My grandmother shared with me a glimpse into the past when she told me about her mother's homebirths. The thing that stuck out to me was her detailing of this woman, Miss Katie I believe it was, who came to the house a week or 2 before each birth. Miss Katie stayed in the house with them, cared for the children, cooked dinners, and generally kept the house running smoothly during the end of the pregnancy. She helped her mother birth the baby and then stayed an additional 2 weeks or so to continue to care for everyone after the birth and ensure that mother and baby were healthy. Who among you reading this isn't saying "I want a Miss Katie!!"?

I tell my clients that they need at least 2 weeks rest after birth. This is the bare minimum, assuming that the birth was vaginal and normal. One week of that needs to be in bed, mostly lying down. The second week needs to be in bed or around the house but not doing any of the usual household activities. "No vacuuming the ceiling" I am often overheard saying! I say two weeks because I know from experience, that is all I'm getting out of modern women. I recommend a month but tell them the 2 weeks is an absolute bare minimum. In cultures across the world, women often do a "lying in" period or a "babymoon" for 30 days or longer. During this time, they are cared for hand and foot. The belief across cultures is that if you take care of mom, she will care for and nurture the baby to the best of her ability.

So why do women need this kind of recovery time? After the baby is born, the placenta detaches from the wall of the uterus. Think of the placenta as being like an orange and the uterus is the peel. When the placenta peels off and is born, it leaves a wound which is where the postpartum bleeding comes from. Common advice for postpartum women is to monitor their bleeding. If the bleeding picks up noticeably after some activity, it is a sign from the body that you have done too much and you need to rest more. Why? Because the wound in the uterus has been disturbed.

It's interesting how hard of a time I have convincing women that they really need and DESERVE to have 2 weeks off. Dads are always right there on board with the idea of waiting on mom yet mom doesn't want to be waited on. I think this idea has become woven into our culture that being "down" makes you weak. It's like we want to be that woman that people talk about who took her 2 day old baby on a 10 mile hike. Or better yet, the woman one of my clients told me about who brought her 2 day old baby to a really nice restaurant. I'm all for fine dining but is it really necessary to do when your baby was just born 2 days ago?

Babymoons are for dads too. Take at least a week, preferably 2 weeks, off from work. With a little planning you can probably plan 2 weeks worth of food and additional help to allow the new family to bond together. Dads job is to take care of mom and mom's job is to take care of the baby. If you can have people bring you meals and plan for some close family or friends to drop by to help with dishes and other household tasks, then you can be truly free to bond as a family. Plan on spending the first week in bed with mom and the baby. Mom will feel better about being in bed for a week if you are there with her. Imagine how bonded you will be with your amazing newborn after a week of skin-to-skin contact! 

One of the most common questions I get about babymooning is "What am I supposed to do in the house for 2 whole weeks?" The answer: You are supposed to be present with your baby. You will never ever get those first 2 weeks back. I've heard plenty of people say they wished they had babymooned and I have never heard even one person say they wished they hadn't! Just plan on using that time to get to know your baby, really get to know them. The busyness and craziness will return soon enough! It won't be long before you'll be looking back on that time wishing you had it again!

If it is your first baby, the babymoon is of utmost importance. Why? Because it is the best babymoon you will ever get! This is the only babymoon you will have without an older child running around that you both have to care for. When it's your first baby, you can truly just lie around revelling in the wonderfulness that is your baby. Often first-time mamas are the ones who want to be out and about as soon as possible. Ask and mom who's had a couple of kids and she'll tell you, babymooning is where it's at!

I often tell women to receive visitors the first week in their bedroom. People treat the visit differently when they have to come into your room. They usually stay for a shorter period (which many postpartum families appreciate!), are more respectful of the mother and baby pair, and are more helpful to the parents.

One thing that can help in the visitors department is to talk to everyone ahead and time and let them know what to expect. If you plan on spending the first day alone with the baby, say so. Explain to those close to you that you will be doing a babymoon and tell them why. It's also a lot easier to ask for help before you actually need it so consider asking certain people for the specific help you will need before the baby comes. An easy way to do this is to pass around a sign up sheet at your MotherBlessing or baby shower. That way you know who is coming and when.

So what kind of benefits will all this lying in get you? The babymoon supports the complete mother/baby dyad both physically and emotionally. The physical benefits for the mother are decreased postpartum bleeding, decreased healing time from vaginal tears, the uterus involutes (or returns to it's normal size and pre-pregnant place in the body) sooner, and mom is less likely to have any serious complications like blood clots and infection. Emotionally, the babymoon supports a healthy transition to breastfeeding hormones. Having the baby in close contact for the first 2 weeks keeps the mother's hormones balanced and makes it much less likely that she will experience postpartum depression. Studies show that moms are less likely to experience postpartum depression when they do a babymoon.

For the baby, the babymoon focuses all of the attention on him or her. The breastfeeding relationship is supported and mothers are more likely to feed the baby on request, rather than on a schedule which means the baby is more likely to thrive. Babies also have a high need for skin-to-skin contact that few people seem to know about it. Skin-to-skin contact helps the baby develop their brain and connect synapses within the brain. Many mammals with actually die without this skin-to-skin contact. We aren't one of those but that does illustrate how important it must be. The baby also is prevented from overstimulation when the mom is babymooning. Imagine life as a newborn. Everything you see is new! I imagine it being like going to Disney World and at the end of the day you have a headache from all the bells and whistles! Now imagine being a newborn baby being carted around to Walmart and the grocery store and the peditrician's office and you can quickly see why babies often dissolve into screams at the end of the day. Limiting the baby's contact with the outside world for the first 2 weeks or so helps alleviate this tendency.

