Postpartum Support

"I would love to rest after I have my baby, but I don't have any family around, so I have to jump right back into my daily activities."

"I know other moms need rest after having a baby, but I really need activity to feel good. I start exercising a couple weeks after my baby was born. I did fine with it." 

"I didn't make enough milk for my baby. I had to supplement when she/he was 2 weeks old."

We may have all heard these statements at one time or another. Maybe we said them even, ourselves. 

I know when I had my first baby, I was so pumped up to be done with being pregnant, I was on top of the world. I was sore, didn't feel amazing all the time, but I felt much better than when I was pregnant. I got up and made an apple pie a few days after giving birth. I wanted a pie, and since I felt good, I thought I would do it. 

When I finished, there was a heavy feeling in my legs and my lower abdomen. I felt like I was going to vomit. I finished the pie, and on wobbly legs made my way to bed without eating any. I was so sick feeling. 

I realized later, just because you feel great, doesn't mean you are great. Postpartum, when we take care of yourself, you will feel much better than you might otherwise.  

There are many good things in life, when we are in good or decent health. Exercise is one those things. It can improve your health many times. 

However, after a woman gives birth, no matter how fit she was before she gave birth, is not one of those times. 

Every single woman that gives birth has the same basic things that happen to her. Some women have more complications and others less complications. But we all have a uterus stretched out to about 38-42+ cm. We all have a placenta that is about the size of a small dinner plate at least attached to us. When we give birth, the uterus undergoes a dramatic seize change, the placenta is detached, which leaves a wound that has to heal. The uterus, suspended from our round ligaments, suddenly is decreased in size. Those ligaments need time to not have a heavy ball (the uterus), bouncing around on the end of them like bungie cables. 

1. Take time to rest. Rest will help you to be able to get back to your activities in a healthy manner. If you do not rest, but expend energy into things like exercise, even basic daily activities, in those first ten days to two weeks, your body will have to draw from somewhere else. This means, generally the things that the body first believes to be expendable. Teeth, breastmilk,  and the like are not life threatening if it pulls from those. It believes you must be threatened, if you are expending that much energy after just having a baby. So, it pulls from your bones, your teeth, your milk can decrease or just not come in like it should. Remember to take the time to protect your lifelong health and rest for ten days to two weeks after birth. 
2. Nourish your body. We can get caught in a trap of regaining our figures, right from the very get go after a birth. We are trying to replenish blood, fluids, make milk that is nourishing for our little one if we are breastfeeding, fight infection, make immunities for our new one, and give ourselves strength, just to wake up. It is a lot of work to grow a baby, both inside and out. Even if you are not breastfeeding, you have a lot of work to do to heal yourself. Give yourself good food, and enough of it. Green leafy vegetables, protein, whole grains, healthy fats and lots of fluids without caffeine and sugar are important. If you want to drop pounds, skip the sugar out of anything, but focus on good nutrition. Let your body heal from the inside out. If you are not taking the time to be nourished, you will not be able to recover. You will not be able to be the best mother to your child(ren) and take care of yourself. 
3. Take Help. If someone offers you a meal, to do laundry, or says, "Let me know if you need anything." Please take them up on it. They may be shocked or surprised, but it will help you and you might end up with a closer friend. I know many people do not have anyone that will offer for that, which I feel is very sad, but I totally relate. I had babies without a community around that was helpful on a daily basis, and it is a lonely existence. I highly encourage you, in your pregnancy, to seek out your community beforehand so you have support after birth. If you do not have it in a community, hire some or see if there are resources you can take advantage of  that are not too extending financially. Do not take advantage of others, by expecting a maid service for nothing. But if you have no help, plan on hiring a housecleaner twice in the first two weeks. It will cost about $40-80, depending on who and how long you hire them for. I have seen housecleaners that charge $15 an hour even that do a wonderful job. But when all else fails, remember that your family will not die eating PB and J sandwiches every day, unless they are allergic. They will be filled and fine to do that for two weeks. They may complain, but it is okay to do what you can do and not do the rest. 
4. Don't go back to normal. Normal is overrated. It is really not what you should be doing or planning on doing for at least 4-6 weeks. It is a process that you will work back up to. Give yourself time. Don't rush back to mommy and me class, going to the grocery store or if you are a church goer, back to church. Give yourself time. Check if any places in your area offer a click and pull grocery option. See if a friend can stop and pick up milk, eggs, bread, lunch meat and apples for you. It will not only protect you from the germs that are out and about, but it will tell people that you need help. You need their support and they can feel more free to offer it. 

