The Beauty of a Nursing Mother

“The beauty of a nursing mother can never be explained by a little oxytocin around the milk glands.”

—The Wisdom of the Body

(in a section discussing the biology and physiology of milk production and delivery)

I’ve mentioned before how very much I enjoy the Diane Wiessinger’s conference presentations. In 2007, I attended her amazing session called “Watch Your Language” that was about how we talk about breastfeeding. An example of a problem word when it comes to breastfeeding–using the word “special” to describe breastfeeding: a “special bond” a “special nursing corner” etc. and also using the word “perfect” (which communicates something that isn’t reasonable or that “real” people can’t do or live up to). She encouraged us not to “glorify breastfeeding” like this. Breastfeeding ISN’T special, it is NORMAL. A breastfed baby has a “normal bond” with its mother! Human milk isn’t the perfect food for babies, it is the NORMAL food for babies.

A long time ago I also marked the following quote to share from K.C. Compton in an article in Utne about baby boomers:

“We discovered firsthand the radical nature of simple acts: Sit in the front of the bus, ask that your husband be present during his son’s birth, decide to feed your infant with your own breasts, refuse the nuclear power plant being built just up the road. We also learned how much more effective those acts can be when compounded by the hundreds and thousands, their feet on the street…”

And, then this reminds me of a powerful editorial by Peggy O’Mara, urging women to see their mothering as a political act:

See your mothering as a political act. The way you talk to your child becomes his or her inner voice. The way you model acceptance of your own body becomes the way your daughter learns to accept hers. The way you model the distribution of chores in the household provides a blueprint for your children’s marriages. Bringing consciousness and awareness to the small acts of your life with your family can change the world. Your mothering is enough.

…As mothers, we think that our concerns are the concerns of the many. We have to make sure that they are. As mothers, we hope that our children are protected by society. We have to act when they are not. As mothers, we have authoritative knowledge about our own experience, an experience we have in common with millions of women. We can build a more just society on the ground of this common experience.

Birth Fear

Nov1

“…if you want to know where a woman’s true power lies, look to those primal experiences we’ve been taught to fear…the very same experiences the culture has taught us to distance ourselves from as much as possible, often by medicalizing them so that we are barely conscious of them anymore. Labor and birth rank right up there as experiences that put women in touch with their feminine power…” -Christiane Northrup

Since it was just Halloween, I wanted to re-post some things about fear and birth that I shared on another blog a couple of years ago. I encounter a lot of women who are very scared of birth, particularly of the pain of birth. Grantly Dick-Read’s Fear-Tension-Pain cycle has influenced the teachings of most natural birth educators and most people readily connect to the idea that fear leads to elevated tension in body which leads to increased pain (more about fear-tension-pain in a linked post below).

One of my favorite birth books, Birthing from Within, has several sections about coping with fear. The author’s idea is that by naming fears and looking them in the eye rather than denying they exist, you shift your thinking from frozen, fear-based, thoughts to more fluid, adaptable coping-mechanisms. There is a useful handout based on her ideas available at the Transition to Parenthood site.

I also think of this quote from Jennifer Block:

Why is it that the very things that cause birth related morbidity rates to rise are seen as the ‘safe’ way to go? Why aren’t women and their doctors terrified of the chemicals that are dripped into their spines and veins—the same substances that have been shown to lead to more c-sections? Why aren’t they worried about the harm these drugs might be doing to the future health of their children, as some studies are indicating might be the case? Why aren’t they afraid of picking up drug-resistant staphylococcus infections in the hospital? And why, of all things, aren’t women terrified of being cut open?

I actually was afraid of these things, which is part of why I didn’t go to a hospital to have my babies!

I hope some day all women will be able to greet birth with confidence and joy, instead of fear and anxiety. This does NOT mean denying the possibility of interventions or that cesareans can save lives. And, it also doesn’t mean just encouraging women to “trust birth.” Indeed, I read a relevant quote in the textbook Childbirth Education: Research, Practice, & Theory: “…if women trust their ability to give birth, cesarean birth is not viewed as a failure but as a sophisticated intervention in response to their bodies’ protection of the baby.”

Here are some more good quotes from Childbirth without Fear:

A well–prepared woman, not ignorant of the processes of birth, is still subject to all the common interventions of the hospital environment, much of which places her under unnecessary stress and disrupts the neuromuscular harmony of her labor.

–

It is for this reason that thousands of women across the country are staying home to give birth…Women are choosing midwives as attendants, and choosing birth centers and birthing rooms, in order to regain the peaceful freedom to ‘flow with’ their own labors without the stress of disruption and intervention. Pictures on the wall and drapes on the window do not mask the fact that a woman is less free to be completely herself in the hospital environment, even in a birthing room. The possibility of her being disturbed is still there.

–

The women in labor must have NO STRESS placed upon her. She must be free to move about, walk, rock, go to the bathroom by herself, lie on her side or back, squat or kneel, or anything she finds comfortable, without fear of being scolded or embarrassed. Nor is there any need for her to be either ‘quiet’ or ‘good.’ What is a ‘good’ patient? One who does whatever she is told—who masks all the stresses she is feeling? Why can she not cry, or laugh, or complain?

–

When a woman in labor knows that she will not be disturbed, that her questions will be answered honestly and every consideration given her, then she will be better able to relax and give birth with her body’s neuromuscular perfection intact. The presence of her loving husband and/or a supportive attendant will add to her feelings of security and peace, so she can center upon the task at hand.

