So I want to eat more healthily, and I want to lose the muffin top, and so it's pretty convenient that this month's BlogHer's Act Canada Eco-Challenge is eating locally. Because eating locally is always a healthy enterprise - they don't grow PopTarts at your local farm, I guarantee you that. Nor Cheezies, nor candy bars.
What they do grow, near me, right now: asparagus (thick green stalks of it, yum) and strawberries. Free-range chickens that lay free-range eggs. Free-range cows that provide free-range meat and dairy (ice cream and milk and cheese, mmm good). Honey. Grains for locally milled flour, which gets transformed into delicious baked goods that are sold at my local bakery. Like cinnamon buns (where does the cinnamon come from, though? Hmm) which, good gosh, I could live on. Also, cookies.
All right then, so eating locally this month might not trim the waistline, but it will help the environment, which is the whole point of this exercise. Join in! Make an effort this month to eat locally as much as possible. Blog it - what awesome foodstuffs come from your community? What recipes are you pulling together using foods from your area? If you blog it, send your links my way, or leave them in comments at BHA-Canada, and we'll compile them.
And? if you have any healthy, diet-friendly recipes that use foods from the Southern Ontario region, pass them along. I need to break my cookie habit.
]]>There was always somebody, somewhere, who would give me the LOOK: disapproving, or disbelieving (as in OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT WOMAN IS EXPOSING HER TITS), or both. I learned how to ignore the LOOK, but I never stopped wishing that somebody would, please, stick up a big sign saying PUBLIC BREASTFEEDING IS THIS WOMAN'S HUMAN RIGHT (legally protected in the province of Ontario, Canada, as it happens.)
Guess what? I finally got my wish.
According to the National Post: the city (of Toronto) yesterday launched a new campaign to encourage public breastfeeding, complete with information packages mailed to the city's 6,100 restaurants and a window decal available in 20 different languages.
"Women who are breastfeeding shouldn't have to fight for their rights," Dr. David McKeown (the city's Medical Officer of Health) said from Bay Street's Commensal Vegetarian Restaurant, the first restaurant to join the city registry.
"Restaurants and other public places should be the kind of places that welcome women who are breastfeeding and support their rights, as well as the opportunity for their children to have the healthiest start in life."
This is great news. Mostly. I think that it is wonderful, really, that Toronto is going out of its way to encourage breastfeeding. And I think that educating restaurant owners and encouraging them to do their part is a great place to start. But here's my concern: the window decals - and the program as a whole - are optional. Restaurants don't have to participate. Which, fine, free country blah blah blah - but might this not set up certain assumptions about public breastfeeding, such as the idea that breastfeeding is only acceptable where the relevant decals/signs are posted?
This might be nitpicking, I know, but still: consider that many people simply don't know what the letter of the law (or the human rights charter) is, concerning breastfeeding, in their community. When the League of Maternal Justice posted their YouTube protest to Bill Mayer and Facebook (over the insensitivity of both to nursing mothers) last year, many of the comments at the YouTube page were horribly insistent about the 'fact' that citizens have a right to not be exposed to breastfeeding in public. The presence of signs or decals in some restaurants giving 'permission' to mothers to nurse might contribute to a public assumption that in the absence of such 'permission,' nursing is not acceptable (as is the case in Britain, where it has been reported that 1 in 4 restaurants actually bans breastfeeding.)
Again, I think that this program is great. But I think that it should be supplemented by a more expansive and more aggressive public education program that gets the message - that breastfeeding is natural and good and NOT OBSCENE, that breastfeeding builds healthier children and so healthier citizens, that breastfeedign is a RIGHT - out more broadly and more effectively. So that nursing moms don't need to look for a decal or signage that gives them 'permission' to nurse.
In the meantime, I'm going to continue nursing wherever the hell I please.
]]>
See, Ricki Lake made a movie about her choice, and the ACOG and AMA aren't too happy about it: ACOG released a statement, which was in turn supported in a resolution Tuesday by the American Medical Association, which said "There has been much attention in the media by celebrities having home deliveries" and which singles out Ricki Lake's film "The Business of Being Born" as part of the problem. The AMA's resolution resolves to support state legislation "that helps ensure safe deliveries and healthy babies by acknowledging that the safest setting" is a hospital, connected birthing center or other approved facility.
