Spit-up On My Shoulder

There’s a great article in the December 2009 issue of O Magazine about the depression that adoptive parents can feel once their child comes home. These parents are often feeling conflicting emotions. As the article states, “the joy of adopting coincides with lingering grief over a lengthy battle of infertility. What’s more, conspicuous differences between adopted children and their parents or siblings may elicit unwelcome attention from strangers.”

Another important point of the article is that adoptive parents don’t feel free to complain or admit that they are struggling, as people expect them to only be grateful. This leads to the parent not sharing their feelings and shutting down, or experiencing guilt for having the feelings at all.

A reference book on this topic is The Post-Adoption Blues: Overcoming the Unforeseen Challenges of Adoption by Dr. Karen Foli.

You can also click here for an article from Suite 101 on post-adoption depression (PADS). The article states that up to 65% of adoptive parents are affected.

The latest stroller recall is from Maclaren strollers.

From Yahoo! News:

“This recall doesn’t just involve one specific Maclaren model. Stop using any single- or double-umbrella stroller with Maclaren written on it, says the Consumer Protection Safety Commission. The problem: Maclaren received reports that 12 children had their fingertips amputated after they placed their fingers in the hinge where the stroller folds.”

Yikes! Amputated fingertips? No wonder parents are steaming mad about this one. To read the whole article go to this link.

Here’s to keeping you and your children safe.

Check out this short interview with Ginger Garner, MPT, ATC, ERYT
The topic: Ms. Garner, a Mother, Educator, Author, Blogger, Physical Therapist and Yoga Practitioner Talks About Childbirth in America, and Why It Needs to Change

Go to this link

Enjoy!

I love this excerpt from the Mother Nurture newsletter. Please do your best to nurture yourself during this crazy holiday season. I wish all the best to you and your family in the new year. Thank you for all your support throughout the year and for visiting my blog.

Melanie

Swimming Upstream

“When I think back to my own mom, she always seemed so on top of things. I feel dismayed and guilty that I’m not handling things as well and feel a lot more frazzled than she seemed to be.”

We’ve heard this comment from many mothers, and it’s both poignant and sadly unfair to the women who feel this way, since times have changed so dramatically. In response, we’d like to offer this excerpt from our book Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Jan Hanson, Lac., Ricki Pollycove, M.D.

* * *

Let’s step back for a minute and look at how we got here. During more than 99% of the time that humans (or our close ancestors) have lived on this planet, mothers raised families in small groups of hunter-gatherers. If you had been among them, your life would have moved at the speed of a walk while you provided for your needs and fulfilled your ambitions with a child on your hip or nearby. You would have eaten fresh and organic foods saturated in micro-nutrients and breathed air and drunk water free of artificial chemicals.

Most important of all, you would have spent much of your day with other mothers, surrounded by a supportive community of relatives, friends, and neighbors. These are the conditions to which your body and mind are adapted for raising children.

Unfortunately, while the essential activities of mothering–pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, worrying and planning and loving with all your heart–have not altered one bit, our world has changed profoundly, and evolution hasn’t had time to catch up. You and we are genetically identical to the first modern humans of 200,000 years ago, and nearly identical to our earliest tool-using ancestors, who lived over two million years ago.

Nonetheless, at odds with this basic genetic blueprint, most mothers today must rush about stressfully, constantly juggling and multi-tasking. Few modern jobs can be done with young children around, so working means spending much of the day separated from your kids and the stresses of the unnatural schedule and pace they must then handle affect them in ways that naturally spill over onto you.

Compared to our ancestors, most of us eat much fewer vegetables and whole foods, and much more white flour, sugar, and artificial chemicals, and we can’t help absorbing some of the billions of pounds of toxins released into the environment each year, which even leave traces in breast milk. The so-called village it takes to raise a child usually looks more like a ghost town, so you have to rely more on your mate than did mothers in times past, but he, too, is strained by the unprecedented busyness and intensity of modern life.

If you feel like you’re swimming upstream, it’s because raising children was not meant to be this way. Many of the problems that seem purely personal or marital actually start on the other side of your front door.

Of course, the world is not going to change back to the time of the hunter-gatherers (and we’d miss refrigerators and telephones too much if it did!). And those times certainly had their own difficulties, such as famine or disease. But, like every mother, you can’t help but feel the impact of the whirlwind we’re all living in. Just how you’re affected is as individual as a baby’s footprint.

Some mothers are fortunate to have low demands, substantial resources, and low vulnerabilities. All too often, however, the demands are high, resources are low, and resilience gets worn down: a mother’s “cupboard” gets emptied out and shaken and it’s an uphill struggle to get anything back in. No wonder that, over time, some signs of wear begin to show.

That’s why we think it’s so important you and every mother to take active steps to lower her stresses and increase her resources: that’s mother nurture.

Check out this list of 92 (yes, 92!) ways for moms to save their sanity. The author is Carrie Todd, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in therapy for new moms. Her office is in Benicia, California.

Carrie also has a newsletter for moms called Motherhood Muse. Go to this link to sign up for a free subscription.

