As a former midwife, it’s almost amusing to me when people put so much energy into rationalizing that C-sections and bottlefeeding are just equivalent “lifestyle choices.” (I recently stumbled across a long, impassioned comments debate on another blog that pooh-poohed the risks.) Sure, there are plenty of good reasons at times and of course women shouldn’t feel like failures if they can’t pull off a natural childbirth- but as consumers, they seem to have no idea how heavily the medical system is weighted in the direction of unnecessary surgical intervention and artificial feeding, and that maybe the risks make it worth additional effort to avoid.
I shake my head at the once-again rising C-section rate, something women health activists fought in the ’70s. (And by the way, I had a hospital birth and an epidural with my first, and a home birth for my second. No contest - the second birth was a lot better, for me and the kid. I got up and cooked breakfast for a houseful of people a few hours later.)
But I digress. Bottom line: Even with chemical pollutants, breast milk still has clear benefits for mother and child. The biological breastfeeding system seems designed that way:
Women who had breastfed for 13 months or more were half as likely to get rheumatoid arthritis as those who had never breast fed. Those who had breast fed for one to 12 months were 25 per cent less likely to get the disease.
Oh, that’s good news!
works great for some, not so great for others. Wife & I have been (ahem) blessed with two kids both of whom were bottomless pits for the first 6 months. We’re talking > 1qt/day, most days, growth spurts on top of growth spurts.
A very rough time for all (kid hungry and screaming, mom frazzled and self-esteem in the crapper, dad going nuts) until things settled down on formula.
Sounds more like colic than growth spurts. I sympathize - my oldest had colic until he was a year old.
I had a C-section, but I wonder if it could have been avoided if I’d had more individualized attention. No one seemed to notice that things weren’t really going anywhere until Daughter’s heart beat started showing stress. I wish I’d had a doula, somebody who would have stood up and said, “Hey, she can’t keep her contractions under control with all those freaking drugs you’re pouring into her.”
Ending rant NOW!
And now that I think about it, you were an astrologer, a midwife, a longshoreman, a mother, a brain surgeon - how many other secret lives have you led?
My ex and I owned and operated an ice cream and candy store.
“A very rough time for all (kid hungry and screaming, mom frazzled and self-esteem in the crapper, dad going nuts) until things settled down on formula.”
roofies help too. Sam’s built up a tolerance for them: it takes at least three to make him sleepy, and even then I have to give him milk laced with Everclear before bed.
Susie,
when the kids are shooting up to 95%+ on the growth charts, it’s not colic. Slowed down eventually (at ~ 2yo), thank goodness, but not before the phrase “keep hands and feet clear of food intake!” became a catchphrase.
And really, we were 100% behind the “natural” techniques. But the subtle guilt-trips coming from lactation consultants & pediatricians when unable to keep up with the insane level of demand were not very helpful. I can see their point: too often it’s a matter of convenience. Not this time.
When I had my first baby in 1992, the dr called for a section after the first time he bradyed down. I was very grateful. It was absolutely the right decision. (inducing me in first place probably was not) Had a beautiful healthy baby boy.
For my second pg, the docs were all about the V-BAC birth. They were more into that baby coming out of my vagina than I was. After the first difficult delivery, I didn’t want to take any chances. The labor was frightening for me and heavily medicated but my daughter was a VBAC (and was also beautiful and healthy thank god). I didn’t get a medal.
Seven years later all the rules had changed. There were reports of VBAC moms suffering ruptured uteruses and so I had to sign something at my first OB appt that said that I understood the dire risks of having a VBAC baby. I hired a doula (best six hundred dollars I ever spent) learned some Brady relaxation techniques and stayed home until I was 7cm. Had the baby (gratefully beautiful and healthy) w/o meds at all. Still no medal.
There’s no moral here or advice but I do think the medical advice I got each time was based on what insurance companies were telling the docs they should do to avoid being sued.
I think that sums it all up nicely. That’s why countries with national health coverage tend to have saner policies.
I don’t think women understand, for example, that the usage of a fetal monitor puts you at higher risk for a C-section, simply because the position needed for accurate readings can compress the umbilical cord and actually cause fetal distress.
Snarki, I hope you don’t think I judge parents for those choices, because I don’t. I do want to make sure 1) they’re making informed choices and 2) that they have adequate support to get over any relatively minor obstacles that might be driving their decisions.
If we lived in a land where women got six months’ paid leave after childbirth, I think a lot of nursing issues would vanish. (Not all, but most.) The problem is, many moms are trying to adjust to nursing AND going back to work full-time. That’s a big obstacle right there!
We might see a return to breastfeeding now just because it’s cheaper for parents.