Grandma again!

congrats to you and your family : )

I don't know if pg at 35 makes a woman any more or less likely to develop a prolapse. I'd definitely share a copy of the book with your dd, let her read about it in advance, especially the chapter on pg.

never too early to start thinking about the type of labor/delivery she wants to have. the 'epidural & flat on yer back' type of delivery is what increases chance of prolapse. the key is to be moving around during labor and working with your body as much as possible. she's got plenty of time to think about it, learn about it and talk about it with her dr or mw.
pg should be joyful, so I wouldn't scare her about the prolapse, but a little bit of empowerment is a beautiful thing. she's in the position to prevent prolapse and has a mom who knows how. lucky girl!

and grandma- stop worrying and enjoy your girl's pg! maybe start knitting a layette or something : )

congratulations!!! How wonderful.

Yep. I will respond to a few of your questions later.

Hi Grandma Mae

What a lucky duck you are! And what a lucky duck is your daughter, having a Mom who knows about preventing prolapses and dealing with them! Wouldn't it be great if any of us were as lucky as that?

I would suggest that you give her a book and some brochures about Wholewoman. These are available from the Homepage of www.wholewoman.com under Resources link. DD could take a brochure when she is choosing a midwife/hospital/Obstetrician. It could be an interesting way of filtering birth professionals. ;-) . No point in getting involved with people who deny this work. I certainly wouldn't use anybody who was unwilling to take the model on board.

Your comment about developing your prolapses 37 years after having babies is interesting. When I look back I can see that mine were developing before I was pregnant the second time, maybe 1983. The descent was slow but steady, helped along by incidents along the way. At age 51 I became concerned that they were still getting worse and that I might need surgery to stop them in their tracks. I guess that might have been when my uterus started to shrink with perimenopause and the plug fell a bit further down the plughole. Last Sunday was my 55 1/2th birthday. I just had another period (sigh...), and that little uterus of mine still knows how to bleed some! However, most of the time she hides away up high. I wouldn't even know she was there.

Cheers

Louise

Oh Mae, I’m so happy for you! My granddaughter is the light of my life. She’s so very precious and at twenty months old already such a fun and delightful pal. Over the weekend I took her to the “big movie” to watch dinosaurs. She knew the night before we were planning to go and her mom dropped her off all dressed up and with the little patent-leather purse I bought for her. Her mom had given her a couple of large, washed, foreign coins to put in her purse and she could hardly run to me fast enough to show me and squeal, “purse! MONEY!!”

I do think a general degeneration of connective tissue is a factor in the development of prolapse for so many of us – but not to the point where it could be picked up by genetic testing – for whatever that would be worth anyway. Louise is right – get her involved in Whole Woman techniques now. That way after delivery she will want to naturally sit and stand correctly instead of it all seeming so difficult and confusing. God willing I will have a postpartum dvd for her!

I'm teaching myself to knit. got a book (stitch and bitch) and there's fantastic tutorials on youtube.
I'm halfway done with my first project, a very uncomplicated scarf. its fun to learn new things, especially when you have a (grand)baby on the way to make cute clothes for.

Mae, Gmom is right. You can learn online, or look for a local craft group with older women who most likely could teach you.

DD never sat still for long enough as a child to learn how to knit. She is now 23. We were home together one day and she asked me to teach her, which I did in the teachable moment. She is halfway through a colourful scarf too.

Yesterday I darned a long rip in one of our kingsize blankets. ("How do you make a long rip in a blanket with normal use?" you say. Either I don't know how, or I am not telling!) I couldn't find any cream wool to do the job, until I remembered that I had a bag of wool that I had spun many years ago, hiding in the back of my cupboard. It was just right, and the rip is now repaired better than any surgeon could do it! While I was mending the blanket I was thinking that I could knit my homespun wool into something for me, so I might be picking up the needles again before too long.

I am not a fan of layettes but I did put my MIL, who was a very good knitter, to work when I had babies knitting warm, long trousers with ribbed ankles and elastic waist, out of medium weight wool, for the winter when each baby was crawling. They were a combination of long johns and pilchers, and the wool absorbed some of the nappy moisture without sealing it in with plastic. A combo of wool with a bit of synthetic might make washing easier, while preserviing the moisture-absorbing benefits of wool. In summer I made them pilchers out of doctors flannel but they needed a bit more round the legs in winter and they gave their little baby knees a bit of protection during that floor-dwelling stage, and stretched well, so their movement was not impeded. For that matter you could just knit pull-up, woollen pilchers. They were easy to get on and off for nappy changes. You just have to knit the long-legged variety with plenty of room around the buttocks and fairly fitted legs so they don't get lost in them. If you make them for the newborn you could gather the bottom of the legs together with a drawstring so the baby's feet stay warm. Much easier to keep on than booties.

