Tomorrow I remain 

~~~calm~~~

Emotions in motion....HA!

I think I have may have underestimated the effect of moving could have on all of us.  I have tried very hard to keep things as smooth and routine and 'normal' as possible.  In the first 2-3days I organised the kitchen as fast as I could to get the food source happening, but obviously everything is in a different looking place. Then I organised the kids clothes and books how they used to be but in a different position..same wardrobe, same drawers, simply cos we needed to keep their furniture.  We organised the living room and finally after 5days, the TV! We kept Ellie going to school (not sure if that was best move, but then I am biased!) and even I managed a nurture nature and some brownie and bread making.

But the girls really are having a hard time adjusting and Maia in particular has been quite destructive, ripping wallpaper, food dropping, more mess making than usual (which i know is normally quite high!), ignoring, hitting me(not major, like faux hitting) and  disruptive at other times, especially bed time.  

It all came to a head yesterday and after much upset, anger and crying..from all, and major calming down needed from me, we had a bedtime chat.  We talked about missing the old house and what she missed, the bathroom was first on her list, the wooden toilet seat..I wondered about this until i realised the toilet seats feel diffrent here and in a sleepy state, its nice to feel the familiar on your bottom!  There were other such random items, light fittings, wardrobes not being where they should be (in Brenfield) but the most telling was the missing sleeping next to us, which is what thy did in the old house.  I had kind of prepared them for this before moving, explaining they would be in a double bed together, but nothing can really prepare for that.  The first few nights it was really working, together in a double bed, they started as far apart as possible but by morning were always together.  Then the other room was sorted and the bunk beds went up and the novelty for there took over, the next night was in a tent on the floor next to the bunk beds.  We have given them the choice of where to sleep.  

We finally talked about all the things we did like about the new house and she managed to come up with quite a few, but they were becoming more and more random until I realised, she was feeling calmer and was ready to fall asleep.  

The upshot is, we have brought Maia back into our bed for a wee bit to help her feel more settled.  I know most would think we are crazy but we already feel its helping...We have at least 3months to settle her back to one of the other choices of beds in preparation for the new bubbah!  The only problem I can forsee is that there would not be room for Ellie too.  I will have to find a different way of helping her feel more settled or its bunk beds for Barry!!  Aah Barry, his study has been his priority!

grrrr boxes

So in 8days, we have sorted out most of the 'living spaces', now its back to sorting out our 'emotional spaces'.

Upset, unsettled children are hard to be with. I can be hard to be with too. Real emotions are hard to be with.  I can be hard to be with too.  Most people put a lot of time and effort into not showing their real emotions.  Not dealing with their feelings.  Pretending everything is under control, in control, sorted and happy.  Kids have no such (dis)abilities.  They are as real and raw as they come. I can be like this too, just hopefully not as much. Thank G-d!  

Meltdowns - phenomenal!

Losing the Plot - OMG I should have been filmed!

Breastfeeding - soon, so very soon!

Co-Sleeping Blog Carnival

*******


Thanks for reading a post in the Safe Cosleeping Blog Carnival. On Carnival day, please follow along on Twitter using the #CosleepCar hashtag.
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
***

• Emotive Co-Sleeping Campaign - Miriam at Diary of an Unconscious Mother talks about her feelings on Milwaukee’s anti-cosleeping crusade and its latest advertising campaign.
• Why Cosleeping has Always been the Right Choice for My Family - Patti at Jazzy Mama shares how lucky she feels to have the privilege of sleeping with her four children.
• Cosleeping is a safe, natural and healthy solution parents need to feel good about. - See how Tilly at Silly Blatherings set up a side-car crib configuration to meet her and her families' needs.
• Black and White: Race and the Cosleeping Wars - Moorea at Mama Lady: Adventures in Queer Parenting points out the problem of race, class and health when addressing co-sleeping deaths and calls to action better sleep education and breastfeeding support in underprivileged communities.
• Reflections on Cosleeping - Jenny at I’m a Full Time Mummy shares her thoughts on cosleeping and pictures of her cosleeping beauties.
• Cosleeping and Transitioning to Own Bed - Isil at Smiling Like Sunshine shares her experiences in moving beyond the family bed.
• What Works for One Family - Momma Jorje shares why cosleeping is for her and why she feels it is the natural way to go. She also discusses the actual dangers and explores why it may not be for everyone.
