Maternity Care With a Heart from Childbirth Connection on Vimeo.

The main argument against tummy is from attachment parents who say “my child doesn’t spent their day in a car seat, swing, or other head flattening device.” and this is a fine argument if the only issue with tummy time was the worry about child’s head shape. That is not the case. Tummy time is vital for more than just the shape of their head. The main reason to do tummy time, is not to make sure they have a perfect round head but to insure that they develop their brain as well as muscles in a healthy way.

“Babies on their backs are neurologically upside down. From that position they can barely raise their heads, much less put weight on their arms and hands or begin to crawl and creep. Consequently, organization of the sub-cortical brain areas cannot occur. Although some of these babies appear to developing normally, lack of lower brain development may translate into later learning and behavior challenges. “

What is happening is that as babies are put on their tummies they are able to make contact with the floor, with your body, with things around them, with whatever it is they are pressed against. This simple pressure stimulates your baby and creates and urge to move and to interact. This excites the brain and starts it moving, baby starts figuring things out. They put pressure on their hands to push up, that strengthens their neck, their back, their arms, their tummy, and also their mind. Exercise in adults is shown to increase brain function as well as mood. Why would we thing it is not the same for children?

Ever since the “back to sleep” movement got started physical therapists are finding more and more children with developmental delays. Their gross motor skills are being hindered, their small motor skills are being hindered, and in effect their reading and writing skills later in life are hindered. How? Because children who crawl late, or not at all, are not actively working on crossing the midline.

Your body has invisible line from head to foot dividing your right and left side. When you use your right hand it activates the left side of your brain. When you use your left hand it activates the right side of your brain. When a baby crawls they use their left leg and right art simultaneously, and right leg and left arm simultaneously. This cross action movement is “crossing the midline”. This wires the brain so that both sides work together more efficiently. Children as well as adults who have a harder time crossing the midline are more apt to be dyslexic and have trouble reading and writing.

Here’s something to think about:
“The less time infants spend on their stomachs, the slower they generally are to acquire motor skills during their first year, which means the potential delay of simple feats like lifting their heads as well as more-complicated movements like rolling over, crawling, and pulling to stand.”

which translates into:
“early motor lags could affect other parts of the brain, like the areas responsible for cognitive functions. Using Northern Finland data as well as stats from a second group of Brits born in 1946, this group found that the sooner children passed their prewalking motor-development marks, the better the more-complicated areas of their brains performed in later life. Every month in advance of the group average that a child learned to stand on his or her own translated to a half an IQ point increase at age 8. By age 26, early motor developers had higher reading comprehension. And by the time they hit their 30s, they had achieved a higher level of education and scored better on executive-function tasks like categorization—how fast they could group objects of similar shape and color.”

Ok, so you can understand that such cosmetic things like head shape, while important do not play into the main reason that tummy time is high on my list must do’s. But as loving attachment parents who carry your babies around and don’t like to see them upset it’s still difficult to see them get frustrated simply lying on their tummy.

Understand that their frustration is passing. Yes, it is hard to tackle a new task but it is also rewarding. I have watched in wonder the joy in each of my children as they have learned to push up, roll over, crawl, and stand. Part of that joy comes out of the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that even a baby feels after struggling and achieving something. Also know that the more tummy they get the stronger they will be, the sooner they will be able to move about, and the more enjoyable tummy time is. The frustration is very short lived. As soon as they are able to move more the more fun they will have with it. All three of my children were crawling by six months. This doesn’t mean that they were walking early. My first didn’t walk till a year, my second till 14 months, but they were mobile by 6 months and even able to scoot themselves around a little before that. After the initial frustration they each loved tummy time. My youngest so much so that she hardly rolled ever, even once she could, because she was happy to be laying on her tummy.

