Antithesis

painting by Shakaya Leone 

Antithesis

I am large in my skin
I make no apology
This belly grew a baby
Why should it be flat?
It curves with the memory of the womb.
These breasts fed a baby
Why should they be pert?
They swell with the memory of milk.
These hips carried a child
Why should they be slim?
They are full with the memory of life.
My bones are secret under flesh
My skin plump and white and fine
Mine is the face of Botticelli
Mine is the water of the Nile
Mine is the shape of things forbidden
Daughter of Gaia, grown beautiful and wild.

~ Lorri Barrier

Background drawing, "Fertility Goddess" by Bonnie Peacher

available for purchase at Fine Art America

 Mothers growing babies, you are welcome to join:

The Birthing Group (more holistic): FB.com/groups/Birthing
Pregnant Moms Due this year (more mainstream): FB.com/groups/DueDateGroup

For parents striving to raise children in a positive manner:

Peaceful Parenting Group: FB.com/groups/ExplorePeacefulParenting

Thank you, Mommy

Sleeping Babies Need Mom Beside Them

By Dr. James J. McKenna,
University of Notre Dame Mother-Baby Sleep Laboratory

Painting by Gioia Albano

Throughout human history, breast-feeding mothers sleeping alongside their infants constituted a marvelously adaptive system in which both the mothers' and infants' sleep physiology and health were connected in beneficial ways. By sleeping next to its mother, the infant receives protection, warmth, emotional reassurance, and breast milk - in just the forms and quantities that nature intended.

This sleeping arrangement permits mothers (and fathers) to respond quickly to the infant if it cries, chokes, or needs its nasal passages cleared, its body cooled, warmed, caressed, rocked or held. This arrangement thus helps to regulate the infant's breathing, sleep state, arousal patterns, heart rates and body temperature. The mother's proximity also stimulates the infant to feed more frequently, thus receiving more antibodies to fight disease. The increased nipple contact also causes changes in the mother's hormone levels that help to prevent a new pregnancy before the infant is ready to be weaned. In this way, the infant regulates its mother's biology, too; increased breast-feeding blocks ovulation, which helps to ensure that pregnancies will not ordinarily occur until the mother's body is able to restore the fat and iron reserves needed for optimal maternal health.

It is a curious fact that in Western societies the practice of mothers, fathers and infants sleeping together came to be thought of as strange, unhealthy and dangerous. Western parents are taught that "co-sleeping" will make the infant too dependent on them, or risk accidental suffocation. Such views are not supported by human experience worldwide, however, where for perhaps millions of years, infants as a matter of course slept next to at least one caregiver, usually the mother, in order to survive. At some point in recent history, infant separateness with low parental contact during the night came to be advocated by child care specialists, while infant-parent interdependence with high parental contact came to be discouraged. In fact, the few psychological studies which are available suggest that children who have "co-slept" in a loving and safe environment become better adjusted adults than those who were encouraged to sleep without parental contact or reassurance.

The fear of suffocating infants has a long and complex cultural history. Since before the middle ages "overlying" or suffocating infants deliberately was common, particularly among the poor in crowded cities. This form of infanticide led local church authorities to make laws forbidding parents to let infants sleep next to them. The practice of giving infants alcohol or opiates to get them to sleep also became common; under such conditions, babies often did not wake up, and it was presumed that the mothers must have overlaid them. Also, in smoke-filled, under-ventilated rooms, infants can easily succumb to asphyxia. Unfortunately, health officials in some Western countries promote the message that sleep contact between the mother and infant increases the chances of the infant dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). But the research on which this message is based only indicates that bed-sharing can be dangerous when it occurs in the context of extreme poverty or when the mother is a smoker. Some researchers have attempted to export this message to other cultures. However, in Japan, for example, where co-sleeping is the norm, SIDS rates are among the lowest in the world, which suggests that this arrangement may actually help to prevent SIDS.

Human infants need constant attention and contact with other human beings because they are unable to look after themselves. Unlike other mammals, they cannot keep themselves warm, move about, or feed themselves until relatively late in life. It is their extreme neurological immaturity at birth and slow maturation that make the mother-infant relationship so important. The human infant's brain is only about 25% of its adult weight at birth, whereas most other mammals are born with 60-90% of their adult brain size. The young of most other mammals become independent of their parents within a year, whereas humans take 14 to 17 years to become fully developed physically, and usually longer than that to be fully independent.

