Cousin Power!

“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.”

–Diane Mariechild

One of the fun and unexpected benefits of adding Tanner to our family is that he actually gets to have a close in age cousin. My nephew was born in July and it is exciting to imagine what good cousin-friends these two little boys are going to be! It was also super fun to be pregnant at the same time as my sister-in-law. I didn’t know what a fun connection that would be! My mom, Tanner, and I drove to Kansas to visit them over the weekend. We went with some trepidation as it is an almost five-hour drive and Tanner had been in a car seat exactly two other times before! (One that was a horrible experience with desperate red-faced screaming inducing maternal trauma.) The trip went well, however, with only one real stop on the way (also one short side of the road one just a few miles before our safe Dollar General haven was reached) and even better on the way home.

When we pulled into their driveway, I felt a real sense of having come “full circle.” It was taking cousin-belly pictures together at their house that I first announced my pregnancy on this blog: New Baby! We then returned to wait with anticipation to wait for the birth of Ronan and we took lots of pictures together: Cousin Bellies! When Ronan went two weeks past his due date, we experienced the Lento Tempo of being “ladies in waiting” together. I had to leave to come home to give a final exam (and check in with my family!) and cried as I drove away, worried I would miss the birth and also feeling reluctant to leave the timeless, liminal quality of being at their house full of anticipation. However, I did not miss the birth, but instead was honored to witness my sister-in-law Jenny dig deep into her own strength and resources to bring their baby into the world in a powerful home waterbirth, that then informed my own decision to welcome Tanner into my arms in my own first water birth three months later. After Tanner’s birth, Jenny and Ronan came to stay with us to help provide excellent postpartum care. So, making another trip to see them and bring Tanner to visit them, felt like another round of the circle that began with our overlapping pregnancies.

While there, we joked about the Cousin Power all around us, because both babies experienced developmental leaps with Tanner smiling huge big smiles and “ah-gooing” clearly for the first time (previous smiles were single episode events and not ongoing spurts of interaction and communication) and Ronan rolling over for the first time.

Another feature of the trip was Tanner riding around exhibiting serious head control, pumping legs action, and solemn eyes of observation.

As fun as it was to be pregnant together, it was even more fun to put our babies side by side and watch them kick and smile and look around together!

I do love me some continuity, so I asked my mom to take some more “cousin belly” pictures of Jenny and me together, but now with cousins on the outside instead!

And, then we had to get some nursing cousins pictures too!

“Birth should not be a celebration of separation, but rather a reuniting of mother and baby, who joins her for an external connection.”

–Barbara Latterner, in New Lives

Home Remedy for Plugged Ducts

Dec3

It doesn’t work for everyone, but I have repeatedly found ginger to be the most miraculously fast and effective cure for plugged ducts for me ever. I unintentionally pushed myself kind of hard the last week and noticed over the weekend that I had a lot of tenderness and several hard, knotty lumps in one breast. It went on all day and was getting worse even with plenty of nursing and I started to worry about mastitis (especially because I had a headache too). So, I rubbed on a paste of ginger, turmeric, and coconut oil and literally within fifteen minutes all the plugs were gone. I’m not quite sure how it works, but I can actually feel the lumps “dissolve” as I apply ginger. It has never failed me–whether a paste like this, a ginger tea compress, or just kitchen ginger straight from the shaker and held against the breast with a warm washcloth.

Use 2TB each turmeric and ginger and stir together with enough coconut oil to form a paste. Heat lightly and apply or just spread on like a salve.

My mom was the one who first tipped me off to this remedy and it works so well!

Warning: if you use the version with turmeric, it will stain your skin and clothing. I suggest nursing baby while applying it or immediately after (use caution not to get in baby’s mouth) and then taking warm shower right after.

Not so beautiful, but effective!

The Breastfeeding Brain

Nov22

I have many blog posts building up, but the bulk of my energy is devoted to lactation and newborn-cradling right now and I need to accept that as my current focus! (Or, I should learn how to write very short posts with one hand or even one finger–circumstances not very conducive to sparkling insights or sustained creative flow!). The picture above is of my favorite new nursing mama sculpture. Her deep redness reminds me of seeing thermographic images of lactating women at a La Leche League International conference in 2007. The chests of the women in the slides were brilliant swirls of red, orange, and yellow energy. The thermographic images of non-lactating women were a blue-green color. The speaker was Peter Hartmann, a researcher from Australia, on the topic of “The Anatomy of the Lactating Breast.” It was a keynote luncheon speech, so we all chowed down on our salads and looked at thermographic images of lactating breasts at the same time. It was awesome and I still wonder what the Chicago Hilton staff made of our luncheon “entertainment”! This evening I dug out my notes for the exact numbers and 30% of the mother’s resting energy in the body is diverted towards lactation, while 23% of her resting energy goes to the brain. This demonstrates biologically the intense amount of importance nature places on lactation. It also demonstrates why a nursing mother may feel “fuzzy” or like she can’t think (or write blog posts!) like she used to, because literally, the energy formerly being used by her non-lactating brain is now centralized in her brilliantly colorful chest (baby’s habitat)! Hartmann said that lactating breasts are “on fire” and non-lactating breasts are “cool,” indeed the chest of the lactating mother is of a higher temperature. And, the mother’s chest can adjust by several degrees in response to her baby’s body temperature.