• Really High Beds, Co-Sleeping Safely, and the Humanity Family Sleeper - Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama gives a quick view of Jennifer’s bed-sharing journey and highlights the Humanity Family Sleeper, something Jennifer could not imagine bed-sharing without.
• Crying in Our Family Bed - With such a sweet newborn, why has adding Ailia to the family bed made Dionna at Code Name: Mama cry?
• Dear Mama: - Zoie at TouchstoneZ shares a letter from the viewpoint of her youngest son about cosleeping.
• Cuddle up, Buttercup! - Nada of The MiniMOMist and her husband Michael have enjoyed cosleeping with their daughter Naomi almost since birth. Nada shares why the phrase "Cuddle up, Buttercup!" has such special significance to her.
• Co-Sleeping With A Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler - Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling shares how co-sleeping calls us to trust our inner maternal wisdom and embrace the safety and comfort of the family bed.
• Fear instead of Facts: An Opportunity Squandered in Milwaukee - Jenn at Monkey Butt Junction discusses Milwaukee’s missed opportunity to educate on safe cosleeping.
• Cosleeping: A Mini-rant and a Lovely Picture - Siobhan at Res Ipsa Loquitor discusses her conversion to cosleeping and rants a little bit about the Milwaukee Health Department anti-cosleeping campaign.
• Our Cosleeping Story - Adrienne at Mommying My Way shares her cosleeping story and the many bonus side effects of bedsharing.
• Cosleeping can be safe and rewarding Christy at Mommy Outnumbered shares how her cosleeping experiences have been good for her family.
• Adding one more to the family bed Lauren at Hobo Mama discusses the safety logistics of bed sharing with a new baby and a preschooler.
• The Truth About Bedsharing - Dr. Sarah at Parenting Myths and Facts discusses the research into bedsharing and risk - and explains why it is so often misrepresented.
• Cosleeping as a parenting survival tool - Melissa V. at Mothers of Change describes how she discovered cosleeping when her first baby was born. Melissa is the editor and a board member for the Canadian birth advocacy group, Mothers of Change.
• Dear Delilah - Joella at Fine and Fair writes about her family bed and the process of finding the cosleeping arrangements that work best for her family.
• CoSleeping ROCKS! - Melissa at White Noise talks about the evolution of cosleeping in her family.
• Safe Sleep is a Choice - Tamara at Pea Wee Baby talks about safe sleep guidelines.
• 3 Babies Later: The Evolution of our Family Bed - Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment talks about how her family’s cosleeping arrangements evolved as her family grew.
• Tender Moments - The Accidental Natural Mama discusses tender cosleeping moments.
• Cosleeping Experiences - Lindsey at An Unschooling Adventure describes how she ended up co-sleeping with her daughter through necessity, despite having no knowledge of the risks involved and how to minimise them, and wishes more information were made available to help parents co-sleep safely.
• The early days of bedsharing - Luschka at Diary of a First Child shares her early memories of bedsharing with her then new born and gets excited as she plans including their new arrival into their sleeping arrangements.
• The Joys of Cosleeping in Pictures - Charise of I Thought I Knew Mama shares pictures of some of her favorite cosleeping moments.
• Symbiotic Sleep - Mandy at Living Peacefully With Children discusses how the symbiotic cosleeping relationship benefits not only children but also parents.
• Co-sleeping Barriers: What’s Stopping You? - Kelly at Becoming Crunchy shares how she was almost prevented from gaining the benefits of co-sleeping her family currently enjoys.
• Co-Sleeping with the Family Humanity Sleeper - Erica at ChildOrganics shares a way to make co-sleeping safe, comfortable and more convenient. Check out her post featuring the Humanity Organic Family Sleeper.
• Why We Cosleep - That Mama Gretchen’s husband chimes in on why cosleeping is a benefit to their family.
• Adding to the Family Bed - Darah at A Girl Named Gus writes about her co-sleeping journey and what happens when a second child comes along.

A big thank you to all of the Safe Cosleeping Blog Carnival participants!

So tired? Take heart....

CO-SLEEPING FAMILIES WITH A YOUNG BABY TAKE NOTE TAKE HEART:

I ♥ that my sleeping children sleep so soundly, that we can take them to pee and they go straight back to sleep, that I can move them about, push them over for more room and they stay asleep, that they wake up, know we are not far, feel secure and go back to sleep. I also ♥ that they now sleep through the night.

