Posts by Isabel Hitchings
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My partner thought I was insane insisting on having everything bought and set up by 36 weeks until #1 decided to turn up 3 weeks early.
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The alarming thing about the home-birthing, was that the next door people, didn't respond to the noise by ringing the police.
Even more miraculous was that the three-year-old slept through it.
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I didn't really like the nitrous in the context of birth and wouldn't use it again for that purpose but I can totally see the point of doing it recreationally.
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I was humming Comfortably Numb whilst stoned on nitrous with my first - it felt a bit surreal.
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Giving birth is (or, at least can be for some women) a transformative experience and it often does colour how you feel as you embark upon parenting. It seems logical to me that whether or not you feel empowered at the very beginning of being a parent is likely to impact on your on-going confidence in that role.
Obviously sometimes birth doesn't go as we planned, whether an emergency c-section or a birth too fast and furious for the planned epidural, and mostly we get over it but it's not OK to tell a woman that it's illogical to grieve a less-than-ideal birth experience just because she has a healthy baby.
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LLL actually have policy against being judgy-pants - the brief is to help women meet their breastfeeding own goals and to supply information with which women can make up their own minds about what works for them and their family (that's not to say that, as in any group, there won't be individuals who lack social skills).
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Re: drugs in labour and totally not meaning to scare the preggy ladies but I'm afraid I might just a little. Sometimes the drugs don't work and sometimes you can't get them when you want them therefore, no matter what you are planning on, it's a good idea to learn up some non-drug coping methods just in case - not having drugs doesn't have to mean suffering uncontrolled pain.
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The fact that men and women have different 'bits' which are pretty important in the 'having children and making them breastmilk' lark is not a social construct. There's some biological things going on there.
Which is why, when pushed, I tend to define "equality" not as everyone having the same stuff but as everyone having the same rights to have their needs met. Our sex, gender, age, (dis)ability etc all affect our needs but should not affect our value or access to the things we need.
Also - totally intended to give information without judgement above (though I do judge social constructs and professional people who tell women to breastfeed and fail to provide the back-up to actually allow them to do so)
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I don't want to get into the whole breast is best argument. There are advantages for the babies to breastfeeding, but that's mainly in the content of the milk more than how they drink it.
Actually that's not entirely true. While breastmilk in a bottle is an awesome source of nutrition for a baby there is a bunch of stuff that occurs when a baby feeds directly at the breast that isn't actually replicable any other way. The way a baby suckles a breast is very different to how it suckles a bottle and this can impact on how the facial muscles develop. Storing and heating human milk reduces the anti-infective properties of the milk and there's a whole complex hormonal interplay that happens between a mother and her nursing baby that just doesn't occur between a mother and her pump. Not to mention the way the milk's composition changes during the course of a feed.
None of that is to comment on the quality of a non-breastfeeding mother's parenting (and pumping requires a huge amount of dedication) but there are very good reasons why medical/birth/lactation professionals should be working hard to help women breastfeed rather than considering their work done if a baby is getting breastmilk in a bottle. </soapbox>
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I have sons and they are the best, brightest, shiniest things possible and having them is a huge part of who I am. It's really important to me that they believe that who and what they are is a wonderful thing to be. Not better than anyone else but completely glorious in and of themselves