Dear Friends:

Interesting discussion about babies and how and where they can fit into our
lives.

Bravo to Nicole Bernshaw for her thoughtful contribution. I am glad to see
you posting, Nicole.

I taught childbirth and breastfeeding classes for 6 years accompanied by my
baby, starting when she was about 3 months old. She went from being in the
sling non-stop, to being on a blanket on the floor, to walking under the
conference tables pulling off wads of used chewing gum and eating them, to
playing with other children in the room, to sitting quietly drawing or
reading or snuggled up next to me.

She was the best teaching tool I ever had.....except for the eating the wads
of used chewing gum! I couldn't do much about it, because I was teaching and
didn't want to make a fuss (risking being told by administration that I
couldn't bring her)...so I learned to pull the gum wads off before class
started.

As for babies in an exam....it seems that every test taker needs their
environment as protected as possible during a test. Some people can ignore a
baby and some can't. The ones that can will not suffer if the baby isn't
there; so it seems reasonable to keep babies away from the test
site.....unless the mothers are willing to chip in for another proctor to
take the test in a separate room, or wait to take the test when the baby is
older.  No way to please everyone.

There are places where babies can fit in easily. I wish babies were more
present because people forget about babies when they are not seen. I wish
the world would remember babies all the time, and function in a way to
protect and nurture them. We would all benefit by clean air and clean water
and clean Earth and no wars. A movie theater with a quiet nursing baby is
perfect; I learned to sit on the last seat in the row, in the back, so I
could get up and move out if my baby started to make noise. She rarely did.

At the same time, there are places that babies should not be. We can all
think of such places. I wouldn't want an emergency room physician wearing
her baby while she worked!

In the film Babies, I thought the mother from Namibia was the happiest
because she was never alone.......there was always another mother around to
lend a hand or distract a fussy toddler. Her life was just as difficult as
anyone's, yet the constant social support made it flow very well. A problem
with babies in the US is that their mothers are not part of a constant
social network, so the babies tend to be fussier in public because they need
more attention.

Colleagues that had to go to Cuba from the US first had to fly to the
Bahamas; when they flew back from Cuba to the Bahamas on the return, the
sounds of babies crying made them realized that they had never once heard a
baby cry in public in Cuba.

warmly,

Nikki Lee RN, BSN, Mother of 2, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI
craniosacral therapy practitioner
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com

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