But in the mean time? When they do not like it? I began tummy time by simply putting my baby on my chest and laying down with them. Short stints of tummy time frequently through the day on my body was enough to help them build up their strength. Then, I lay down next to them on the floor. I rub their back, I talk to them. I do not just lay them on the floor by themselves to struggle but keep them company. Some people like to roll up a towel or use a boppy under their arms to lift them up a bit. I never did that but it is an option the helps many babies. As they get stronger they go for longer periods happily working on pushing up and looking around. I do not simply pick them up as soon as they get frustrated though, but encourage them, and allow them short periods to struggle and feel the excitement when in that last bit of frustration they push themselves up higher than they were before. When they are done with tummy time I do not pick them up from that position but help them to roll over first. Gently I rock them from the hips, making sure that their arm is tucked in a comfortable position, 1- 2 – 3 and roll over! This helps them to get their trunk, tummy/back/torso, involved strengthening those muscles and teaching them how to (when they are ready) roll over for themselves.

Tummy time excites a certain level of curiosity. What’s around me? What can I do? They want to learn. They want to explore. They want to find new ways and things to deal with. As my babies got bigger I often put toys and things for them to interact with on the floor. Soon it’s not tummy time, but crawling time, exploring time, learning time. They get stronger and become more comfortable in their bodies. Early childhood is the time of the will, of doing, doing that is hindered when we do not allow children to struggle and achieve healthy tasks that they are capable of doing. These are the things that build up their brain, their self confidence, and their bodies.

http://www.babiestoday.com/articles/immunizations-and-health/tummy-time-3285/2/

http://www.babyclassesvancouver.com/blog/infant-and-toddler-brain-development-tummy-time/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100215081730.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080806122422.htm

https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=124733957558947&topic=83

Abstinence versus birth control education.  I like to think that this is a done deal when it comes to health educators and public health officials.  While abstinence can prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, it is simply not an obtainable goal for the vast majority of people through out the course of their life time.  This means that something else has to come into play to help keep them as safe as possible as they make reproductive choices.  This means we teach them about birth control methods and condoms to help prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.  We empower them to speak up and given them choices, including abstinence.

Sharing sleep surfaces with your baby is the exact same argument.  You can tell a family that they shouldn’t sleep with their baby.  You can explain all of the reasons why your organization or you as an individual do not believe in it.  But when you fail to explain to them that should they choose to sleep with their baby anyway, that they can do it in a way that is safer than not following a few guidelines, then you are missing an opportunity to empower them to make choices that might be life saving for them as a family.  You also prevent them from talking to you about the truth.

Some co-sleeping facts:

• Co-sleeping is having your baby sleep closely to you, as in, in the same room or potentially on the same surface, or in a co-sleeper
• The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that your baby co-sleep in your room, but not on the same sleep surface, for at least the first few months.
• Never sleep with your baby on a couch or recliner
• Talk to all caregivers about safe sleep practices with your baby
• If you choose to sleep with your baby in your bed there are guidelines that you should follow.  These include, but are not limited to:
  • A firm mattress
  • No fluffy bedding or pillows, quilts etc. used
  • Do not place the baby near the head board or the wall
  • Do not sleep with your baby on a water bed
  • Do not sleep with your baby if you are taking any medications, even over the counter medications, that may make you sleepy or disoriented
  • Do not sleep with your baby if you have been drinking or using drugs
  • Sleeping with your baby on your bed is safest when you do not smoke
  • Breastfeeding helps you be responsive to your baby when sharing a sleeping surface
• Babies are safest when sleeping on their backs
• Don’t leave your baby alone on the bed, even if you think that they can’t roll over or move
• There are safety rules for cribs, cradles and co-sleepers as well, particularly having to do with the make and set up of the actual equipment.  11 million cribs have been recalled in the last two years alone.  56% of deaths associated with safety products are related to cribs, cradles, etc. 77,000 injuries are reported due to nursery products with the vast majority being related to sleep surfaces like cribs, play yards, etc.

The point is to open the conversation.  To give parents, providers, educators – everyone, a voice.  Open the bedroom doors and talk about what happens at night when the lights go out.  Parents are faced with choices, and this is one of them.  Not giving them all the information that they need to make a decision, because you don’t like what that choice might be, is not a reason to withhold vital information.

