When we think of Saskatchewan, we don't think about breastfeeding and "natural disasters", but as I sit in my house looking out the window today, I do think about the advantages of breastfeeding in this province when Mother Nature presents herself like she did yesterday and today.
After a couple days of above 0 temps we have had melting snow and ice, which is usually a treat. But add to that freezing rain for a few hours and then fresh fluffy snow overnight and all morning and temps that dropped drastically and we have a dangerous recipe for travel.
In a news report, I saw that there were 28 reportable accidents in 24 hours in our city. How many were not reported or reportable? Yikes, that makes 1 or more an hour that needed assistance.
Wow, am I glad to be able to stay inside safe with my children, one who is a young breastfeeding infant.
But, what if he was not breastfeed? What if I ran out of an alternative to feed him, which for the vast majority of non-breastfeed babies in our province, would be formula? Forced into heading out onto these roads to shop for infant formula would be awful.
Add to that, what if I was out travelling on the roads, and got into an accident, either with or without that baby with me. Now, I have a hungry baby whom I cannot get food for, that I may or may not be with, and an even bigger delay in getting him feed. That sounds stressful to me and would be stressful to that baby.
As a breastfeeding mom, an accident delay if we did happen to be travelling, at least maintains a food source for the infant. So long as mom and baby can remain together, baby has a food source. Of course, accidents are the extreme, but what if we were to have gotten stuck in some snowy/icy roads. In conditions like this it can take hours for help to come. Babies cannot wait hours to be feed. I did get stuck in some snow while travelling with a baby a few years ago and it did take hours for help to come. I was so grateful that I was able to just nurse that baby while we waited.
So, while we do live in a province that is free of hurricane's and earthquakes that can create major havoc for days on end, loss of electricity, food shortages, etc and we can easily think of why breastfeeding is so important in times like that, Saskatchewan mothers are not immune for the effects of Mother Natures extremes and how they can impact infant care and well-being.
Take care in this crazy weather Saskatchewan families and happy safe, cozy, warm breastfeeding.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Labor/Birth Doula
Also called a childbirth or labor assistant, a labor/birth doula is a trained woman who will stay with you throughout labor and birth. The word "doula" is a Greek word meaning "woman caregiver".
Labor/birth doula's attend to the emotional and physical comfort needs of laboring women to smooth the labor process. A labor/birth doula gives you information about what is happening to you, facilitates communication between you and medical staff and supports your decisions. She makes suggestions on how you can best cope with labor and what will help labor progress smoothly.
As a labor/birth doula we will have 2 or more visits before the birth so that I can get to know you, and learn about your preferences, priorities and concerns. I can assist in writing your birth plan or preferences.
At the time in your labor that you need me I will join you and stay with you throughout your labor and birth of your baby and for about 2 hours after the birth. We will have at least one visit after the birth to review the experience. In addition, I am available by phone or email both before and after the birth for help, nonmedical advice, referrals or just to listen.
Doulas don't participate in any of the medical aspects of your care. Cost for doula services with breastfeeding support is $700
Professional Enhancement & Continuing Education
I wanted to share feedback from a workshop I facilitated last weekend. It was a two day "Breastfeeding and the Birth Professional" with a focus on the Professional Doula.
If you are interested in having me speak with a group of professionals, please contact me.
Recently I was a participant in Kim Smith's Breastfeeding Workshop for Doulas. I am a Registered Nurse and a CAPPA trained doula. My reason for taking the course was to add to my helping skills in the breastfeeding realm, as I primarily volunteer in the area of c-section and VBAC support, as well as talking to moms after they have experienced birth trauma and may have had breastfeeding difficulties as a consequence. I am also a babywearing educator, and often times mothers will turn to babywearing as a tool to breastfeed and have normalized activity. I thought that the workshop was very comprehensive and raised many key issues. Kim addressed a wide variety of topics, and reinforced what is normal to see and what key tools a doula can use to assist her client. It also covered elements, like the WHO code of breastmilk and breastmilk substitutes, BFI, and societal issues which affect our clients. We had lots of opportunity for discussion, videos which were informative and relevant, and Kim did a great job keeping us on task and facilitating the workshop. She came prepared with technology but it was very well balanced and well used to teach the workshop. My feedback to Kim was that every birth professional should review this information. Even though I am a registered nurse and have a degree, I found that the information Kim provided was cutting edge, evidence based, and would absolutely apply to any professional working with lactation. As a labour doula, I have seen the benefit to having additional breastfeeding support on board with my own clients. Not all clients are able to access feeding advice, and it has been inconsistent. I think Kim's workshop would absolutely apply to our professional development as nurses and definitely to doulas, midwives, and anyone else working with mother and child.I thoroughly enjoyed the worshop.