In a homebirth, the babymoon is naturally supported. After the birth, the new mom (and dad too!) are tucked into bed for true rest. Her midwife returns 24 hours later, then again at 3 days, 5 days, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 6 weeks. All without the new mama ever having to leave her home. A babymoon can be enjoyed by anyone though, no matter how or where you birth. Just a little planning and your new family will be enjoying each other in babymoon bliss! 

Something is changing in the breastfeeding world. Have you noticed? Breastfeeding books and pamphlets everywhere have always emphasized what I call the "mom and baby have no idea what they are doing" philosophy. Basically, you as a mother have no instinct or ability to breastfeed until we teach you how to breastfeed. Your baby? Well, of course your baby has no idea how to breastfeed either. I mean, he or she was just born an hour ago! So books were filled with every minute little detail that us birthworkers were supposed to arm new moms with. Hold here, flip this, check the chin, are the ears moving? Does the baby have a "good" latch or a "bad" latch? What shape is your nipple when you pull it out of the baby's mouth? Where is the baby's tongue? I know you can't actually see inside the mouth but could you make a guesstimate? You have to TEACH your baby how to breastfeed. You are both learning, neither one of you yet knows how to do it. With all this information, it certainly seems like if you plan on breastfeeding, you might as well go get a PhD in it because you are going to need some technical information! 
 
Thankfully a lot of research has recently brought to light the fact that babies DO know how to breastfeed and moms DO know how to help them. Instead of what we've been doing with only poor to moderate success that could best be described as "mother-led breastfeeding" is giving way to "baby-led breastfeeding." If you've never heard of this, you are in for a treat! 

Did you know that a newborn baby when placed low on his or her mother's abdomen can actually crawl up the belly, over to a breast, and achieve a perfect latch-on? It is really quite amazing but true. After a couple of minutes (or sometimes after a nap!) the baby will begin stepping motions that actually press on the mother's uterus which helps to deliver the placenta, and reduces her postpartum bleeding. The mother instinctively uses her hands as a push off point for the baby to assist the baby is getting to the breast. The baby visualizes the target which is the by now very dark areola (area around the nipple) and moves towards that point. This is actually the reason behind the "linea negra" or the black line of hair that grows up the belly during pregnancy for some women. It's a long black line pointing the way to the food! Along the way, the baby often stops and sucks on their hand for a bit before crawling again. The baby's hand tastes and smells like amniotic fluid which also smells like the mother's nipple. As the baby gets closer, he or she makes eye contact with the mother and the mother instinctly opens her mouth wide when cooing to show the baby what to do next. "Ooooooo, hi Baaaaaaaaby!!" she says with an open mouth in the perfect nursing position, unknowingly demonstrating the perfect latch on! The baby reaches out to the nipple in a massaging movement. This not only protracts the nipple and makes it more prominent, but also floods your body with the bonding love hormone, oxytocin. The baby then simply imitates mom's open mouth and latches to the breast. I've noticed that this first feeding is longer when babies breast crawl, usually 45 minutes to an hour. In traditional breastfeeding, babies often latch and re-latch several times before losing interest.

Another huge change I've noticed since I started having babies do the breast crawl is the way mothers react and relate to breastfeeding. I always felt so helpless before, even though I was armed with an arsenal of information on helping a mother get her baby latched. Inevitably, the mom would feel as though she couldn't get comfortable, couldn't get the baby in the right position, couldn't figure out how to manuver the baby's head, etc, etc. It always bothered me that women who 30 minutes before had been glorious and empowered as they pushed their babies out were suddenly completely without confidence in their own ability to feed their baby. Birth after birth I remember the mother looking at me with pleading eyes saying "I'm not doing it right. I can't seem to get it. Can you help me please?" With the breast crawl, women feel empowered by their babies. How awesome is it to realize that your baby is strong enough right after birth to crawl to your breast and attach the proper way? Thankfully, that "good" latch on that babies achieve by breast crawling also significantly reduces or eliminates nipple soreness.

I know the first question I had when I first heard about this amazing ability is why would you want to make a newborn baby work so hard? The truth is, it is innate and necessary. Your baby is literally mapping your body and your breast and connections are being made beyond what we can even comprehend. Doing the breast crawl provides optimal natural stimulation to the various sensory organs and the brain. In short, babies have better sensory-neural development. If you've ever seen kittens born, you've likely seen the breast crawl at work. Even with fused eyelids, the newborn kittens crawl along the mother's abdomen and root around looking for a nipple. The breast crawl is a natural part of our instinctive selves and interupting a natural process is rarely, if ever, beneficial. Aside from all of that, babies seem to love being on their mama's belly working towards a goal. I've never seen one cry and become frustrated. At most they stop and take a short nap before resuming their journey. 

The breast crawl is so important that UNICEF is getting into the game. They are using the breast crawl as a way to initiate breastfeeding because it works and it keeps moms breatfeeding for longer. As they themselves say, the breast crawl saves lives. That's a pretty strong endorsement! Here are some other advantages of the breast crawl from UNICEF:

• Helps to keep the baby warm
• Leads to faster and effective achievement of feeding skills by the baby
• The baby starts getting colostrum as the first feed. Colostrum has high concentration of antibodies (immunity). Baby starts getting colonized by safe germs (bacterial flora) from the mother. Both these offer protection against infections and hence are important for the baby's survival.
• Helps uterine contraction, faster expulsion of the placenta, reduces maternal blood loss and prevents anaemia.
• Leads to better sugar levels and other biochemical parameters in the first few hours of birth.
• Earlier passage of meconium (first blackish-green stool) and hence decreased intensity of normal (physiological) newborn jaundice.
• Early and long term breastfeeding success.
• Better mother-infant bonding.
• May have a role in boosting development of baby's nervous system.

Here is the video UNICEF has on their website to demonstrate all that you have read about. I have a video of a breast crawl after a homebirth that I did coming soon.