Childbirth without Fear was originally written in the 1940′s. The quotes above are just as relevant and true today.

Fathers, Fear, and Birth
Fear-Tension-Pain or Excitement-Power-Progress?
Cesarean Birth in a Culture of Fear Handout
Worry is the Work of Pregnancy

Motherhood as Meditation

Oct30

I sometimes use my blog as a way to “store” things that I’ve read and want to remember later–or, come back to and re-discover later. I’m slowly making my way through a book called Meditation Secrets for Women and this morning I read the following:

…a mother is naturally drawn into simplicity meditations when she has small children. A hundred times a day you are forced to surrender, to slow down and pay attention…A mother must continually let go, not only of rigid scheduling but in the deepest movement of her heart. The maternal bond is a powerful primordial instinct…Each day is a little death and a challenge to live in trust. When a mother learns to accept this process and allows herself to be changed by it, her heart is softened and stretched. This demonstrates again how women’s awareness of the preciousness of life leads us into a natural spirituality that does not have to be manufactured or enforced.

I was just thinking on Friday about just how many things I let go of every day. It is still painful to do–I’m not softened and stretched enough yet, I guess–but I also feel impressed with my own ability to accommodate and enfold. Knowing how many letting gos are required daily also doesn’t stop me from starting out the next day with just as many plans as the day before though.

I’m experimenting with making this post using my phone…did it work?!

My baby zen master 🙂

Perfection

Sep20

Some quotes about perfection and perfectionism from the (extremely) short book Being Perfect by Anna Quindlen:

“Perhaps someday we will be able to read something over which a real person has not sweated and sworn; perhaps we will find out precisely what the thing lacks that only effort can confer. Is it soul? Passion? Vivid reality? If I had to guess, I would say it would be all three.”

About young people thinking about parenthood (reminds me of my Getting a C-Minus quote):

“You will convince yourself that you will be a better parent than your parents and their parents have been. But being a good parent is not generational, it is deeply personal, and it comes down to this: If you can bring to your children the self that you truly are as opposed to some amalgam…you will be able to teach them by example not to be terrorized by the narrow and parsimonious expectations of the world, a world that often likes to color within the lines when a spray of paint, a scribble of crayon, would be much more satisfying.”

And finally, after something bad has happened or some failure:

“Sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. you will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be.”

New Quotes About Birth, Motherhood, Activism, and Women

Sep10

I have a LOT of new quotes to add to my collection! I’ve got to start updating more frequently. As I’ve mentioned before that while these quotes are obviously not my own words, I do appreciate a linkback to my site if you re-post them because I have a significant amount of legwork invested in finding and typing the quotes. Most are not recycled from other pages (I give credit if they are), but are typed up when they catch my eye in the books/magazines/journals I’m reading.

‎”Women experience pain differently; some feel strong overwhelming pain, some may feel a deep discomfort during birth, and still others may feel no pain at all. The experience of pain during childbirth facilitates an unfolding of inner power and resources we never imagined we possessed, similar to enduring the pain of completing a marathon at the finish line.” –Barbara Nicholson and Lysa Parker, API founders

(I do wish the analogy was flipped culturally–ie running a marathon is like giving birth, rather than vice versa. We’ll get there!)

“For months I just looked at you. I wondered about all the mothers before me–if they looked at their babies the way I looked at you. In an instant I knew what moved humankind from continent to continent, Against all odds.” –Michelle Singer (in We’Moon 2011 datebook)

“I use the word midwife to refer to all birth practitioners. Whether you are a mother, doula, educator, or understanding doctor or nurse you are doing midwifery when you care for motherbaby.” –Midwifery Today editorial by Jan Tritten

“Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.” ~Dorothy Allison

“I invite people to examine their lives, knowing that it’s scary, but that not doing it is even scarier.” – Barbara De Angelis

‎”There isn’t a lot you actually *need* to do to birth, but there is a lot you can do to get in the *way* of birth…” –Elizabeth McKeown

‎”Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.” –Marion C. Garretty

‎”In western society, the baby gets attention while the mother is given lectures. Pregnancy is considered an illness; once the ‘illness’ is over, interest in her wanes. Mothers in ‘civilized’ countries often have no or very little help with a new baby. Women tend to be home alone to fend for themselves and the children. They are typically isolated socially & expected to complete their usual chores…while being the sole person to care for the infant…” –Milk, Money, & Madness

“I have discovered nothing more stunning, nothing more emotionally stirring, nothing more intriguing than a woman as she creates life.” –Patrick Stull

‎”My first delivery was a traumatic experience, physically and psychologically almost destroying me. My second, with a midwife, allowed me to regain my womanhood and experience my biological imperative. And yet, I would do them both over again to have what I created.” –mother quoted in the book Evolve, by Patrick Stull

‎”Too often in modern busy obstetric practice, we doctors forget this meaningfulness of childbirth. In our anxiety and impatience, or in our sincere, but misguided efforts to relieve suffering (and childbirth is not without it), we relieve a woman not only of this suffering, but also of her ‘birth right.'” ~John Miller, MD, Childbirth via Citizens for Midwifery

“A woman’s confidence and ability to give birth and to care for her baby are enhanced or diminished by every person who gives her care, and by the environment in which she gives birth…Every women should have the opportunity to give birth as she wishes in an environment in which she feels nurtured and secure, and her emotional well-being, privacy, and personal preferences are respected.” –Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS)

