall asleep on his own?” questions a health nurse.

“Oh, he’s just manipulating you, dear. He’s got you wrapped around his tiny eight-week-old little finger.” says a mother-in-law.

“If you don’t put your three-day-old baby down to sleep in a crib on his own you’re risking suffocation and death. It is the only way babies are safe from SIDS.” states a pediatrician.

These are the loud lies of infant sleep that our culture repeats from one generation of new mothers to the next, as if on autopilot.

Without questioning the roots or validity of these statements.

Without an understanding of the biological needs of babies.

Without knowledge of what normal infant sleep looks like.

Without an appreciation for how most cultures around the world care for their babies (and why).

These mistruths are dangerous, not only because they’re false, but because they’re full of unrealistic expectations that set a new mother up to feel like she’s failing. To doubt her own abilities. To worry that there may be something wrong with her or her baby.

(click link at top to read blog in entirety)