Re-reading these notes led me to then re-read notes from Nils Bergman, MD’s lunchtime presentation about “Mother-Baby Togetherness: The Biological Needs of the Baby for the Mother” as well. I’ve referenced this presentation before in my article The Birth-Breastfeeding Continuum. This extremely high-energy, enthusiastic, and fast-paced presentation by Bergman remains, to date, one of the most powerful and impactful conference sessions I’ve ever attended about any topic, ever. He was passionate about the concept of the mother as baby’s habitat. Literally, the mother’s chest is the “maternal nest” after birth, providing the baby’s home for at least the next six months after birth. He shared that there are four patterns of mammalian infant care patterns: cache, follow, nest, and carry. Homo Sapiens are a “carry” species. Human milk is very low in protein “which suggests that human newborns should be continuous feeders.” I have long joked that babies nurse at the precise rate of speed of their digestion. Biologically, this turns out to be true!

Bergman cited research from Gallagher that, “through hidden maternal regulators…a mother precisely controls every element of her infant’s physiology from its heart rate to its release of hormones and from its appetite to the intensity of its activity.” Breastfeeding provides ALL of the sensory stimulation a baby needs and is “an invisible hothouse in which the infant’s development can unfold,” with breastfeeding quite literally providing brain wiring for the baby. The brain is a social organ and breastfeeding is about creating love as much as it is about food. And, the mother herself is the baby’s natural environment with everything the baby learns filtered through the mother’s body. Bergman was emphatic that separation from mother feels life-threatening to the baby, because it is in the “wrong place” when it is not with mother. “The universal response to separation (wrong habitat) is protest.” And, a period of intense activity trying to find the habitat and restore the rightful state of being. The Motherbaby is a single psychobiological organism. Bergman also said that the mother doesn’t need to specifically DO anything—“just by being she meets all baby’s biological needs.” And, mother herself has a biological need to hold and care for her baby.

So…this is me right now with Tanner, exactly. His habitat. His place. Where everything is just as it should be.

Wednesday Tidbits: Mother Care

Aug20

“I watch her face become alight with joy and ecstasy. ‘You’re here, oh look, you’re here! You’re so beautiful! I love you! We did it!’ It hasn’t been easy, but it was worth it…She knows–in a way that can never be taken from her–the story of her own courage and strength.”

–Jodi Green in SageWoman magazine

After talking with my doula last week about my own powerful need for postpartum care, I re-read my own past post about “birth regrets” and was reminded again how the theme of inadequate postpartum care in my own life resurfaces multiples times. I told my doula that I’ve never really been happy with my postpartum care, recovery, and experience until I hired her for my last birth and became very, very, very clear about exactly what I needed from the people around me following birth. This is despite having an extremely helpful mother who cooked and cared for me very well and lovingly after each birth AND an extremely involved, nurturing husband. I still needed MORE. Postpartum is hard! Many hands, helps, and small care-giving tasks are needed.

It is interesting to me to see that this is where my regrets and “things to fix” come from, rather than from the births themselves. It is kind of hard for me to write about clearly because I did get good care every time from my mom and from Mark, but I still needed MORE. And, I don’t think it is necessarily “fair” to them to skip bonding with the baby because they’re so busy helping me crawl to the bathroom, or whatever! I also didn’t take particularly good care of myself–emotionally, mainly–following birth.

Midwives are wonderful and midwife-attended birth is wonderful, but it feels like very often birth is the moment and then they fade away and the mother must pick up the early postpartum pieces herself, when perhaps her vulnerability and need for support and physical care is highest then, definitely more than prenatally and, I would argue, often more intensely than during the birth itself.

(Oh, and by the way, I still joke that what I’ve really needed is a continuous postpartum doula for the last 11 years…when my first son was born).

My birth regrets post is a companion to my “bragging rights” and birth post:

‘…Frankly, I think all mothers get bragging rights on their babies births. Birth is awesome and amazing and power-full. Every mother must face it. Sure, she may face it differently than me, but it IS a labyrinth we all go through. This is the way of life. So, mothers, brag away. Brag about whatever part of your labor and baby’s birth made you feel empowered….find that piece, even if it’s just a tiny moment, and cling to it. Shout it from the rooftops!…’

via Tuesday Tidbits: Bragging Rights | Talk Birth.

Speaking of doula Summer, Rolla area families should take note that she is available for a variety of different birth and postpartum packages as well as birth classes: Summer Birth Services. I’m looking forward to her care again in October when I have my baby!

And, still speaking of Summer, I am so excited to share that she is moving forward with the Womanspace community resource center idea that we have talked over and visioned for so many years.