Here are some of my favorites from the 92 tips:

21. Bathroom time – When you have a baby, you are vigilant about her all the time. You take her in the bathroom with you while you shower. The bathroom door is always open and privacy is a thing of the past. I want to suggest that you teach your kids early on that your time in the bathroom belongs to you. This is not to protect your modesty, but to protect your sanity. This does not mean that you should ignore problems or be completely unavailable, but it does mean that you might get 10 minutes to yourself without being interrupted for snack requests and announcements about the letter of the day.

76. Be honest about your feelings – What is really going on inside your heart and head? Are you living the best life you can? Are you happy? What needs to change? Take time to check-in with yourself and figure out how you feel. Without taking the time to do this we are all in danger of becoming a little “Stepford Wife-ish.” That is to say we may all become robot mamas who continue to say that everything is “fine” when things are most definitely not fine. Stay connected to how you feel. It informs you. If you are angry most of the time, or sad, or numb, it is a clue that something needs to change. Use your emotions to guide you (but not rule you.) When emotion and intellect are used together you become wise.

Enjoy the list and stay sane.

Great info from Mother Nurture:

It’s common for a mom to be lying awake in bed while her baby or toddler is snoozing blissfully. Unfortunately, low quantity and poor quality (= depth) of sleep erode a mother’s health and well-being, and give her a strong shove down the slippery slope toward depression.

Getting plenty of good sleep is a crucial aspect of replenishing oneself and preventing depletion. Happily, there are plenty of good methods:

• Try to reduce caffeine overall, eat dinner early, avoid late night chocolate (it contains a caffeine-like substance), and restrict alchohol (which relaxes you at first but then can keep you awake).

• Do everything possible to lower stress. Cortisol hormone normally rises in the morning to prepare you for the activities of the day, but, with too much stress, this hormone will kick into gear extra early, waking you at three or four a.m. (You can also test cortisol pretty inexpensively to see if this is happening to you.)

• In the hour before bedtime, do relaxing activities like listening to music, meditating, doing yoga, taking a bath, singing to your baby, etc. Avoid arguments with your children or mate.

• If your mind is worrying or obsessing, try writing down your concerns and promising yourself you’ll do what’s possible to deal with them in the morning. Or extend compassion toward yourself or toward the people you are worrying about.

• Relax your body by imagining your hands are very warm, progressively relaxing each part of your body, or imagining you are in a very peaceful setting.

• Make sure you are getting enough magnesium and calcium, both of which are needed for sleep. The Daily Value (DV) of them is 320 milligrams (mg) and 1000 mg, respectively. You could try a slightly higher dose, 500 and 1200 mg respectively.

Mother Nurture is: Rick Hanson, a clinical psychologist, and Jan Hanson, an acupuncturist/nutritionist. With Ricki Pollycove, M.D., they are the authors of Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships. You can email them with questions or comments at info@nurturemom.com. Unfortunately, a personal reply may not always be possible.

A Scientific American article published October 23rd links depression in pregnant women with premature births. According to the article, new research shows that “pregnant women with symptoms of depression are twice as likely to deliver their babies early as those who don’t show signs of sadness.”

Since it is estimated that more than 40 percent of pregnant women report having depressive symptoms, the importance of diagnosis and treatment for depressed pregnant women is vital. Pre-term delivery is the leading cause of infant illness and death.

“Depression during pregnancy needs to be paid attention to and brought to the forefront of prenatal care,” study author, De-Kun Li says, “but the treatment doesn’t have to be medication. The safety of antidepressants during pregnancy is still an unsettled question. For minor [depression], all they probably need is to be getting emotional and physical support from their spouse and family.”

Click here to enjoy an entry from a blog at The Dollar Stretcher.

The writer, Meghan Whitmer, shares lots of tips on how she saved money while expecting, along with what she wishes she’d done differently. In these tight times, every bit helps!

This recent posting in an issue of American Baby made me gasp. We often let my youngest daughter, Linda, sleep in her car seat as an infant because she slept so well there. Little did we know that, according to this new information, we were increasing Linda’s risk of SIDS.

From the September 2008 issue of American Baby:

We know that belly sleeping increases the risk of SIDS. But now scientists in Montreal say that spending lots of time in the sitting position is also a risk factor. After studying 409 unexplained deaths of babies 12 months and younger occurring in Quebec between 1991 and 2000, they found that ten babies died in car seats.

When an infant sits for long stretches, his heavy head flops forward, possibly obstructing his airway. Experts at First Candle, the leading SIDS organization in the United States, recommend you use sitting devices only when your baby is awake and supervised. If he falls asleep, remove him immediately and place him on his back on a firm, flat surface.

An article appeared in the Sacramento Bee yesterday, September 12th, that I wanted to share with you. It’s about 79-year-old nurse, Doris Wogec, who helps new moms learn to breastfeed.

Wogec could retire, but she continues to work because she loves it so much. If we could all be so lucky to find a calling that we love and that makes such a difference! Enjoy the article.