colic

Colic is weird. When you have a baby you hear a lot about colic. "Does he have colic?" other parents will ask you in the same hushed tones you would ask, "Is it malignant?"

I have photos of him crying, but I find them kind of upsetting so here's a grumpy one. His dad is keeping the dummy in his mouth because when he gets upset he spits it out and then cries because it's not in his mouth any more.

In adults (footnote: I often accidentally say 'humans' when I mean adults, I think that is very telling [second footnote: I hate having footnotes at the end of an article because then you have to keep scrolling up and down, I saw a website the other day that had footnotes on the side and I thought it was rad]) colic is a Real Thing; it means 'severe abdominal pain caused by spasm, obstruction, or distention of any of the hollow viscera, such as the intestines.'

In babies, it means 'your baby sure does cry a lot and it seems to be related to his farts but we can't really find anything wrong and also maybe he stops crying when you drive around in the car which is weird if it's because of pain but have this medical-sounding term anyway.'

Babies are said to have colic if they cry for more than three hours, three days a week, for three weeks. This seems awfully pat to me, but that's OK because it's a made-up disease.

Colic is the worst. There is pretty much nothing you can do about it (although you can find endless suggestions on forums) and the only advice you will get is "He'll grow out of it."

I don't know if Peanut's screaming fits into the definition of colic because I haven't timed his screams and I don't really care, but he seems to be getting more screamy rather than less over time. Babies are supposed to peak in their crying around 6 weeks and then gradually improve until they are perfect angels at 12 weeks. I think Peanut is just screaming more because he's awake more; he's gaining weight and is perfectly healthy. But I do think his guts give him trouble; sometimes he screams like he's being tortured while he lets out a string of farts.

(Another sidenote: when you read about 'crying' babies, you get an image of weeping, mewling infants. This is very misleading.)

Anyway, there has been a very interesting study done in Italy (double blind, control group etc) on the use of probiotics given to colicky babies. I have asked my doctor and child health nurse about probiotics but was told that as I am breastfeeding, this was unnecessary. However, the study at the University of Turin looked at breastfeeding mothers and showed a marked improvement in crying in the babies given probiotics. (The mothers also gave up cow's milk, but since the control group also did this, it's not necessarily significant.) It was a very small group of subjects - 27 plus 21 in the control group - but it's interesting. The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne did a larger study last year but the results have not been published yet.

Lactobacillus acidophilus. You have these bugs in you oh noooooo

Anyway, I bought some baby probiotics for Peanut and I'm taking them grown-up probiotics as well (which I suspect are exactly the same as the baby ones except packaged in capsules and cheaper). I won't be able to report on their efficacy with any reliability, because crying is a thing that babies are supposed to just grow out of. But like every parent with a crying baby, I am willing to try pretty much anything. I'll let you know how it goes.

having a baby is hard

Before I had this baby--

OK, first of all, a digression. (Digression from the digression: I had to think for a while before I could remember that word. "Agression? Progression? I should go have a nap.") I don't want to use the baby's name on the internet. I grew up with the privilege of creating my own digital profile and I think he should be able to do the same, without potential employers or girlfriends/boyfriends reading about his farts and drooling and the hilarious face he makes when he's pooping. So I need a name for him. How does Peanut strike you? Too cutesy? We call him Peanut a lot at home, so it feels natural. Let me know.

 

Anyway, before I had Peanut, I thought I would be blogging about him all the time. Maybe too much! People would get sick of it and I would have to try to think of other things to blog about! And here I am, I have blogged twice since he was born (and only posted one photo!) and now he is 11 weeks old. Oh dear.

I don't think it's lack of time (although I don't have a lot of that) so much as lack of energy. When he naps I am doing things like showering, eating, and sitting on the couch watching Seinfeld pretending I'll get up and do some Pilates as soon as this episode finishes.

It's not like I haven't written blog posts. I have, I've just written them in my head while I'm lying in bed trying to get the baby to go to sleep. Once he's asleep, it all just seems too much effort and not a priority.

But I am going to make an effort to write more, because it's kind of like having a conversation with adults, and I need more than that. (I guess it's a conversation where I do all the talking, but that's no drawback.)

I'm going to try to write more short posts, instead of planning long ones that never get written. And I'm going to try not to worry about whether what I'm writing is clever or funny or even interesting. I'll just write to keep writing.

feedback loop

I have detected a serious flaw in the design of the human infant:

When he feeds, he falls asleep.