If you are interested in having me speak with a group of professionals, please contact me.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Being an IBCLC is more than passing an exam, for me
Certainly, the defining markers of an IBCLC are that she has fulfilled the learning requirements, put in the hours observing and assisting, and ultimately passed the IBCLC exam. Passing that exam is important, make no mistake, but the journey does not end with a passing mark.
Frankly, I have learned much more since passing the exam than I had preparing for it. I thought I knew it all when I decided I was ready to write. OK not all; I had some refining to do, but I knew a lot. So, I refined. I felt ready to kick exam butt, with just the right amount of stress and worry to to indicate that I am human.
But one does not know what they don’t know, now do they? I soon learned that I knew a lot but that I had much, much more to learn. My “standard” theoretical answers were not the practical answers, or at least they did not get to the root of the issues I was seeing. Granted, I helped those moms and babies get by and meet goals, but I felt that there must be a better way. In my heart of hearts, even when moms and babies were happier, making it, doing well, I could feel that their breastfeeding relationships were not as peaceful or fulfilling as they could be.
With each new family and obstacle I learned more, and this continues to be true.
Each time I can get to an education event, I go.
Each opportunity I have to listen to a webinar, I listen.
But, most importantly, I listen to moms. How I interact with moms in my practice is unique. Not unique to me specifically, but it is not the normal practice of the other health care workers that those mothers will interact with.
I don't give moms 15 minutes of my time and walk out the door. I usually have 2 hours. This quality time is so important.
I follow up with my moms. I see the outcome of our work and time together. Is what I suggested working for them? Has it worked for others in the past? Why not this time? How is this mom and baby different from another seemingly similar situation?
I generally do not stop providing care until they are happy and content with their individual situations.
This is their relationship. I am an invited visitor, and one who is honoured to be so.
From a personal standpoint, my livelihood depends on the outcomes and happiness of my clients. If my clients are not happy, it is a lose-lose situation. They lose out on a contented breastfeeding relationship, I lose out on their word-of-mouth recommendations, and my family loses out on my income. This is not a 'side gig'. There is no job with benefits awaiting me if I fail. There is no paycheck for just showing up and seeing who I might be able to help that day. I must create the best me for my myself, for my clients, and for my family.
Frankly, I have learned much more since passing the exam than I had preparing for it. I thought I knew it all when I decided I was ready to write. OK not all; I had some refining to do, but I knew a lot. So, I refined. I felt ready to kick exam butt, with just the right amount of stress and worry to to indicate that I am human.
But one does not know what they don’t know, now do they? I soon learned that I knew a lot but that I had much, much more to learn. My “standard” theoretical answers were not the practical answers, or at least they did not get to the root of the issues I was seeing. Granted, I helped those moms and babies get by and meet goals, but I felt that there must be a better way. In my heart of hearts, even when moms and babies were happier, making it, doing well, I could feel that their breastfeeding relationships were not as peaceful or fulfilling as they could be.
With each new family and obstacle I learned more, and this continues to be true.
Each time I can get to an education event, I go.
Each opportunity I have to listen to a webinar, I listen.
But, most importantly, I listen to moms. How I interact with moms in my practice is unique. Not unique to me specifically, but it is not the normal practice of the other health care workers that those mothers will interact with.
I don't give moms 15 minutes of my time and walk out the door. I usually have 2 hours. This quality time is so important.
I follow up with my moms. I see the outcome of our work and time together. Is what I suggested working for them? Has it worked for others in the past? Why not this time? How is this mom and baby different from another seemingly similar situation?
I generally do not stop providing care until they are happy and content with their individual situations.
This is their relationship. I am an invited visitor, and one who is honoured to be so.