Start with a scarf...

Cheers

Louise

I love to sew too, mae (even though it frustrates me too, my most useful tool is the seam ripper and my funny (?) dh is always happy to say 'well, you know what they say - you rip what you sew'. and he cracks himself up everytime while running for cover)

but knitting, is so...portable! and virtually no set up/clean up time. and no pressing! I can knit a row or two while waiting for a pot to boil, or for my ds to finish his karate lesson, or while dd thinks up sentences for spelling homework. whereas sewing, I have to wait until the kiddies are in bed to take out my machines and scissors and pins, etc.
sewing does have the benefit of being faster, its taking me a while to get used to seeing the garment come together slowly vs zip zip zip on the machine, but its cool.

and louise, I wish you hadn't mentioned your spinning! I was just getting over my obsession with homespun yarn, talking nonstop to dh about how I want to do that too and there you go and get me started again! I'll have to just put it on the list. right above weaving and under learning to play piano. I hope I live a long healthy life, I've got alot of learning to do!

and btw, wool works GREAT as a diaper cover. the trick is to use 100% wool (not the superwash stuff) and to lanolize it first. it keeps the moisture in and is so breathable that ds's bum stays cool even in the summer.

Congratulations, Mae, what wonderful news!! - a brand new grandmom all over again, and to be graced so, with your daughter's babe! I can imagine how special that must be; it's no wonder that your sporting that great big smile. How fortunate, your daughter, having such a wise and loving WW of a Mom watching out for her. Smile on, Grandmom - God bless that precious baby growing.

Oh, and yes, Mae, do pick up a pair of needles or maybe a crochet hook (my craft). A beginner's scarf can grow into a snuggley warm baby afghan given added rows; handmade by Grandma.

((H♥GS))

~Blue

Hi Mae

Yes, spinning was one of my phases, but that was before babies came. I got to the stage where I could spin a presentable thread but never spun a great quantity. It was either buy a better wheel or stop. The spinning wheel just sat and took up room and looked earthy for many years before being stored down in the big shed a couple of years ago. I finally sold the spinning wheel a few months ago to a friend of my friend's daughter-in-law, who wanted to learn spinning. You guessed it. DD found out and said, "You sold WHAT? Mum, I wanted to learn to spin!" So ... I have asked my friend to tell DIL to tell her friend that if she wants to get a better wheel I would like to buy mine back again. This is starting to sound a bit like Rumpelstilskin!

I am a bit of a dabbler in skills, becoming competent in some and only briefly trying others. Once I have mastered the basics I start to get bored. But you never know when you are going to have to pull out some of these skills, and I think it is good to learn them and pass them on to the next generation. Otherwise our species loses skills that have taken aeons and generations to perfect, skills that, once lost, are very difficult to relearn. We then become a species that simply consumes. I find that prospect quite sad.

Cheers

Louise

http://www.birdcrossstitch.com/soakers/pattern/index_printable.html

They are soooooo cute! And would be so easy to make with the pattern.

Isn't the Internet amazing for that sort of thing? Isn't it amazing, fullstop!I can remember being pregnant with DS1 and trying to stay awake during the first word-processor class I ever did, back in 1982. Now we can shshare stuff with each other on different parts of the planet; stuff that is not anywhere in a shop window, and learn how to do things, and share private parts of our lives with people we have never met. Amazing! L

can't put ruffles on a boy, that's how!
but that's a cute one. maybe you'll get your girl-baby so you can have fun with the ruffles and the flare leg longies that I'm drooling over.

here's the soaker I've been making lately. its crocheted, which seems to work better for us

http://hyenacart.com/CrazyHatLady/index.php?c=0&p=46294

So much happy baby news this week!

From a somewhat jaded perspective, I'd say the best thing your daughter can do to avoid prolapse is choose her delivery options carefully. I was going to say "stay out of the hospital", which is what I did, by having home births for #s 2 and 3, after a traumatic first delivery in the hospital that I believe was the beginning of prolapse (vacuum extraction).

Education, education, education. I'd read Ina Mae Gaskin's newest book (Ina Mae on Natural Childbirth or something like that), and, of course STWW, and carefully choose birthing options.

With you as guide, she has a wealth of information available to her that many of us only wish we knew before we had our first children. Lucky girl!!!