Vaccination Links

WAVE - Vaccine Ingredients

Vaccine Ingredients - Formaldehyde, Aspartame, Mercury, Etc


How To Win the Vaccine Argument Every Single Time |

Vaccines - Jon Rappoport interview of ex vaccine researcher

YouTube - Vaccines - The Risks, The Benefits, The Choices [complete]

YouTube - Vaccine Nation - FULL LENGTH

Arnica | Natural Immunity | Vaccine Information

Just A Little Prick by Peter and Hilary Butler

From one prick to another

Hepatitis B Vaccination for Newborns: Good Intentions, Bad Science, Worse Policy

A Safe Alternative To Vaccines | Homeopathic Immunization | Organic Life Love

Homeopathic Alternatives to Vaccines. Thinktwice!

Homeopathy & Measles

Naturopathy & Measles

Investigators and Families of Vaccine-Injured Children Released Study Revealing Clear Vaccine-Autism Link Based on Government’s Own Data | Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law & Advocacy

Big Profits Linked to Vaccine Mandates

Mmr vaccine should never have been licenced | What Doctors Don't Tell You

$2bn pay-outs say vaccines are not safe | What Doctors Don't Tell You

Rotavirus Vaccine Linked to Bowel Disorder

Forced Vaccinations, Government, and the Public Interest - NHF

Vaccine Mania: The Relationship between Government and Pharmaceutical Companies | Health Impact News

University of California - UC Newsroom | Study debunks autism as primarily genetic disorder

Vaccine-Induced Asthma

Historical facts about the dangers (and failures) of vaccines

The Herd Immunity Theory - Treating Our Children Like Cattle

Why Don’t Children Regress Before They Turn One? by F. Edward Yazbak, MD, FAAP | Vaccination News

uncovering HPV vaccine cover-up - Cervarix and Gardasil

Mumps outbreak spreads among people who got vaccinated against mumps

Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality - Institute of Medicine

Extra-immunization as a clinical i... [Public Health Rep. 2011 Jul-Aug] - PubMed - NCBI

Extra-immunization is associated with receiving immunizations from multiple providers and multiple facility types. | GreenMedInfo | Article | Natural Medicine | Alternative Medicine | Integrative Medicine

Vaccine-Induced Allergies

How Can it be About the Money? Immunizations are Free! Right? | VaxTruth.org

SHEDDING

Morbidity / Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)

Vaccinia Virus Infection After Sexual Contact with  Military Smallpox Vaccinee --- WA, 2010

Weekly July 2, 2010 / 59(25);773-775

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5925a2.htm

Toddler survives smallpox vac reaction

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/18/us-smallpox-boy-idUSN1744524120070518

WA | Fri May 18, 2007 11:02am EDT

(Reuters) - A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report

Transmission of mumps virus from mumps-vacd individuals to close contacts

Volume 29, Issue 51, 28 November 2011, Pages 9551-9556

doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.09.100 | How to Cite or Link Using DOI

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11015428

Man Infected With Smallpox-like Virus Through Sex

http://www.livescience.com/27560-smallpox-vaccine-spread-sex.html

Varicella Shedding  Up to Month After Zoster Vac (3-9-11)

http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/news/infectious-diseases/single-article/varicella-shedding-detected-up-to-month-after-zoster-vaccination/8f6b51d39f.html

Detection of fecal shedding of rotavirus vac in infants following their first dose of pentavalent rotavirus (revised 10 March 2011)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11004567

MMR Vac Merck Package Insert

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Sibling Transmission of Vac-Derived Rotavirus (RotaTeq) Asst With Rotavirus Gastroenteritis (1-25-10)

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/125/2/e438.full

RotaTeq (Rotavirus Vac, Live, Oral, Pentavalent)

Oral Solution

(Recent major changes Shedding and Transmission (5.4) 09/2010 )

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/r/rotateq/rotateq_pi.pdf

Detection of measles virus RNA in urine specimens from vac recipients

( J Clin Microbiol. 1995 September; 33(9): 2485–2488 )

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC228449/

Polio outbreak sparked by vac, experts say ( updated 10/5/2007)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21149823/

Secondary Transmission of Varicella After Vac

http://www.patientsville.com/vaccines/varcel/secondary-transmission-varicella-varivax-2008.htm