_Sources:

_{AAP. American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Task Force on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The changing concept of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Diagnostic coding shifts, controversies regarding the sleeping environment, and new variables to consider in reducing risk. Pediatrics 2005; 116: 1245-55.}

_{Ball HL. Reasons to bed-share: why parents sleep with their infants. J Reproductive and Infant Psychol 2002; 20: 207-21.}

_{Gettler, LT, McKenna, JJ. Never Sleep with Baby? Or Keep Me Close But Keep Me Safe: Eliminating Inappropriate “Safe Infant Sleep” Rhetoric in the United States. Current Pediatric Reviews, 2010, 6, 71-77.}

_{Lahr MB, Rosenberg KD, Lapidus JA. Bedsharing and maternal smoking in a population-based survey of new mothers. Pediatrics 2005; 116: E530-42.}

_{McKenna JJ. Sleeping with Your Baby: A Parent’s Guide to Cosleeping. Platypus Media. 2007.}

_{McKenna JJ, Ball HL, Gettler LT. Mother-infant co-sleeping, breastfeeding and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS): What biological anthropology has discovered about normal infant sleep and pediatric sleep medicine. Yearb Phys Anthropol 2007; 50: 133- 61.}

But…. There are times I do not love breastfeeding, and I’m going through one at the moment. Right now my 6 month old beauty is teething. Yes, there are ways to deel and I’ve done them all but it doesn’t make a cranky baby suddenly love the serrated edges that are breaking through her gums and it doesn’t make me love it ether. She has bitten me a couple times with her one little snagletooth but that’s not even the worst. she is treating my nipple like a piece of beef jerky and if she hasnt drawn blood yet, it feels like she will. Tonight I was gifted a TUN of cranky cries as my baby played tug of war with my already tired nipple. What she does is get a latch that would put Hoover to shame then she pulls away from my boob nipple firmly clamped in her jaw while simultaneously pushing my boob away so i feel like someones giving me an Indian sunburn on my tit. They say that when they do this you are supposed to break their latch and take a break, start breastfeeding a few minutes later. At 8 pm I don’t want later, I lay there grimacing while she pulls just praying she’ll go to sleep soon. I am not impressed!

The first month of breastfeeding felt much the same. Through pregnancy I look forward to that wonderful bonding only to find that no matter how many times I’ve breastfed before my nipples have gotten soft and a new baby needs to break them in all over again. I’ve done all the oils, salves, and such, but at the end of the day it takes my nips about a month to get used to a new baby. This last time my nipples got so raw and leaked so much I got a staph infection in my left nipple that had to be treated with antibiotics. And if you doubt it was staph, there was enough puss coming out of it to run a lab test. I was on antibiotics, pro biotics, vitamin C, placenta pills, fish oil, you name it, and through all that I nursed.

The first week is also difficult because while nursing has the amazing ability to help your uterus contract back to size, for me postpartum contractions can feel like the transition part of labor all over again. My wonderful husband would sit and rub my back in the middle of the night while I nursed just to help me through the contractions so my baby could eat.

Now, if I haven’t scared you away, let me repeat, I love nursing. These are my truths of nursing and I’ve lived through each one going on 3 times. I haven’t for a moment regretted my choice. I do not consider myself a warrior mom. I do what I love and I do it because I love it. There are two reasons moms give up on nursing, one is that they think it will be too hard, and the other is that they believe it will be too easy. A mother I know looked at me I horror when I told her that breastfeeding isn’t always smooth and simple. It was like I had said something sacrillage. Two months later her baby was getting formula, if it was this hard she must not really be making enough. She thought she was doing something wrong.

Here’s the thing. Nursing shouldn’t hurt, but it does sometimes. You can latch and unlatch but sometimes it just takes some time for you and your baby to figure it out and sometimes that figuring it out hurts. Sometimes the first month is a hell that you hardly remember two months down the line because by now nursing is great! When a new mom comes to me with nursing trouble I give them what advice I know to make it better and then remind them. ” birth was hard, now you have this beautiful baby thanks to it. Nursing can be hard at times but it is one of the greatest gifts you can give your baby and one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.” breastfeeding can be hard sometimes and just like in labor you know that it will pass and you’ll have your lovely baby, so too the difficulties will pass and you’ll have a beautiful nursing relationship.

To find out more about Motherlove Herbal Company and see all of their available products, visit their website here: http://www.motherlove.com/

Disclaimer: A product was provided to me at no-charge for this review
but the opinions are entirely my own.