‎”Aside from new babies, new mothers must be the most beautiful creatures on earth.” ~Terri Guillemets

‎”It’s a good day not to judge anything – not myself, not others, not the world. Let us just be.” ~ Sonia Choquette

‎”We’re volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. New mountains form” – Ursula Le Guin

‎”Be wild; that is how to clear the river.” –Clarissa Pinkola Estes

‎”I believe global transformation hangs on the empowerment of women.” –Vajra Ma

‎”Grace reveals to you a great mothering love that you can step into, that’s been here before you and will be here after you. Grace will be with you as you open your arms, as you release your children and send them out into the world. If you listen carefully, you can hear grace whispering its thanks to you for being a mother to these souls.” –Denise Roy (Momfulness)

‎”No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.” – Emma Goldman

‎”A person who believes too earnestly in [her] own convictions can be dangerous to others, for absence of humor signals a failure in basic humanity.” –Thomas Moore (Original Self)

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are messengers of overwhelming grief…and unspeakable love.” –Washington Irving

‎”It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” – Frederick Douglass

‎”No mammal on this planet separates the newborn from its mother at birth except the human animal. No mammal on this planet denies the breast of the newborn except the human.” –James Prescott (neuropsychologist quoted in The Art of Conscious Parenting)

‎”Every society practices the birthing ceremonies that best mirror its values, norms, and philosophy.” –Gregory Bateson (quoted in The Art of Conscious Parenting)

‎”The world can only value mothering to the extent that women everywhere stand and declare that it must be so.” –Oprah

‎”Motherhood focused my early political consciousness. It helped me understand how the choices I make in my personal life are linked to those I make on a larger scale.” –Wendy Priesnitz

‎”There is a wild tiger in every woman’s heart. Its hot and holy breath quietly, relentlessly feeding her.” – Chameli Ardagh

“The state of the world today demands that women become less modest and dream/plan/act/risk on a larger scale.” – Charlotte Bunch

‎”Prenatal care of the future will be guided by a [this rule]: “Eat sardines, be happy…and sing!” –Michel Odent

‎”If you are going to generalize about women, you’ll find yourself up to here in exceptions.” – Dolores Hitchens

‎”If we can mobilize the mothering instinct in all of us, we could save the planet. It is inappropriate to be dispassionate right now.” –Helen Caldicott (1981) in Momfulness

‎”There’s something contagious about demanding freedom.” – Robin Morgan

‎”Remember our heritage is our power; we can know ourselves and our capacities by seeing that other women have been strong.” – Judy Chicago

‎”I use the word midwife to refer to all birth practitioners. Whether you are a mother, doula, educator, or understanding doctor or nurse you are doing midwifery when you care for motherbaby.” –Midwifery Today editorial by Jan Tritten

“Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.” – Dorothy Allison

“I invite people to examine their lives, knowing that it’s scary, but that not doing it is even scarier.” – Barbara De Angelis”There isn’t a lot you actually *need* to do to birth, but there is a lot you can do to get in the *way* of birth…” –Elizabeth McKeown

‎”Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.” –Marion C. Garretty

‎”As a woman, you are powerful. Birth is of course only one of many amazing pieces of being female, but it is unique in some very key ways…it is a time in a woman’s life that requires physical, spiritual, and emotional strength. It tests the foundation of who we believe we are as women, and challenges our beliefs about our own power.” –Marcie Macari (She Births)

‎”And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.” – Black Elk (via Literary Mama)

‎”We must act to keep the knowledge and the powers of women alive.” – Lynn Andrews

‎”Doctors ‘know’ they are giving women ‘the best care’…Birth activists…know that this ‘best care’ is too often a travesty of what birth can be. And yet on that existential brink, I tremble at the birth activist’s coding of women as ‘not knowing.’ So, here’s to women…to women knowing what is best for themselves and their babies, and to women rising above everything else.” -Robbie Davis-Floyd

“The natural process of birth sets the stage for parenting. Birth and parenting mirror each other. While it takes courage and strength to cope with labor and birth, it also takes courage and strength to parent a child.” –Marcy White

“For each of us as women, there is a deep place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises…Within these deep places, each one holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us…it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.” –Audre Lorde

‎”Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life.” –Brian Andreas (quoted in Momfulness)

‎”Your children love you. Be the trampoline for their rocketing and the cupped palms for their returning.” –Shae Savoy (in We’Moon 2011 datebook)

‎”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

‎”When you bring consciousness to anything, things begin to shift.”–Eve Ensler

‎”Birth is a time we need to believe in – and need those around us to trust and encourage – our bodies, our power.” –Choices in Childbirth blog

‎”Scientific medicine has never been shy to dismiss if not denigrate any perceived threat to its values or power.” –from the book Breakthrough: How the 10 Greatest Discoveries in Medicine Saved Millions and Saved the World

‎”Fatherhood challenges us, but it also enlarges us and reshapes our perception of what is important in the world around us. As we take stock of this new world, we find that doing our job as a dad is inherently honorable and respectful, and brings to us the dignity that goes with the territory. Far from being emasculating, being a dad makes us men in the finest sense of the term.” –Dads Adventure