The problem, apparently, is that Ricki Lake, by publicizing her choice, sets the wrong example. She might, after all, influence some poor unsuspecting preggo to - gasp! - have a natural delivery at home. And that, ACOG and the AMA imply, would be wrong.
I - obviously, given that my own recent delivery almost happened in a vehicle speeding away from home - didn't give birth at home. I had a hospital birth planned, and - thanks to my husband's driving skills, but still with only seconds to spare - a hospital birth I had. And I'm glad that I did: even though a planned home birth would have eliminated the possibility of the terrifying car-baby chase, it would probably have gone badly. I had a terrible fourth degree tear that required immediate and extensive surgery and, well, that's not the kind of thing that could be dealt with in my bathroom. That said, I wouldn't want anyone to take the choice to have a home birth away from me, and I wouldn't want anyone restricting my ability to learn about that option.
So what's the deal here? Why are these organizations wagging their fingers at Ricki Lake? Some argue that it's a classic case of the medical establishment protecting their turf. "They need to protect their billion-dollar business" writes Maria of A Piece of My Mind. It's "scare tactics... they are out to protect their self-interest." Ecorazzi agrees with the claim of 'scare tactics,' noting that the AMA resolution states that women who choose to birth at home put themselves at risk of “maternal hemorrhage, shoulder dystocia, eclampsia or other obstetric emergencies," adding "nothing like taking away choices from people — or scaring the hell out of them into going your way."
Rhonda of Rants and Raves makes a similar argument:
This issue really is all about choice. I admire doctors and their many
skills. However I am getting tired of some of the scare tactics I see
being used. If every single hospital closed tomorrow babies would still
be born and most would survive the ordeal no matter whether they were
born in a bath tub or the back seat of a car.
I agree. (Mostly. That is, I agree entirely with the need for choice to be preserved, and I agree totally that the AMA should be taken to task for suggesting that anything other than a hospital or other medically-supported birth is dangerous. I don't, however, agree with any claims that home births are equally as safe as hospital births: the AMA is wrong to put a big flashing danger sign on all home births, but they're not wrong to state that in cases of obstetrical emergency, the hospital is the better place to be. If I hadn't been at hospital when I delivered my second child, I would have hemorrhaged. And no, there was likely no 'natural' way to avoid this - I had a big baby and a precipitous labor. He literally blasted his way out. It was his size and speed of exit that caused the damage. But I digress.) The AMA's effort to put their resolution into law smacks of self-interested turf-protection - and turf-protection never helps those who actually use the turf. Women are served best by having choice, and by having the information to make choices. If women are well-informed about the advantages and disadvantages of their various options (and all options in childbirth do carry both advantages and disadvantages), then they - and they alone - will be int he best position to decide how to birth their babies. They should of course be informed about the risks of delivering a baby at home - but they should also be informed of all of the benefits of doing so, as well.
Anything other than this is a step backward for womens' reproductive freedom, it really is. Shame on the AMA.
Read Ricki Lake's response to the controversy at the Huffington Post here.
]]>
The situation in China in particular breaks my heart anew every time I see another headline or picture. That earthquake felled a great many buildings, and killed a great many people - the death toll is into the five figures now - but the most devastating collapses occured in schools. Children were killed, in their classrooms, by the hundreds, perhaps now thousands. Too, too many children. Images of mothers convulsed in grief near rubble trapping tiny bodies are images that are going to remain seared into my memory for far longer than I'd like. And I can't even begin to wrap my mind and heart around the many thousands of children who survived the quake only to have lost their parents in its destruction.
There's much discussion on the internets right now about whether those schools were shoddily-constructed and doomed to fall. There's also much discussion about the role of the Internet and of Twitter in particular in getting the news out about the details of the earthquake - getting the news out more quickly than mainstream media, and in greater detail than the Chinese government might have allowed if it had the same control over information flow that it had only a few years ago. But these issues, I think, are of secondary concern to the most pressing issue, which is this: getting aid and support to parents who have lost their children, and children who have lost their parents and - most importantly - to children who barely escaped the destruction of the earthquake with their lives and are in need of medical help. Whether Twittering and blogging got the news out initially is beside the point - our concern right now should be to make sure that Twittering and blogging become a means of maximizing aid to families that need it.