At first I noticed she had a skin irritation in her neck so I started cleaning it very diligently and putting Aztec clay powder in to help the moisture to get absorbed. I should note that at this time I had a gnarly nipple infection that had me on antibiotics, probiotics, and a mess of pain but we were doing everything we could for what we thought was a simple skin irritation. At her two week visit with the pediatrician I pointed out the skin problem and my pediatrician didn’t seem to notice anything special, she even pointed out that since I wasn’t vaccinating it would be fine for Anuhea to wait till 7 weeks before having another visit.

At a month I began to realize that there was something more going on. Her skin irritation had cleared up but her shoulder was still high and opening it up resulted in a lot of tears. Right about this time I started giving Anuhea more tummy time and observed that she would not turn her head to the left though she was very happy to rest with her head fully turned to the right. After trying very hard to convince her to turn her head voluntarily I began to worry. I called up a girlfriend to vent some of my concerns. Thankfully my girlfriend had had friends who’s children had had torticollis and she suggested it as a possibility. Immediately I called up my pediatrician and got an appointment for the next day.

My daughter has torticollis. Something I had never heard of before. It means that there is a tightened muscle that connects the baby’s breastbone and collarbone to the skull, generally formed in the womb. Children with torticallis have a head tilt to one side while their chin points in the other direction. Different children have different amounts of mobility. One in 250 babies are born with torticallis and about 10-20 % of those can have hip dysplacia. Children with torticallis have a small bump in the side of the neck that they can’t turn towards.

Now here’s the thing. There are things you can do. A physical therapist specializing in infants can help to stretch out the muscle and by a diligent schedule children with torticollis can go on to have full mobility and look totally normal. But it is one of those things best dealt with early. Children with torticollis can often get an A symmetrical shaped head from sleeping on one side and while it can go back to normal the soonest seen the easiest it is to mend.

So here’s me and my public service announcement for the moment. Torticollis is a sorta common issue that can be addressed the soonest it is noticed. If it goes on too long (like 18 months) then it can become a surgical issue so early on physical therapy can be your best friend.

My daughter is not yet two months old. My pediatrician congratulated me on realizing her condition and while I haven’t had my first physical therapy appointment yet we’ve been taking Anuhea to the Chiropractor and he has shown us some stretches and we are already seeing some improvement. Her head is a bit flat on the right hand side but with luck that will work itself out. Before we started the stretches Anuhea would cry if we simply tried to open her neck up enough to clean it. Now it’s open enough that we can see the ball in the side and even massage it gently without too much fuss. For us tummy time is a must to strengthen her neck muscles (I am a big proponent as is), we do her stretches twice a day, alternate which arm we carry her in, and try make anything interesting happen on her left hand side to convince her to look more in that direction. Every step we take is a step closer to my baby getting full mobility in her neck. I only hope that by writing this other parents will know what to look for so that it won’t take over a month to recognize like it took me.

For more information on torticollis check out  http://www.babycenter.com/0_torticollis_10912.bc

One of the more surprising outcomes of this class was how learning about birth and standard birth practices in the U.S. naturally extends into so many other important socio-political and economic issues. For my students, birth turned into a launching point for discussions about the treatment of women by men throughout time and around the world (as well as treatment of women by other women), the cultural view of women in the workplace, government/societal (non)support of working mothers, the feminist movement, etc. It was so enormously gratifying to watch these young women get critical about the world in which they live and their own roles in that world.

Another change I count among the many successes of the course was how my students spoke about talking to the men in their lives – their boyfriends, fathers, brothers – about the issues we tackled in the class. Not all of these men were super receptive, and several had pretty harsh opinions of some of the topics initiated by the student, but the main result was so simple: a conversation about birth with the men who may have witnessed their own birth, or might be present when they themselves eventually give birth.

In the end, I hope that what each of my students will take with them from the course is a healthy dose of educated outrage. I hope that by teaching this class I’m building a small army of educated, outraged young women who will go into their own birth experiences with eyes wide open, armed with enough knowledge and confidence in their body’s ability to birth to reject the unhealthy standard of care they will be confronted with if and when they choose to have a baby and to demand better for themselves and their babies.

Happy New Year!