From a personal standpoint, my livelihood depends on the outcomes and happiness of my clients. If my clients are not happy, it is a lose-lose situation. They lose out on a contented breastfeeding relationship, I lose out on their word-of-mouth recommendations, and my family loses out on my income. This is not a 'side gig'. There is no job with benefits awaiting me if I fail. There is no paycheck for just showing up and seeing who I might be able to help that day. I must create the best me for my myself, for my clients, and for my family.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Can laws influence societal norms?
In 1988, almost 25 years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that discrimination against pregnant women is a form of discrimination on the basis of sex. The biological fact is simple; only women have the capacity to become pregnant and therefore discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is a form of sexual discrimination.
In Saskatchewan, as in other provinces in Canada, women cannot be discriminated against on the basis of pregnancy. This is upheld in both the prenatal and post-natal period. Women who are expecting or have recently given birth are entitled to reasonable accommodations that may be necessary because of their pregnancy or having a baby. In Saskatchewan, this included women who are breastfeeding as stated by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.
One is left to ask them, why is it that after 25 years since this Court ruling, are breastfeeding women still being discriminated against? Experiences of Saskatchewan women being discriminated against in the last two years include mothers being asked to stop breastfeeding on public transit, a lifeguard at a public pool asking a nursing mother if she can go to the change room to nurse, in another pool in another city a mother was asked to get another towel to cover, another mom is asked to stop breastfeeding her infant while she is in a family restaurant and a mother was kicked out of a mall for nursing in the food court. The list has more, that was just a few. I am left to assume that the people who complained about these women and the people who asked them to stop nursing in public did not think of their actions as being discriminatory and least of all against women on the basis of their sex, but it is. We need more public awareness because these occurrences create barriers for all mothers and their babies. Furthermore, staff and establishments could be left paying a legal consequence because patrons have asked staff to intervene. Who gets to tell the patrons that they are indeed wrong and that the staff cannot and will not approach the mother and child? What if the staff does not know and they approach the mother and child? Legal consequences fall on whom then? The public needs to be aware of this law and the rights of the mother baby dyads as do businesses and their staff.
It would seem as if society is behind the law on this act, this biological act and need of all infants. It is time that society steps forward 25 years on this issue and catches up to the law. The evolution period of this law has had more than enough time. The laws can help shape societal norms and I, for one, think that it is time this law comes into play to help move the norm of infants and children breastfeeding in our society. It is no longer socially acceptable to drink and drive and the laws definitely helped to raise people's awareness of the serious consequences of that behaviour.
The laws that protect people against discrimination on the basis of sex have been around for many decades in Canada. These laws are included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is part of the Constitution - the highest law in our country.
The fact is that women are still being asked to cover-up, move or leave venues, almost 25 years after the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision that discrimination around pregnancy and childbirth and breastfeeding is discrimination on the basis of sex. Societal norms in regards to breastfeeding have not changed to keep up with the law and it is time that it does.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Don't be a boob: let the kid eat
Today I am sharing an opinion piece by a local reporter and photographer for the Uof R School of Jouralism re: breastfeeding in public. Hope you enjoy!
Nobody complains about the sight of animals nursing their young out in the open, but if an image of a human breastfeeding in public were presented to the North American public a debate would follow. Some people think public breastfeeding is just downright indecent.
Maybe they think humans don’t qualify as animals anymore, or are uncomfortable with the reminder that we really are animals. Or maybe human women’s breasts have evolved to the point where they are now solely there for the sexual entertainment of their male counterparts and producing milk is just a funny quirk.
Opponents of breastfeeding in public suggest a breastfeeding mother pump and use a bottle, go to the bathroom to breastfeed, plan around the babies eating schedule, or, at the very least, cover up with a blanket.
All these suggestions make anybody who has spent time around infants certain that those in opposition have not.
Pumped breast milk must be refrigerated and then warmed before it can be given to the baby. Mothers already carry diaper bags, purses, and at least one baby. If opponents were offering to lug the extra accoutrements required for carting around pumped breast milk for the mothers, this might be a viable option.
A mother planning her errands around an infant’s eating schedule flies in the face of decency. Some babies will nurse about once an hour for the first couple weeks of life, and at least every few hours after that. Starving a child or holding a women captive in her house both qualify as abuse.
The suggestion that they should go to the washroom to nurse is best defended by the mothers themselves with the often repeated “do you eat in a room where other people poop?”.
