The comparison might be made between fast food commercials and typical birth “documentary” shows on television these days. Just as we’d never look to McDonald’s commercials if we wanted to educate ourselves on nutrition, we’d never look to A Baby Story to educate ourselves on the process of childbirth. In doing so, we would effectively be forming a skewed view of birth based on information presented in a show whose ratings depend entirely upon the entertainment value of it’s content. The fact of the matter is that drama sells and it’s a pretty popular product. In the midst of  all this drama, though, there was one birth documentary show on television that we are aware of that truly represented normal birth in all its variations.  House of Babies was a 26 episode documentary of natural birth and was shot at the Miami Maternity Center in Miami, Florida. Shari Daniels and her staff of midwives at the Miami Maternity Center didn’t have the reviews that thier counterparts from hit TV show, Deliver Me, do….let’s take a moment to analyze why. We’ll start with a quote from the “about” section on Deliver Me’s Discovery Health page:

“Alane Park, Yvonne Bohn and Allison Hill are doctors and mothers busy juggling careers in medicine while raising young children….Deliver Me is set primarily at their medical office, where they see a full schedule of patients, and also at Good Samaritan Hospital next door, where they may be called at any time of day or night to deliver babies or perform surgery. Take an intimate look at these extraordinary women’s busy lives. Get a front-row seat for all the drama, emotion and challenges — both professionally and personally — churning around these skilled doctors every day.”

Sounds action-packed, no? Try a trailer for a typical episode on for size:

We’ve managed to catch their show several times and honestly can’t say that we’ve ever seen a natural birth portrayed. What we have seen over and over again, though, is that the premise of their show is the drama that surrounds their patients’ births, as is exemplified in the clip above. It is our humble opinion that more often than not, these doctors (and their peers all across the country) perpetuate the misconception that modern women aren’t able to birth without their assistance and the OB-induced (pardon the pun) drama that generally surrounds it is essentially a result of that brand of practicing medicine. In fact, we really wonder if any one of these three OBs has ever actually witnessed a natural birth. By “natural”, we don’t just mean vaginal, either.

Merriam-Webster defines “natural” as:  “being in accordance with or determined by nature….having or constituting a classification based on features existing in nature”. Our definition of “natural” falls more in line with that. Natural, non-intervened, non-surgical vaginal birth with no time constraints or pressure where the laboring mom is the one calling the shots and she has freedom to move about and position herself as he body leads her…..y’know, just like all the other mammals do it. Truth be told, most natural births are pretty uneventful until just before the main event and as such, they’re not really the makings of hit dramatic reality television. In stark contrast, most of the births that we see portrayed on television are dramatic and generally involve somebody (most often an OB) pushing their agenda and the fear that something will go horribly wrong without help and thus instilling that fear into the laboring woman who then submits herself to the mercy of said OB. Because, really….who’s going to choose a dead baby over a ceserean, right? Kinda makes you wonder if it isn’t something that’s purposefully done, doesn’t it? We all know how important ratings are.

One glaring problem we see with a ”reality” show pabsed on typical hospital birth is that millions of first-time moms watch these shows and are using them as their primary exposure to what birth is about. When your birth is approached from a place of expecting to need medical intervention, then medical intervention is what you’ll get. As such, we concur that one of the most important things to keep in mind when you seek sources of information about birth on television is what sort of ratings the program has. We get that television is supposed to be entertaining. We really do. We watch a lot of it….but who wants to sit around and watch a laboring women who is fully informed and knows what to expect breathing peacefully through her contractions for hours on end? That is what natural birth looks like and frankly, it bores all but the most dedicated of us to tears.

Labor and birth for mammals has existed for much longer than obstetricians have and somehow, reproduction in the human race has survived and even thrived without them until recently. What prompted that change? What brought us to the place, as a race, that we feel like we aren’t capable of birthing our young without the intervention of a trained medical professional? A quote from one of our favorite men on the planet is will fit in nicely here. Marsden Wagner once said that “having a highly trained obstetrical surgeon attend a normal birth is analogous to having a pediatric surgeon babysit a healthy 2-year-old”. We wholeheartedly agree and our view of it is that our expectations of a process reflect the outcomes of what the majority of our exposure to that process is….in simple terms, the way you’ve always seen it go down is the way you expect it to go down when you’re the one baking the bun. It follows that if your sole source of information about pregnancy and birth is reality television drama, then that is what your expectation of your pregnancy and birth will be. Everybody knows what a self-fulfilling prophecy is, right? Anxiety, fear and stress are three of the biggest enemies of and hinderances to natural birth and putting yourself and your unborn child in the hands of a care provider who is trained to look for pathology will have exactly the outcome that you expect it will. Is that the birth story you want to write?