I have come a long way since my first pregnancy. When my back up OB with my first child told me that they could save my placenta after birth my response was “ewww!” I know I have written about my experience burying my daughter’s placenta a full year and a half after she was born but now I have moved to another stage. The other day I made my own placenta pills. It was a big movement from the “eww” that took over me the first time placenta was mentioned. Since then I have read a lot more, experienced a lot more, and generally realized a lot about myself. For instance, that I’d rather swallow placenta than risk postpartum depression or breastfeeding problems. There is an array of health benefits that can be provided by ingesting placenta after a baby is born and all of them go right in hand with what a woman needs most after labor. Here’s a list from one of the websites I used in my encapsulation.

“Decrease in baby blues and postpartum depression.

Increase and enrich breast-milk.

Increase in energy.

Decrease in lochia, postpartum bleeding.

Decrease iron deficiency.

Decrease insomnia or sleep disorders.”

http://www.cafemom.com/journals/read/1577334/Placenta_Encapsulation_Instructions_w_Pictures

This website includes instructions +pictures on how to encapsulate your placenta yourself.

I didn’t just start with the idea that I would encapsulate the placenta myself. I had hardly thought about it till about a week before my daughter was born. I just lightly talked about what to do with the placenta when a friend told me she was planing on encapsulating. It was something that had been running through my mind a little recently but when she told me her doula was doing it for her I thought I’d give her a call. The next day I sent out an email and left a message on the doula’s phone, a day later I got a response. The doula would be happy to encapsulate the placenta it only cost $300 for her to do it. If I had a spare $300 I probably would have thought more about it but with the exorbitant price of rent in Hawaii, food, and bills not to mention Christmas, birthdays, and yes, a third child on the way, $300 is not in my budget. So I started looking up how to encapsulate the placenta myself. My husband got one look at the pictures and opted out. “If it’s going to keep you from getting postpartum depression it’s worth $300.” he said. The question was still up in the air about what we were going to do. Then, the night I went into labor, in fact just a few hours before contractions began, I got in the car and went to Whole Foods with my list: Plastic bags, lemon, ginger, hot pepper, steamer, and empty capsules. I didn’t know if it would be difficult or easy, if anyone was going to help me or not, I just knew that I needed to take a first step and this was it. I got the last lemon they had in stock, wayyyyy too many hot peppers, and a funny feeling that I knew EXACTLY what I was doing.

I know somewhere in between contractions I asked my midwife if she would help me encapsulate the placenta. I know somewhere in between contractions she asked me if I meant a form of time capsule of placenta to which I had to, somewhere between contractions, explain what encapsulation meant. I should explain that my midwife and mentor is almost 70, has been doing births since it was illegal in Hawaii, and though she has been telling women with heavy bleeding to eat their placenta she had never heard of encapsulation before. Somewhere in between contractions she agreed to help me, thank God. Fast-forward, Anuhea is born and I had the easiest placenta birth out of any of my three kids. The cord gets clamped, cut, and quickly placenta is whisked off into a plastic bag in the fridge. Anuhea was born at 6:03 in the morning by the next morning my midwife was there to help me start the encapsulation process.

After hearing things like “$300 to encapsulate” and “dehydrator” I had envisioned that this would be a very difficult process. I had asked the doula if she had any tips for me on how to do it to which she had replied that she was not trained to teach anyone but I could take a month long online course to be a certified placenta encapsulator. You don’t charge $300 to make someone dinner unless your a gourmet chef and then I assume you bring the meat yourself So I figured it was going to be really difficult. Mostly I think it’s the “ewww” factor that gives it a high price because in all honesty placenta is one of the easiest dishes I’ve ever cooked. I can screw up a plate of cookies in a heart beat but placenta was one step, two step, eeeeeeeeeasy.

Here’s how it went: First my midwife and I cleaned the placenta. She taught me what to look for in a healthy placenta. Thin placenta is often associated with women who do drugs. Mine was kindda grainy, full of calcium deposits, but full and thick. My midwife told me that most women just have a rim of calcium around theirs so I had a little more calcium than most, not something to worry about. Then we looked at it for missing pieces. There are little grooves in a full term placenta if you can fit all the grooves together then it is intact, if you can’t, a piece may have broken off on the way out and then you have to make sure that mom passes it. We cleaned away the blood clots, wrapped it in it’s membrane, and put it in the steamer to cook. Instructions say to cut the ginger, lemon, and hot pepper and ether put them in the water or in the steam basket with the placenta. My midwife and I chose to blend them and put them in the water. It worked really well and helped with the aroma. After that, we steamed the placenta 15 minutes on each side. It’s amazing how much it shrinks up in that time. My placenta came out about the size of a fist once all steamed up.