‎”Where you give birth is not nearly as important as who is there. The *human environment*–the people who surround you and your relationships with them–is what sets the tone for the birth, directly affecting its safety and success, as well as your own satisfaction.” –Jan Mallak/Teresa Bailey, Doula’s Guide to Birthing Your Way

‎”Drugs, machinery, and medical personnel are not match for a woman’s own intellect and intuition. Birth is sexual and spiritual, magical and miraculous–but not when it is managed, controlled, and manipulated by the medical establishment, or hindered by the mother’s own mind.” –Laura Shanley quoted in book Home/Birth: A Poemic

I am compelled by some deep hunger of the soul, driven by a desire that will not leave me alone, to live life to the fullest. And I know this does not mean working endlessly, accomplishing the most, or consuming the greatest amount & variety of things and experiences. It means tasting each mouthful, feeling each breath, listening to each song, being awake & aware of each moment as it unfolds. ~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

‎”The expectant mother is an image of strength, power, and creativity. She is able to carry twenty to thirty or more extra pounds and still continue her daily activities. And more wonderful, she is able to bring forth a new life.” – Carl Jones

‎”Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” -Golda Meir

‎”Every birth is holy. I think a midwife must be religious because the energy she’s dealing with is holy. She needs to know that other people’s energy is sacred…By religious, I mean that compassion must be a way of life for her. Her religion has to come forth in her practice…it cannot be just theory. Truly caring for people cannot be a part-time job.” Ina May Gaskin, from The Spiritual Midwife, Mothering #8, 1978

‎”We have barely tapped the power that is ours. We are more than we know.” –Charlene Spretnak

‎”Birth always alters you. It’s a learning experience…no matter how many classes you go to, how much you practice relaxation, how many books you read, or how many prayers you put out into the universe, childbirth is beyond your control, a force of nature, like a tornado, a blizzard, or an earthquake.” –Patrician Harman (Arms Wide Open: A Midwife’s Memoir)

“Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate.” — Charlotte Gray (via Giving Birth with Confidence)

‎”It is not female biology that has betrayed the female…it is the stories and myths we have come to believe about ourselves.” –Glenys Livingstone

“Women experience pain differently; some feel strong overwhelming pain, some may feel a deep discomfort during birth, and still others may feel no pain at all. The experience of pain during childbirth facilitates an unfolding of inner power and resources we never imagined we possessed, similar to enduring the pain of completing a marathon at the finish line.” –Barbara Nicholson and Lysa Parker, API founders

“Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest.The blessing is in the seed.” –Muriel Rukeyser

“One of the most important things I have learned about birthing babies is that the process is more of an unfolding marvel than a routine progression of events.” –Tori Kropp

“There is no telling how many miles you will have to run while chasing a dream.” ~Author Unknown

“Aside from new babies, new mothers must be the most beautiful creatures on earth.” ~Terri Guillemets (via Brio Birth)

‎”There’s nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.” – Frank A. Clark

“Grace reveals to you a great mothering love that you can step into, that’s been here before you and will be here after you. Grace will be with you as you open your arms, as you release your children and send them out into the world. If you listen carefully, you can hear grace whispering its thanks to you for being a mother to these souls.” –Denise Roy (Momfulness)

“I believe global transformation hangs on the empowerment of women.” –Vajra Ma

“Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers. We will learn them now.” – Mignon McLaughlin

“A person who believes too earnestly in [her] own convictions can be dangerous to others, for absence of humor signals a failure in basic humanity.” –Thomas Moore (Original Self)

“No mammal on this planet separates the newborn from its mother at birth except the human animal. No mammal on this planet denies the breast of the newborn except the human.” –James Prescott (neuropsychologist quoted in The Art of Conscious Parenting)

(While I like this quote, the snarky part of me wants to say, no other mammal wears clothes, sleeps in a bed, drives a car, etc., etc.)

“If we can mobilize the mothering instinct in all of us, we could save the planet. It is inappropriate to be dispassionate right now.” –Helen Caldicott (1981) in Momfulness

“Parenting is a mirror in which we get to see the best of ourselves, and the worst; the richest moments of living, and the most frightening.” –Myla & Jon Kabat-Zinn quoted in Momfulness

“Remember our heritage is our power; we can know ourselves and our capacities by seeing that other women have been strong.” – Judy Chicago

‎”I hear the singing of the lives of women. The clear mystery, the offering, and the pride.” – Muriel Rukeyser

“She’s turning her life into something sacred: Each breath a new birth. Each moment, a new chance. She bows her head, gathers her dreams from a pure, deep stream and stretches her arms toward the sky.” –from the journal offered for giveaway on Mamahhh

“Birthing is the most profound initiation to Spirituality a woman can have.” –Robin Lim (in She Births)

“As a woman, you are powerful. Birth is of course only one of many amazing pieces of being female, but it is unique in some very key ways…it is a time in a woman’s life that requires physical, spiritual, and emotional strength. It tests the foundation of who we believe we are as women, and challenges our beliefs about our own power.” –Marcie Macari (She Births)

“There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.” –Tara Brach (in Momfulness)

“We cannot withhold facts for fear of offending because the importance of the information outweighs people’s right to not be challenged in their beliefs.” ~Maddy Reid

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” –Winston Churchill

“A ‘no’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Let’s declare a permanent truce with our bodies for the sake of our daughters. Imagine with me being at home, at ease, and at peace with our bodies.” –Patricia Lynn Reilly