…I visualize a center. A place where women can come together to learn, to talk, to develop, to grow. A safe place. A nurturing place. A supportive place. Hostess to LLL meetings, book clubs, birth circle, birth info nights, prenatal yoga classes, birth classes, birth art workshops, pregnancy retreats, journaling workshops, craft classes, crafty mamas meetings, a miscarriage support group, postpartum mamas support group, birth counseling/consultation sessions, dancing for birth, prenatal bellydance, drop-in support chats, blessingways, red tent events, meet the doulas night, Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal groups, women’s spirituality circles, playgroups, baby massage classes, baby/tot yoga, girls’ coming of age classes, an ICAN chapter, Friends of Missouri Midwives meetings.

A gathering place. A woman’s place.

It will have a large, open meeting room, access to a bathroom and another, smaller room that could be an office, consult room, or playroom. We will have counter space to plug in some minimal cooking implements like a microwave. There will be comfy couches, chairs, toys, a lending library of books and films as well as perhaps toys/games/puzzles. There will be big pillows on the floor and beautiful art all over the walls. Other women wishing to have groups/classes for women, could also use the space for their groups/events.Think we can do it? And, if so, what can I not do to make space in my life for it? In a way, my vision is that this will be that classic “room of one’s one” that every woman needs access to. WomanSpace…

via WomanSpace | Talk Birth.

The above is an excerpt from a post I wrote four years ago! It is so exciting to have it going somewhere. Summer posted on her blog today with her expanded and deepened vision of this space: WomanSpace ~ Making the Vision a Reality

Related to celebrating women and mothers, I updated my mother blessing/women’s ritual page this week: Blessingways / Women’s Programs | Talk Birth.

And, returning to the need for mother care, it so important to recognize that women need support following birth regardless of the week of gestation at which she gives birth. Personally, I was knocked off my feet by my need for immediate support following my first miscarriage. I had never once dreamed miscarriage would be such an intense, physically demanding birth experience. I’m glad this information is now reaching others via Stillbirthday…

When a mother is experiencing pregnancy & infant loss, she needs immediate support.

If you’re a bereaved mother on facebook, it is extremely likely you’ve heard the cry of the newest bereaved mother, sharing that she just very recently endured the death and birth of her beloved baby.

What is some practical support she can use? We have three little buttons published in several places throughout the website, for support prior to, during and after birth in any trimester. Here’s a link for support in the earliest days and weeks after birth:

Switching gears somewhat, another one of my quotes from a Pathways magazine article was turned in a Facebook meme and has been shared on Facebook over 3,000 times. I again would have missed it except for two of my friends tagging me in the post!

Remember that in honor of National Breastfeeding Month, we’re offering a 10% off discount code on any of the items in our shop through the end of August: WBW10OFF.

I am 30 weeks pregnant now! I had a bit of an “OMG, can I actually DO this?!” moment last night when the new session of classes began for me. My students asked me how much longer I have left of my pregnancy and my answer was, “about ten weeks.” I have 8 weeks of class…

It is a hot time of year to be pregnant and while I feel good and healthy over all, I am noticing some different things compared to past pregnancies. I weigh 165 pounds now, which is pretty big! I have way more round ligament pain than I’ve ever had before, including just randomly while walking or sitting, rather than exclusively related to getting up “wrong” or twisting in a not pregnant-friendly way. I also keep having some mild heartburn. And, getting up from the floor is a much bigger challenge than ever before.

I’ve mentioned several times in recent posts that Mark and I have been working on birthing a big project together and it is finally here!
Our first collaborative book project! I did the writing and he did all the illustrations, layout, and formatting. This has been a project about 18 months in the making, a more significant undertaking and more significant expenditure of energy than I could have guessed when I began.

I like how the experience of the final stages of the book have paralleled my own pregnancy. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, our co-creative work on our business endeavors this year is really entwined with the progress of gestating and preparing to welcome our new baby.

As we’ve worked over the last weeks on the final push to finish the book, I saw this meme on Facebook:I shared it on our page and noted that when you’re both creative and you’re both home, the effects may be even more dramatic!

Our Embrace Possibility pendant is the design that has perhaps always held the most personal meaning for me, but as we continue to focus in on our shared vision and to embrace new directions, ideas, and projects in the context of our co-created business, she returns to me as very personally meaningful.

“Encoded in her cells,
written on her bones…
The mantle settles around her shoulders.
Sinking into belly, bones, and blood,
until she knows,
without a doubt,
that this is who,
she really is…”

(Embrace Possibility Pewter Goddess Priestess by BrigidsGrove)

And, I shared this on our page recently since it has spoken to me anew in multiple ways this month:

“…These waves of power.
They are you.
You are doing it.
You ARE it.
This is energy, this power, this unfolding might of creation.
It’s you.
Your body
your power
your birth
your baby…”

Birth Spiral Chakra Blessing | Talk Birth.

