Dear Friends:

Millions of little girls growing up in the US since WWII have watched their
mothers burp their bottle-fed siblings. This is a clear obvious task of
mothering that has now taken on a significance of its own. Very difficult to
get rid of those types of activities.

A message that many women get from hospitals today is that one can do
anything to a baby: pull it out of its mother by its head using salad tongs
or plumber's helpers, plug them with pacifiers and swaddle them into
packages. Violence breeds violence. So what's a little pounding?

When a mother says immediately after the birth, "Eeuw, I don't want my baby
right now" or  "take it away, I'm tired", it is a direct reflection of the
care that she has received in labor, where she has been disconnected from
the process that is designed/evolved to pique her interest in her baby.Such
statements are symptoms of poor handling in labor.  Her social learning at
that critical time is that the baby is not human, that it is product to be
removed from her body when the physicians deem it to be the right time and
that her wishes and experience have nothing whatever to do with anything.

I have started suggesting to classes of healthcare professionals that labor
room staff dry the baby off, put it on her chest right away and say, "Your
baby has to be near your heart to recover from birth" with a "no questions
asked approach". After all, how many things are done to a woman in labor
that SHE doesn't want? So what's one more thing after the birth?? Something
has to be done so that the new mother is at least curioius about her baby.
Then, when many babies will crawl over and grasp the breast, the mothering
relationship has the best chance of shifting to nuturing and the foundation
of love.

Heavy morning thoughts before I go to work, but my rising crone energy
drives me to do everything I can to stop this Juggernaut from crushing
babies.

warmly,

Nikki Lee RN, BSN, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI
craniosacral therapy practitioner
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com

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