Covering up with a blanket would work wonderfully if mothers were nursing inanimate objects but some babies will use all their strength to put up a fuss until they can see their mother’s face. And they should!
Baby is learning important things about non-verbal communication by watching his mother’s facial expressions and his eye muscles are getting stronger as he learns to focus on different parts of his favourite person.
Besides, mother and child are simultaneously releasing important bonding hormones that will become even more important as the child grows up. We evolved that way.
And the benefits go on. Breastfed babies have stronger immune systems, are less prone to obesity, and some studies suggest they have higher IQs. Mothers benefit from the most natural way to help shed the baby weight, a decreased occurrence and duration of post-partum depression, and, for those who breastfeed for at least two years, a significantly decreased risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer.
The World Health Organization, Canadian Paediatric Society, and American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life as best for the baby. All three actually recommend nursing even longer.
Whatever the objections, watching a baby scream of hunger is surely more offensive than seeing what is, really, a modest amount of skin.
Elise Thomsen ( elisethomsen@gmail.com ) is a contributing reporter and photographer for the University of Regina’s School of Journalism 2012 news service for weekly papers in Saskatchewan. She is from Michigan, and has spent 16 weeks in the newsroom of Jamac Publishing in Kindersley and another eight weeks at the Weyburn Review on internship. She will graduate this spring with a particular interest in reporting on important community developments, the arts, and human rights issues.
OPINION - Don't be a boob: let the kid eat
Created on Tuesday, 28 February 2012 22:27
By Elise ThomsenNobody complains about the sight of animals nursing their young out in the open, but if an image of a human breastfeeding in public were presented to the North American public a debate would follow. Some people think public breastfeeding is just downright indecent.
Maybe they think humans don’t qualify as animals anymore, or are uncomfortable with the reminder that we really are animals. Or maybe human women’s breasts have evolved to the point where they are now solely there for the sexual entertainment of their male counterparts and producing milk is just a funny quirk.
Opponents of breastfeeding in public suggest a breastfeeding mother pump and use a bottle, go to the bathroom to breastfeed, plan around the babies eating schedule, or, at the very least, cover up with a blanket.
All these suggestions make anybody who has spent time around infants certain that those in opposition have not.
Pumped breast milk must be refrigerated and then warmed before it can be given to the baby. Mothers already carry diaper bags, purses, and at least one baby. If opponents were offering to lug the extra accoutrements required for carting around pumped breast milk for the mothers, this might be a viable option.
A mother planning her errands around an infant’s eating schedule flies in the face of decency. Some babies will nurse about once an hour for the first couple weeks of life, and at least every few hours after that. Starving a child or holding a women captive in her house both qualify as abuse.
The suggestion that they should go to the washroom to nurse is best defended by the mothers themselves with the often repeated “do you eat in a room where other people poop?”.
Covering up with a blanket would work wonderfully if mothers were nursing inanimate objects but some babies will use all their strength to put up a fuss until they can see their mother’s face. And they should!
Baby is learning important things about non-verbal communication by watching his mother’s facial expressions and his eye muscles are getting stronger as he learns to focus on different parts of his favourite person.
Besides, mother and child are simultaneously releasing important bonding hormones that will become even more important as the child grows up. We evolved that way.
And the benefits go on. Breastfed babies have stronger immune systems, are less prone to obesity, and some studies suggest they have higher IQs. Mothers benefit from the most natural way to help shed the baby weight, a decreased occurrence and duration of post-partum depression, and, for those who breastfeed for at least two years, a significantly decreased risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer.
The World Health Organization, Canadian Paediatric Society, and American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life as best for the baby. All three actually recommend nursing even longer.
Whatever the objections, watching a baby scream of hunger is surely more offensive than seeing what is, really, a modest amount of skin.
Elise Thomsen ( elisethomsen@gmail.com ) is a contributing reporter and photographer for the University of Regina’s School of Journalism 2012 news service for weekly papers in Saskatchewan. She is from Michigan, and has spent 16 weeks in the newsroom of Jamac Publishing in Kindersley and another eight weeks at the Weyburn Review on internship. She will graduate this spring with a particular interest in reporting on important community developments, the arts, and human rights issues.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Guest Blog from Birthing Utopia
Today I am sharing with you a blog post by another member of my community and her take on and role with Lactivism in 2011. Earlier this fall I attended a conference which took a look at Lactivism in Canada, the past, the present and the future. It is an interesting subject.
