Support Through the Ebb and Flow of the Childbearing Year
Chronicles of an Apprentice Babycatcher
My research paper has been finalized and approved! Thank you for all your help and support. The final paper can be read here: Two-Parent Co-Nursing in Queer Families.
Copy-pasting from a word doc to html is time-consuming! If you want the fully-formatted version, let me know and I’ll email you a pdf.
Today I’d like to share some pictures of my birthing stool, which my grandfather brought back from the Middle East after being stationed there, years before he even knew I existed, and no one in his family was a midwife. Mostly he brought back some brass camels, and ornate goblets and such. But amongst that stuff, I inherited these two little chairs, or rather, a chair and a bench, that I really liked, for whatever reason. At this point, I didn’t know they had anything to do with birth. Heck, I barely knew that I had anything to do with birth. But I liked them, and held onto them even when I let the camels go in preparation for some inter-state move or another.
At some point, I figured out that I had here an old-fashioned birthing stool, and the accompanying little bench is probably for the midwife herself to sit upon. And once again I was struck by how funny the world works sometimes. Here a budding midwife finds she has been in possession such a deeply midwifely object, for years. And I love it.
The shape is the same as other birth stools I have seen (that’s how I identified it), but the leather part I’ve never seen on any other. Both is and the bench are decorated with soldiers or princes or something, and with towers and coats of arms. They are not in the best condition: the wood is cracking and one of the metal connectors is missing. I doubt they have ever been used for birth, and I do not intend to start now. But they are interesting, and connect me to midwives in other times and other places. Plus, the soldier dudes have awesome goatees.
Agh! I mailed out my research questionnaire today, and I’m nervous! This project has taken up most of my time since I’ve started, so it will be nice to have a tiny break while I’m waiting to hear back from some of my volunteers. I’ll keep you all posted.
Hello, all. This winter I’ll be wrapping up my research project for my BS in Midwifery. This means I’ve done all the preliminary work, and I’m ready to do the actual research!
My project is on shared breastfeeding, also called co-nursing, in queer families. To participate, families need to have two parents actively breastfeeding the baby. Sometimes this happens naturally, when the non-gestational parent is still nursing an older sibling and just adds in the new baby. But it can be intentional, with the non-gestational parent inducing lactation using a combination of pumping, herbs, and medications.
Have you and your partner shared breastfeeding of your little darling? If so, I’d love to hear from you. I have a questionnaire you can fill out! And if you’re looking for extra credit, I’m also collecting short essays/ stories from parents about their experience with shared breastfeeding, with the goal of publication in the future.
Most of the participants I have found are lesbian couples, although I would like to include families wherein one or both parents identify as transgender or genderqueer. I have gotten several responses from mamas who shared breastfeeding with someone other than a partner, and while I think that’s awesome, my research is looking at how co-nursing affects the relationship between the parents, so I’m really only looking for lesbian and queer families. Okay, I’d also include a family in which a biologically male daddy induces lactation!
If you think you might be eligible, or to find out more, please contact me via email: research@turningtidesmidwifery.com
And please check back in the future: I intend to post the results of my research right here.
Today, midwives and mothers everywhere can celebrate Robin Lim’s amazing and well-deserved win of CNN’s 2011 Hero of the Year award.
Robin offers midwifery services free of charge to Indonesian women who would otherwise not be able to afford prenatal care or a skilled birth attendant. For her work at Bumi Sehat Birth Center in Bali, she has been recognized as their “Everyday person changing the world.” The direct benefit is that Robin gets $250,000 for Bumi Sehat, and I couldn’t imagine a more deserving organization. However, I’m much more excited about the secondary benefits.
Robin Lim and Bumi Sehat are all over the media right now. This means that potential donors are more likely to notice and make contributions of their own. But it also means that folks who may not know much about midwives are getting the opportunity to learn more. And that’s good for all of us.
I’m not sure whether Robin is interested in being the new spokesperson for midwifery, but right now, she is the most famous midwife on earth. For the past few decades, Ina May Gaskin * has been the face and the name that comes to mind for many people when talking about midwives and homebirth. But it looks as if it might be Robin’s turn. What could this mean for the PR of midwifery? Ina May’s is a grasssroots midwifery, born in the 70′s and raised on a commune in Tennessee. Robin’s midwifery is about serving not the self-selected hippie mamas, but the most needy. Ina May brought the idea of choice and empowerment to the US birthing scene, but Robin may help people see that midwifery is for everyone: cost-effective healthcare that saves lives…while still offering choice and empowerment.
Okay, I have to go deliver a placenta and do a postpartum massage; I wanted to get something out there, and may elaborate later, but this is good for now.
*Interestingly, Ina May also won an award this month! The Right Livelihood Award clearly didn’t get as much press as CNN’s, but I love that she’s still so passionate and actively working for parents and babies.
Photo from the Bumi Sehat website.