Postpartum can be a difficult season. But with some planning and careful info on why you are taking care of yourself still, it can help you with your long term health goals. It can also help reduce the risk of postpartum depression or severe baby blues when we care for ourselves in this way.

This post, written by a talented blogger, also shares some good preparation for the postpartum period as well that you might find helpful. "Preparing for Postpartum"

I hope this gives you some hope about the postpartum season. If there was something that really helped you postpartum, would you like to share that with us? We would love to hear it! 

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What do all the titles mean? CIO, AP, etc? What is the Big Deal???

If you are a mother now, you will soon realize that there are all sorts of debates, here or there that many mothers get into. Most mothers want what is best for their babies. But there are some that will go by what their mother taught them, they read in a book or on the internet and ignore any new research. Why? It worked for their relatives, the book people and plus, it sounds great.

This could pertain to anything from baby wearing to breastfeeding. I heard one mom claim that attachment parenting was a fad, a new fad, in fact. She was actually using biblical reasons for forgoing this "fad".

I would love to actually discuss and bring to the forefront that actually, some of the other parenting methods are the fads. The key components of attachment parenting have been around long before this century. I think that the idea AP is coming back around is more because it is what was done and is still done in many countries around the world. I used to stare at the foreign women that lived in the city, where I lived, trying to figure out how they kept that young child on their backs. I worked hard, outside on a piece of land, and had no place to set my baby down that was safe and longed for a way to safely wear him, just to keep him safe.

Baby wearing has been around since bible times. So has bed sharing. If you go to any historical forts and look at their sleeping arrangements, you will find that most pioneers and in history people were not as finicky about room and bed sharing as we are as spoiled Americans that believe we "need" our privacy. It didn't effect their marriage relationships too much. I think they had to use their imaginations a bit more. I have been in old cabins where there was one bed, very large bed above the oven for the whole family. Sometimes that included the grandparents as well.

This is not a fad. Much of it is going back to the roots of society.

However, I believe that above all, you need to make sure to check your heart in all things. But just because you have a wrong heart attitude about something, doesn't make it something wrong to do. I remember a mother telling me that she felt sewing had become an idol for her, so she was going to stop doing it. At that time, their family had no money, she had boxes of fabric and her children were wearing very worn out clothes. She chose to let them wear the worn clothing because she felt she had to give up her idol of sewing. I struggled with being obsessed with cooking. I remember thinking about it when my friend gave up sewing that perhaps I should step back from cooking. I immediately checked myself! I needed to change my heart attitude, not what I was doing. The same with attachment parenting...which was named by modern society. If your heart is not right about it, change it. But it doesn't make the actions of it wrong.

You want to battle it out?

There are plenty of mothers that will battle it out for you! Put 'em up!

Sleep training and the actual definition of the term "Cry-it-out" can bring up a lot of interesting thoughts. In 1985, Dr. Richard Ferber wrote a book about getting your babies to sleep. New mothers loved some of his ideas as it was formed to give them more sleep. His idea was that you can teach your babies to soothe themselves to sleep, rather than the traditional rocking the baby to sleep. This article from BabyCenter explains some of the ideas contained in the book. Here is another article by the author himself...The Truth about Ferberizing

Society was changing from the '70's where it went to some of the earth loving, peace loving, freedom society and parents were realizing that they were having to work two jobs, mothers didn't have time to cook, rock babies and they just were mostly too busy for it all. Ferberizing gave them the freedom to lay down the baby, ignore it, check to make sure he was okay occasionally, but mostly, you let the baby cry until he realized you were not coming for him, he gave up and went to sleep. This method is portrayed to work on every child, if done right.