Tuesday Tidbits: National Breastfeeding Month

Aug12

I was feeling kind of bad during the first week of August about having not gotten around to making any World Breastfeeding Week posts this year (I was still coming down from Mamafest on August 2nd, plus in “second stage” on birthing a really huge project, to be revealed soon!). Anyway, Pathways to Family Wellness Magazine took care of it for me with the image above! The referenced article is on the Pathways site here: Breastfeeding As an Ecofeminist Issue | The Outer Womb and on my own site is here: Breastfeeding as an Ecofeminist Issue | Talk Birth. I noticed it was shared 3,552 times on Facebook, which seems “viral” in terms of breastfeeding memes! (I confess I wish it would have directed back to my own site or page with that number of shares though!) And, no, I didn’t read the comments on it except for a handful, because I am not really interested in any criticism right now. BUT, the one critical comment I did see was about “society” having nothing to do with it is up to women to take care of themselves/assert their “natural rights” which “no one can take away from them,” and so I have to repeat: breastfeeding is a sociopolitical and sociocultural issue. It does not occur in a vacuum and in the privacy of our own homes, it is intimately and inextricably linked to the health of society as a whole and inevitably impacted by the circles of support, broken or healthy, that surround each and every breastfeeding dyad. Breastfeeding is a systemic issue. Women, families, babies, men, children…we are all embedded in an expanding network of social, political, and cultural systems every, single, day. It is inescapable, for better or for worse.

As a related image of the embedded, interdependent nature of reality, including breastfeeding, I really appreciated the graphic in this post by Science and Sensibility.

Breastfeeding is a women’s health issue, a reproductive rights issue, and promotes gender equality and empowers women! It both systemic and personal. Neither context can be ignored.

I was very pleased to get an email from Routledge publishing at the beginning of August promoting World Breastfeeding Week and offering a compilation of related free resources through the end of the month. Routledge is a textbook publishing company and I use some of their textbooks in my Human Services classes: World Breastfeeding Week – Routledge.

In addition to breastfeeding-specific textbooks, they also are offering free online access to related interesting textbooks like The Politics of Maternity and Social History of Maternity and Childbirth. This tells me they recognize the birth-breastfeeding continuum!

Since our Mamafest event was coordinated by two LLL Leaders and our other local Leader helped with it as well, it made since to me to register it as an official Live, Love, Latch event. Live, Love, Latch is an initiative launched by La Leche League USA this year in honor of National Breastfeeding Month in August. The point of these events is celebration of breastfeeding and breastfeeding support.

The purpose of the celebration is, of course, to celebrate breastfeeding, but also to highlight support. All in attendance will be counted as participants, with the goal being to break the previous year’s record for breastfeeding supporters attending. Leaders have autonomy to decide on the details of each celebration.

This celebration theme provides an opportunity to educate family, friends, healthcare providers and other community members about how breastfeeding can be supported, and also emphasizes the value of the support network behind every nursing dyad.

via About – Live, Love, Latch!

I will write more about Mamafest in another post this week (I hope!), but if you’re curious, the photo album is available on the Rolla Birth Network Facebook page. We had 84 people sign in on our Live, Love, Latch sign-in form and about 100-120 people in attendance overall. It was really a successful, fun, exciting event.

After sharing these other images and thoughts, I couldn’t resist making another image of my own:

And, we set up a new coupon code at Brigid’s Grove in honor of National Breastfeeding Month! Use WBW10OFF for a 10% discount on any item through the end of the month. 🙂

Tuesday Tidbits: New Babies

Jul8

“Breastmilk is the bio-available, species-specific food which is perfectly crafted for human babies. It is delivered by the elegant and nurturing act of breastfeeding. Literally organic, it is made by the mother’s body, and delivered to her baby via her breasts. In contrast to artificial baby milk, human milk is a raw food that does not require processing and distribution. It does not use valuable resources nor does it pollute the environment.”—Máire Clements RN IBCLC (via http://bit.ly/1hc8Jsw)

“Breastfeeding is a mother’s gift to herself, her baby, and the earth.” —Pamela K. Wiggins

via Breastfeeding USA.

New pregnant + nursing mama goddess for a friend.

New babies are on my mind as I prepare to attend the birth of my nephew and as I continue to tie up loose ends in preparation for my own new baby in a couple of months. I know I’m only 24 weeks pregnant, but I feel a powerful and almost obsessive drive to get organized/squared away in order to make the space for him that he’ll need from me and that I’ll need for myself. I’m in serious “planning mode” right now and I’m pretty sure I can be exhausting/frustrating for people around me when I do that, but I have to do it. I know what I’m like, I know what postpartum can be like for me, I know what having three kids is like, I know that the new school session starts on my due date (and I’m still planning to teach my online class like usual. Not in-seat. I’m not that crazy!), I know that I push and push and rev and rev and speed myself up to get it all done. So, Planning Mode On. I WILL be resting in November, no matter what, but for me that means making smart, mindful choices now. I’ve retired from a couple of writing commitments, finished several projects and followed through on some obligations that have been on my mind. Mark and I are working hard on preparing and building our business to carry us through the reduced income we’ll have when I’m not teaching.

So, anyway, I read this article and it touched my heart with its sweet, bittersweetness! I look forward to being a temporarily perfect mother one more time…

I was looking at you today and thinking about how right now, today, the day you turn 3 weeks old, I’m a damn near perfect mother to you. I think this is why I love, crave, the newborn stage. Maybe it’s just biology, evolution. But for me, I think it’s more, because for me, it’s the only time I truly feel like a 100% capable mama. Like I’ve got this shit IN THE BAG. I’m a knock-it-out-of-the-damn-park newborn mama.