Here’s a few of my notes. 1) the membrane doesn’t cut well, it’s too rubbery. I ended up cutting the membrane off before drying. 2) Calcium deposits do not blend up well but they are pretty small so they can still fit in the capsules. 3) making the capsules themselves is a wonderful meditative process, takes about an hour but if you like knitting, crocheting, or other repetitive calming arts you’ll probably like this part.

After the steaming my midwife had left. I cut off the membrane and cut the placenta into thin strips (think beef jerky) and put them on parchment paper in the oven. The oven is supposed to be at 110 degrees, mine does not go that low so the website suggests sticking a wooden spoon in the door to let some of the heat out. I was worried that the other two kids might end up playing with the oven door but they didn’t seem to notice the wooden spoon. After six hours I took the placenta out, it was hard as a rock. Now was our big debate. What to blend it in? My husband was not partial to donating his coffee maker and I was worried that the blender was too big to do the job well. In the end we chose to buy the “magic bullet” and give it as a gift to my midwife afterwards. The bullet worked pretty well. There were a couple gnarly pieces that it didn’t blend up the first time around but after another quick run they were blended down. The calcium deposits tended to be a little larger but still grainy enough to be part of the capsules. As my midwife says, most women do not have as much calcium in their placenta and might easily be able to just avoid the outside rim if they choose. It took me about an hour to put all the powder into capsules. The website I had suggested OO size capsules but that looked too large to me so I used O size. I only got about 75 capsules out of my placenta but the woman from the website got said she got 100, I’m sure everyone’s is different.

In the end my biggest shock was how easy it was. Dinner around the house can be more stressful and while they are both very fulfilling activities if this one can ward off postpartum and help my baby get what she needs it’s worth every second that I spent on it. Six hours in the oven can sound like a lot but really it’s like a crock pot dish only without much prep. You can do whatever you want during that six hours.I do think it’s helpful to have a friend by your side. Picking up the heavy pot of water or just reminding you it’s ok to sit down for minute is a good idea when you are still healing up from labor. A little support just in the company is a nice thing to have right after a baby anyway. The “ewww” factor really disappeared for me once I began learning how to read the placenta and what it tells about a woman’s diet and lifestyle. It also helped inspire my midwife to do it for other women. For years she has been telling women to eat their placenta when they are bleeding heavily or having a difficult time, now she wants to start helping women encapsulate their own placenta. Part the process for me was healing, it taught me that nothing out of my body is gross. Holding my placenta in my hand the first time was difficult. I had to get used to the texture, the smell, and the general thought that this came out of my body. Still, it all has a place. My placenta was beautiful it fed my baby and kept her healthy for nine long months in the womb. After my daughter came out it is my job now to do everything I can to provide that nutrition and support. This placenta, this thing that looks like a liver and feels kindda slimy and grainy all at the same time, has helped me come to a more stable place to give my baby more of the love, nutrition, and support she had in the womb. Learning the place for this placenta and using it to make life healthier and better is a process of transformation and empowerment that goes way beyond the momentary capsule swallow. My first two children’s placentas are buried in two different but special places, that seemed to be what they were asking for and what was the right thing for me at that time but I have changed. Somehow I knew throughout my pregnancy that I would do something different with Anuhea’s placenta. It took me till the night before she was born to figure it all out but I’m glad I did. I don’t feel any huge surge of energy or any big change from the pills but I do feel very empowered, like I am doing everything I can for this little beautiful girl that I’ve totally fallen in love with.

For more information on encapsulation here is the other website I used :

http://www.drmomma.org/2010/08/happy-pills-placenta-encapsulation.html

So without being judgmental to the mommas who have made this decision, I know there are a lot of factors included in this decision making process but…I am afraid that the routine-ness of this procedure scares me.