“I believe that natural childbirth is a right and a privilege…Our country needs to step up to the plate in educating women about the benefits of natural birth, and we need to help women actually do it – not just hear about it.” –Mayim Bialik

“I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, ‘Mother, what was war?'” – Eve Merriam

“…undisturbed (not neglected or abandoned) birth is a powerful initiation into motherhood, not only in a physical and physiological sense, but also in an emotional and spiritual sense.” –Christina Hurst-Prager (in (ICEA) International Childbirth Education Association’s journal)

Simple Pleasures

Sep10

Saved quote from 2007 (in book Simple Pleasures):

“When we lack proper time for the simple pleasures of life, for the enjoyment of eating, drinking, playing, creating, visiting friends, and watching children at play, then we have missed the purpose of life. Not on bread alone do we live, but on all these human and heart-hungry luxuries.” –Ed Hayes

I need to stick this to my forehead!

And, a favorite quote that I used to have on my FB page:

“A simplified home feels friendlier. A simplified life seems easier. And remarkable joy comes from simple things–like having work to do that matters, and having people to love who matter a lot.” –Victoria Moran (Shelter for the Spirit)

Milk, Money, & Madness

Sep7

In early August, I received a press email from Evenflo about their “in-law feeding frenzy” video. While I recognized they were attempting to be playful and funny, I chose not to share the video with my readers because I found several elements of it problematic. Rather than recognize the opportunity to create an internet stir over the video, I just wrote back to the company and told them, “I try not to encourage the notion of other people having a chance to feed the baby, so I do not plan to use the video myself—I would have been more pleased with it if somehow mom stood her ground and helped in-laws see that there are other ways to be involved with the baby other than by feeding it expressed milk. I don’t promote the idea that mothers need to pump, ‘just because.’” Considering what a controversy has now boiled up this week over Evenflo’s “funny” breastfeeding video, I confess I sort of feel like I missed my opportunity for a major wave of blog traffic by exposing the ad and expositing on the problems therein when I received it in August! 😉 However, when considering the controversy, I thought of some wonderful quotes I’d saved to share from the book Milk, Money, & Madness and so I’m sharing them instead.

Dia Michels is one of the co-authors of Milk, Money, and Madness and I’ve actually heard her speak twice—once in 2003 when I was pregnant with L and then in 2007 at the LLL of MO conference. I’m surprised at how thoroughly riveting a book about the “culture and politics of breastfeeding” can be and I highly recommend it to breastfeeding and women’s health activists.

In perfect response to the Evenflo video, we have this quote:

“Babies need holding, stroking, dressing, bathing, comforting, burping, and, within a short time, feeding solids. Dad can do every one of these. The desire to participate should not be confused with the need to give the baby the best of what each partner has to offer.”

I hear from people SO often that they want Daddy to be able to participate in baby care by giving the baby a bottle. There are LOTS of things that fathers can do for their babies, other than feeding—bathing, snuggling skin-to-skin, diaper changes, playing, babywearing, and just plain walking around holding the baby while mom takes care of her own needs.

And, here is an excellent quote with regard to public breastfeeding/breasts as sexual objects:

“When the attitude is taken that a woman’s breasts belong to her and no job is more important than caring for one’s young, the confusion between breastfeeding and obscenity goes away.”

And, then considering the argument that bottle feeding “liberates” women from the tyranny/restrictiveness of breastfeeding:

The liberation women need is to breastfeed free of social, medical, and employer constraints. Instead, they have been presented with the notion that liberation comes with being able to abandon breastfeeding without guilt. This ‘liberation,’ though, is an illusion representing a distorted view of what breastfeeding is, what breastfeeding does, and what both mothers and babies need after birth. [emphasis mine]

I’ve noted before that I am a systems thinker and I think this way about breastfeeding as well as many other experiences—breastfeeding 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 the book, “…infant formula sales comprise up to 50% of the total profits of Abbott Labs, an enormous pharmaceutical concern.” And the U.S. government is the largest buyer of formula, providing it for something like 37% of babies. (I should have written that quote down too!)

I have a special interest in how women are treated postpartum and Milk, Money, and Madness has some gems to share about postpartum care as well:

An entirely different situation exists in societies where technology is emphasized. The birth process is seen from a clinical viewpoint, with obstetricians emphasizing technology. A battery of defensive practices are employed, some of which are totally irrelevant to the health of either mother or infant. Skilled technicians spend their time and the family’s money on identifying the baby’s gender and performing various stress tests. All the focus is geared toward the actual birth. After the birth, mother and baby become medically separated. The infant is relegated to the care of the pediatrician, the uterus to the obstetrician, the breast abscess to the surgeon. While the various anatomical parts are given the required care, the person who is the new mother is often left to fend for herself…All the tender loving care goes flows to the infant; the mother becomes an unpaid nursemaid. [emphasis mine]

When I do breastfeeding help with mothers, I always make sure I address the whole woman and do not focus only on the mechanics of breastfeeding. Recently a mother told me, “I don’t know if it was your breastfeeding advice or just the encouragement that helped most, probably both.” Women need both—“technical assistance” and emotional support. Sometimes, all they need is the emotional support and they can figure out the rest with some undisturbed time with their babies. The pendulum in breastfeeding support is shifting from active, “education” based strategies, to the recognition that often the best we can do for mothers is give them time to get to know their babies. Rather than offering positioning “advice” and “breastfeeding management suggestions,” we need to give her space, stand aside, and offer encouragement as she discovers her baby and the biological dance they are hardwired to engage in. The Milk quote continues with:

This may appear to be a harsh evaluation, but it is realistic. In western society, the baby gets attention while the mother is given lectures. Pregnancy is considered an illness; once the ‘illness’ is over, interest in her wanes. Mothers in ‘civilized’ countries often have no or very little help with a new baby. Women tend to be home alone to fend for themselves and the children. They are typically isolated socially and expected to complete their usual chores, including keeping the house clean and doing the cooking and shopping, while being the sole person to care for the infant… (emphasis mine)

According to the U.S. rules and regulations governing the federal worker, the pregnancy and postdelivery period is referred to as ‘the period of incapacitation.’ This reflects the reality of the a situation that should be called ‘the period of joy.’ Historically, mothering was a group process shared by the available adults. This provided not only needed relief but also readily available advice and experience. Of the ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ child-rearing situations, it is the modern isolated western mom who is much more likely to find herself experiencing lactation failure.

I think these quotes are important because I think there is a tendency for women to look inward and blame themselves for “failing” at breastfeeding. There is also an unfortunate tendency for other mothers to also blame the mother for “failing”—she was “too lazy” or “just made an excuse,” etc. We live in a bottle feeding culture; the cards are stacked against breastfeeding from many angles–economically, socially, medically. When I hear women discussing why they couldn’t breastfeed, I don’t hear “excuses,” I hear “broken systems of support” (whether it be the epidural in the hospital that caused fluid retention and the accompanying flat nipples, the employer who won’t provide a pumping location, the husband who doesn’t want to share “his breasts,” the mother-in-law who thinks breastfeeding is perverted, or the video that promotes expressing milk so other people can feed the baby). Of course, there can actually be true “excuses” and “bad reasons” and women theoretically always have the power to choose for themselves rather than be swayed by those around them, but there is a whole lot that goes into not-breastfeeding, besides the quickest answer or what is initially apparent on the surface. As I said above, breastfeeding occurs in a context and that context is often one that DOES NOT reinforce a breastfeeding relationship. In my six years in breastfeeding support, with well over 600 helping contacts, I’ve more often thought it is a miracle that a mother manages to breastfeed, than I have wondered why she doesn’t.

For more about the relationship between birth and breastfeeding, check out my previous post: The Birth-Breastfeeding Continuum.

Check out those exclusively breastfed thighs!

Mother Blessing Quotes

Jul15

For the mother blessing ceremony I wrote about recently, I also went through my birth quotes collection (which is becoming quite extensive!) and picked out some special quotes that reminded me of things I wanted to share with the birthing mama-to-be.

“For each of us as women, there is a deep place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises…Within these deep places, each one holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us…it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.” –Audre Lorde

While some people have said they don’t like the use of the word “dark” in this quote, I think it is perfect. In the darkness is where wonderful seeds take root and grow.

“It is so easy to close down to risk, to protect ourselves against change and growth. But no baby bird emerges without first destroying the perfect egg sheltering it. We must risk being raw and fresh and awkward. For without such openness, life will not penetrate us anew. Unless we are open, we will not be filled.” –Patricia Monaghan

Since, as I mentioned, this recent ceremony was for a PAL-mama, I included the above quote. While I don’t really like the image of the egg being destroyed (if I relate the quote to birth), I feel like this is a good quote to describe the bravery involved with consciously undertaking the pregnancy after loss journey.

I also included my top two favorite quotes about birth and pain. The first:

“When I say painless, please understand, I don’t mean you will not feel anything. What you will feel is a lot of pressure; you will feel the might of creation move through you. Pain, however, is associated with something gone wrong. Childbirth is a lot of hard work, and the sensations that accompany it are very strong, but there is nothing wrong with labor.” –Giuditta Tornetta

I love the part about the might of creation. How is that for a bold summation of the potency and power of birth. While some people object to the inclusion of the word “painless” in it, to me the takeaway message of the quote is that birth is too big for the word “pain” to adequately contain or describe it. We need more and better language for it! And, that brings me to the second quote:

“So the question remains. Is childbirth painful? Yes. It can be, along with a thousand amazing sensations for which we have yet to find adequate language. Every Birth is different, and every woman’s experience and telling of her story will be unique.” –Marcie Macari

From the same author, two more quotes, this time describing the transformative power of birth:

“Birth is an opportunity to transcend. To rise above what we are accustomed to, reach deeper inside ourselves than we are familiar with, and to see not only what we are truly made of, but the strength we can access in and through Birth.” –Marcie Macari

“A woman in Birth is at once her most powerful, and most vulnerable. But any woman who has birthed unhindered understands that we are stronger than we know.” –Marcie Macari

And, then, a helpful reminder, that birth is our gateway to conscious, active, full-on parenting for the rest of our lives!

“The natural process of birth sets the stage for parenting. Birth and parenting mirror each other. While it takes courage and strength to cope with labor and birth, it also takes courage and strength to parent a child.” –Marcy White

And, finally, I shared the quote that to me was a touchstone describing my feelings about Alaina’s entrance into my world. She did this for me.

