Responsible Parenthood: The Diaper Deal

I had two babies in diapers before I was 20. The hospital sent #2 home with several boxes of a nifty new product called “Pampers.” Disposable diapers the baby uses once before they go to the landfill to take up space for 500 years! I thought they were totally cool. Until I got home and tried to fit them on my newborn boy-child.

Perhaps first time mothers don’t know this, but there’s a difference between girl babies and boy babies. My girl had ample hips and chubby legs, never had a problem fitting diapers - cloth or disposables - on her. My boy’s little bottom end came to a point. No hips, spindly legs, and a pee mechanism that didn’t care which way it was pointed. This was before disposable manufacturers figured out that the gaping gaps around the legs weren’t particularly good at catching any of the products diapers traditionally are meant to catch and hold. My boy peed straight out of the leg hole more often than he ever caught the “super-absorbant” part. And he had diarrhea for 3 straight months…

So despite my initial reaction to the idea of disposable diapers, I quickly learned they were useless and went back to old fashioned cloth diapers. Which, despite having poked enough holes in my fingers to donate blood at the Red Cross, actually did work for the purpose diapers were invented to address.

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To Breast Feed or Not, That is the Question!

Back in the olden days when I was having babies breast feeding was frowned upon as something only poor people did. I don’t really know why, since my mother breast fed all five of us siblings and we turned out healthy enough. Of course, when I was having babies pediatricians also advised Moms to start feeding their infants solid food (cereals, fruit) at the ripe old age of 6 weeks, too.

In the years since then medical science has actually investigated how nature designed babies to be fed, and discovered that human breast milk in most circumstances is the very best thing a baby human could be getting in the way of nutrition. Almost as if they finally figured out that cow’s milk is for baby cows! What’ll they think of next?

In addition to being the most easily digested animal protein infants can get, breast milk also comes with antibodies that protect babies against diseases and allergies, and breast feeding generally doesn’t cause the baby to swallow air which leads to vomiting, upset stomach, and unhappy babies.

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Halloween Horrors: The Midwife-Witch

Birthing Options: Staying Home

Crone, noun
A wizened elderly woman. Feminine version of sage.

It’s Halloween, and since I happen to be a certifiable crone, I’ll begin this last chapter of the series on birthing options with some tales of witchcraft and bloody deeds of persecution that at one time threatened to eradicate the very existence of the ‘Medicine Women’ who traditionally attended the birth of new generations. The wise crones and grandmothers who tended the health, love lives and fertility of mothers, daughters and sisters back when the patriarchs of shamanism believed women to be chattel property like horses or goats, untouchable in their fertile ‘curse’ and dutifully banished from the household entirely for the duration of their menses.

It’s not a pretty history. From Witches, Midwives, and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English:

“Women have always been healers. They were the unlicensed doctors and anatomists of western history. They were abortionists, nurses and counsellors. They were pharmacists, cultivating healing herbs and exchanging the secrets of their uses. They were midwives, traveling from home to home and village to village. For centuries women were doctors without degrees, barred from books and lectures, learning from each other and passing on experience from neighbor to neighbor and mother to daughter. They were called “wise women” by the people, witches or charlatans by the authorities. Medicine is part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright.”

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Birthing Options: The Birthing Center

I talked a little bit about hospital birth in the last installment, so now it’s time to discuss another option - giving birth at an efficient, home-style “Birthing Center” attended by licensed midwives and with a physician or two as partners on call.

Again, it’s vitally important for a mother-to-be to receive frequent and committed prenatal care from a doctor or midwife trained to spot potential problems before they get too far along. It’s also important for expectant parents to commit themselves to a proven birth educational program, and I have recommended the one I am most familiar with - The Bradley System.

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Birthing Options: Weighing Alternatives

Option 1: Hospital Birth

In this and my next few posts I’ll be taking a look at some of the birthing options open to parents these days, along with statistical analysis of pros and cons for both mothers and infants. The first option is hospital birth.

To grandmothers (like me), it might seem odd to talk about hospital birth as an ‘option’, since back in ancient history when we were having our children, hospital births were the norm. Unless something strange happened - like giving birth in a taxi stuck in traffic, or in an elevator stuck between floors - almost everyone was born in a hospital.

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Guitar Greg and Cool Ass Mojo

Trial by Baby Naming

My younger daughter and her husband visited this past weekend from Indianapolis. She’s into her 4th month of pregnancy (her first), just getting over the serious morning sickness phase, needed some Mom-time. Which I was of course delighted to lavish on her, sympathizing with her queazy stomach and re-arranging innards, happy to whip up some colorful stir-fry, hummus, falafel and tabouli for pita sandwiches, anything that sounded good, that she thought she might be able to keep down.

She’s never been a happy morning person, so when her hubby mentioned how hard the last few months have been - a strain on their relationship as well as their income since they work together out of home - I wasn’t very sympathetic. Grandpa could take care of that chore. And he did.

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Setting Up The Rules

In my last post I talked about how important it is for expectant young parents to spend time talking with each other about their own childhoods, and what they thought their parents had done right and wrong. The better to come to mutual agreement on some of the things they will and will not do for their children.

In this post let’s look at some of the positive commitments sociologists and psychologists consider to be important for children and families. The issues for younger children usually have to do with rules, discipline and the ‘balance of power’ in the home.

1. Make your rules as simple as possible.
The adult world is complicated, even for adults. Young children need not to be faced with blatant contradictions when they’re trying to learn how to function in the world, so keep things simple and direct. You’ll inevitably have occasional exceptions, but it’s best to save them for after the kids have learned what the rules are.

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So You’ve Decided to Have a Family…

Part I: What Your Parents Did Wrong… and Right

Congratulations! Whether you planned to have a baby right now or were just pleasantly surprised by the next generation knocking on your life-door, now is a very good time to sit down with your partner and openly discuss some of the issues you’ll face as parents. Doesn’t matter if you have just one child, or plan to raise a whole brood. The decisions you make now about your parental roles will affect everyone in the family for better or worse.

Having a baby is just the beginning. As I’ve warned my youngest daughter struggling through morning sickness with her first baby. Raising the child entails a lot of planning and work that new parents often neglect to do before the babies come along. Sure, you can learn by experience - what we used to call the “School of Hard Knocks” - but who really wants to make big mistakes along the way that their children may suffer from?

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