Lactivism de-constructed, 2011
This year, in retrospect, has been life altering and huge in terms of identifying and developing my practice in the world of birth, birth advocacy, and making good arguments for women having babies on their own terms.
A few years ago, when I decided that I wanted to work in birth but not pursue it through the route of the nurse, I had also decided to venture into lactation as a possible profession. It had very little to do with my own adventures in feeding my kids. To be honest, there never really was adventure. It was mundane, really typical and I would say normal and natural to me. Not to say that I didn't fill my cup with ways to handle things and the stories of others. I went to La Leche League meetings with my second child, about 8 months after she was born - mainly, to connect with other moms and to see if lactation was something I'd like to develop that passion in.
It almost was an uphill battle to even get off of the ground with lactivism. Not necessarily an old boys club or exclusive, but guarded in the community being that it is a precious commodity. That seems really odd, saying that lactivism and milky helpers should be guarding their world and protecting the practice. Exclusion reminds me of the sand box. It also felt as though the old guard was almost discouraging a freshie perspective? Or that it would take too much time to open the wing? I don't know, I spent a lot of time de-constructing what went wrong because I am a sensitive person, and I really thought I had found a good fit, and a place that needed more help. Maybe it was timing, my approach, or just the fact that I truly wasn't ready like I figured.
Off I went, back to my career and looking for another rainbow to chase. I really thought it was and is best practice to just lay back and support the mother who does either. Amongst my peers were many mothers who did not nurse their babies for various reasons. I even became turned off by lactivism for a short while. It seemed mean spirited, and I saw an upper crust and consumerist element to nursing babies. Snobbery? Perhaps, but a barrage of "breast is best" mixed with the angry hipster mom-blogger rants and I really felt like I wanted nothing to do with lactivism. I felt like I would fit into a moderate group of mothers better, all things considered. It's not like I lived my life with my breasts out and a perfect-mom badge anyway, right? (Lactivists are truly hairy-armpitted, broom skirt-wearing Ina May wannabes right? right?) I felt like my voice carried no weight, and that I should go back to my little house in north central Regina and my dented SUV and 9 to 5 job. To stop worrying about the outside world because mine was truly "fine".
(This is really quite interesting to blog, because in retrospect I was still nursing my toddler. With much less enthusiasm at that point)
So, then we enter into the midwifery activism and birth community rhetoric again. So - I wasn't necessarily lactating or living my suburban iPhone life anymore. I was a card carrying pregnant hipster now. I was being denied home birth (then awarded it and then denied again), and listening with intent to the stories and experiences of other mothers. I also started to delve into marketing practices and my tune was changing. I had received exactly two cans of free formula in my previous pregnancy, and it really bothered me to know that not only could that happen again to me, but that somewhere in my own neighborhood was a desperate mom, at 3 am, who cracked the can instead of looking to more support.
I really wanted to just "get mad", but it became so obvious that guilt was really interfering with the ability to fully rage. I didn't want to make my friends feel guilty or obligated. I didn't want my family to pay for their comments and looks and energy. Even though I have been vocal about how it hurts - in the end I have to respect those around me. Even though not only had I never really quit being a lactivist, but I continued to post links and pay for it with long, drawn out strings of comments. I had to be careful and be respectful of those around me, on my OWN social networking pages. You can avert your eyes from a nursing mother in a shopping mall, but I guess you can't look away from the nagging article popping up on your facebook feed. I'd pass up many opportunities to share stuff, but I never stopped clicking and reading beyond the rhetoric and drama. It's never about our own experiences, yet every single blog and news article about feeding babies turns into "this was my experience, so there". I don't want it to be about that, so respectfully slowed down and internalized more of my thoughts.
But I do NOT have to be a respectful consumer. It is within my right to demand quality products in my marketplace. It's within my right and I would think that on behalf of my fellow mothers who both nurse and use formula that it's a duty to expose awful marketing.
The other practice that is true to me is the practice of sustaining relationships with our babies. Our instincts to parent has already been handed to our health care professionals and dr. Google - so, how are we to know how to relate to our babies? Even our lactation instructions are muddled and confused. I love my midwife, but I was so flustered when she said I needed to pump engorged breasts that I totally ignored my own 3 year old who was really quite skilled at emptying her mother's breasts!