Some places to begin heading down the path of thinking differently about birth are:

• Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein’s documentary on the state of maternity care in America, The Business of Being Born, and their book, Your Best Birth
• Breck Hawk’s book, Hey! Who’s Having This Baby Anyway? and the accompanying workbook
• Ina May Gaskin’s book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth
• Marsden Wagner’s book, Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First
• Henci Goer’s book, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth

Is your baby a Gerber baby?

Choosy Moms choose Jif!

Downy Fabric Softener: Use it, or you’ll rub your baby’s skin off!

These are the kinds of messages that we grew up with. Any time you turn on the TV, some big-wig ad executive is trying to get you to buy a product by attempting to convince you that you’re an inferior mother. Then they try to get you to believe that buying their product will somehow rectify that. Now, we can’t speak to your ability as a mom, indeed, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, but we feel pretty confident in asserting that buying one specific brand of peanut butter isn’t going to have any significant impact on your mad-mommy-skillz.

On the surface, we’re all aware that advertising is big business and that behind every slogan or catchy jingle is a piggy bank waiting to be filled with your pennies. We all know, intellectually, that we should make our decisions based on a fair and honest review of the product or service and go with what either works best, is the best value or best fits our needs. However, just as often as not, we’re influenced by attractive packaging or what we see in other people’s cart or whatever seems popular at the moment… and what makes a product popular?

Good advertising.

So what does advertising mean for us as mothers? Well, for some of us, that means that we’re going to be using a peanut butter spread that contains fully hydrogenated vegetable oil (which is still bad for you), or that we’re inadvertently and perhaps unwittinly supporting one of the worst companies in the world. No matter how clever and intelligent we Southern Fried Granola Moms fancy oursleves, we’re not immune to the effects of advertising. Like everyone else, we want the latest in technological wonders, the newest and best product to be had, the cutest new thing for our kiddos to wear – to the point that we’ve been just as guilty as the rest of you in that we stop thinking about what we know – that advertising is effective, and not always to our benefit.

What we don’t see is that advertising has completely shaped the world around us. Twenty years ago, almost all mothers used cloth diapers, in part, because there weren’t many other options. While some would argue that disposable diapers are a vast imporvement over the cloth method, virtually no one would argue that the disposal of ‘disposable diapers’ is becoming a big ,smelly problem for us technologically advanced cultures. Even now, there is hot debate among environmental groups as to which method is easier on the environment. Without ads to ‘tell’ us that ‘sposies were the way to go, would people really have thought that an added expense to their budget – an expense that will literally go straight into the garbage can – would have been worth it?

Everything we think of as ‘normal’ has been affected by advertising – what we think we need, even, to ‘properly’ mother a new baby. Once you announce that you’re in the family way, you’ll start getting invitations from Target, Babies R Us – every store with baby gear in stock – trying to get you to come register for baby products. They even send you out a list so that you don’t forget anything.

• a changing table (what’s wrong with the top of the dresser, the couch, the bed, the floor??)
• a crib (even though cultures who co-sleep have less incidences of SIDS and McKenna has extensive research on co-sleeping clearly benefiting mother and baby more than sleeping separately), nursing pillows (because arms are just so old-fashioned, not to mention that most nursing pillows only fit well if you’re a Skinny Minnie, not a Voluptuous Vera)
• fancy diaper bags (because throwing a few diapers in your purse is just tacky, right?)
• a breast pump (because how can you breastfeed without one)
• a pack-n-play, a bouncy seat, a swing, an excersaucer, a walker, etc… (because what do you do with a baby that’s awake??)

… and the list goes on and on. So what’s a mom to do? How does one combat advertising?

One of the best ways that we’ve found to help combat the effects of advertising is to be aware of the methods they’re using. We try to look beyond the obvious message to the subtleties that they’re not voicing. Lighting, mood, background images – all these and more pay a part in what we’re seeing. The old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is never more true than in ads. Once you look beyond the slogan at what they’re really telling you, it’s kind of insulting!

Another way we  combat the influence is to limit our exposure to it. While the obvious answer to this may be ‘cut down on television viewing’, that’s not always practical, nor do we want to give the impression that we think TV is the devil. We SFGMs know the value of a half-hour of Nick Jr.-induced silence and we’ll not let anyone take it from us! As a compromise, many of us have replaced network and cable/satellite TV with DVR’d shows or DVDs. Internet streaming and services like Netflix (which we can watch through the computer, XBox or some blu-ray players) have become the ad-free method of choice for media in many of our homes.