“A baby, a baby, she will come to remind us of the sweetness in this world, what ripe, fragile, sturdy beauty exists when you allow yourself the air, the sunshine, the reverence for what nature provides…” – Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser (in Literary Mama)

Speaking of that sweet baby of mine, here she is at my friend’s mother blessing ceremony. I’m so glad she’s here! And, my heart is full for my friend as she is soclose to her own fresh baby girl. I’m glad my daughter is going to grow up within a circle of strong, empowered, healthy women and girls and I love taking her to blessingways with me, knowing that I am socializing her into a model of womanhood and life that values the feminine 🙂 (and, yes, that is a bindi on her forehead).

Updating My Birth Quotes!

May13

Baby Alaina, 3.5 months, taken at the park by my friend Karen 🙂

“Blessed be all the mothers of mothers.
Blessed be all the daughters of daughters.
Blessed be all the daughters of mothers.
Blessed be all the mothers of daughters.
Now and forever, wherever we are.” –Diann L. Neu

“I have almost given up on the government and the country but I have not given up on birth. I believe rabidly. It is not enough to hold the space for one woman at a time. Peace on earth begins with birth.” –Arielle Greenberg/Rachel Zucker (in Home/Birth: A Poemic)

“In giving birth my attention was pulled inside forcibly by something naturally wild, hot, raw and primitive—something so powerful that my only choice was to surrender.” –Kristin Luce

“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” ~ Walt Whitman

“A new baby is like the beginning of all things–wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities.” ~ Eda J. Le Shan

“Birth isn’t something we suffer, but something we actively do and exult in.” –Sheila Kitzinger (from promo for new One World Birth film)

“Many women have described their experiences of childbirth as being associated with a spiritual uplifting, the power of which they have never previously been aware … To such a woman childbirth is a monument of joy within her memory. She turns to it in thought to seek again an ecstasy which passed too soon.” ~ Grantly Dick-Read (Childbirth Without Fear)

“Childbirth isn’t something that is done to you, or for you; it is something you do yourself. Women give birth. Doctors, hospitals and nurses don’t.” ~ Lester Dessez Hazell

“Whether she chooses to birth at home, a hospital or a birth center, it is the right–in fact, the responsibility–of every woman to plan her own baby’s birth with the information, honor and freedom to which she is entitled.” –Cynthia Overgard (in Pathways to Family Wellness Magazine)

Life, love, and laughter – what priceless gifts to give our children. — Phylis Campbell Dryden

“A mother’s joy begins when new life is stirring inside… when a tiny heartbeat is heard for the very first time, and a playful kick reminds her that she is never alone.” ~Author Unknown

“Growing, bearing, mothering, or fathering, supporting, and at last letting go…are powerful and mundane creative acts that rapturously suck up whole chunks of life.” –Louise Erdrich

“Perhaps we owe some of our most moving literature to men who didn’t understand that they wanted to be women nursing babies.” –Louise Erdrich

“Labor is about finding your threshold and learning you can go beyond it.” –Rose St. John

“…the labor with which we give birth is simply a rehearsal for something we mothers must do over and over: turn ourselves inside out, and then let go.” –Susan Piver (Joyful Birth)

“The minute my child was born, I was reborn as a feminist. It’s so incredible what women can do…Birthing naturally, as most women do around the globe, is a superhuman act. You leave behind the comforts of being human and plunge back into being an animal…” –Ani DiFranco

“The health of mothers, infants, and children is of critical importance, both as a reflection of the current health status of a large segment of the U.S. population and as a predictor of the health of the next generation.” –Healthy People, 2010

“The miraculous nature inherent in the unfolding of a flower is the very same that moves through a woman as she gives life to the world. We can neither control nor improve upon it, only trust it.” -Robin Sale

“Loving, knowing, and respecting our bodies is a powerful and invincible act of rebellion in this society.” –Inga Muscio

“A new baby’s fresh milk smell causes the mother’s heart to spill over.” -Melanie Lofland Gendron

“…childbirth is much like a marathon…marathon runners know how to breathe, to run, and to complete their race according to their own body signals. Similarly, women know how to breathe, to birth, and to complete the [birth] according to their own body signals. Marathon runners who are true champions are free to stop the fast pace, and even quit the race without loss of integrity.” –Claudia Panuthos

“Birth, like love, is an energy and a process, happening within a relationship. Both unfold with their own timing, with a uniqueness that can never be anticipated, with a power that can never be controlled, but with an exquisite mystery to be appreciated.” –Elizabeth Noble

“…all those tasks and interactions of motherhood, a day full of which might make you feel you’ve ‘gotten nothing done’ because you’ve been in the cycle of care, are the heart and soul of the best brain building possible.” –Lauren Lindsey Porter (Attachment Theory in Everyday Life, in Mothering magazine, 2009)

“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.” –John Burroughs

“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.” ~ Meryl Streep (via Midwifery Today)

“It is not ‘ladylike’ to give birth. The strength and power of labor is not demure.” –Rhonda (midwife quoted in Gayle Peterson’s An Easier Childbirth Book)

“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” —Helen Keller

“The greatest teachers we have are the women we serve.” –Jan Tritten

“…undisturbed (not neglected or abandoned) birth is a powerful initiation into motherhood, not only in a physical and physiological sense, but also in an emotional and spiritual sense.” –Christina Hurst-Prager (in (ICEA) International Childbirth Education Association‘s journal)

“Never hire a midwife who is afraid your birth will go wrong.” –Arielle Greenberg/Rachel Zucker, Home/Birth: A Poemic