BlogHer, in its partnership with Global Giving, is hoping to drive traffic and dollars to the Half The Sky Earthquake Relief Fund, which will provide direct aid to the thousands of children in welfare
institutions and in the community who are suffering in the wake of
devastating earthquakes in Sichuan Province and Chongqing. PLEASE: go donate.
And then? SPREAD THE WORD. Blog about it, Twitter it. Twitter this post; Twitter the direct link to the Half The Sky donation page; Twitter links to any other organization that is providing aid that you want to support. Blog, Twitter, whatever. Get the word out.
Because breaking news and spreading stories and fostering discussion are only part of what we do. We also HELP. Let's make helping our priority right now.
]]>That said, I have something this time around that I didn't have the first time: I have a vast community of mom-peers online - moms who blog, moms who read blogs, grandmoms who blog and read blogs, and some not-yet moms who really love moms and mom-blogs. And they have made all the difference.
I was going to wait until after this birth to write about this (and I may still, on my personal blog), but Mother's Day is approaching, and in the pitch of posts this month about mothers and others supporting mothers all around the world (have you been supporting BlogHer's quest to raise money for Global Giving? HAVE YOU?) , I thought it important to raise a voice in tribute to the mothers in our midst. Our bloggy midst. I thought it important to say something about how these moms have - and I only exaggerate very slightly here - saved my life - my physical well-being and my mental health, my happiness and my wellness - and they continue, every day, to save others.
Mine has been a difficult pregnancy. The first trimester (and beyond) was marked by severe, debilitating morning sickness. The second trimester was inaugurated with a genetic-testing-related scare that sent me tumbling into depression. The third is drawing to a close with what's shaping up to be weeks-long labor. I don't know that I could have coped as well as I have through any one - let alone all - of these difficulties without the ongoing support of the momosphere. They've shared their own stories and strategies and support resources every step of the way, and in so doing provided me with both invaluable advice and immeasurably invaluable support. They've given me remedies for morning sickness and virtually held my hair back when remedies didn't work. They walked me through the complexities of genetic testing, counselled me through the heartache of decision-making related to the results of those tests, and virtually held my hand through amniocentesis and the period of waiting for results. They've commisserated over the difficulties of late pregnancy with a giant fetus, and aided me through what already seems to be endless early labor. They have provided sensible, reasonable commentary on the matter of c-sections after someone terrified me with gory videos and prattle about slaughter. They have counselled me on natural induction methods, on whether or not to have some wine to relax, on whether or not experimenting with castor oil is worth the potential nasty side effects. Today, they reminded me that I am not crazy and that I should never listen to any medical professional who suggests otherwise.
By the time the birthing is done, I will be able to say in all sincerity that these women, all these women, have been - in addition to being friends and confidantes, colleagues and peers - in some some very important ways, my midwives.
They have been all this, and more, to me, and will continue to be long after this child is born. And they will be all of this, and more, to others, and to each other, and I to them. They will dispense advice and friendship and love and support like tap water; they will throw showers and kitchen parties and join together to build community with each other online and off. They will hold hands through the darkest moments of motherhood and pregnancy. They will be mothers.
I'm not alone in this feeling, I know. There are a whole lot of pregnant women out there in the blogosphere right now who know exactly what I'm talking about. So on behalf of those women, and myself, and all of us, together: HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM-BLOGGERS. Thank you for helping us have healthy, sane pregnancies and motherhoods.
Thank you.
Mostly unrelated post-script: wanna do something awesome for a mom this Mother's Day? Mother Earth, maybe? GET GARDENING. This month's eco-challenge over at BlogHers Act Canada is Gardening Green, and we're looking for your stories, photos, advice, opinions about keeping your gardens green, and using green gardening as a means to promote eco-awareness (in addition to just making things purdy.)