My job is defined. My role, clear. I nurse, clothe, bathe and hold you. I give you the breast to comfort you, whenever you want. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to wonder. I don’t believe it can be done “too much.” In fact I think that’s the biggest crock ever. I wrap you up and carry you against my chest. For hours. Sometimes I lay you on your back so you can kick and look around and I can watch you and coo at you and smell your head. This is what we do, round and round, I know it and love it and own it completely because you’re my 4th!. I’m tired, oh, so tired, but I know how to mother you now.

I know just what you need. I know what to try.

And this, I know, will fade…

via A letter to my newborn, while I’m still a damn near perfect mom – renegade mothering.

Reading this also reminded of why parenting the first baby can be so particularly hard—because with that one, you don’t necessarily know what they need or what to try. The learning curve is steep and you’re a one day old mother with a one day old baby. For me, I put a lot of pressure on myself with the first to love and cherish the newborn experience all the time because I knew how important and precious and brief the newborn time is. But, I severely underestimated the “trauma” involved with becoming a parent for the first time:

…Several weeks ago my husband was bouncing our screaming daughter in his arms as we half smiled to each other about how it is almost endearing that infants get so worked up for seemingly no reason. Over her screams we reminisced about what was hard with each of our children when they were this age–our firstborn not latching; our second with an undiagnosed dairy allergy.

This playful, patient banter was so different than the days and weeks after our first son was born. I remember sobbing tears of inadequacy as my husband looked at me through bleary eyes and said, “Why didn’t anyone warn us about THIS PART?”

The part where you think you are supposed to have all of the answers. The part where you take home a helpless human with no instruction booklet. The part where you have to go back to work after six weeks and restaurant owners ask you to feed your baby in a bathroom. The part where you forget how connected you and your husband once were as you fight over bath temperatures and take turns waking each other up with irrational nightmares that your baby is buried amongst the pillows in your bed…

via The Trauma of First-Time Parenthood | Raising Kvell.

The post above is a response to one on the New York Times:

Given the ideology of parenting, it’s not surprising that we typically blame biology for the experience of postpartum depression. But the circumstances parents face are often demonstrably miserable. The fact that postpartum depression rates are much higher among the poor than among the wealthy, who can purchase peace of mind through hired child care, supports the idea that the phenomenon is, in most cases, more circumstantial than biological.

As a recent parent myself, I urge you to consider this the next time someone you know greets the transition to parenthood with hopelessness or even despair. Pursue kindness over ideology. For a person whose suffering has been met with judgment, a sympathetic ear can make all the difference…

via The Trauma of Parenthood – NYTimes.com.

I also thought about the information feeding frenzy of pregnancy and early parenthood when I read this article from Lamaze:

There comes a point when a trickle of helpful information becomes a flood. The process of teasing the facts from the fiction can you leave you feeling overwhelmed, confused, and frustrated. So what’s an information-hungry pregnant person to do?

Find a tour guide. Would you travel to the Amazon without a guide? And yes, I AM comparing pregnancy information with the rain forest — it’s dense, sometimes scary, and incredibly difficult at times to see the forest for the trees. A “tour guide” in pregnancy comes in the form of a childbirth educator, doula, and respectful care provider. These trained professionals can help you make sense of the information and opinions you uncover, and while their job is not to make decisions for you, they can provide evidence based information to help you determine the best path for your pregnancy and birth…

via Lamaze for Parents : Blogs : Birth in the Media – How Much is Too Much When You’re Pregnant?

Which then reminded me of my favorite article on the subject from Pam England:

However, a pregnant woman, with only months or weeks before giving birth, does not have time to gather, learn, and assimilate all the information out there. Many women are conditioned to believe that if they have lots of information, then they will “pass the test” or be able to control their birth outcome. Gathering birth information sometimes becomes a kind of addiction; parents can feel the adrenalin and endorphin surges as they learn, learn, learn by surfing the net and reading. There is often an extra surge when their eyes are glued to the medicalized birth shows on TV.

via Birthing From Within – Information Frenzy.

I was contacted today by a jewelry artist in Australia wanting to pair some of our goddess pendants with her own work making breastmilk and placenta jewelry. I’m so incredibly excited about this idea and can’t wait to have a co-created piece once my new baby is born!

This is one of ours with a red jasper stone, but OOH, I can just SEE the placental possibilities now… 🙂

I had my placenta encapsulated with my last baby and I’ll be having the placenta encapsulated with my new baby as well. I wrote about my past experience here: Placenta Encapsulation—Three Days Postpartum Comparison…

You can read a recent e-newsletter from Midwifery Today about placentophagy here: E-News 16:13 – Placentophagy.

LLL of Missouri Annual Conference

Jun16

This past week Mark and I went to the La Leche League of MO conference. It was the first time we’ve gone anywhere together without any kids for TEN years! (And, technically we did have one with us, but he’s still in utero!) We were very grateful for my parents who hosted our kids for overnight fun. The conference schedule was packed and very tight. We got there at 8:30 on Thursday morning and didn’t leave until 10:30 Friday night. (The first day was scheduled from 11-10 [vendor set up is why we were earlier] and the second from 9 a.m.-10 p.m. These LLL conference organizers don’t mess around!)

