WMW- The Ultimate Gift

I would like to share the heart breaking and heart warming story of an wonderful mother, who is giving, in my opinion, the ultimate gift: Her breastmilk.


Jennifer Coias is an amazing activist for the rights of babies and children and writes many articles for "Peaceful Parenting", and is an admin for HM4HB in Brazil.  We were all so excited to hear that she was going to be having another baby, and many of us enjoyed seeing her photos of her growing belly, and reading about her plans for a peaceful HBAC (Home Birth After Cesarean section). Her enthusiasm was almost contagious.


Then at 35 weeks the unthinkable happened and we learned that Jennifer's baby had died. Tears flowed throughout the Facebook Peaceful Parenting universe as we cried for her, for her family, and for her baby.


Peaceful Parenting wrote a lovely article  "From Despair to Donation: A mother looses her baby and shares his milk", about Jennifer, and said that when she is ready, Jennifer will tell her own story.

"No one could do justice to the story that Jennifer Coias has to share: her hope-filled pregnancy, VBAC waterbirth plans, the loss of her baby at 35 weeks, subsequent weeks of waiting for him to arrive on his own (induction post-cesearean is dangerous), being dropped by both her midwife and OB, struggling to find someone to take an ultrasound picture of her baby, being dropped by her birth photographer, her subsequent gentle HBAC (home birth after cesarean) with a midwife found at the last minute, all the while living in a South American country far from home, friends and family, in an area where few understood or supported her belief in birth and trust in her body and her baby. No one could tell her story of all that she has endured, overcame, processed, learned, and continues to struggle through today - 9 days postpartum. No one, that is, except for Jennifer herself. She is writing, and plans to share with the peaceful parenting community when the time is right. But for now, without detailing all the momentous moments that have led up to this week, we'd like to celebrate the amazing gift that Jennifer is giving back to the world. Even in the midst of tears and pain, liquid gold flows forth, and through this, Jennifer is saving the lives of babies around her.

Today marks the beginning of  World Milksharing Week. It is also the day Jennifer has pumped the most milk yet to share -- milk that was meant for Jude, but that which is now graciously given to babies in need, in his honor. A few days postpartum, a local Brazilian milk bank made its first stop at Jennifer's house to drop off bottles and pick up bags which she'd filled. While there are many milk banks across Brazil, actual pumps and pumping supplies are hard to come by, and very expensive when available. Most mothers who donate milk do so from hand expression and do not have a significant amount to give. Milk bank workers were astonished the following day when Jennifer had not only filled all their containers, but additional bags as well. This type of gift does not happen often, and everyone was thrilled at the quantity and quality of little lives that would be powerfully impacted as a result."

I won't presume to write about Jennifer's story and will wait, like everyone else, to hear it directly from her.  Instead I want to talk about the amazing gift that she is giving to fragile babies in need: The Ultimate gift of breastmilk.  The road to donating hasn't been easy for Jennifer, because while milk banks are plentiful in Brazil, breast pumps are few and far between and very expensive.  Even to have one shipped from America is incredibly costly because of the heavy duties involved, on top of the shipping expenses themselves!  Using her broken pump Jenn is filling the containers that the milk bank has given her faster than they can replace them. 

* If you have unused breastmilk bags that you can send to her, your gift would be hugely appreciated.*

It is an awesome woman who takes the time and effort and diligence to pump milk to donate to another baby.  It takes an incredible woman- a true hero- to do all of this after the loss of her own baby.   The words of over 2000 women can be read on the facebook page created to support Jenn and her family- I highly suggest reading  some of the comments so many people have written.  Awe Inspiring. 

Just like Jennifer.

"The Most Twisted Logic in the World"

One of the most well laid out articles I've read that analyses the ridiculousness of male circumcision and the twisted logic that has grown up to support this horrific practice. Any of my readers in areas of the world out side the US (and Canada to some extent) will no doubt be horrified by the fact that North American parents fall prey to this mangled logic daily, allowing their newborn boys to be put to the knife within hours of birth without giving even a seconds thought to what they are about to have done to their babies.  What is sadder is the fact that almost daily I hear from parents that doctors and medical staff are harassing new parents, assailing them on all sides with moments of birthing a baby boy, trying to convince them to amputate part of their sons penis with these ridiculous pieces of twisted logic.  It is bad enough when parents convince themselves of the necessity of this amputation, as I outlined in "5 Reasons Parents Give for Choosing Circumcision, and Why Those Reasons are not Valid ",  but when the medical practitioners who have vowed to honour the Hippocratic oath to "Do No Harm" actually bully uninformed parents into this horrific procedure against all recommendations of every medical association in the world....?!

ENOUGH ALL READY!

