Some have suggested that bedsharing and breastfeeding inherently go hand-in-hand. Some suggest it's simply a great tool for breastfeeding families. Two pieces of research attempt to examine this and I take a close look at both to determine what we can take home.
I've done it once, and it's time to do it again: Taking apart shitty research trying to claim home birth is inherently dangerous.
"I was in labor for three days (Thursday around noon until Sunday around noon) from the time I started having regular contractions about half an hour apart to the time our son was born. My contractions were 10-15 minutes apart for all but the first few hours. I had back labor. "
The primary argument in favour of unassisted birth is that we humans are also animals who instinctually know what to do to give birth and need no assistance from others in doing so. But for some, the thought of a woman birthing herself, without any help or back-up, is flat-out dangerous or irresponsible.
The following is an email sent to Professor Elizabeth Armstrong of Princeton University after she wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times on the use of formula in hospitals. I believe they both make wonderful points and hope more people consider all the factors that can help women and babies have the best start in life.
As many are aware, and many can contest to, child birth is an amazing part of life; that until you go through it yourself no one can tell you what it is going to be like, how it feels, or what to expect.
One of the things you hear regularly when women talk of the difficulties of breastfeeding is that it’s “not instinctual”, that we aren’t born knowing how to breastfeed a baby and it doesn’t come naturally with birth. The problem with this argument is that if breastfeeding were not instinctual at all, none of us would be here.
A wonderful story of loss and love.
How we come to parent our children is typically made up of myriad influences. This is the story of how I ended up a breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing, no toys, community-wistful mom. In other words, an evolutionary parent.
Part way through my pregnancy, I found out that my baby was breech. My options were a breach birth or a c-section. I chose a c-section.