We set up our Brigid’s Grove vendor’s booth first and Mark spent the majority of twelve hours two days in a row sitting at that booth!

Traveling bead shop section.

Pewter jewelry section.

After getting our booth set up, I set up our LLL Group’s boutique table. We always have a pretty good table, if I do say so myself. I’m not sure if we sold much though, since the sales are handled by the conference and a percentage of the profits comes later on (based on everything I had to pack back up to go home, I’m thinking it was not much).

We then had lunch and some introductory presentations and then a keynote presentation about making medical decisions which was given by a wonderful physician I’ve known since before I had Lann. I then went to her breakout session on “vaccinations and other controversial topics.” Due to the tight schedule, the next session began immediately and I enjoyed listening to a very informative session on Pumping in the NICU, for moms establishing a milk supply while expecting to be pump-dependent on a long-term basis. At dinner, I got to sit with LLL founding mother Marian Tompson (this was a perk of early registration) and got a picture with her. (Not the most flattering picture of me, but oh well.) I’m so inspired by these seven founders and what they contributed to the world. (I reviewed Marian’s book a couple of years ago here.) In the picture she’s holding her copy of the Amazing Year workbook that we distributed (with permission) in preparation for my own session the following day.

After dinner, I went to a session on Slow Weight Gain. Even though I’d signed up for another session after that, I took a little break and sat with Mark instead before going to an Area meeting for my Group’s area. We then packed up the booth and took our wares to our room where we FaceTimed with the kids for a little while before bed.

The next morning began early with re-setting up our booth and getting some breakfast and then going to my first session which was called the Proficient Pumper and was about helping mothers achieve their breastfeeding goals while expressing milk. This was followed by a helpful session on assessment of tongue tie and then lunch. The conference organizers bought two of our nursing mama goddess pendants as thank you gifts for the two primary speakers and I was delighted to see Marian Tompson wearing our little nursing mama while giving her lunchtime presentation (which was about self-compassion).

After lunch, I got my Womanly Art book autographed and a fresh picture with Marian, both of us sporting our mama goddess pendants from Brigid’s Grove. 🙂

I opted to skip the next session, since I’d signed up for another one about pumping and I’d already been to two other pumping presentations by that time. I wanted to have a little down time to focus on my own upcoming presentations and make sure I felt centered and prepared for them. It was hard to focus though as I was nervous as well as distracted by everything else going on.

I sat in for a while during the alumni presentation where different anecdotes from LLL history were shared by Marian and other LLL “lifers.” Then, I got set up for my own first presentation: Create Your Amazing Year, using Leonie Dawson’s workbooks and my own experiences. I started out pretty nervous, particularly because there were people I’ve known for a long time in the audience and somehow it is easier to present in front of “strangers” than to friends! I warmed up though and surprised myself by sharing more little snippets about my students than I originally meant to. I was worried about sounding like “commercial”–either for the workbooks (for which I make no money!) or for my own business, since my experience of the Amazing Year workbooks is integrally tied to the jewelry business Mark and I have co-created—but it didn’t feel that way at all. I’d worked really hard on making a little slide show presentation that was a good visually accompaniment to my ideas and had all kinds of happy, useful little pictures and quotes and inspiration in it. I finished my hour with exactly four minutes to spare, which was pretty good since I certainly had never rehearsed it verbally to make sure my timing was right! I learned from birth class work though that one page of notes gives me one hour of material and that held true for this work as well.

After this session was dinner and a nice presentation by Marian about LLL Leaders changing the world. Following dinner was my final session, Active Birth and Pelvic Mobility. Since my session was scheduled from 7:30-9:30 p.m., I anticipated that people would do “conference math” and decide to go home early and skip my session. I was right. I had 12 people signed up, but only three actually came and none of them were actually registered for the session! We had a really great time together anyway and they seemed appreciative of the information and excited about what they learned. I finished early on purpose to make sure to get back for the close of the silent auction, but ended up having to wait around then for the other speaker’s session to finish before the auction actually closed. I got outbid on the lovely breastfeeding mermaid picture I wanted, but I did win a nice new, red BumGenius diaper and some Soft Star Shoes for new baby boy.

While our Brigid’s Grove booth was never exactly hopping with activity, we did double the (very modest) sales goal we’d set before leaving. I told Mark not to expect many pewter sales, because lots of people don’t have tons of extra money they bring to conferences, and to expect lots of small bead and charm sales from people wanting to bring little, affordable gifts home to people. I was totally wrong and most people skimmed right past the traveling bead shop (I think because it was too much to look at for the tight conference scheduling) and headed straight for the pewter. We sold completely out of our breastfeeding mama goddess pendant! We were invited to have a booth at an upcoming LLL mini conference in St. Louis in August and we’re strongly leaning towards going.

…She’s just feeding her baby. Is she? Or is she healing the planet at the very same time?