It is up to parents to do their own research because unfortunately we can not rely on the medical machine to give us recommendations and opinions that are based on Actual logic and established medical studies.

....and isn't that a sad statement about the condition of our society in general?

Circumcision: The Most Twisted Logic in the World

By Clara Franco
This article was translated by the author and edited for DrMomma.org. It is available in Spanish here.

Let’s imagine for a moment the following series of situations at the doctor’s office.


Scenario 1:

-You: Doctor, now that my baby is crawling, his fingernails get SO filthy - full of dirt! Besides, it’s hard to cut them; it is so much trouble and takes so much time. Because of the dirt and bacteria getting under his nails, and then into his nose and mouth, he’s sick all the time and getting infections. What can I do?

-Doctor: Ma’am, the best solution would be to immediately schedule an appointment to cut your baby’s fingertips off. A solution to last a lifetime!

-You: What?! How can you even think I would cut off my son’s fingertips?

-Doctor: But this is very normal. Lots of moms do it now. It’s harmless, really! We only cut a little piece at the tip of the finger, a very small bit. Only the part where the nail begins to grow. His hands really work exactly the same; but you’ll spare yourself of the trouble of cleaning his nails and trimming them - forever! You won’t even need to teach him how to wash his nails when he grows up.

-You: But doesn’t that hurt?

-Doctor: Absolutely not. Babies this age cannot yet feel pain, and even if they did, they won’t remember it.

Scenario 2:

-Doctor: It’s a girl! Mrs. X, I must remind you that your health care plan will cover the expenses in case you want to perform a radical mastectomy on your baby. The sooner, the better.

-You: A what?

-Doctor: You know, to completely remove her mammary glands. Breast cancer is now the second cause of death in Mexico for women over 25, and it’s more common every day! If we do the procedure on your daughter, you’ll forever forget about that risk. You could save her life! It’s better now that she’s a baby and she won’t remember. No cancer for her - ever! It’s becoming routine to do it when they’re this young. Remember, if you choose not to get the surgery, there’s still a 1 in 10 chance that she will have cancer and need the procedure anyway. Her mammary glands really do nothing but put her at deadly risk.

Scenario 3:

-Doctor: It’s a boy! So ma’am, we’re going for the appendectomy, right?

-You: Well, do you recommend it, doctor?

-Doctor: Absolutely. Look, more or less, four in every fifty children will have appendicitis at some point in their lives. And then it is a problem because if they don’t have the surgery immediately, they may die from peritonitis or septic shock. Now many parents choose to have the surgery done right after birth, and do away with the problem forever! We’ll remove it now, and spare ourselves from a scare when he’s older.

-You: But you’ll use anesthesia, right?

-Doctor: Oh no, that’s dangerous in newborns! We don’t apply anesthesia because then it would be a high-risk intervention. Besides, what’s the point? He’s so small and he can’t feel pain yet. He won’t even remember when he grows up.....

...Something very similar has happened to our country’s medical establishment. We’ve ended up seeing this amputation (only this one, and exclusively this one), as something normal, desirable, "decidable by parents," aesthetic, hygienic, healthy. This is the only little loophole where no one seems to remember the Hippocratic Oath, or the need to use amputation only as a very last resort in rare and severe cases. We have conceded this amputation a sort of respect that it does not deserve. We have placed it into its own category within medical practice. (Look in many Healthcare Insurance Plans pamphlets: male circumcision really does have its own chapter).

The case becomes shamelessly lunatic when we realize that, today, many studies have been conducted concerning HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases which seek to legitimize the practice of male genital amputation on healthy individuals. These studies hold amputation as a starting point, and not the illness itself. How did we ever let this happen? What other medical study has ever started from the premise of amputation, and then tried to prove its use for something? To first push for genital mutilation, and then attempt to prove it to be good disease prevention.

Let’s imagine that an orthopedic surgeon performs a similar study:

“Medical research conducted by Doctor A. Smith, using experimental samples of individuals from Tanzania, has concluded that foot amputation definitely bears a positive effect in the prevention of various diseases and conditions; such as foot fractures, athlete’s foot and other kinds of fungi, ingrown toenails, and foot wound infections. When performed on newborns, amputation can also completely prevent accidents concerning “hair tourniquets,” a dangerous condition that happens when a hair or fine thread gets wrapped strongly around a toe, cutting blood supply. Out of 1,000 analyzed individuals, those who had feet amputations performed had a 95% lower chance of presenting ANY of these conditions, diseases and accidents!”

Doctor A. Smith is not lying. Amputating body parts does keep us from potentially having any trouble with those parts later. Because if we amputate, these organs or limbs no longer exist. Just as killing my neighbors would help me avoid any trouble with them in the future...

HERE to read the entire article on Peaceful Parenting