FluMist Shedding Studies; sec. 14.5 MedImmune, LLC Package insert (May 2011)“...vac viruses capable of infection & replication can be cultured from nasal secretions obtained from vac recipients (shedding)...from table 6: last day of positive culture: 28

http://www.medimmune.com/pdf/products/flumist_pi.pdf

Breastfeeding May Transmit Vac Virus

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/02/09/Breastfeeding-may-transmit-vaccine-virus/UPI-70341297298870/

(Excerpt): 

http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2008/02/24/secondary-transmission-%EF%BB%BFthe-short-and-sweet-about-live-virus-vaccine-shedding/comment-page-1/

MMR PG 5

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Flu (FluMist Intranasal) - Shedding (Section 5.4)

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicalBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM123743.pdf

Chicken Pox (Varivax) - Shedding (Section 5.4)

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/v/varivax/varivax_pi.pdf

Shingles (Zostavax} - Shedding (Section 5.2)

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/z/zostavax/zostavax_pi2.pdf

MMR Shedding (Page 5, Under Precaution)

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Rotavirus (Rotarix)- Shedding (Section 5.4)

https://www.gsksource.com/gskprm/htdocs/documents/ROTARIX-PI-PIL.PDF

Smallpox (ACAM2000) - Shedding (Section 5.4)

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/biologicalBloodVaccines/vaccines/approvedProducts/UCM142572.pdf

http://m.cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/02/27/cid.ciu105 Outbreak of Measles Among Persons With Prior Evidence of Immunity, New York City, 2011

http://www.inquisitr.com/1801210/genotype-baltimore-mmr/ Baltimore infant receives measles like illness after MMR vac, tests positive for measles

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/269 Local public health response to vaccine-associated measles: case report

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(89)91274-9/abstract BROTHER-TO-SISTER TRANSMISSION OF MEASLES AFTER MEASLES, MUMPS, AND RUBELLA IMMUNISATION

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X01004959?via=ihub Detection of measles vac in the throat of a vacd child

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1525-1470.2005.22208.x/abstract;jsessionid=A42B77961BF45733771A7CA9E3024796.f04t01 Vac-Assoc“Wild-Type” Measles

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000359.htm?mobile=nocontent Measles Outbreak among Vacd

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC228449/ Detection of measles virus

Co-Sleeping Articles

ARTICLES SUPPORTING CO-SLEEPING

JAMES J. MCKENNA

1.    Why babies should never sleep alone: A review of the co-sleeping controversy in relation to SIDS, bedsharing and breast feeding James J. McKenna* and Thomas McDade 2005:

2.    Why we never ask ‘is it safe for infants to sleep alone’ Historical Origins of Scientific Bias in bedsharing SIDS/SUDI ‘Debate’ by James McKenna in the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and News 2001:

3.    In Defence of Maya’s Mother in Contemporary Paediatrics 2000:

4.    Maternal Sleep and Arousals during Bedsharing with Infants in American Sleep Disorders Association and Sleep Research Society 1997:

5.    Infant-Parent Co-Sleeping in an Evolutionary Perspective: Implications for Understanding Infant Sleep development and the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in American Sleep Disorders Association and Sleep Research Society 1993

6.    RESEARCHING THE SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME (SIDS) The Role of Ideology in Biomedical Science 1991

7.    Cosleeping and Biological Imperatives: Why Human Babies Do Not and Should Not Sleep Alone

8. Breastfeeding & Bedsharing Still Useful (and Important) after All These Years

more

      

Natural Child Project

1.    An Oversight of Our Culture

2.    Babies Need Their Mothers Beside Them

3.    Bedsharing Promotes Breastfeeding

4.    Bedtime Story: Co-sleeping Research

5.    The Con of Controlled Crying

6.    Cosleeping

7.    Cosleeping and Biological Imperatives:Why Human Babies Do Not and Should Not Sleep Alone

8.    Cosleeping Around The World

9.    Is It Time to Abolish Cribs?

10.  Is sleeping with my baby safe? Can it reduce the risk of SIDS?

11.  It's None of Their Business

12.  Need vs. Habit

13.  A Rediscovery

14.  Rethinking "Healthy" Infant Sleep

15.  Should My Baby be Sleeping Through the Night?

16.  Statement on sleeping locations and sudden death in infants

17.  Ten Reasons to Sleep Next to Your Child at Night

18.  When Will My Baby Soothe Himself to Sleep?

19.  Why babies should never sleep alone