There's much that is unknown, but now, thanks to Christine's research, we have so much more information than we did even 5 years ago. I often think of how fortunate I was to have developed this right at the time Christine was bringing this all to light. Don't know what choices I would have made without access to this info.

Blessings to you and yours,

Marie

That was my thought too. Forget the what to expect when you are expecting they are junk. All they do is grow fear. There are some wonderful books out there. I just read Emergency Childbirth by Gregory White. It is a manual for firemen and cops and the like about what to do- and it is amazing-The last line in the introduction is that any bright eight year old can do what needs to be done during birth. Also check out Michael Odent (my spelling may be bad)- and look at Laura Shandley, Ina Mae Gaskins..
Reading these books will open up your daughter's birthing options.
Once she has a spiritual understanding of birth then she can start visualizing the birth she would like to have- and she can give herself positive suggestions about her ability to grow and birth a baby.
Also watch The business of being born
and a play called "Birth" by Karen Brody.
finally, I suggest finding other woman who have had the kind of births they wanted. SHe can find a group online or even IRL.

What women are starting to realize is that birth does not have to be managed by a doctor and that they can birth in a spiritually connected way with out fear.

I wish I knew back when I was pregnant with my first what I know now.....

A-M-E-N!

Only one thing to add. Encourage your daughter to get to know the doctor well and develop a trusting relationship with her/him. Change doctors if necessary to find someone she can trust. Do the homework now. I regard it as being an important part of the nesting process. You just might need the doctor, and you will probably be very glad you did your homework with them and that they understand your priorities if there is a need for medical help.

When you are in labour is not the time to overcome fear and distrust. Having side that I think they are best left outside the labour room until needed. :-)

Cheers

Louise

Thank you, Marie and Alemama, for filling in the gap here. The birth process has a huge impact in how Mae’s daughter might be affected by prolapse both in the short and long term. I have most of the books suggested and also highly recommend them.

Medical science is just so wrong about all aspects of prolapse and much of human childbirth. Their patently inaccurate views are based upon long-standing errors in judgment, which have been supported by other life sciences – particularly physical anthropology.

These were all male disciplines and to make a long story short, the female body has been reduced to a certain ‘view’ – supine position with hips rotated back…the “missionary” position, if you will.

Obstetrics often consulted physical anthropology to try to better understand human birth, and the result has been disastrous. Over and over again – to this day – we read that human birth is “disproportionate”, “dangerous” and an evolutionary “dilemma.” These views have colored so much of modern society and are the reason behind many of women’s struggles – past and present.

The hysterical thing is this inaccurate backward rotation of the pelvis – which has even been ‘doctored’ by some authors and passed off as frontal views of the standing pelvis – is still being seriously illustrated, diagrammed, analyzed, and INACCURATELY READ THROUGH X-RAYS by all of our haloed institutions.

To correct this mistake means to bring down the entire house of cards. I believe at this point many would put up absurd arguments in defense of the wrong view – even as women can feel for themselves exactly where their pubic bones are in supine and standing positions.

Anyway…this is the stuff of an extraordinary documentary.

Christine

Christine, Your phrase "inaccurate view" is an interesting one. We women see it as inaccurate because, being vertical active creatures, it *is* inaccurate, unless we are having a little lie down, in which case our POPs become inconsequential. When a woman is being examined, the doctor has to instruct her to lie down and bear down in order to reveal the evidence of POP. To a doctor, the female patient of the species is not vertical, but an horizontal creature. Horizontal is the only way doctors interact with a woman's body. They were trained to 'see' the body as horizontal in medical school, because cadavers cannot stand up by themselves. Unfortunately, the only configuration of pelvic structures and organs they know only manifests in the horizontal position.

The problem is that it is a medicocentric/cadavocentric view of the female body. You have developed a fem(?)ocentric model, which is the model we all live in, day to day, and the model which copes with POP. The horizontal model simply does not reflect the vertical reality. Both models are correct in their proper orientation, but you cannot transfer information from one to the other. There would be no more sense in using the WW model to teach doctors where to find organs and structures by palpation during a lithotomy examination, or doing a surgical procedure, than there would be in using the lithotomy model to understand female pelvic anatomy in an active woman. For a start they would be up very close and personal, on their knees with a face full of pussy fur if they examined women standing. Somewhat potentially compromising...

We are talking about doctors here. Maybe the route we need to take is via patient-centred medicine. Have a little look at this. http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/17/5/430 . Until doctors try to look at a woman's body through her own eyes they have no chance at all of understanding how it works. Only then will they listen when a woman like me talks about how "my pubic bones are lower than my coccyx and my pubic symphysis is horizontal and quite long, not vertical and out front. My pelvic floor is diagonal and pointing out the back. My pelvic organs sit on my pubic bones, not my pelvic floor. Why do your diagrams on your wall of a standing woman's body not reflect this reality?".