However, Dr. Ferber has said that he did not agree with this (letting the child cry to no end). But still, much of what is in his book is still widely used by parents today, usually the ones that are sleep deprived, but occasionally, the selfish parent that is just done with the child.

I discovered in my research that some of Dr. Ferber's ideas were actually based on a book from the late 1800's. It is available on Gutenburg for free, if you are interested in reading it. The Care and Feeding of Children by L. Emmett Holt, M.D., LL.D.

The book is very interesting, but most of us would shudder in horror at what was advanced thinking at that time in child care and feeding. Yet, he was trying to encourage society for the best. This was addressing a more formal society, not the tribeswoman or pioneers that wore their babies, slept in a common room and breastfeeding was just second nature.

Many people will look back on past methods and claim "Those babies survived. My grandparents survived drinking cows milk at the age of 3 months, being aired outside in cages, and the like. Why can we say that it is not healthy now?" We have to look at the statistics as well. Infant mortality was much higher as well with this type of diets. Women gave birth to babies that were smaller, had faster deliveries often, but also lost a lot of children. It is common to also read books and families would have 2-4 living children, but gave birth to 8-10.

This is a book on infant mortality as far as it related to the occupation of the mother. Infant Mortality and It's relation to the employment of mothers.

If you read book that was by Jennifer Worth, the woman that wrote the books which inspired the "Call the Midwife" TV series. The books detail in very clear pictures, the issues that faced society, not all that long ago, where they were pushing some of the regimented schedules, feedings, and lack of care that women and children faced.

When we are evaluating a parenting style for ourself or others, let's be careful to look at a complete picture. Are we moving forward or going backward? Are we simply cycling around? Is baby-wearing a fad or something that promotes healthier babies for convenience?

When we seek info on a parenting decision, do we simply look to the internet for opinion based posts, or do we look to science based posts? Do we evaluate our decision based on society or what is really best for our own individual child?

Be careful not to parent through emotion, religious ideals or even sleep deprivation. Make sure to evaluate daily what we are doing for our children as they grow.

When things don't go as planned.....

Pregnancy is one of those times when things just cannot be controlled or even predicted. The simple things like whether the baby will be a boy or a girl, where the placenta is attached or even how you carry the baby are not things you can predict.
There are many of us that are planners, we make a plan and expect to be able to follow it.
I have seen many moms who are thrown for a loop by unexpected loops that come to them through pregnancy, and one of the best things you can do for yourself, is prepare for the unexpected!

Ask yourself some questions, what if something that is unexpected happens? How would I like it handled?
Some topics might have to do with the baby's position. What if the baby is breech, posterior, or just an abnormal positioning that causes a long labor? What kind of interventions would you want made in this case?
If your baby was born early, what kind of things would you like in place?

Of course, you do not want to stress over "What if's", but just sort of contemplate them, let someone know, write it down and let it go. I have seen mothers who have had some sudden complications that led them to an early delivery that they had not even thought about, and it is hard (and still, even if you prepared for it, would be hard) to wrap your mind about everything and if you never considered it, is even harder.

Educating yourself on many topics so you know why you want to do something.
Do you want pain medication in labor? If your baby is not positioned the way he should be, your labor may be longer than you might think, would you want to be offered pain medication then? What types do you absolutely not want to take?
If you were going to end up having to have a c-section after a long labor, who would you want to stay with the baby and would you want someone to stay with you while they finish up the surgery?
What types of medication are okay for a breastfeeding baby? It is always advisable to check even on doctors as sometimes they forget too, they are only human!

I know many mothers feel that when things do not go "normal" or according to plan, they can feel that they have somehow failed. This could not be further from the truth! I think this is one reason it is important to have a good support system around you, before, during and after birth to make sure you know that there is always the unexpected in pregnancy and delivery.
It is the normal part of the abnormal!!!

So, prepare for the unexpected, let someone know, even if it is just on a piece of paper, and then relax and enjoy your pregnancy.