The Post-Partum Body

So since my post on weird pregnancy symptoms is by far and away the most popular post ever, on my wee blog (50% of all traffic, thanks to accidentally hitting on a popular search term), I've been meaning to write a bit about what's happened since.

• Regarding what I wrote about hair loss: during pregnancy I may or may not have stopped losing hair. About four months after I gave birth, WHOMP out went half my hair. Seriously, there was so much hair falling out of my head that DH and I were worried I was going bald. The hairstyle wasn't noticeably affected, to me at any rate. Ask my hair stylist if you want to know for sure.
• All that stuff I mentioned about darker body hair and moles: no change. Ahem.
• Belly: still no stretch marks, but poochy and jiggly. I haven't done a lot to try to change it. I've been exercising intermittently and eating like I'm still pregnant but with the addition of a moderate amount of wine... so... no change expected.
• Breasts: fourteen months of breastfeeding and every once in awhile, I look in the mirror and say 'hey I've finally got the cleavage I've always wanted. Meh.' 
• Lady bits: the small tear took longer than I expected to fully heal. And by fully heal, well, I'm not going to explain that. But it was six months or so before... I was going to say back in the saddle but that's not quite right. Sad face.
• Behind the lady bits: also, the side effects of my intestinal slow down took a long time to heal. I wouldn't say things are totally back to my pre-pregnancy state even now but thankfully a lot better. 
• Birth control: around one year post-partum, menstruation returned for me (thank you lactational amenorrhea!) so we gave up the condoms (yay!) and I went back on the pill. Or rather, I thought my period had returned. So far she's made only one appearance. At any rate, being back on the pill has changed my...
• Skin! Nasty old adult acne that I used to get while on the pill, if not using retinol, is back with a vengeance. Ah well.

A couple notes on the post-partum mind:

• I was never much for horror and suspense genre entertainment. I find it totally unwatchable now. I am writing this with an episode of Bones running in the background. The storyline involves a kidnapped 8 year old boy. I can barely tolerate it and it helps to be distracted by writing this and watching the twitterstream flow by. I'm just watching for the shots of DC. I should watch Legally Blonde or something instead. Blog posts about miscarriage and sick children are pretty much guaranteed to get me bawling.
• Don't get me started on long distance commercials. I will cry at the drop of a hanky, or the sound of a kid saying 'Mom?'
• Pre-birth, I gave myself a manicure every Sunday night, and a pedicure every two weeks. I think I've half heartedly painted my nails three or four times in the past year. I miss it but I often can't be bothered. 

Poor kidnapped kid in Bones had a finger cut off. I want to throw up.

Speaking of nauseated, after almost a year of unplanned bedsharing with the baby, I love it. It made life easier and mornings are so snuggly and delicious with the baby right there. She wakes up in such a happy mood. Oh right, on nauseated: I just feel sad for the babies being left alone to cry themselves to sleep every night. I wish I could snuggle them all. 

Some of these things have been a surprise, some not so much. All of them, I hardly notice, especially when I'm schmooshing my baby girl!

What has your post-partum or post-adoption body, mind and life been like?

Book Review: Nothing But Newborn

This book is another short read - these parenting books are making me wonder about my future attention span. Am I going to be read anything smaller than 18 point font and one hundred pages next month? I'm deluded enough to be planning - well, considering - a 10 hour (each way) road trip while on my six week mat leave, so call me an optimist.

Written by Janet A. Stockheim MD, the subtitle is "A First Month Primer for Parents." Stockheim is a pediatrician with loads of experience caring for newborns and, I infer, managing their parents. In brief, I'm glad I bought this book though it has some major flaws. I expect it will save me and my pediatrician a few anxious midnight phone calls.

She includes some very helpful info about things that are normal and not to worry about, such as rashes, the normal range/quantity/appearance of stools, and cord stump care. She addresses in a simple, step by step manner how to sponge bathe a newborn, and a few questions about caring for newborn genitalia that some parents might be shy to ask their doctor. Throughout there are also alerts to issues to which you do want to draw your doctor's attention

There are a couple of excellent sections for the stressed out parent, reminding us that babies largely communicate their needs by crying, how to manage your expectations of their abilities, and resources to draw upon when you're at your last straw. Most of what she says echoes what my midwives have taught me and what I've read other places, so I feel good about the reliability of the info.