When he feeds, he also poops.

When he is put on the changing table, he wakes up.

When he wakes up, he wants to feed.

Did Kafka write any stories about newborns?

peanut

 

This tiny peanut was born on the 13th of February (his due date!) weighing 4.1 kg and measuring 53 cm. I will tell a bit of the birth story soon. The important part is that he is inexpressibly beautiful and I love him more than I can say. Sometimes I look at him and I feel like my heart is physically swelling in my chest.

blog-drunk thoughts

Egg in Tree by drteeth on Flickr

You know that feeling when you've read a blog's entire archive, become so caught up in the story that you've been not only thinking but dreaming about it, and then suddenly you've caught up and you feel bereft and unsatisfied? "What do you mean, I have to wait for more? Quick, live your life so I can read about it!"

Rebecca has been blogging at Fosterhood for three years and I just finished reading all 185 pages. She's a very unusual foster parent: young, single, highly educated, working full-time. (This is not based on my prejudices, I have no preconceived ideas about foster parents; I am comparing her to the statistics on FPs in New York.) I think what makes this blog so amazing is that it isn't full of posts about how blessed she feels and how she's responding to a Calling. She writes very honestly about her experiences, the good and the bad. She writes about feeling overwhelmed, she examines her motivations for foster parenting, and she is perceptive about the changes she undergoes.

Being 36 weeks pregnant, it's been making me think a lot about my situation and my baby. I don't know how coherent (or how interesting) these thoughts are but I wanted to get them down anyway...

First of all, it's increased my understanding of my own privilege (something I'd like to think I'm savvy about but I could always use reminding about). Many factors including my skin colour, education level and family structure mean that I have a level of support that many women could only dream of. Even when institutional/governmental support is available to people, the ability to a) find out about it, b) access it and c) advocate for one's self is not universal. I have literacy, unlimited internet access, an understanding of formal and institutional language. I have confidence in using government agencies because I don't have a history of being in trouble with them. My privilege allows me to see myself as a taxpayer and citizen who has a right to assistance.

It's also made me think about my baby's level of privilege. In fact, ever since I found out I was having a boy it's been in the back of my mind. This white, male child of a heterosexual, cisgendered married couple, both of whom have stable jobs and supportive families, will have chances and choices other children will never know. 

Finally, it's made me realise how easy it is as a new/prospective parent to get sucked into the rabbit hole of doing everything perfectly. You can spend days researching the best BPA-free, shatter-proof bottles (for your pumped breast milk, of course) and still feel inadequate. When I start to get crazy over this stuff, I need to remind myself, "My baby is warm, fed and loved. I am doing great." I also need to remember (again) that I am in a position of immense privilege that allows me to obsess over stupid shit instead of how I'm going to pay my bills, where my child and I will be sleeping tonight, how to avoid abusive family members, etc.

Like many people, I've said in the past words to the effect of "I could never foster a child! It would be way to hard emotionally." Rebecca's blog has made me re-examine this statement and realise that the truth is, I choose not to foster a child, even though I am capable of it, because it would be hard. It's hard for everyone. I don't think I'm a terrible person for that choice, but no matter how difficult raising a child is going to be (and I know it will be very, very hard at times), I hope I can keep some of this perspective and remember how fortunate we are.

get out of my face about breastfeeding

First of all, the inevitable disclaimer: I intend to breastfeed my child. It's cheap, it's handy and convenient, it's good for babies. It also seems like a nice thing to do, and I hope I can do it without too many problems.

However, as any currently/recently pregnant woman can tell you, there is currently a huge pressure on women to breastfeed, and it's really starting to piss me off.

Yes, it's great that hospitals and doctors and more supportive of breastfeeding these days. It's great that they acknowledge that breastfeeding isn't always easy, and that women should have access to support them. However, the rhetoric of breastfeeding often makes me feel uncomfortable.

"It's natural!" Meaning, of course, it's good. (And, by extension, formula feeding is "unnatural" and therefore bad.) I have to say, as soon as I hear the word "natural", my hackles rise and my skepticism goes on alert. Here are some other things that are unnatural:

• wearing spectacles to correct your sight
• eating with a knife and fork
• taking drugs to prevent epileptic seizures
• reading

Also, the word "natural" has been used a lot to justify ideologies which most of us would agree are highly problematic: sexism, racism, homophobia. So let's stop using that one as an argument, OK?