Magazine ads are prolific as well, and are more easily studied to see what they’re selling. We often use them to talk to our kids about what they see – to help them understand. Billboards and grocery store check-out aisles are also good opportunities to talk to our kids about advertising – plus, when they’re engaged in conversation with Mama, that tends to cut down on the “Mama, I want…”s that so frequently afflict children at that time.

We obviously cannot completely counteract or avoid the negative aspects of advertising, nor is all advertising bad. Some ad campaigns have helped create awareness and spurred people into action for the benefit of self, family and community (anti-smoking ads, pro-breastfeeding ads). We just feel like some of them are putting pressure on moms and creating unnecessary expenses for families by taking pot-shots at our self esteem, and we think that’s a bad thing.

There’s more to this issue, of course. We have another post coming that talks about the effects of consumerism on children and how advertising directly to children has affected our families. You’ll want to watch for that. A great way to make sure that you’re not missin’ anything is to check out the ‘subscribe’ box over in the sidebar. {wink}

For further reading:

• The Psychological Effects of Advertising
• The_Negative_Effects_of_Advertising

As much as one might have liked to be reassuring, and probably was at the time, once that baby came into the world and landed in his mama’s arms, there was rarely a moment when he was not held (we seriously have pictures of almost every time he was ever in his swing or crib because they were such rare events!).

Though we say ‘selfish’ mostly in jest, it’s not selfishness borne out of a desire to fulfill our own interests. There’s a biological and instinctual imperative to hold your baby. Even mothers who plan to practice a more hands-off style of parenting will tell you that they had to fight that instinct to pick up the crying babe. Can it really be termed ‘selfishness’ when you make the decision not to ignore that instinctive drive to soothe and nurture your child to your bosom?

Fast forward 10 years, and we’re constantly seeing more and more research that confirms what mothers worldwide have always known – that babies belong in their mama’s arms. Doubt it? Ask the nearest elderly woman what she wishes she’d done more of with her babies, and we can guarantee you that her answer will always be something to the effect of, “Oh, I just wish I’d held them more”. You will never, never hear a woman say, ‘You know, I just held them too darn much. If only I’d put them in a swing or a crib more often…’.

Something we’ve seen a lot of is parents confusing babies being held with spoiling. Let’s take a moment to examine the word ‘spoil’

• to damage severely or harm (something), esp. with reference to its excellence, value, usefulness,
• to diminish or impair the quality of; affect detrimentally
• to become bad, or unfit for use, as food or other perishable substances; become tainted or putrid

Wow… when you apply those definitions to children, no wonder we’re so concerned with spoiling our children! But really… by holding your squishy newborn, do you really think that you’re damaging or harming him severely? That you’re harming or damaging his value or usefulness? Can you impair his quality by holding him? Will he no longer be fit for use or become tainted or putrid just by being in your arms? Seems kinda ridiculous, doesn’t it?

If you think about it, the reverse seems like it would be true. By holding your babe, you’re giving him and eye-level view of the world. He’s not regulated to a stroller or baby-bucket where his view is all kneecaps and buttocks. He gets to see facial expressions and how those relate to tone of voice. He can hear and feel the heartbeat and respiration of whoever is holding him, which directly relate to emotion and conversation. A child in arms is more likely to be engaged in conversation as well – it’s hard to ignore a person who is at your eye level.

We’ve found that the easiest way to accomplish this is with a baby wrap or sling – not a crotch dangler (where baby’s weight is supported entirely and unnaturally by his crotch) or commercial ‘sling’ (like all the ones that have been re-called, with cardboard backs, ones that can’t be tightened snugly to the wearer’s chest or back) – but a good, old-fashioned (though totally updated for today’s fashions) ring sling or length of fabric that is used to tie the baby to you (a la MobyWrap style – though frugal mamas know that upwards of $60 is kinda expensive for a logo when you can make one yourself with little effort).

Slings have added benefits, aside from keeping baby in arms, it keeps you hands free for the most part. We’ve often been seen doing day-to-day tasks with a baby strapped onto chest or back – the Vacuum Cleaner Dance is a particular favorite. Our all-time favorite feature is that slings also keep Nosy Rosies from poking at your baby….that is, with the obvious exception of little old southern women who have no shame or sense of personal space and will yank at the sling to see the baby even when she’s getting her grub on. The only reason we tolerate that, aside from our good manners and the fact that our mamas taught us to respect our elders,  is that she’ll usually have some sweet memory of nursing her own babies to share, and that’s priceless.

So now that we’ve successfully debunked that whole ‘spoiling’ thing, what about you – are you selfish with your baby?

For further reading:

• Keeping Baby Close: The Importance of High-Touch Parenting
• What Babywearing Means: Our Story from Ask Dr. Sears.com
• Babywearing International.org
• The Containerization of our Children at HippieMommy.com