My SIL has gone into hospital today, to wait in safety til her Csection on her due date, Wednesday. Her baby has decided it wants to be sideways, didn't like the upside down thing at all! It had been transverse for ages, then flipped soon after they were warned how dangerous it was and that she'd have to be taken in for monitoring pre-operation.
I feel sorry for her, it would freak me out, but she's very practical, and there must be a certain amount of relief in releasing yourself from the responsibility and knowing the op is a foregone conclusion. And that there are people around to look after you in case things go wrong - transverse is dangerous if you go into labour, much more so than breech.
In fact, there's an incredible breech birth story in this month's copy of Mothering that is very inspirational. There's a lot of interesting theory about why babies do this. I wonder. We need to look more into the emotional motivation of unborn babies -though it's not research that will ever go mainstream because it can't be done scientifically. I think rebirthing has much to teach us about our experience before and just afer birth, but it's not something everyone can accept.
Why are we so threatened by the concept of babies having emotional lives? I know why, because generally, we treat them so badly - it's hard for me to think about but people used to believe that newborns had no feelings of pain - WTF? Why did we come to this insane conclusion, other than as a way to block out and deny our own pain and negative birth experience.
Inamay Gaskin says that one of the first things on her list for maternity care reform in the US is to teach anyone who works with babies how to take their clothes on or off without making them cry - I think this says it all.
My husband and I were so scared of having our baby's heel prick test done we nearly didn't. In the event he bravely held our three day old daughter, while our lovely midwife warmed her foot in water, and gently did the test - apart from one squeak as the needle came out, she was calm and happy, and we laughed at ourselves for being so hysterical about it - yet I know in hospital, many people experience a screaming baby who has to be punctured again and again to get enough blood. In fairness, Philomena did say it's not always that easy and that it's the only bit of her job she doesn't like - but I still think it says a lot about hospital.
It's funny, my daughter is no longer so calm about blood drawing - when I talk about having pregnancy blood tests she gets quite upset - I told someone I'd had one yesterday and from the sand box she told me firmly, 'Don't talk about that, Mama. It's too icky.' I wonder are some phobias inborn? Seeing Charlotte's Web seems to have resolved the fear of spiders I'd sadly created by shrieking involuntarily when I see one - I know, I know, I'd so hoped not to, but it's pretty uncontrollable.
Now I just have to try and undo her fear of the dark that has arisen since she saw an unexpectedly scary moment on Scrubs (Dammit! Don't let your child watch telly!).
I was always scared of the dark, and I still think about Werewolves and so on lurking in wait - why won't that one go away?
From transverse babies to fears and phobias - this is what I'm thinking about today!
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