I hear many stories from mothers who don't know what to do. They are tired, frustrated, hurting... The answer is often complex or directed away from nursing. To one health professional their child is at risk of losing precious time and health without formula, to the next the answer is supplementing. But rarely is donor milk ever considered or suggested. This leads mothers to milk sharing networks and begging their lactating friends to don pumps and containers. And non stop doubt and guilt floats around her in the air!
Lactivism, to me, is about preserving a normal practice. Since when did the 24 hour drugstore or free backpack of coupons and powdered substance replace calling a lactation professional? There are card carrying women right down the block from most of us with breasts and some of them may be carrying a precious commodity. In a perfect world, we'd be more interested in milk donation and protection of the normal function and less concerned about bothering others for help.
I'm asking and begging of those who are reading to NOT comment on why they couldn't breast feed. Your story is important to mothering pedagogy, however this isn't about that. That's in the past, and it's done.
This is about moving forward from this day, this moment in 2011 and looking at what our new world citizens are being offered as nutrition when you consider what the alternative is. To one mother, it means asking her fellow women to spend 20 minutes to help her fold laundry so that she can sit down to feed her baby. To the next, it means dropping off a warm meal and a bottle of breast milk to her sick newborn. Maybe it just means leaving your phone turned on at night so that she isn't crying alone. Or, lending her $40 to hire someone to come and help.
In any case, 2012 is the year that you can lactivate. You don't need a drop of milk to ever have left your chest. You could be a husband or father, son, cousin, neighbor or stranger. It might make a difference to someone you love, today or 30 years from today.
That is what I do... It isn't making me millions, but I would say that every blog post, comment, and thought ripples and reverbs somewhere. It's not a simple solution, and there is no answer to formula that is easy. To say to someone that it's okay to have a choice... Well, choice isn't fair when you can't choose the safety in what you are putting into your child's mouth. It's not a supermarket of health out there in Similac land. Those milking cows aren't the same ones you see munching on grass behind a barb wire fence.
Yes, we have to do what we gotta do. But if you can do it with style? With grace? With afterthought? And most of all, without guilt. That is why I lactivate.
_________________________________________________________________________________
You can visit Birthing Utopia by following this link http://www.birthingutopia.blogspot.com/
A few years ago, when I decided that I wanted to work in birth but not pursue it through the route of the nurse, I had also decided to venture into lactation as a possible profession. It had very little to do with my own adventures in feeding my kids. To be honest, there never really was adventure. It was mundane, really typical and I would say normal and natural to me. Not to say that I didn't fill my cup with ways to handle things and the stories of others. I went to La Leche League meetings with my second child, about 8 months after she was born - mainly, to connect with other moms and to see if lactation was something I'd like to develop that passion in.
It almost was an uphill battle to even get off of the ground with lactivism. Not necessarily an old boys club or exclusive, but guarded in the community being that it is a precious commodity. That seems really odd, saying that lactivism and milky helpers should be guarding their world and protecting the practice. Exclusion reminds me of the sand box. It also felt as though the old guard was almost discouraging a freshie perspective? Or that it would take too much time to open the wing? I don't know, I spent a lot of time de-constructing what went wrong because I am a sensitive person, and I really thought I had found a good fit, and a place that needed more help. Maybe it was timing, my approach, or just the fact that I truly wasn't ready like I figured.
Off I went, back to my career and looking for another rainbow to chase. I really thought it was and is best practice to just lay back and support the mother who does either. Amongst my peers were many mothers who did not nurse their babies for various reasons. I even became turned off by lactivism for a short while. It seemed mean spirited, and I saw an upper crust and consumerist element to nursing babies. Snobbery? Perhaps, but a barrage of "breast is best" mixed with the angry hipster mom-blogger rants and I really felt like I wanted nothing to do with lactivism. I felt like I would fit into a moderate group of mothers better, all things considered. It's not like I lived my life with my breasts out and a perfect-mom badge anyway, right? (Lactivists are truly hairy-armpitted, broom skirt-wearing Ina May wannabes right? right?) I felt like my voice carried no weight, and that I should go back to my little house in north central Regina and my dented SUV and 9 to 5 job. To stop worrying about the outside world because mine was truly "fine".