If they are willing to *think* their way through that statement and compare it unsuccessfully to the model they learned in medical school they can start to understand it. If they are not willing to experience the discomfort of not understanding what a patient is saying, and reconcile it truly to their own (limited) model, they have no chance at all of understanding why POP manifests at the introitus and how women can put their own pelvic organs functionally back, more or less where they belong. If the doctors don't engage their brains to challenge their own model, doctors will always be trapped in the loop of 'pelvic floor dysfunction', blaming the woman's body for being imperfectly engineered, and thinking they can do better than hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and/or better than the Creator. And if you can earn money using a faulty model, why change (or rather expand) your model in a way that has the potential to cast doubt on your past practices, and your cash flow. We all have families to feed.

Why treat an infected toe when you can amputate the leg below the knee and give the woman a nice, new prosthetic foot in order to prevent gangrene? (This is an example of hypothetical surgical 'overkill').

Why not, as a gyno, remove the uterus and both ovaries? Then the woman has no more reproductive organs, so she is no longer your problem. I have actually heard a gynaecological pain specialist anaesthetist say this in a public forum.

I think your idea of a documentary is a good one. You have all the facts and information resources at your disposal. How about contacting Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11) and asking him if he has any female relatives with POP? He loves uncovering unpalatable truths that give the world Aha! moments. I would like to be a fly on the wall when you start your discussions!

Last year DH and I had a look at the Hall of Man at the New York Natural History Museum. You know, all the caveman skeletons that they feature in the National Geographic stories. You are right. They are trapped in the medical model too. They have some slivers of bone and reckon they can reconstruct a whole body from them. They have a few implements and (think they can) construct a whole society. They have some bits of babies' and children's skeletons too, and that leads them to (think they can) construct a human lifetime. All they have to do is surmise a story that links these bones from 'once upon a time' with '21st century MRI magic etc', fill in the missing pieces with blutak and do some astounding multimedia stuff, and they reckon they know the whole story. Pull the other leg!

Don't get me wrong. It is a astounding display, and much of it is no doubt true, backed up by physical evidence. It does give the current understanding of the origins of our species but I think it is short on facts and long on jigsaw pieces manufactured to fit their interpretation of the facts by their prestigious anthropological scientists. After all, these bones too came from bodies that were lying down dead and very horizontal when they were buried under the layers of prehistoric mud that fossilised them.

I can't help comparing the WW pelvic orientation model to the discovery that the world is round, not flat. (well, perhaps not quite on the scale of it, but a total turn around in basic scientific assumption). The frustrating thing is that it is sitting in front of their f%^&ing eyes!!!!! All they have to do is put their spectacle on and open their peepers and their minds to the reality. It is like all the pelvic anatomists in the world are walking around the corridors of their world headquarters building. There is a door in the main corridor that nobody ever opens. There is a sign on the door that says, "Think about the same body in a different way. The secret within this room will turn your work upside down, fill you with awe at the wonder of natural design and change the way your colleagues treat pelvic floor dysfunction and POP. "
Sadly, no pelvic anatomist is brave enough, or has taken enough notice of the sign, to open the door and look inside. The pelvic anatomists are the custodians and guardians of human anatomy knowledge, so nobody else even knows the door with the mysterious sign exists, let alone the secret behind it (except you, Christine, and you cannot get into the building!)

Keep up the rage.

Cheers

Louise

mae
- get your dd a subscription to mothering mag. last month was their annual pregnancy edition. if you can't find it, I will send you mine. I read it already and its just making me want more babies so I should really get it out of the house, lol

also I loved the book 'the baby catcher' its about the life/career of a mw but really about birth and how unique and universal it is at the same time. I found it very empowering, I read it during my third pg when I was contemplating a homebirth

Thanks so much, Louise, for your thoughtful and passionate comments - and for the article, which I printed. I hope for a renaissance in women's medicine - modern diagnostics have caused doctors to lose so much of their art: palpation, auscultation, seeing the larger framework rather than visualizing through CTs and MRIs, and yes, empathic listening and dialogue. Cheers, C.

It is really mainstream parenting. Of course I have no idea how your dd plans to parent- but if she chooses attachment parenting. gentle discipline etc. parenting will not be a good fit.

