Gentle First Year: The Essential Guide to Mother and Baby Wellbeing in the First Twelve Months. Karen MacLeod Swan

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СКАЧАТЬ Most are hardly aware they’re doing it, but in that split second when the mother inhales the exquisite scent of new life, she falls in love. After nine long months, she can at last see her baby, touch her baby and hear her baby, but it’s when she smells her child’s pristine dewiness that the cocktail of bonding hormones really starts to fizz. And it’s not just a temporary kick. Years later, mothers can be found wistfully sniffing talcum powder bottles in supermarket aisles and wearing talc-based perfumes (astute perfume houses cottoned on to our nostalgia long ago).

      Happily, it’s a requited love. Whilst it takes weeks for the baby to decipher faces and sort out voices (everything sounds muffled in the womb), a newborn infant can detect the smell of her mother’s milk almost immediately. It has been shown that a minutes-old baby, placed on the mother’s tummy, will grapple, heave, shake her head from side to side, nuzzle into the mother’s breast and find the nipple to suckle, led entirely by smell.

      It’s an amazing thing to see in action. At every birth I attend, I’m always looking for that transforming moment when the fundamental survival instinct and urge to protect becomes something deeper and more spiritual; an impulse that takes a parent beyond the instinct to merely raise a child to maturity, and actually nurture, cherish, indulge and adore the child to its best possible self.

      We all know this as bonding, of course, the pop-psychology buzzword for the modern parent. But whilst bonding is indeed an inherent part of parenthood, we don’t always acknowledge that it is not an automatic response. If you want a deep, nourishing relationship with your child which soothes your soul, then it will need tender cultivation, shared experience and, yes, a smattering of hormonal alchemy.

      There’s a line in Lucy Atkins’ book, Blooming Birth, which really resonates with me: ‘Birth is just the start – parenting’s the biggie.’ She’s absolutely right, and the biggest help you can have when negotiating the myriad minefields of toddlerhood, pre-pubescence and adolescence is the solid bond you establish with your child during your pregnancy and at birth. Bringing with it an empathy, sensitivity and kindness that endure throughout the myriad experiences life throws at you, it starts right here, with your newborn and her soft, fuzzy head.

      why bonding matters

      The endorphins released mutually by mother and baby during the birth process are very important for the deep bonding and mutual attachment necessary for the survival of the infant. This is one of the reasons why I work so hard to deliver gentle births that will promote greater levels of endorphins being released at birth. In the interests of mother–child bonding, health professionals should be geared towards preventing fearful births where the fear hormone, adrenaline, inhibits endorphin production.

Sleep Bonding

      My Mother came to me and lay down beside me, and the warmth of her body comforted me. Secure in the knowledge of her love, I began to cross over into sleep.

      The Red Tent, Anita Diamant

      The bonding power of sleep is profound. Sleep is the ultimate surrender, when we are most vulnerable, and it’s impossible to attain if we do not feel relaxed, safe and warm. As adults we wouldn’t dream of sleeping with – or even near – someone we didn’t like or trust, and it’s very much the case with babies too.

      In every respect, you are your baby’s protector. I am a firm believer in the emotional and physical benefits of mother and baby sharing a room – if not necessarily a bed – in the early weeks. Hailing from the red tent culture, I have seen at first hand the evident security this arrangement bestows upon the child. After all, having spent nine months drowsily curled up in the womb listening to the regular thud of your heartbeat, the immediate touch, sight and smell of you, the slumbering mother, is the next best thing to those warm, cosy waters. For mothers and fathers too, there is no greater sense of joy and peace than when their baby is blissfully asleep in their arms.

      Shared sleep is indicative of shared love, and if you find that you can sleep through the grunts, snuffles, chatters and snores of a sleeping baby, then there is nothing more wonderful.

      BEDSIDE CRIBS

      A crib next to the parents’ bed is the ideal scenario in my opinion; or even better, a bedside cot with one side that opens out completely to annexe to the mother’s side of the bed. These save the mother from climbing out of her warm bed (especially in the cold, dark winter months), and she can easily slide the baby back into the safety of the cot’s confines after the feed. All the big baby chain stores like Mothercare and John Lewis sell these bedside cots, but check the height before you buy. The height of the cot may not be compatible if you have, say, an iron or a sleigh bed.

      BED SHARING

      Sharing a bed is a trickier issue. In principle, it seems the most natural option, but that doesn’t mean it’s the safest – there have been various tragic incidents in which the mother or father has inadvertently smothered the baby in their sleep. Alcohol, drugs, medication and extreme exhaustion are all risk factors, but there have even been instances when the baby has been suffocated by the mother’s milk-swollen breasts. UNICEF and the Royal College of Midwives recommend no co-sleeping under three weeks of age. The advice I give to my mothers is to share a room, not a bed, with the baby at night.

      Case History: Karen and Ollie

      I had read all the books saying not to rock/feed/carry your baby to sleep but Ollie was a restless baby, and in the early weeks that was the only way I could get him off to sleep. Still, by the time he was about eight weeks old, I knew I had to start to teach him to sleep without relying on stimulus from me. So, at his morning and afternoon nap, I began to lie on the bed with him. I turned him away from me so that he wouldn’t think he was getting a feed, and would curl my arms and legs around him, with the top of his head nuzzled under my chin, and just the feel of my body, my warmth and my smell to reassure him.

      For the first couple of attempts to put him to sleep, he cried for up to 40 minutes on and off, which was pretty hard to bear. But I stuck with it and very soon he understood that when we lay down together, he was just going to have a little sleep. I didn’t sleep with him at night, so it was absolutely blissful to share that 30-minute nap with him in the day. We both slept so heavily – I’m sure our pheromones must have knocked each other out – and it kept me going at that point when the broken nights were really beginning to take their toll.

      Strangely, I would always wake about 30 seconds before he did; he never once woke me up. I could actually hear his breathing change once I started to stir. When I moved him to sleep in his cot, a month later, he was absolutely fine about it and went straight to sleep without crying, but I still needed the naps too – my husband jokes that he sleep-trained me, rather than the other way round! But I’ll always treasure our baby naps together. I’m convinced they contributed to the powerful bond between us.

      interesting fact

      Many of my mothers claim to wake in the night moments (up to two minutes) before their baby. We still don’t know why this happens, but anecdotal evidence suggests there is a higher likelihood of it occurring where there’s a strong bond between mother and baby.

      BABY HAMMOCKS

      In India it is traditional to tie a sari lengthways as a long, low-slung hammock from a ring on the ceiling, so that the baby is suspended about 30 inches above the floor. The sari tied in this way is called a thottil (‘cradle’) in southern India. The thottil creates a soft cotton sling for the baby, rather like the one depicted on birth announcement cards showing the baby being carried in a sling by a stork. Sometimes, a long piece of cotton can be used to tie the thottil instead of a sari. This is called a dhoti, which men wear like a sarong. The baby СКАЧАТЬ