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Sunday, November 17, 2013

Mashing the Baby Food Myth

I went to a baby shower once and was mortified to hear the other mothers talking about how hard it was to feed their babies balanced meals of baby food and eight bottles of water a day, in addition to bottles of breastmilk they pumped at work, like they were miniature adults. These were tiny babies of 3-4 months. Where did their moms get the idea that babies should have the same diet as adults, just mashed up? Babies don't need baby food. I can't tell you the specific sources that contributed to this revelation because I read so many things, but at some point I realized that there is no biological reason for the baby food aisle to exist.

Breastmilk is complete nutrition for babies. No buts. In fact, if you supplement with other foods, you will be giving your baby less nutrition and their feeling of fullness will reduce their inclination to nurse, subsequently reducing your supply. It has all the nutrients, proteins, and all the water they need for six months.

What it doesn't have is much iron. Babies are born with enough in their systems to last about six months.  Then they need a little extra. This is the point when doctors offer supplements. I tend to think that supplements should be saved for when things are really wrong. If the drop in iron is normal, there must be a natural solution. Fortunately, this is also the point when their little pincher grasp develops, showing that they are ready to eat Cheerios and raisins cut in half. You cut the raisins in half because you don't want to see them come out the other end rehydrated. Mix them together in a Tupperware snack cup and keep it in the diaper bag for snacking. They won't need that much to bring their iron levels up. They have tiny little bodies.

Aside from that, eating in the first year is more about the sensory and social experiences. That scene with the baby being fed baby food in the high chair in the kitchen, before everyone else comes to dinner, should never happen. Sitting down with the family is essential to their social development. Bits of soft food from the table, or food cut small enough to prevent choking, provide new sensory experiences that help their oral sensitivity to taste and texture develop. Baby food, even home made baby food, doesn't really do this. They use their fingers to eat at first, then experiment with spoons. Babies can even be trained directly to regular cups at this point if someone helps them take sips of water. Since they should still be primarily breast feeding, there should be no nutritional concerns about whether they're getting enough of anything. And no pressure to finish what you prepare for them.

Gradually, what they eat at the table will increase, and the amount of breastmilk they take will decrease until a smooth transition off of the breast can be made. When I had to stop nursing my first at 18 months, before she was ready, the pain of engorgement was excruciating. When I transitioned my second at 18 months, she was already mostly done with me and I had no engorgement at all. The surgeon general recommends at least one year of breast feeding, but if you think of the cessation of breast feeding as a transition to regular food, it could be much later than that. You'll know when your baby is ready because their interest in breast feeding wanes and they can be easily distracted from it by the offer of other foods.

So, why does that baby food aisle exist? Because women with newborns are vulnerable to marketing. Especially any marketing that implies baby needs something. Because we don't understand our bodies well enough to be confident in our ability to nourish our own babies, they can wedge their marketing messages into the tiny cracks in our self confidence and pry them wide open. Remember that Nestlé convinced women in Africa that formula was superior to breastmilk, and their babies started dying from contaminates in the available water supply they used to mix it with. These companies don't care about infant nutrition. They care about sales. Balanced meals of organic non-gmo gluten free baby food, are still inferior nutrition to continued breastfeeding. Even though you know that, their commercials will make you cry. They've perfected their tactics. You might have to enlist your partner's support in helping you resist. They're not as hormonally involved.

Just because breastfeeding is natural, that doesn't mean it's always easy. Most women need some help getting started. That's not some freak change that has only occurred recently. Women five hundred years ago needed help too. They just got it from their mothers and grandmothers rather than from lactation specialists and nurses. It will absorb your life in the beginning, but what's a year given over to the maternal process?

Apparently, that is asking too much of most women. I would estimate that about ninety percent of the issues I've seen women have with breast feeding come down to stress over trying to be and do other things during that critical time in their child's development. American women are under way to much pressure to get back to "normal" after having a baby. Statistically, seventy percent of those who begin breast feeding will give up after six weeks, and ninety percent by three months. If it gets too hard there's always formula. The problem is that breastmilk is not just about nutrition.

Studies in the last decade suggest that emotional development begins in utero where the baby is exposed to the same hormones that the mother's emotional reactions to life flood her body with. That emotions, to some chemical extent, travel through the blood stream and cross the placenta. That a rich emotional environment in utero helps brain development. This continues through breast feeding, where those same hormones are present in the milk supply.

Any mother who has breastfed can tell you that if they're stressed, baby is stressed. If they're stimulated, baby is hyper. If mom can keep calm and happy, baby will be more calm and happy. Colic is self perpetuating in that it stresses mom out and begins a spiral of stressed milk, stressed baby, more stressed mom. Sometimes, she can break that cycle by stepping back and being intentional about calming herself for a prolonged period. But that takes time, and giving yourself over to that maternal process.