"It's best for baby!" Yes, if all other elements are equal, breast milk is better for a baby than formula. (Except that it doesn't have enough iron.) However, all elements are never equal.

If a mother is in agony trying to breastfeed, that might not be best for baby.

If a mother has to take drugs to breastfeed, that might not be best for baby.

If a mother is traumatised and made to feel inadequate by her difficulty breastfeeding, that might not be best for baby.

And how about this for a radical argument: the baby is not the only person involved here, and women have a right to choose what is best for them.

I am frankly amazed at some of the comments I have seen on the Internet regarding formula feeding. Women who opt for this method are called selfish. They are told that if they didn't want to fully devote their body and their life to their child, they shouldn't have one. They are told that they are damaging their children. It's very reminiscent of the arguments against mothers working outside the home.

It's not just on the Internet, either. One woman I know of was looking at formula on the shelves of a supermarket, trying to decide between brands in case she had to supplement in the future. A complete stranger walked past and chirped brightly, "Breast is best!" Thanks, judgmental stranger! I spent pregnancy and birth alone in a cave and this is my first outing; I appreciate your advice! Also, let me punch you in your stupid FACE.

Women have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies. If you do not agree with this, or you want to add caveats, then brother, we have a more fundamental disagreement than I can address here.

"Your baby will have a higher IQ!" This is a very common and very powerful argument, except it's based on shitty science.

A large study recently co-conducted by the University of Edinburgh and Scotland’s Medical Research Council found that breastfed babies do indeed tend to be smarter than formula-fed babies. But it also found that mothers who breastfeed also tend to have higher IQs and more education, and tend to provide more stimulating home environments than formula-feeding mothers. Once the numbers were corrected to account for the mom’s IQ, the relationship between breastfeeding and intelligence disappeared. (And there was no statistical difference between siblings when one was breastfed and one wasn’t.) The study, analyzing data on nearly 5,500 American children, was published in the British Medical Journal in October 2006. Previous studies, for the most part, hadn’t factored in the mom’s IQ when declaring that breastfeeding made babies smarter.

(The same article also debunks the rather more superficial but probably equally powerful argument that breastfeeding helps you lose weight. It doesn't.)

"You'll have a stronger bond with your baby!" Well, that's a nice big fuck-you to adoptive parents, people medically unable to breastfeed, and mothers whose babies fail to thrive on their milk. This is sentimental and anecdotal; there is no evidence to support it.

"Formula is no substitute for breast milk." Actually, it's a damn good substitute. It doesn't have the antibodies provided in breast milk, but it's carefully designed to meet a child's nutritional needs. No-one should feel that they are depriving their child, or harming its health, by formula feeding. And the studies on breast milk are severely limited by the lack of attention paid to other factors such as wealth and socioecomonic class:

It is true that breastfed babies are healthier in many ways than formula-fed ones. But does that in and of itself prove a causal relationship between health and breast milk? Women who breastfeed tend to be wealthier and better educated than women who don’t, so it’s hard to tease apart how much of the benefit to their children comes from breastfeeding and how much comes from other factors correlated with money and education. (For instance, women who breastfeed are less likely to smoke.)

Finally, let's address a fact that very few breastfeeding advocates seem to acknowledge. While women get the blame for not breastfeeding, our society makes it difficult to breastfeed. Most women in Australia and other Western countries do not get much maternity leave; certainly not the minimum of a year which is recommended by breastfeeding advocates. When they return to work, they may choose to pump; however, many women do not work in jobs where they can take breaks to do this, where an appropriate space is provided, or where their workmates and supervisors are sympathetic to their needs. This is both a women's issue and a class issue, and there's no point throwing money at public education campaigns if it is not addressed.

2013

 

 Born on New Year's Day. From the Flickr Commons.

I love making New Year's resolutions. I've even managed to keep some. This year, though, I'm not going to try to achieve anything but this:

Stay sane and healthy.

No clean house, no weight loss, no artistic achievements. Just try not to lose my fucking mind with the insane life change coming my way in February.

The pregnancy is going well, by the way. I am 35 weeks in and the baby has turned head-down (turns out that when I thought I was gently cradling his head, I had his bum cupped instead). He has started grinding his head into my pelvis as though blindly searching for the way out. Please don't be impatient, baby. If you don't give me some more time, you're going to end up sleeping on a pile of laundry because that's what's taking up the space where your cot will be.