In a conversation with another friend, she has two boys. With the first boy she mentioned that she believed that this procedure was pretty routine. They took her baby away to perform the procedure at the hospital and she did not give it much thought. As a new mother she believed that this was something that you just did. When she got her baby back, the guilt set in of what had just happened. Her baby was not the same. He was obviously in a lot of pain and the result of the procedure looked pretty horrific. His mood took weeks to even out.

When she was pregnant with her second boy, she researched circumcision and decided not to cut her newborn’s penis. She had decided to not purposely inflict pain onto her baby boy. Both boys were born vaginally, naturally without drugs or unnecessary interventions. So if she chose for them to enter into this world in this peaceful manner, why would she then inflict pain upon them?

When most Americans think about female circumcision (cutting of the clitoris) they horrific, barbaric practices come to mind, dull tools, dirty procedures, done to harm the females, and to rape them of their sexual pleasure later on in life. So if we do not do this to our girls, why do we do this to our boys?

Many theories have been advanced to explain the origin of genital mutilation. One theory says that circumcision began as a way of “purifying” individuals and society by reducing sexuality and sexual pleasure. Human sexuality was seen as dirty or impure in some societies; hence cutting off the pleasure-producing parts was the obvious way to “purify” someone. It is now known that the male foreskin, or prepuce, is the principal location of erogenous sensation in the human male. Removal of the foreskin substantially reduces erogenous sensation. Therefore (in the appropriate cultural context), circumcision is revealed as a sacrifice of “sinful” human enjoyment (in this earthly life), for the sake of holiness in the afterlife. It was also believed that it would prevent masturbation.

Recent History:

The modern use of Hebrew circumcision as a medicalized practice dates from about 1865 in England and about 1870 in the US. The procedure accepted for medical use essentially was the Jewish peri’ah. Moscucci reports that circumcision was imposed in an attempt to prevent masturbation. No scientific studies were carried out to determine the efficacy and safety of circumcision prior to its introduction into medical practice, nor were any studies conducted to determine the social effects of imposing genital alteration surgery on a large portion of the population.

There was then a widespread belief that circumcised penis’s were cleaner, would become less infected by diseases. This is simply untrue. A recent article from the New York Times states that ”Some 80 percent of American men are circumcised, one of the highest rates in the developed world. Yet even advocates of circumcision acknowledge that an aggressive circumcision drive in the United States would be unlikely to have a drastic impact on H.I.V. rates here, since the procedure does not seem to protect those at greatest risk, men who have sex with men.

And while studies in Africa found that circumcision reduced the risk of a man’s becoming infected by an H.I.V.-positive female partner, it is not clear that a circumcised man with H.I.V. would be less likely to infect a woman.”

Influenced by Preston, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), in 1971, issued a statement that “there are no valid medical indications for circumcision in the neonatal period.” This marked the beginning of the end of America’s infatuation with male circumcision. The incidence of male neonatal circumcision in the U.S. peaked in 1971 and began a slow decline that continues to the present day.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), in a joint statement, reclassified neonatal circumcision from “routine” to “elective” in 1997.The change in policy was announced the year after the publication of Taylor’s important article that describes in detail the injury inherent in every circumcision. This action removes any suggestion that circumcision is beneficial or that it is recommended by medical authorities. It may also be an attempt to shift legal liability for the injury that is inherent in every child circumcision from the doctor to the parents.

The ratio of boys circumcised to boys preserved intact continues to decline in America. In 2001, it had further declined to a ratio of 55 percent circumcised, while the percentage of boys preserved intact had risen to 45 percent.

In San Francisco there is even an (unlikely to pass) proposed ban on circumcision by a man named Lloyd Schofield. Schofield’s ordinance would outlaw the procedure throughout San Francisco, even for religious reasons. The only exception would be “a clear, compelling and immediate medical need.” It would make all other foreskin cutting a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and jail time for up to a year.

He’s got a web-site - www.sfmgmbill.org - that explains the cause in more detail and where people can buy T-shirts reading, “Help Stop Forced Genital Cutting.” Now that’s catchy! The base of our argument is you’re spending incredible amounts of money doing painful and damaging surgery to an unwilling patient,” he said.