(This is really quite interesting to blog, because in retrospect I was still nursing my toddler. With much less enthusiasm at that point)
So, then we enter into the midwifery activism and birth community rhetoric again. So - I wasn't necessarily lactating or living my suburban iPhone life anymore. I was a card carrying pregnant hipster now. I was being denied home birth (then awarded it and then denied again), and listening with intent to the stories and experiences of other mothers. I also started to delve into marketing practices and my tune was changing. I had received exactly two cans of free formula in my previous pregnancy, and it really bothered me to know that not only could that happen again to me, but that somewhere in my own neighborhood was a desperate mom, at 3 am, who cracked the can instead of looking to more support.
I really wanted to just "get mad", but it became so obvious that guilt was really interfering with the ability to fully rage. I didn't want to make my friends feel guilty or obligated. I didn't want my family to pay for their comments and looks and energy. Even though I have been vocal about how it hurts - in the end I have to respect those around me. Even though not only had I never really quit being a lactivist, but I continued to post links and pay for it with long, drawn out strings of comments. I had to be careful and be respectful of those around me, on my OWN social networking pages. You can avert your eyes from a nursing mother in a shopping mall, but I guess you can't look away from the nagging article popping up on your facebook feed. I'd pass up many opportunities to share stuff, but I never stopped clicking and reading beyond the rhetoric and drama. It's never about our own experiences, yet every single blog and news article about feeding babies turns into "this was my experience, so there". I don't want it to be about that, so respectfully slowed down and internalized more of my thoughts.
But I do NOT have to be a respectful consumer. It is within my right to demand quality products in my marketplace. It's within my right and I would think that on behalf of my fellow mothers who both nurse and use formula that it's a duty to expose awful marketing.
The other practice that is true to me is the practice of sustaining relationships with our babies. Our instincts to parent has already been handed to our health care professionals and dr. Google - so, how are we to know how to relate to our babies? Even our lactation instructions are muddled and confused. I love my midwife, but I was so flustered when she said I needed to pump engorged breasts that I totally ignored my own 3 year old who was really quite skilled at emptying her mother's breasts!
I hear many stories from mothers who don't know what to do. They are tired, frustrated, hurting... The answer is often complex or directed away from nursing. To one health professional their child is at risk of losing precious time and health without formula, to the next the answer is supplementing. But rarely is donor milk ever considered or suggested. This leads mothers to milk sharing networks and begging their lactating friends to don pumps and containers. And non stop doubt and guilt floats around her in the air!
Lactivism, to me, is about preserving a normal practice. Since when did the 24 hour drugstore or free backpack of coupons and powdered substance replace calling a lactation professional? There are card carrying women right down the block from most of us with breasts and some of them may be carrying a precious commodity. In a perfect world, we'd be more interested in milk donation and protection of the normal function and less concerned about bothering others for help.
I'm asking and begging of those who are reading to NOT comment on why they couldn't breast feed. Your story is important to mothering pedagogy, however this isn't about that. That's in the past, and it's done.
This is about moving forward from this day, this moment in 2011 and looking at what our new world citizens are being offered as nutrition when you consider what the alternative is. To one mother, it means asking her fellow women to spend 20 minutes to help her fold laundry so that she can sit down to feed her baby. To the next, it means dropping off a warm meal and a bottle of breast milk to her sick newborn. Maybe it just means leaving your phone turned on at night so that she isn't crying alone. Or, lending her $40 to hire someone to come and help.
In any case, 2012 is the year that you can lactivate. You don't need a drop of milk to ever have left your chest. You could be a husband or father, son, cousin, neighbor or stranger. It might make a difference to someone you love, today or 30 years from today.
That is what I do... It isn't making me millions, but I would say that every blog post, comment, and thought ripples and reverbs somewhere. It's not a simple solution, and there is no answer to formula that is easy. To say to someone that it's okay to have a choice... Well, choice isn't fair when you can't choose the safety in what you are putting into your child's mouth. It's not a supermarket of health out there in Similac land. Those milking cows aren't the same ones you see munching on grass behind a barb wire fence.
Yes, we have to do what we gotta do. But if you can do it with style? With grace? With afterthought? And most of all, without guilt. That is why I lactivate.
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