It can be hard. Really, really, really hard sometimes. And I would never want any woman to feel bad about giving up. I get it. I've spent a total of 5.5 years breast feeding my four daughters and I know the struggle. I know that I had a great deal more support to do so than many women have in our modern age. But I've heard women say, "why bother when they're going to be on baby food in six months?" I want women to understand that baby food is a modern marketing invention. They don't need to spend a fortune on it any more than they do formula. Their bodies are more than adequate. They were made to nourish their children for much longer than they probably think. And that the emotional symbiosis and physical connection are more important factors than they may realize.

Please don't feel bad about it if you were unable to breastfeed your children. We can only ever move forward. I think sometimes I only managed to continue out of sheer stubbornness. But I firmly believe that any woman can breastfeed if she gets the proper support. That providing that support should be important to all of us for public health reasons. That we need to give women in our society permission to just be moms for a full year if we want a physically and emotionally healthier population in the future.

We are rather unique among developed nations in the pressure we place on new moms to return to the normal life they had before giving birth. Having children changes us and we need time to define a new normal. More women, strong enough to resist the marketing that says products are as as good as parents, strong enough to speak out and say we need support and we need time and space to be mothers, will be the agents for this much needed change in our culture. I'm going to be one of them. Will you join me?

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Honor vs. Insecurity

"There is one thing a man can always do, and that is his duty." - Mr. Knightly, Jane Austen's "Emma"

An honorable man will always choose his wife and children over his family of origin. But a confident woman would never make her husband cut off his first family.  She knows he draws strength from his roots.

An insecure woman wants a weak husband, so she uproots him and pots him in a place she can control. She uses manipulation to get what she wants because she doesn't trust his love for her. Often this stems from feelings of unworthiness. But her success doesn't satisfy her insecurity because she can't trust a man whom she can manipulate into cutting off his family, not to be manipulated by some future competitor into cutting her off.

Young men are drawn to insecure women because as long as she needs his affirmation she will make him feel important; feel strong. But he becomes insecure, worried about what she will do if he opposes her in any way. It's like the mythical call of the sirens that draws sailors from their ships only to be dashed against the rocks.

Like Odysseus' wife, a wise woman is not afraid to test her husband. She knows it is better to find out for certain in the beginning whether her heart can safely trust him. Then she can be the confident woman. Then she can have a genuinely strong husband.

She will not fear his connections to the past but nurture them. His whole family, and all who see, will honor her. Because she is an honorable woman.

From a broader cultural perspective, this is why men should support equality for women in every area. They should want a culture that raises strong confident women because strong confident partners will make them stronger too.

In the church, people excuse this exclusionary behavior towards family of origin with the verse that says "for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife." As if there is any acceptable Christian reason for completely rejecting anybody, much less your father and mother, whom you were first commanded to honor. The joining, or cleaving as it's called in other verses, is meant to be the central priority, not the only priority. The first responsibility, not the last. It is a very poor view of your partner's love to think that if anybody else gets some there won't be enough for you. If you have to hoard it, it's not going to be enough sustain you for the rest of your life.

From a biblical standpoint, a man becomes joined to his wife, they become one flesh, and therefore they have the same parents and the same siblings, inclusive of each family of origin. While they physically create space to build their own family, the requirement to honor is not suspended. Neither is the commandment to love your neighbor. If your siblings don't at least fall into that category, what are they? Enemies? You're commanded to love them too.

The problem is that it's easier to pick and choose our religious beliefs to excuse our neurosis rather than to overcome them. If we don't acknowledge our insecurities we can never be healed of them.

Whether or not you have religious motivation to seek restoration within your family relationships, consider doing it just because it will make you a better person. When we choose the hard thing, it strengthens us. We find out who we really are. When we acknowledge who we are, we can decide to become someone better, and actually figure out how to do it. When we become better people, we become better partners and better parents. We build genuine trust in our marriages. We don't pass on our dysfunctional attributes to our children.

When I made the choice to have children, my decision was heavily weighted by the idea of my future grandchildren, and all the fun I plan have with them. If I don't teach my kids how to reconcile, if I don't raise them to be secure confident women, I could lose that future happiness. If I don't model that behavior, how will they learn?

I had a personal anecdote to add, but it's still too painful. Suffice it to say, I understand exactly how difficult it is to do what I'm saying here. I know that many will read this and say, "but..." It's true that I don't know your family, and I don't know the experiences that have fed your insecurities. Our excuses don't change fundamental truths. The level of difficulty does not make the ideal of secure balanced partnerships, in which to raise children, any less important to strive toward. I know that we will try and fail repeatedly. It is my hope that we will never stop trying, no matter how much we fail.