I am not the best person to describe all this stuff. I know Parents mag assumes you vaccinate your kids according to the AAP schedule. They are not anti-breast-feeding but are certainly not the LLL's mag (New Beginnings- I think it is called). They write articles about when to start solid food for infants and how to help your baby sleep better etc. And I think all the articles do is either make you feel like a fantastic success if your kid is doing what they say and on the other side like a fantastic failure if your baby wakes frequently at night, nurses on demand past the infant stage, does not hit the developmental milestones "on time" etc.....
I guess what I have found after parenting my 3 kids is that no baby or child fits the one size fits all norms. They all develop differently and have their own strengths.
The best thing is to follow your instincts as a mama and read really thought provoking material when you don't know what to do.

Dr. Sears is the most popular proponent of "attachment parenting" - this idea of being very connected to your child- wearing your baby (and toddler) in a sling or wrap for many hours of the day, breast-feeding (or at least holding baby very close during feedings), and gentle discipline. He focuses a lot on the family- so Dad is included too and the relationship between the parents is respected as well.

You might be interested to study non-violent communication (you can watch some video clips on youtube if you just search NVC and parenting).

There is a book called how to talk so kids will listen and how to listen so kids will talk (or something like that....I haven't read it but good friends I respect all like it).

Oh man- one great book is The Gift of Fear. It shaped the way I keep my family safe.

The son of Dr. Sears, also a doctor has written a book called The Vaccine Book. It is pretty informative about the ingredients in vaccines and provides and alternate vaccine schedule to minimize toxic chemical exposure for infants. Pretty easy read and affordable.

API is attachment parenting international- They have groups all over the place for parents and kids who AP parent to meet up and hang out.

Mae, I am so sorry for your birth experiences. I hate that there was no one to talk with you about your birth options and parenting choices.
I hope someone else here will answer your question better than I have- I am not an expert at all and did absolutely no research at all about parenting before I had kids - and since then I have done very little- but what little I have done has helped me be a better mom.

I forgot about my absolute absolute favorite book on Childbirth, the pioneering work of Grantly Dick-Read: Childbirth Without Fear. Out of print, I think, but I got mine on Amazon, badly tattered, but readable! This book is amazing, written by the pioneer of the modern natural childbirth movement. His stories are just unbelievable, as a doctor watching women in other parts of the world give birth. Also, amazing relaxation exercises for during pregnancy. Can't recommend it enough.

As for attachment parenting, Mae, I'd get your daughter "The Birth Book" by Dr. Sears. It's comprehensive for Birth to age 5, and includes great practical info as well as all the tenents of ap.

Here's my plug for ap -- it's a lot of work in the early years -- holding, extended breastfeeding, responding, co-sleeping, etc. I truly believe in what Dr. Sears says that the most important year for discipline is the first year -- I personally think that in responding to baby, we are actually programming him or her in terms of brain development, to respond to us! My oldest is almost 10, so I can't claim to have weathered the teen years yet, but what I can say SO FAR is that AP is an investment in the future that pays big big dividends. Keeping them close, responding to them, makes parenting easier in the long run. That connection established early when their brains are developing, builds trust that I believe, if continued to be nurtured, can last a lifetime. I also love Dr. Sears book "the Attachment Parenting Book" because of the concept that AP isn't permissive parenting. I certainly have found that incorporating firm limits in age-appropriate ways is also crucial because ap parenting can get too permissive (imho) if a four year old is responded to like an infant. Limits and boundaries help everyone feel respected.

Marie

Hi Mae

I discovered Creative Parenting by Dr William Sears, published 1982, when my first was a newborn. Back then it was called Continuum Parenting, and I was so rapt all these years later to find that it has grown into a worldwide movement. It was such a stroke of luck for me to find the book and such a wonderful confidence booster when all about me other Mums were into patting their babies to sleep while the baby yelled, feeding solids from three months and bemoaning the fact that their breastmilk was drying up.

My big kids (now in their 20's) have not all been smooth to raise (whose kids are???) but I feel that the principle of not pulling away from your kids, and teaching them how to decide for themselves how to make good decisions, has served them well thus far, and they are all showing clear signs of being similarly attached to each other as adults, despite a few teenage "S/he is a pain!" episodes. I am quite confident that they will all make splendid and very attached parents, because it is the way they were raised. Many of those early continuum parenting principles have now become quite mainstream, particularly in the area of discipline, with allowing children to choose between the stated consequences doing the right or the wrong thing. It still fills me with joy to see toddlers nursing, and mums and dads wearing their babies.

After all these years, and seeing all the different ways that others have raised their children (and there were some really significant differences), I would do it exactly the same way, but with the confidence of hindsight, knowing it works well and grows wonderful young adults. Maybe I am biased!

Cheers

Louise