20.  Why We Never Ask "Is it Safe for Infants to Sleep Alone?"

1. Shouting For Baby
2. Real Men Sleep With Their Kids
3. Bed of Roses
4. Family Bed Safety
5. Where Oh Where Has Our Sex Life Gone
6. Where Should Babies Sleep at Night?: A Review of the Evidence from the CESDI SUDI Study
7. Solitary or Shared Sleep: What's Safe?
8. Sleep Environment Safety Checklist
9. How the Stats Really Stack Up: Cosleeping Is Twice As Safe
10. The Complexity of Parent-Child Cosleeping: Researching Cultural Beliefs
11. The New Zealand Experience: How Smoking Affects SIDS Rates
12. Bedsharing among Maoris: An Indigenous Tradition
13. Rooming-in at the Hospital: Assessing the Practical Considerations
14. Sleeping Like a Baby: How Bedsharing Soothes Infants
15. Not Designed to Sleep Alone
16. Bedsharing Research in Britain
17. The Family Bed: It's Safe and Here's Why
18. Three in a Bed
19. Sleep with Me: A Trans-cultural Look at the Power--and Protection--of Sharing a Bed
20. Sleep, Beautiful, Sleep: You, too, Can Take a Nap
21. Pillow Talk: Helping your Child Get a Good Night's Sleep 

More articles

The Family Bed – Kellymom.com

Co-sleeping as a window into Swedish culture: considerations of gender and health care. – Pubmed.gov

SLEEPING SAFELY WITH YOUR BABY – ASK DR SEARS

Lower your baby's risk of stress disorders, SID and more by Jennifer Cobrun courtesy of The Compleat Mother

Co-Sleeping vs. Crib Fact & SIDS; Statistic Sheet TheBabyBond.com

Relationship between bed sharing and breastfeeding: Longitudinal, population-based analysis

Not just another midwife. Interventions, Intuition and Timing

Another reiki session with my midwife Alison. Today we did it sitting up straddling a chair and  her hands felt freezing on my back.

We also discussed her and my minimum and maximum intervention levels during labour...so now feeling safer more connected and our trust is building YAY!!

I realised last night one of the reasons I felt Maia's birth stalled and events turned the way they did was in part due to having NO trust or connction to the strange woman who were in my home..one of whom could easily have been the 'drive by leafleting' person.  

Ina May Gaskin in her book Guide to Childbirth, states "A woman needs to be emotionally supported, undisturbed by strangers or people that could make her fearful, free to eat and drink as needed, and freedom to move helping baby's descend into the birth canal"  The all important Sphincter Law takes effect here. (A conversation with Ina may Gaskin here)

Last night, I wrote in my birth questions book: -

"If I have no interventions, are you able to know things are ok?  What is your minimum intervention requirement?"

Which led me to question 'what constitutes an intervention?'  For me, my list was :

Internal - I don't want to feel pressurised into having an internal due to the midwife following protocol or not feeling confident.  So unless one was absolutely necessary(vaginal exams - When are they really necessary by Brenda Manning), I would prefer not to, unless of course my curiosity wants to know too!  During Maia's birth, I felt the fear in the midwives who wanted to examine me and felt like I ought to whereas during Ellie's birth, I felt it was a relaxed request for information and even although I would have preferred not to, I was slightly curious myself.

Temperature - A high temperature in labour can be an indicator of infection.  When I went into early labour at 36+5 with Ellie, I dutifully charted my temperature and her heart rate until I was absolutely convinced that I was indeed in labour and she was definitely coming that day!  with Maia, I kind of did it automatically because she was slightly early too (37+4).  It can be a comforting and not so invasive technique in early labour should the need arise and one that can be done by myself.

Baby's Heart Rate - Which would she be using, a machine or a foetal scope? She prefers the machine simply because it is easier and IS less invasive than the scope.  The scope seems like such a cool instrument to me and makes me think of simpler times when machines were not invading labour and taking over.

Positioning - During labour, there can be occasions when a suggestion to move can be intrusive and unnecessary.  My question surrounding this was WHEN would she feel it was appropriate to make a suggestion? 

Palpating - How often would she feel the need to do this? How much could she tell from this?  I am still at a loss to know how the midwives were not aware that Maia had completely turned the day before (my own knowledge of this was pretty shocking too, HOW could I not have realised that was what had happened?)  It took them nearly 12 hours to work this out.