Milky smile, fluttering eyes, smooth cheeks, soft hair. Snuggle up, dear one. Draw close. Nestle feet to thighs, head to elbow. And know that you are encircled by something so powerful that it has carried the entire human race across continents and through time for thousands upon thousands of years on its river of milky, white devotion.

via Pewter Breastfeeding Mama Goddess

The most beautiful thing about conferences like this is the sense of continuity with work that has been going on for 60 years, as well as a sense of connection with the many, many women present and past who have served other women. The face-to-face time with Leaders scattered around the state is invaluable and I am surprised by how connected I feel with these friends I only see at most once a year. I’m not sure what my role in LLL will be in the years to come, as I feel myself moving further and further away from my original interest in one-on-one helping, but I’m pretty sure I can’t help but be a “lifer.”

The WHO Code: Why Should We Care?

May23

“Knowledge serves no purpose if it is not spread around. As the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, an entrenched ignorance is kept in place through a culture created and maintained by commercial interests.” – Gabrielle Palmer, The Politics of Breastfeeding

The international WHO Code of marketing breastmilk substitutes reached its 33rd anniversary this week. This means that for 33 years the United States has failed to live up to international standards AND for 33 years infant formula corporations have successfully ignored the WHO Code. In addition, they have convinced over half of U.S. hospitals to serve as marketing shills for their products—distributing their marketing materials—-samples, coupons, booklets, and other ads-—in health care settings in a manner that is well-established to undermine women’s breastfeeding success and to have a negative impact on infant health. Quite simply, getting breastfeeding “advice” from a formula company in a form of a cute little booklet with a happy baby on the front is like getting nutrition “advice” from McDonald’s. It is not neutral or benign and it does not have the interests of mom and baby at heart, it is a skillful marketing tactic, nothing else. I have long repeated the Ban the Bags catchphrase: Doctors’ offices and hospitals should market health and nothing else. To be clear, I would consider all medication-sponsored posters, etc. to fall in same category, not just formula. Refusing to honor the WHO Code isn’t actually illegal, however. The US voted against the proposal in the first place—on the original signing of the Code there were 118 votes for the Code, one against (the United States!), and 3 abstentions. Eventually more than 160 countries participated in the WHO Code. When the United States did accept it, they adopted it as guidelines to distribute to large manufacturers. Providers should follow it, but they can actually can do what they want. UNICEF has a state of the code chart that breaks down which country does what with the Code. US is under the no action category along with a small handful of other countries that includes Somalia and Kazakhstan.

This issue is a systemic problem and it goes WAY beyond just the individual mom and her baby! Breastfeeding or not breastfeeding is actually a political and public health issue in the US, not simply a “personal choice.” Personal choice is the language American people and formula manufacturers love to use and it is a very, very successful manner of appealing the individualist nature of our culture, but in this case it is actually code for, “let huge multibillion dollar corporations exploit women at will and our health care providers will even help them do it!”

While the WHO code has no legal teeth in the US (it IS law in some other countries, but it was written in terms that allow national governments to make their own decisions about how/if to enforce or participate in it). It is still VERY important for health care providers and US distributors and marketers to be aware that their actions are out of sync with international guidelines and that they are in violation of international standards.

…breastfeeding, like all aspects of women’s lives, occurs in a context, a context that involves a variety of “circles of support” or lack thereof. Women don’t “fail” at breastfeeding because of personal flaws, society fails breastfeeding women and their babies every day through things like minimal maternity leave, no pumping rooms in workplaces, formula advertising and “gifts” in hospitals, formula company sponsorship of research and materials for doctors, the sexualization of breasts and objectification of women’s bodies, and so on and so forth. According to Milk, Money, and Madness (1995), “…infant formula sales comprise up to 50% of the total profits of Abbott Labs, an enormous pharmaceutical concern.” (p. 164) And the US government is the largest buyer of formula, paying for approximately 50% of all formula sold in the nation…

via Breastfeeding as an Ecofeminist Issue | Talk Birth.

These past posts take a look at the systemic context surrounding breastfeeding women and how it impacts their “personal choices.”

Breastfeeding as an Ecofeminist Issue

Preventing Culturally Induced Lactation Failure

A Bias Toward Breastfeeding?

Tuesday Tidbits: Breastfeeding Research

Wednesday Tidbits: World Breastfeeding Week!

Controversies in Breastfeeding

The Impact of Birth on Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding as an Ecofeminist Issue: Collage Project

May15

Since January I’ve been working with an independent study student from Prescott College on a self-designed course called Breastfeeding and Ecofeminism. Her class ended this month and her final project was a collage making the connection between the world body and the female body and reflecting the idea that how we treat women and their bodies as a culture is mirrored by our global treatment of the planet (and, conversely, if we change how women’s bodies our treated, our treatment of the planet will also change). As she worked on her collage, she also made a series of digital collage images for use on social media (see above), using quotes from her reading for the course.

“Governments and commercial companies will ‘invest’ billions in expensive new technology: roads, bridges, airports, dams or power generation plants, ‘for the good of society’. They may even ‘invest’ in schools and hospitals, but the crucial primary investment in the emotional, physical and mental health of all humans, which breastfeeding and mothering provide, is invisible.”

