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I live in California, a place where everyone you meet has either embraced attachment parenting (more or less) or has a full staff, at least one nanny but usually more. We are a land of extremes. BUT I find that my immediate crowd is generally on the same page, they agree with memore or less, so there is rarely any fodder for comics. Then I have a wider circle of acquaintances who occasionally give me some helpful inspiration for comics, but I must always be careful as they occasionally read my blog too.
Back when I lived in NC I would hang at the local playground and get a lot of ideas for comics…but now here, I might go to the playground many times a week, but it’s a few friends and acquaintances and then 100s of nannies, that all speak spanish. There just isn’t as much compare and contrast inspiration coming my way.
But,this comic: the epidural! was actually an out-of-nowhere conversation that really happened. I’m going to have to go back to that park bench more often!
Love,
Heather
My response to that is, “Oh, I always encourage my friends to give birth at home.”
Ok WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! That was pretty shocking!! LOL that she didn’t notice a PATTERN to her births…
I think my “perfect” response to that would have been “Oh, ok. I always encourage my friends to birth in a rice field alone so those stupid interventions can’t come into play.” HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I live in the land of cheap Daycare… where being a sahm past the age of Maternity leave is rare…
so ‘if’ you see another person at the park in the daytime it is a home daycare worker with 4-5 toddlers…
Having trouble meeting mama friends here because almost everyone I see is a Grandma or a nanny. Not that there is anything wrong with that–but I would like some mama friends my age. But the grandmas sure do smile when I think they are the mama!
I had an epidural, but I fully recognize that is not the optimal choice and see the connection between epidurals and our horrible c-section rate in this country (though I had two vaginal births…and the latest was 10 lbs 4 oz…my epidurals seem to wear off so I can do the final laboring standing with the bar). If I had realized how quickly the second one would go, I might have not done the epidural. My first one was 24 hours so I was thinking in those terms.
Now, if I have a third, I am considering a home birth…we’ll see.
Here’s another thing to get riled up about: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27363259
I love how that article about SIDS and bedsharing had this video news on the side, oh the irony!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27293760#27293760
Seriously tho, what on earth was she basing her statements on?
I just read that article- it’s funny that they never ask Dr. Sears about the difference between bedsharing nursing moms and formula feeding moms. The risk of SIDS is lower for nursling bedsharers. That just gets me…
oh! there was a show on discovery health yesterday morning that made me think of you! it was called “freebirthing” and it was all about unassisted homebirths! i sat there wondering “hmmm…i wonder if hathor’s watching this, she’d enjoy it” so if you missed it, look it up!
<3
I’ve never understood how anyone could roll over onto something the size of a baby, even a newborn, and NOT feel it and wake up. I know my daughter’s head is at least as big as a baseball, and I certainly couldn’t sleep on one of those! I have to wonder if anyone’s ever researched the connection between babies who die bedsharing and drug/alcohol use. (That’s the only way I can imagine that someone could be “out of it” enough to do that!)
i like how the article said uneducated women would most likely bedshare… hmmm. all those years in college, and I am an idiot. what is surprising to me is, everyone i know who bedshares has at least an AA if not a masters. go figure.
I’ve wondered how much of a part epidurals and c-sections play in the increase of children with Autism. Studies have shown that infants born via c-section and are seperated from their mothers have the same psyiological reactions/readings as those whose mothers died in childbirth. Without all that oxytocin pumping to mom and baby that’s present in a natural birth, it makes me wonder how some of our children could NOT have some emotional lag/restriction. The difference in my son (epidural/c-section) and my daughter (totally wonderful natural VBAC) is night and day. He’s so much more social now at 2 1/2, but it’s taken lots of love to get there, and had he been in daycare and not breastfed, I believe that we wouldn’t merely suspect aspergers, but be diagnosed with full blown autism. I’m in college now (pre-med) and am hoping to bring more attention on the dangers involved with intervention ladden births that we are ignoring when I graduate. I can’t wait to be a natural birther in OBs clothing… hehehe
And as far as the bed sharing, those numbers should be higher, I guarntee it. To avoid an argument with “professionals”, we lie and say the kids sleep alone. The weird thing? We do it in a way that they know we’re lying, but they never call us on it…
I’m a total smart-ass, so I probably would have said something like “You needed an epidural for your c-sections? What a wimp! I had all *my* c-sections NATURALLY!” lol! (yes, I’m a total dork)
The article did at least say:
“The reason why bed-sharing is related to SIDS isn’t yet clear, Fu noted. “It may not be bed sharing itself but some of the accompanying factors when people bed-share,” she told Reuters Health, for example sleeping on soft surfaces or using multiple blankets.”
But I think another thing going on is that the people that are at highest risk for infant mortality (I think because of lack of prenatal care and nutrition) are also the ones most likely to bedshare. So instead of worrying about prenatal care and other more blaring problems, they attack a cultural difference. Instead of going after injustices, we blame it on a sweet and tender part of a family’s culture. The bedsharing isn’t necessarily the causative agent here.
People SHOULD be informed of safe sleeping recommendations, but not condemned for the way they use that information to work for their family. When mothers whisper the confession that their middle child sleeps on his stomach, for example. That’s so silly – like admitting to child abuse or something. They KNOW about the back to sleep campaign… that’s good enough.. now they do what they need to do.
There is a campaign going around on MySpace about SIDS or Cot death (the campaign is British I think). They claim that it is the chemicals off-gassing from the junk they put on mattresses, like flame retardants, that are interfering with an infants breathing and causes them to to die. (They sell product to wrap around your mattress to prevent anyone breathing in the fumes.) And I think they are saying the same in Australia and New Zealand.
The best thing to do (if you can afford it) is to get an organic mattress made with wool, which is naturally flame resistant!
And as for the epidural… damn! women just don’t know anything!!
I had to be induced at 31 weeks because of severe preeclampsia and went thru 12 hours of pitocin WITHOUT the epidural and birthed my DD vaginally! Now I am planning a homebirth with my 2nd and my Midwife knows so much more than that OB I had with #1!!
I think more women wake up and take their birth experiences back from those ‘men’ in power. And save the Midwives! They are a vanishing breed!
I know there’s all sorts of research that says epidurals are bad, but I wonder if it’s more the way they are administered so freely? After 30 hours in labour, I was med-evac’d to a larger hospital for either an epidural or a c-section… they’d see. An epidural saved me from a c-section, and now I have a beautiful, healthy, breastfed, bed-sharing 15 month old playing at my feet while I type this. I don’t know if the difference is Canada (where I live) vs. the USA, or just backwoods Saskatchewan, but it seems that epidurals here are seen as a last resort. Oh, they’ll try all kinds of other interventions (I blame the pitocin and fentanyl for my birth issues), but epidurals and c-sections are much less frequent here. But oh, my kingdom for a midwife! Now that midwives are supported by Health Care, maybe some will come here for my next baby.