some observations just need to be made

First off, an enormous congratulations to Miranda Kerr and husband Orlando Bloom on the recent birth of their son Flynn.  Miranda writes very enthusiastically and positively about her natural birthing experience with Orlando at her side as her support.

She also posted a beautiful picture husband Orlando took of Flynn and her nursing in bed.  Not exactly surprising that the supermodel photographs well even lounging about at home, but what's so lovely is seeing her embracing everything new motherhood offers, including the bonding of nursing.

But some commenters think the photograph is "obscene".  Anyone familiar with me or who has read much of this  blog knows how I feel about nursing images, breastfeeding in public and the ridiculous double standards regarding body imagery, so I won't bother to rehash it yet again, particularly when it's already been done so spectacularly well.

it's bad advice to starve a child

As I type this - one-handed - I am defying my daughter's pediatrician's orders.

He told me to stop breastfeeding.

At least during the day.  Her iron count, hemoglobin and B12 counts are quite low because she won't eat solid food, she'll only breastfeed.  His solution is for me to refuse to nurse her during the day so that "she'll learn to eat".  He also suggested that we put her in a private daycare because seeing other children eat is all she needs to help her start eating.

We won't be returning to that pediatrician's office.  Because while I am in utter agreement that she needs more than she is currently getting, I absolutely refuse to starve her, refuse to deny her her primary comfort, refuse to hand her over to strangers for the majority of her day.  Refuse.

Fortunately, I have a friend who's an Occupational Therapist, and she's given us some sound advice for troubleshooting this, and is going to find some names of other OTs in the area who specialise in peds.  Here's hoping.

Parents, remember: just because the 'advice' you're given comes from a man in a white lab coat doesn't mean it's good advice.  Remember, always remember: be vigilant, and think for yourself.  Otherwise you might end up agreeing to starve your child.

Breastfeeding: a mother's story

I was asked recently to write an article about my breastfeeding relationship with my 16 month old daughter.  It was published in the current issue of Women's Voice, a quarterly online publication.  With permission, I'm republishing it here.

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In the first days and weeks following our daughter’s birth, breastfeeding posed such a challenge, such an immense difficulty, that I could not have guessed that we would be fortunate enough to still be breastfeeding even a few months later, let alone well over a year later. Now my daughter is 16 months old, and still nursing. Not only is she still nursing, she is, in all her toddler-hood, still exclusively breastfed. She eats no solid food at all.

It was a difficult road to get here. Born at 36 weeks gestation, she refused to latch well, barely opening her mouth. Everyone checked for tongue-tie, but no cause for her difficulty was ever found. I began a long and constant relationship with an electric breastpump, a machine I grew to both adore – it was, after all, establishing, increasing, and maintaining my milk supply better than my daughter was – and loathe. I was on various herbs and eventually prescribed Domperidone, which I took in handfuls daily. At long last, at almost 7 weeks postpartum, with a child who had still only gained about one pound more than her birth weight of 5lb 8oz, we drove to Toronto to meet the great man himself, Dr. Jack Newman. He looked at my daughter, helped us latch, looked me in the eye and said, “You’re doing fine.”

Three days later, Glynis opened her mouth. Later that week, I took our breastpump back to the lactation consultant who had rented it to us. Soon I was off the Domperidone as well. We were finally on our own, and I was elated.

As the months passed, our nursing relationship became stronger and more confident. We were pros. I could – and would – nurse her anywhere and anytime. I nursed her in coffeeshops. I nursed her in the park; is there anything more sublime than nursing outside in the afternoon sun? I nursed her while taking Communion at church, right in our pew. After our terrible, debilitating struggle, one through which I wept more tears than any mother should while loving her newborn, we had settled into a comfortable and delightful pattern of natural nursing. We had no schedules, I watched no clocks: I just nursed her whenever she needed or wanted.

Eventually the day came at about 7 months old when we offered Glynis her first solid food – it happened to be roasted sweet potato wedges. But she wasn’t interested. What was truly remarkable was that she remained entirely disinterested in solid foods as the days, then weeks and finally months went by. Her first birthday came. There was to be no crazed picture of a tiny child smeared with chocolate and icing for her baby album: she examined the icing and then entirely ignored the cupcake which sat before her.

