M is very pleased with her newly-pierced ears. She chose studs with tiny pink pearls and tolerated the piercing with not even a squeak. I was a bit nervous that she’d get through the first ear and balk at the second, but I needn’t have worried.
It was oddly hard to find a place that was willing to take a child. The reputable and recommended piercing-and-tattoo places I called won’t touch anyone under thirteen, even with a parent present. If you’re an adult they’ll not only pierce pretty much any body part, they’ll brand you with a hot iron if you like. Such, I suppose, are the oddities of our current legal system.
– maybe hospitals should be nicer to midwives.
I gave birth at Women’s College Hospital, and of all places I fully expected them to support my midwives. But they were unspeakably awful to them — rude, dismissive, demeaning, the whole gamut of bad behaviour. They topped it off by ignoring me (I was admitted unplanned, following a complication; midwifery patients usually go home shortly after the birth) as totally as they could, unless they were calling me by a name I don’t use and rolling their eyes at me. I was, to put it mildly, unimpressed that a hospital that purports to support women’s health behaved so badly to an entire profession that not only purports to, but does, support women’s health..
Nursing moms need more support: Toronto
A study by Toronto Public Health of 1, 500 first-time mothers in this city found that while most new moms try breastfeeding in the hospital, only about 63 per cent are still doing it exclusively by the time they’re discharged from hospital.
Six months down the road, only 17 and a half per cent of moms are not supplementing their child’s diet with formula, the study titled Breastfeeding in Toronto – Promoting Supportive Environments found.
Breastfeeding takes support. Serious support, from the new mom’s partner, family, and all health practitioners and support staff. If you have a hospital that cares so little about women that it rolls its eyes at midwives and ignores their patients, how well supported in breastfeeding do you suppose women who give birth there tend to feel? And that’s the hospital that’s theoretically most sensitive to womens’ needs.
Yeah. No surprise there. No wonder that only 63% are breastfeeding by the time they leave hospital — probably less than 36 hours after giving birth. Shame on the hospitals.
(For the record, with my midwives’ support, I breastfed my daughter for a year.)
Quotation of the Day for February 27, 2010
“Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone,” writes Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic. “In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially `on,’ we introverts need to turn off and recharge. This isn’t antisocial. It isn’t a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: `I’m okay, you’re okay – in small doses.”‘
- Wendy Dennis, in House and Home magazine, December 2009.