Feeling - I am not sure now whether I was meaning instinctual feeling that there was something amiss or whether i meant gentle feeling rather than full on palpating but as I also wrote,

Looking - How much can she tell just by observing.  I am inclined to think I was wondering about her level of knowledge and intuition.  Obviously not something that can be sufficiently known or answered in one session.

So, these were my thoughts the night before.  

Funnily, I had completely forgotten that Alison was coming today for reiki but I am very pleased because it meant everything was still fresh in my mind.  Serendipitously, Barry was also off work and had taken Maia out so we had peace and quiet to discuss things.  When I told her I had some deep questions, she was quite open to bringing them up, even though it wasn't our midwife appointment, feeling her role as reiki and midwife were interconnected now.  When she heard the questions, she pointed out that this was usually something she discussed at 35weeks (I am nearly 20) but she could tell I wasn't going to rest easy unless we discussed them!!

Alison's basic modus operandi is to arrive and observe for the next 30-40minutes after which she generally finds her base line information in terms of my blood pressure, my temperature, my pulse.  She will palpate me and the baby and check the babies heart rate.  NICE Guidelines state that these interventions monitoring should be done every 15minutes taking a whole minute to listen to the baby's heart rate.  Alison let me know that I had the option to opt out of these at any time and she would state in my notes that it was entirely my decision (she has a statement prepared).  Also, if a woman has had normal blood pressure throughout her pregnancy, the likelihood of there being issues during labour is minimal, although it can happen for example with Placenta Previa.

Even knowing that this is how she proceeds has alleviated a lot of my concerns and she also made it really clear to me that she is able to garner information simply from observing my movements and body language and listening to the noises I make.

During my reiki treatment, I was regaled with one of Alison's own birth story's (it was fresh in her mind, since it is her son's birthday, another timely occurrence) which opened with statistics of her birth attendances she had had to that point.  She said she had 3 years without a CS and 2 and half years without a transfer. 22 Home Births in a row without transfer! The CS rate of her practice is about 10% ( about 50/50 elective vs emergency). She had been an NHS midwife and was taking a break from the system to have a baby and reassess her needs within the establishment.  They basically illustrated to me that there had been very few 'problem' cases and she was fully knowledgeable of normal births, before and after becoming an independent midwife.  It was also so lovely to hear one of her birth story's and how times have changed and how it helped augment her decision to become an independent midwife.

The upshot is, my concerns and questions were listened to and discussed and we are that one step closer to the birth I am hoping this one to be.

Meltdowns - no one is here!!

Losing the Plot - I'm all alone

Breastfeeding - been thinking about the whole newborn feeding again recently 

Emotive Co-Sleeping Campaign

Milwaukee currently has a campaign to deter co-sleeping

Are you as appalled by these clearly emotive pictures and the completely one sided information with NO mention to ANY safe co-sleeping studies or practices?

Not only does it include couch sleeping and other surfaces in their statistics  which are NOT safe co-sleeping places.  There is NO mention to the fact, as has been pointed out by mental health worker Tasha Wiebusch, that "the statistics for SIDs and co-sleeping include a child who is sleeping with intoxicated parents, over tired parents, and, get this, if the child was in the parents bed at anytime during the night whether or not they died in the parents bed or in their crib is counted as SIDs while sleeping with their parents. They also count children who die sleeping on the couch or a chair with parents."

There are plenty of articles out there to promote and ensure that co-sleeping is done as safely as possible, that it is in fact a biological imperative and there are even statistics out there to show that through sleeping next to your child, incidences of raised temperatures can be detected and reduced (A baby's temperature is most stable on his mother - in skin-to-skin care mother's chest automatically warms to warm a cold baby, while her core temperature drops if baby is too warm and needs to be cooled  and mothers skin to skin contact can save lives, sleep apnoea can be deterred and detected sooner by the mothers own breathing regulating the child's, thus saving more lives.

Jim McKenna is one of the nation's leading academic experts on bed sharing. McKenna agrees bed sharing has its dangers. But his research shows there is one thing in particular separating the safe bed sharing parents from the rest. 100 percent of the cases in Milwaukee County -- all the babies were formula fed. McKenna predicted that, saying his research shows breastfeeding vitally affects both sleep patterns and sleep position. Dr. McKenna is so convinced breastfeeding is the key to safe bed sharing, he would never recommend a parent bed share without it.


I find this campaign to be unscrupulous in using fear scaremongering tactics and as a co-sleeping mother to two, nearly three toddlers, I find it disgusting, biased and shameful.