Unfortunately, the book glosses over bedsharing, by simply saying don't do it, it's dangerous. Stockheim goes so far to suggest that bedsharing causes SIDS, by including it in the list of causes of SIDS. The Sleeping With Your Baby book I previously reviewed by James McKenna is also a quick, inexpensive read where you'll get much more useful, and I feel more accurate information in this regard.

Finally, though Stockheim devotes a good size section to breastfeeding, throughout the rest of the book, it seems that formula feeding is the default. For example, thickening formula with cereal is frequently suggested as a troubleshooting strategy for various problems. Some information is out of date, such as warning HIV positive mothers that the virus can be transmitted through breast milk, even though the latest research shows that exclusive breastfeeding reduces transmission substantially.

The misinformation continues with statements like "if your breast milk is slow to come in, it is fine to offer infant formula to... maintain her hydration". Huh? Everything I've read says that newborns are waterlogged, have very low nutritional requirements in the first few days and besides, have stomachs the size of chickpeas. Additionally, the more you breastfeed, the more milk you make - if you start supplementing, you reduce your chances of ramping up your production.

A great book on breastfeeding that I'd recommend with much better breastfeeding info is Breastfeeding Made Simple, Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers by Mohrbacher and Kendall-Tackett. I'll be doing a full review of this book soon - but in brief, I really like it!

In sum, there is a lot to like about Nothing But Newborn, but substantial bits of it bugged me too. I recommend it in a qualified way, so long as the reader promises to look elsewhere for info on bedsharing and breastfeeding!

Any favourite newborn books or websites out there that you like? Anyone else read this book?

Book review: Sleeping With Your Baby

Book review time! This is another book loaned to me by my doula. I'm so delighted that I read it.

It's a very short book (128 pages) with lots of white space and images, so it's a rather quick read. It's largely divided up into three sections: an introduction, a how to cosleep and an FAQ, but each section is divided up into mini-subsections of a page or three in length, so the whole book reads like a (well written and interesting) FAQ. 

The introduction gives some anthropological background on cosleeping in other cultures and species. The how to is probably the most important section as it explains how to cosleep and what can be dangerous. The FAQ addresses a hodgepodge of other miscellaneous concerns, such as twins, premature babies and lack of pediatrician support.

I had a couple of important take-aways from this book. First, the author, James McKenna points to research which shows a significant reduction in SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) when the baby sleeps in the same room as the parents. Note that this doesn't need to be in the same bed - just the same room. 

Second, McKenna gives the reader a bit of a taxonomy of cosleeping. Cosleeping means to have an infant share a bedroom with a parent. Bedsharing means to share the parents' bed with the infant.

McKenna is very strongly in favour of breastfeeding, though he acknowledges it may not work for everyone - but he says that cosleeping can very much support breastfeeding. 

I'm personally really glad I read this book. I always liked the idea of bedsharing, but for a number of reasons, which the how to cosleep section confirmed for me, I'd intuitively felt it was potentially dangerous for us to do (too many pillows, sometimes drinking too much, I do odd things in my sleep sometimes). But knowing that the SIDS risk reduction is just from cosleeping in the same room, not necessarily from bedsharing, is a great gift. 

Cosleeping is more acceptable to me and my DH, and fits better with his culture as well. How to sleep with your infant(s) is a very personal choice, and I'm so glad to come into this with more information.

I do feel that McKenna kind of glosses over the impact of bedsharing on a couple's sex life - this is the only place I found it addressed:

Intimacy will have to be less spontaneous. You may need to start scheduling time together... find some other place to be intimate... or move the baby to a crib or bassinet after he falls asleep.

I guess this was my biggest question about bedsharing - what about the sex? But perhaps that just reveals my naivete about what comes next in terms of post-partum sex frequency... I guess I'm trying to be optimistic.

Anyone have any other infant sleeping resource recommendations? I know there are a lot out there!