—Gabrielle Palmer (The Politics of Breastfeeding, p. 333)

As my student remarked, this is an atrocity. AND, it is one that is largely “invisible” to the average person.

I also find this quote relevant from The Politics of Women’s Spirituality:

“Human life is valuable and sacred when it is the freely given gift of the Mother—through the human mother. To bear new life is a grave responsibility, requiring a deep commitment—one which no one can force on another. To coerce a woman by force or fear or guilt or law or economic pressure to bear an unwanted child is the height of immorality…If they were genuinely concerned with life, they would be protesting the spraying of our forests and fields with pesticides known to cause birth defects. They would be working to shut down nuclear power plants and dismantle nuclear weapons, to avert the threat of widespread genetic damage which may plague wanted children for generations to come…” (p. 420).

For one of her digital images, she chose one of my favorite quotes from Reweaving the World in an article that touches on birth as an ecofeminist issue:

Here are some photos of her final collage project:

Breastfeeding as a (s)hero’s journey?

Mar25

Every single human being was drummed into this world by a woman, having listened to the heart rhythms of their mother.

––Connie Sauer

Recently I re-posted an article I wrote about breastfeeding and parenting as spiritual practices. I received a comment on the re-post that really gave me pause and some food for thought:

I’ve really liked your writing about preparing for birth as a warrior’s rite. I only wish I’d had materials that prepared me for breastfeeding similarly…

I’d like to have at least one breastfeeding book out there that supports women in breastfeeding even when it’s hell, and that doesn’t assume any pain is due to some tiny, easily fixed problem. I continue to get the most condescending advice when I talk about this in public — I don’t know how anyone thinks, with the amount of pain I’ve experienced trying to make this work, that I haven’t already tried every obvious solution.

Anyway, that is all a bit tangential to your post. I do think breastfeeding can be spiritual, though for some of us, it may be an ordeal as much as birth is. I would love to see that acknowledged better in breastfeeding resources.

I’ve been a breastfeeding counselor for nine years. I’ve written before that I have much more often marveled that a mother kept breastfeeding than I have wondered why she didn’t! Mothers are amazing and they go through a LOT. Reading this comment made me wonder why I’ve never really written about my own breastfeeding stories in the sense of a hero’s journey—perhaps because the difficult parts, once overcome, then fade into the fabric of that ongoing relationship? Perhaps because of the sheer ongoing involvement of breastfeeding, rather than the more discreet, definable event of birth? Perhaps because the path can be even more twisty and intimate and embodied and thorough and invested than even pregnancy and birth? Perhaps because, for me, my early breastfeeding stories are very bound up in my overall feelings during postpartum and the struggles I experienced there? Perhaps because for me personally the breastfeeding relationship continues to evolve into toddlerhood and so some of visceral, newborn, early journey elements are subsumed into the more habitual and every day? Why have I never written about the bloody, messy, tearful, painful parts of breastfeeding in my own personal motherhood story?! They’re there. And, when I counsel mothers in person I do talk about those parts. I also never tell people that breastfeeding hurts because they’re doing it wrong—I tell them they will read that phrase over and over, but that in reality, most women experience some degree of discomfort and even pain in the early weeks. Where it becomes not normal is when there is blood or blisters or open wounds, but if someone suddenly started sucking on ANY of your body parts 8-12 times a day, I think it is logical that we can expect some adjustment or difficulty or stress or pain in adjusting to that degree of intense, sustained, body contact/involvement.

I wrote the following at the end of one of my blog posts last year:

I’m also reminded again, however, of why breastfeeding support holds such a lasting pull for me and that is because postpartum is where it is at, that is where we are so very, very deeply needed as support people. Birth is amazing and exhilarating and women most definitely need us there too, but in the nitty-gritty, day-to-day, unglamorous, nipples and breast infections, teething, crying, dirty-haired, exhausted, wrung-out maternal web of daily being is a very tender and delicate beauty that becomes visible only when we’re willing to spend months and months, or even years, serving as a listening ear, a medication lookup, and someone to trust with both her laughter and her tears.

Talk Books: Laughter & Tears: The Emotional Life of New Mothers | Talk Birth.

Birth has been one of my biggest passions for many years. It is so exciting and interesting and almost “glamorous”—it is where the thrill is, the big work, and the big moment: the baby’s emergence. But, guess what, it is in the breastfeeding relationship and the first year with the new baby in which the mother’s strength is really tested. Breastfeeding is the day in and day fabric of connection. It is a huge physical and emotional investment, the continued devotion of one’s body to one’s baby. Breastfeeding support may not as exciting or thrilling as birthwork for me, but it is so very REAL and so very needed, and part of the nitty-gritty reality of individual mother’s complicated lives as they find their feet on the motherhood road. It really matters.

In what ways has breastfeeding been a hero’s journey for you? I’ve written a lot about birth in this context—the idea of the birth warrior or birth as a shamanic experience or birth as a labyrinth path, etc…but what about the breastfeeding journey? How were you tested, how were you challenged, how did you rise, or make peace, or triumph, or cry, or scream, or dig so deeply into yourself that you had to gasp in wonder at your own capacity? What is your breastfeeding story…?