But she nursed! She nursed quickly, and slowly; she nursed at length, and in tiny snacks. She nursed first thing in the morning and to sleep in bed at night. She remained, as ever, round and pink, plump and robust: the very picture of health. At her final well-baby weigh-in, the nurse looked at her, lying in her diaper on the changing pad, kicking and playing, round and adorable, and shook her head: “She’s perfect. That’s a perfect baby.”

And so we continued. As my friends and acquaintances weaned their babies and toddlers, as I read of the horrible backlash against breastfeeding and breastfeeding mothers, as I encountered terrible stories and commentaries in which the mothers of nursing toddlers and older children were denigrated and insulted, slandered and shamed, we continued to nurse.

When this magazine goes live, Glynis will be 16 months old. She is, at the time of writing, still exclusively breastfed. She has virtually no interest in solids – though she did nibble a grape earlier today – and my milk is her sole source of nutrition. I like to say that after so many weeks of worrying that we would never have an easy, relaxed nursing relationship, she’s more than paying me back for persevering.

Glynis, my husband and I are surrounded by children who eat entire meals, who feed themselves with forks and spoons, who consume hard biscuits and meats and sandwiches and vegetables. It is unfathomable to most everyone we know that she is entirely satisfied on my milk alone. It is equally unfathomable that we are all happy with this arrangement: surely I must need a break! In truth, there are days when I would relish handing her a fistful of Cheerios to keep her occupied while I eat my own lunch or finish reading something or get some dishes washed. And I’m a little envious of the parents I know who are learning what foods their toddlers love, who laugh as their children feed themselves awkwardly and enthusiastically.

But I know that Glynis’ day will come. Moreover, on that day, I will know that I did not rush her, did not push her or her body to try something for which she was not yet ready. And I will know that I allowed her to be as close, as connected, as intimate and as much a baby as she’s needed to be, for as long as she’s needed.

Through this extended and extraordinary nursing relationship, I have gained a profound respect for my body. I was able not only to grow a tiny baby, but to nourish and grow a toddler, on nothing but my milk. It is truly remarkable to me that we are, to quote Ina May Gaskin, so “wonderfully made” that the food of our bodies, the milk of our breasts, is enough to sustain and satisfy even an energetic, active and growing child. This is an important and valuable lesson for us, as women and mothers, to remember: our bodies are able to accomplish amazing things, if only we will let them.

Believe it

I am an opera singer.  I've been singing amateur opera for just over four years now, and began my training back in 2004.  Before I began training, I had been singing folk and contemporary Christian music for years.  I have been told that my voice is lovely, easy to listen to, very enjoyable, and have been asked by professionals if I have perfect pitch.  But every time I open my mouth to sing, I doubt myself.  Every.  single.  time.

Why? Because when I was 21, a 'friend' (note the sarcastic quotation marks) told me that my pitch was usually flat.  At that time, I was singing with a band at a monthly church service for young people.  The thought that my pitch was consistently off and being mic'd, subjecting the entire congregation to bad singing, was totally mortifying.  I was entirely riddled with self-doubt after that day.

It was since then that I began my classical voice training, and and since then that I've had greater and greater successes with my singing.  It was since then that it was suggested that I may have perfect pitch, or at least perfect relative pitch.  But still my 'friend's' words echo in my ears. Your pitch is usually flat.

When I had my first lesson with my vocal coach, I asked her at the end: how do I sound?  She said I sounded nice, and that I should definitely continue pursuing singing.  Then I asked her: So, I'm not flat?  "No", she responded, looking perplexed.  "Why would you think that?"  I told her, "A friend told me I was, once".

"No," she said again, looking horrified. "No.  That's not true.  Don't believe that.  Anyone who tells you that is no friend.  No.  You have a lovely voice.  Just forget you ever heard that.  That's a terrible thing to think.  No."

Why am I telling you about this?  What bearing does it have on, well, anything to do with birth or pregnancy or birth choices or even breastfeeding?  One sentence, spoken by someone whose opinion is of very little weight or value to me, spoken nearly a decade ago, which has since been repeatedly and consistently refuted, continues to haunt and shake me.  I continue to doubt myself.  I continue to doubt my abilities.  If such a small matter can weigh so heavily for so long, how can we then withstand all the noise which tells us that we cannot birth?  How do we arm ourselves against the onslaught of anxiety and pessimism which is so common and so debilitating in our society today?  How do we protect ourselves, our babies, our births, against the voices which would have us believe that we are incapable, that we are reckless, that we are somehow dysfunctional?

