Dear Friends:
     Jennifer says:"I am going tomorrow to the nursing home to round,
and will have baby Caroline with me in the sling.  Hopefully, my older
patients will enjoy her, and I get a day off of pumping!  (I've only been
back to work 2 days and already feel like I need a day off.)
I'm also attending a family centered maternity care conference next week and
will most likely bring her with to that also.  She's still small and sleeps
a fair amount so I think I can pull it off.  The AAFP discourages bringing
children to meetings, but only bans them from conference sessions that
require a separate cost.  Hopefully, I won't get too many angry glares.  My
third child attended class with me full time for 8 weeks (from 2 weeks of
age to 10 weeks) and we did quite well, so hopefully I can manage for just
few days."
     Go for it Jennifer.
     I suggest bringing your sweet Caroline Rose to work and living your
life. If you ask permission, then people have the chance to say no. A young baby
(before the age of mobility) is the easiest to bring along; they lie in the
sling and coo, they sleep, they nurse. Easy.
     As for old people, I find that they are desparate for babies and young
life. How many babies do people in nursing homes ever get to see? It will be
such a gift for them to enjoy your baby!
     My nursling was nearly 3 when her grandfather died in a hospital in
Bologna, Italy. Of course, Clelia was with me everywhere, at the hospital, at the
morgue, at the funeral and entombment. On one hand, folks were negative about
my wisdom in bringing her to all these sad events. On the other hand, nobody
could keep their hands off her; everybody held her and played with her. I think
they were reminded, in the midst of death and grieving, that Life goes on.
     How else will my child learn to deal with grief unless I bring her into
that situation and am there to support her through it?
     You set such a wonderful example, Jennifer, and others who do the same,
by showing the world what being a nursing mother truly means: a person who
thinks, speaks intelligently, can do good work, and simultaneously provide the
best for a baby. Too often today, professional means 'being like a man', i.e.
"without baby." I've never seen that definition in any dictionary. We need to
reverse this thinking.
     I encountered incredible bias against bringing my nursing baby with me
to work. I was turned down as a WIC breastfeeding counselor, because I would be
bringing my baby with me. I was told such incredible things by the WIC
director. She told me that people wouldn't take me seriously, because I would have a
baby with me. She asked me if I would want to bring MY baby to THOSE clinics;
well, if other mothers are bringing THEIR babies to THOSE clinics, why not
me? She told me that I wouldn't be able to move quickly from clinic to clinic
with a baby.  What? At the time, I also had a teen-aged daughter and a husband;
I frequently went to many places during the day: to school, to lessons, to the
grocery store, to do errands............all with a baby in tow.
     An instructor of a peer counselor training program told me that I
couldn't bring my baby with me, "because everyone in class will be watching your
baby and not paying attention."
     I was told I couldn't bring my baby to teach childbirth classes because
"all the other women in the office will want to bring their babies to work
too, and it wouldn't be fair." And what if women did bring their babies to work?
     Can you imagine a world where the babies come out of the closet and are
everywhere and we have to deal with them and respect them and accept that they
are as much a part of life as we are? Babies are not some nuisance that have
to be kept away somewhere, along with sick people and pets, while we do our
important work! If babies were around as much as anybody, we would have to take
them into consideration when we made decisions. Imagine that.........no
polluting the air because it isn't good for babies. No loud noises all the time
because it makes babies unhappy....imagine such a world where everyone respects
and cares for and about everybody else, regardless of age.
      Women are mistresses of multi-tasking; our brains are organized around
multi-tasking because we have to tend the house and do the work and mind the
baby.
     My goodness, what we women are taught to do to each other.
     Every mother that is employed and integrates her nursing baby into her
life is an important role model for every young girl, and every person that
sees her.
     Go for it, Jennifer...........and whoever else is doing the same!
     warmly,
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CIMI, CCE, craniosacral therapy
Adjunct faculty, Union Institute and University, Maternal and Child Health:
Lactation Consulting
Supporting the WHO Code and the Mother Friendly Childbirth Initiative

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