Apart from being a natural characteristic of our species, constant proximity to the mother during infancy is also made necessary by the need to feed frequently. Human milk is composed of relatively low amounts of protein and fat, and high amounts of quickly absorbed and metabolized sugars. Therefore the infant's hunger cycle is short, as is the time spent in deep sleep. All of these factors seem to indicate that the custom of separating infants from their parents during sleep time is more the result of cultural history than of fundamental physiological or psychological needs. Sleep laboratory studies have shown that bed-sharing, instead of sleeping in separate rooms, almost doubled the number of breast-feeding episodes and tripled the total nightly duration of breast-feeding. Infants cried much less frequently when sleeping next to their mothers, and spent less time awake. We think that the more frequently infants are breast-fed, the less likely they are to die from cot death.

Our scientific studies of mother and infants sleeping together have shown how tightly bound together the physiological and social aspects of the mother-infant relationship really are. Other studies have shown that separation of the mother and infant has adverse consequences. Anthropological considerations also suggest that separation between the mother and infant should be minimal. Western societies must consider carefully how far and under what circumstances they want to push infants away from the loving and protective co-sleeping environment. Infants' nutritional, emotional and social needs as well as maternal responses to them have evolved in this environment for millennia.

Dr. James J. McKenna is a Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Center for Behavioral Studies of Mother-Infant Sleep, Notre Dame University. This article first appeared in the March-April 1996 issue of "World Health", the journal of the World Health Organization.

Science of Sharing Sleep Resources

Mother's Day: A Baby-Saving Gift to Honor Mom

Celebrate the special mom in your life this Mother's Day by giving a powerful baby-saving gift in her honor. With your donation to Saving Our Sons, your mom will receive an email telling her that you gave in her name, and be mailed a special card and keep-sake Baby-Saving Mom magnet (as well as a few intact info cards for her to share). One lucky mom from among those honored will also win a $25.00 Amazon gift card (drawn at random on Mother's Day).

In addition, all are invited to share a photo of the baby-saving mom you know, with some words about what makes her fabulous, and we'll add your Mother's Day wishes to our Baby Saving Moms album on Facebook. [Email this to SavingSons@gmail.com]

Saving Our Sons donations in the following amounts help to cover important efforts each week: 

$20 - One expecting mother/family - materials that are sent in the form of an info pack, DVD, book, and being connected with a local resource

$25 - Five small 'Expecting?' information packages designed to introduce new families-to-be to a variety of baby-friendly subjects, including intact info

$40 - Ten 'Don't Retract' physicians' packs mailed to clinicians who are known to have forcibly retracted (and/or encouraged improper care) in the past 8 weeks.

$50 - Stocking supplies needed for 1/2 an intact info booth at a baby/maternity expo, family fair, or health conference

$60 - Materials for one expecting family AND  ten 'don't retract' packs to clinicians

$75 - Stocking of 1/2 an intact expo booth AND five 'Expecting' information packs to new families

$80 - Professionally made signs for genital autonomy demonstrations (browse past events: http://www.drmomma.org/2007/04/expos-events.html and find upcoming events: https://www.facebook.com/SavingOurSons/events)

$100 - Stocking of all materials needed for one baby, maternity or health expo booth, where information and resources are shared with hundreds of attendees

$150 - Booth entrance fees for one mid-sized exposition (ensuring an intact info booth is able to be established at baby, maternity, family and health fairs across the United States and internationally; See all Saving Our Sons local Intact Chapters leading expo booths: http://www.savingsons.org/p/local-chapters.html)

$300 - Booth entrance fees for one large-sized exposition (baby, maternity, and family state-wide fairs, health conferences)

For mailing to the mom in your life, include:

• her name
• her email address
• her mailing address [Note: If you'd prefer to forgo mailing items, and only send a digital card, include an email address only.]
• select the Pink Orchids or Green Zen card
• select the Baby Feet or Baby Legs magnet

Include the above information in a note with your donation to Saving Our Sons, or email to SavingSons@gmail.com 

Email will be sent on Mother's Day morning (Sunday, May 10th) to all mothers whose addresses are received by midnight 5.9.15. Parcels will ship immediately and may take 2-5 business days to arrive depending on distance from New York.

Pink Orchid Card (above)

Green Zen Card (below)

Baby Feet Magnet (above) 

(include a note with your choice)

Baby Legs Magnet (below)

Back side of all cards includes an informative selection of facts and helpful sites: 

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Need to drop a suggestion to your loved ones? Grab any of the images below to post with a link to this page for sharing.

And THANK YOU for saving babies.