I can't honestly say that I know.  I don't know precisely how I was able to withstand those voices, that noise, that fear.  I do know that I believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that I could - and would - birth my baby without intervention or 'help' (again with the sarcastic quotation marks).  Perhaps a belief in one's ability to birth goes deeper than an appreciation for our talents.  Perhaps our ability to birth is so much more primal, so much more fundamental to who we are, not as individuals, but as human beings, as mammals, as creatures, that our belief has more substance than were it merely a personal talent.

My optimism, however, is not universal.  Too often I speak to expectant mothers who say they are going to try for a natural birth, who express doubt, not only in their ability to withstand pain, but in their very ability to actually birth their child.  Too often I hear of women who have been told - and have been convinced - that their pelvis is too small, their uterus too weak, their body too fat, their constitution too fragile.  And how terribly often do I speak to women who have likewise been told and believed that their breasts are too small, too large, their nipples too flat, too inverted, too large, too small, their breasts incapable of producing milk, and that they are unable to breastfeed and should simply not try.

How can we imbue other women with this confidence?  How can we eliminate generations of our undoing?  I try by speaking truth and confidence to the women I meet.  And I write this blog.  All in the hope that it will help.

Slinging Slanders

I've been called a lot of names.  Some of them I've been called directly, some indirectly.  In the recent past, I have been indirectly called a femin@zi, nipple n@zi, breastfeeding n@zi, pervert, obscene, offensive, an exhibitionist and lewd.  I've been directly been called variations on n@zi, no-life, and stupid b!tch.  Isn't the internet a wonderful place?

While the anonymity of the internet lends an unfortunate bravado to name-callers, what really kills me is knowing that those people are out there.  Were they at the mall today when I nursed my daughter while eating my lunch?  Were they at Ikea when I nursed her there?  Are they in my church when I nurse her during the celebration of communion?  Are they amongst my friends, amongst my family?

I am hated for what I feel and what I do.  I feel breastfeeding is wonderful.  I breastfeed my child.  And for that I am hated.

Some days, I weep for the world.  But some days, I admit that I weep for myself.  And I weep for Glynis.

The pits

This report on a recent study has me livid.  Particularly this:

Analysis of the records of more than 48,000 women who gave birth in South Wales found that use of the clotting agents oxytocin or ergometrine was associated with a 7 per cent decline in the proportion who started breastfeeding within 48 hours of giving birth.
It is thought that the drugs may impede a woman’s ability to produce milk, suggesting that mothers who have them may need greater time or support from midwives if they wish to breastfeed their baby.

 I fought like hell, like a freaking gladiator, to establish breastfeeding with my daughter.  For eight weeks I pumped and supplemented her after every. single. feed.  I was on handfuls domperidone to help establish supply for almost four months (and that stuff ain't cheap) in addition to fennugreek (made me stink) and blessed thistle (blegh! bitter!).

I would do it all again, in a heartbeat, in an instant, without an inkling of hesitation.  It was the right choice, it was the right thing to do, and now, at pushing 16 months old, my child is still exclusively breastfed and gets greater joy out of nursing, out of my body, than just about anything else.  It nearly breaks my heart with joy.  But my heart broke, and broke again, and broke again, when I saw that slipping away from us in those critical first days and weeks.

And the fact that my midwife gave me an unnecessary and potentially harmful shot of pitocin to "help the placenta along" makes me want to storm over to her office and give her an earful.

As I posted on a thread in a discussion on Facebook the other day: get the f*#k out of my womb, get the f*#k out of my vagina and let me do it.

Term breastfeeding, cultural norms and Mongolian wrestlers

Here is a lovely article on breastfeeding and breastfeeding culture in Mongolia. Living in Canada as I am, where I am decidedly in the minority to still be breastfeeding (and exclusively breastfeeding, I might add: our daughter eats no solids) my 15 month old, this article is a real boon. It's a struggle to remember, when surrounded by weaned toddlers and an older generation asking me "So, how long are you going to breastfeed, anyway?" that those in the west who enforce weaning and don't see breastfeeding and breastmilk as a birth-right and as an undeniably important part of childhood - and not just infancy - are actually in the global minority.