“It is dangerous to be right on a subject on which the established authorities are wrong.” –Bumper sticker quoted in the book Home/Birth: A Poemic

“Women today not only possess genetic memory of birth from a thousand generations of women, but they are also assailed from every direction by information and misinformation about birth.” ~ Valerie El Halta

“I see generations of women bearing a flame. It has been hidden, buried deep within, yet they hand it down from generation to generation still burning. It is a gift of fire, transported from a remote and distant world, yet never extinguished.” –Kim Chernin

“Birth is as vast and voluminous, as unfathomable and inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun. And true to the inexorable power and rhythm of their life-giving bodies, women will continue to birth with dignity, grace and courage.” –Mandala Mom

“I pity the folks at ACOG who think they can make protocols, rules and guidelines that will cover all births in all situations. A better goal would be to have clinicians who can think for themselves, distinguish complications from normal birth, relax when things are taking a while, and marvel over the consistently fascinating process of human birth” -Gloria Lemay in Pathways to Family Wellness Magazine

“A pair of substantial mammary glands have the advantage over the two hemispheres of the most learned professor’s brain in the art of compounding a nutritive fluid for infants.” ~Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

“The energy that can rise in real connection is the stuff of revolution.” –Carol Lee Flinders

“A woman meets herself in childbirth” –Cynthia Caillagh

“I believe that these circles of women around us weave invisible nets of love that carry us when we’re weak and sing with us when we’re strong.” –SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” –Howard Thurman

“If ever the world sees a time when women shall come together purely and simply for the benefit of humanity it will be a power such as the world has never known.” –Matthew Arnold

“Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge: fitter to bruise than polish.” ~ Anne Bradstreet (Feeling frustrated with anti-midwifery legislators in Missouri and then this quote came along from Midwifery Today’s e-news and I thought it was quite fitting)

“The midwife teacher’s first concern is to preserve the students fragile unborn thoughts, to see that they are born with their truths intact, that these truths do not turn into acceptable lies” — from the book Women’s Ways of Knowing (shared by a participant in the Birth Workers and Beyond group)

“…we do not have humanized birth in many places today…Why? Because fish can’t see the water they swim in. Birth attendants, be they doctors, midwives or nurses, who have experienced only hospital based…medicalised birth cannot see the profound effect their interventions are having on the birth. [They] have no idea what a birth looks like without all the interventions, a birth which is not dehumanized.” –Marsden Wagner

“Childbirth is a rite of passage so intense physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, that most other events in a woman’s life pale next to it. In our modern lives, there are few remaining rituals of initiation, few events that challenge a person’s mettle down to the very core. Childbirth remains a primary initiatory rite for a woman.” –from the book MotherMysteries

“The holistic model holds that birth is a normal, woman-centered process in which mind and body are one and that, in the vast majority of cases, nature is sufficient to create a healthy pregnancy and birth. The midwife is seen as a nurturer.” –Penfield Chester (midwife)

“If there is ever a part of human anatomy that resembles the image of God it is the uterus.” –Reverend Darren Cushman-Wood

(I hesitated to share this quote because I thought it could be viewed as disrespectful [or even sacrilegious!] by some. But, it caught my eye in an article called Pharaohs and Kentuckians in a 1997 issue of Mothering magazine. Written by a pastor of a Methodist church about homebirth and spirituality 🙂

“Modern culture often teaches us to be ‘tight’…trim, taut, & terrific…We understand the need to stay ‘fit’…but we would also like to encourage you to soften yourself, in preparation for mothering & nurturing your baby. Soften your viewpoint, soften your body, surrender to this awe-inspiring event…in this way, you will be preparing yourself not only for labour, but for the days & years afterward…” -The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better®

“Love is such a powerful force. It’s there for everyone to embrace—that kind of unconditional love for all of humankind. That is the kind of love that impels people to go into the community and try to change conditions for others, to take risks for what they believe in.” —Coretta Scott King

“Nurturing is not a genetically feminine attribute. Tears and laughter are not the province of women only. The last time I looked, men had tear ducts. They had arms for holding babies. They cared about their children. And they cried at births…let the shared experience of childbirth reclaim the human soul.” –Ariska Razak (midwife and healer)

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” ~Erma Bombeck (via Moby® Wrap)

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The Beauty of a Nursing Mother

Birth Fear

Motherhood as Meditation

More Readings for Women’s Programs

Perfection

New Quotes About Birth, Motherhood, Activism, and Women

Simple Pleasures

Milk, Money, & Madness

Mother Blessing Quotes

“So the question remains. Is childbirth painful? Yes. It can be, along with a thousand amazing sensations for which we have yet to find adequate language. Every Birth is different, and every woman’s experience and telling of her story will be unique.” –Marcie Macari

“Birth is an opportunity to transcend. To rise above what we are accustomed to, reach deeper inside ourselves than we are familiar with, and to see not only what we are truly made of, but the strength we can access in and through Birth.” –Marcie Macari

“A woman in Birth is at once her most powerful, and most vulnerable. But any woman who has birthed unhindered understands that we are stronger than we know.” –Marcie Macari

“The natural process of birth sets the stage for parenting. Birth and parenting mirror each other. While it takes courage and strength to cope with labor and birth, it also takes courage and strength to parent a child.” –Marcy White

Updating My Birth Quotes!