Though to me this seems like a large jump in a fairly new human rights idea, at least it makes people more aware, and educates those Americans who previously thought of it as a routine procedure.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=77266#ixzz17S6uwmAh

Today the rate has dropped further from 55 percent to just 32.5% in 2009. If you were previously concerned about your boys being “different” in the locker room, think again. If you choose not to cut your child’s penis, he may be the one having more pleasurable sex, be among the majority, and feel sorry for all those poor guys who’s parents chose to cut their penis’s foreskin off. Being “different from daddy” is a thing of the past.  He will not be comparing his junk to his father or father’s friends; he will be sizing it up to his peers. And even if he does compare his to daddy you can say “that was something parents used to do to little boys for (insert reason here). We chose not to hurt you.” Sorry, dad. He may thank you someday.

I would like to introduce you to my newest edition. The beautiful, wonderful, healthy Anuhea. She’s 7 pounds, 21 inches, and came out butt first.

When my son was born almost four years ago we thought he would be breech. My midwife prepped me on what we would have to do. “Pant like a dog.” she told me. I don’t want you pushing till you are a full full 10 cm. She double and triple checked that I was still up for the home birth. “YES!” I said. Only I didn’t have to. Milo turned around just in time. We hadn’t realized it till my husband spied hair and a sense of ease flowed over the living room. It didn’t matter that he was already crowning when we realized he flipped, he flipped and that was all that mattered.

This morning just about 5 hours ago I had the opposite experience. Anuhea is at the moment all of five hours old warm, healthy, and cuddling with my very exhausted birth partner and her father. She was mistakingly diagnosed head down from early on in my pregnancy, or else she flipped last second like her brother because I know for a fact that at 33 weeks she was head down (we had an ultrasound). So, it came as a huge surprise when that very bald and folded head turned out not to be a head at all. Feeling for my dilation I pointed out to my midwife that this head felt like no head I had felt before but my midwife believed that she might have a common bruise on her head that caused it to feel that way and not to worry. Anuhea was in fact frank breech, the most favorable positions for a breech baby to be in. Her feet were at her head like one of those beautiful sleeping baby pictures only without the crochet hat on. Her little bottom came as surprise to everyone except me as I’d been poking at for the last hour trying to help myself get to 10 cm. She presented butt first, my midwife helped her legs come through, and then, thankfully the rest of her made it’s entrance.

One of the big issues with a breech birth is that since their bottom is usually smaller than their head their head their head can get stuck on the way out. My little girl was born with a 15 inch bottom and 13 inch head, so no such problems occurred. Still, it was a shocker when my so called “first normal” labor turned into a breech birth, and I can tell you my hips are still work on adjusting. At the same time this is my third child, and the only one so far that has no strawberry marks on her face, she latched on perfectly, and is the only one who’s placenta just slipped out so easily I barely had to push.

I am not saying it was an easy birth, I am not saying it was without it’s moments of worry but every birth has it’s ups and downs and special moments, all three of mine have. What irks me is how often fear and stigma gets associated with a breech birth. The first midwife I interviewed when I was pregnant with my son told me flat out that she did NOT do breech, multiples, or a number of other issues I can not recall at the moment. When I told fellow mothers that I was going ahead with a homebirth with Milo they all looked at me like I was crazy and putting my child in harms way.

I happen to run a facebook page on natural parenting and birthing. It began for the purpose of introducing doula and midwife seekers to a list they connect with in Honolulu. Now it’s become more of an article database on birth, nursing, and parenting. It just so happens that less than a month ago I posted to different articles on breech births.

http://birthwithoutfearblog.com/2010/10/29/breech-babies-is-another-variation-of-normal/

and

http://www.naturalnews.com/030388_breech_babies_C-sections.html

The second article I particularly love because it debunks that myth that a c-section is the only answer to a breech birth. The truth is that while c-sections can be necessary in some very high risk positions of breech, c-sections carry their own array of complications and issues making a vaginal birth truly the safest method of deliver for a breech baby like mine. It is really interesting to me looking at my three beautiful homebirths because I can see in each one how a hospital situation could have crumbled very quickly into chaos and possible surgery. Thankfully I can look at my choices with pride because each child from my first with his cord around his neck to my most recent with her breech have come out safely and healthy in the peace and love of my home without the unnecessary trauma and intrusion that a hospital birth can bring.