]]>All of which is to say, I'm not using a midwife. I had a labor doula for my first child, and would consider having one again - she was beyond awesome and was a tremendous help in that birth - but otherwise, it's doctor/hospital all the way. I might have been talked into using a midwife that last time around - maybe - but that birth was a very difficult one with multiple complications, one that ended - well, thank god - in an operating room with respiratory specialists and other medical types, and for that reason alone I'm just going to feel ten thousand times more secure giving birth with my nice doctor (a woman, who, for the record, I have a massive girl crush on because she is THAT AWESOME) and with teams of medical experts on hand.
Which, I know, is the complete antithesis of a natural birth that celebrates womanliness and the Eternal Feminine and go woman power rah, but that's just the way it needs to be for me. I tend to paranoid hypochondria.
For some women, though, the decision to go au naturel or not isn't so straightforward. Housefairy has written movingly about wanting her fifth birth (after three that involved serious intervention and one that she was able to do at home) to be a natural, midwife-assisted birth, but being worried that she just can't:
I worry. I do understand and yet I worry. I keep on top of things with
the very real gratitude that the baby is healthy and that I have such a
great midwife. I just feel so disturbed that I cant or maybe cant or
blablabla just have a baby. The lump in my
throat battles with the bravery most of the hours of my days. I hate
being 32 years old and having to pretty much just "hope it doesnt
suck".
She wants her fifth birth to proceed without intervention, but is gutted that it just might not work out that way, and struggles with reconciling herself to just having a birth that 'doesn't suck.'
I feel for her, I really do. I don't empathize fully - that sounds harsh, but bear with me - because for me, any birth that gets this baby out alive and healthy and with as little physical trauma to me as possible is a good birth. What sucks is maternal or infant mortality. That sucks. Me having a SWAT-like team of medical professionals saving my child's or my own life doesn't suck at all.
What I do get, though, is the idea that there's something less than satisfactory about becoming disempowered in the whole birth process, a process that is or should be uniquely feminine, the special domain of women. Why shouldn't we be able to give birth on our own, with just a community of skilled women around us? What does it mean that birth has become so medicalized? Has some power been taken away from us?
Kneeling Woman has written about a tension between the push to 'professionalize' and remaining committed to an idea of birth as naturally safe:
I've sat here with the book open on my lap, concurrently looking up at
the computer screen to read a painful letter from another midwife being
attacked, in a torrent of angry accusation and rejection; by another
midwife for speaking out about Midwifery education and about concerns,
many of the same I have written about in this space, that Midwifery is
not set up to be a sustainable health care profession that we can pass
on to our daughters and granddaughters knowing that they will have
something we have not had: a unified, profession of midwifery as the
basis of our maternity care system in the U.S.Continuing to read.. "A Midwife must be an
avid student of Physiology and Medicine. She should read and study
constantly in a never-ending quest for new information. She should
never assume that she knows everything there is to know. A new piece
of information she learned yesterday may be essential and life-saving
tomorrow." I can remember reading those words breathlessly and I
took them to heart. I wanted to know everything and I worried that
there would be something, at some critical moment, that I didn't know
and my greatest fear was that I would fail a mother or baby who had
entrusted themselves to my care... It never occured to me... that
"birth was safe" and that's all you need to know, or believe. It was years before I ever heard the "birth is
safe" mantra and even though my experiences had thus far validated that
claim, I continued to believe, and practice, with the idea that the
most important thing I had to know how to do was respond appropriately
to a complication or emergency.
If I were going to have a midwife, I would want Kneeling Woman.
The idea that 'birth is safe' or that a woman like Housefairy might have something wrong with her just because she can't give birth without medical assistance isn't, to my mind, empowering. Women are uniquely gifted, as a sex, in their ability to create new life and bring it forward. But that gift doesn't imply - despite what we might like to believe - the possession of superpowers. Giving birth can be a difficult and dangerous process - just ask women in less advantaged countries where maternal and infant mortality rates are staggeringly high. There's no shame in wanting the best medical expertise available when there are lives at stake. But as Kneeling Woman points out, expertise doesn't necessarily mean all doctors, all the time. A conscientious midwife with a solid education and training who knows when to bring in extra medical help can be as good as a family doctor in providing maternal care any day.
The United Nations Population Fund has declared today International Day of the Midwife.
So, regardless of whether you have a midwife on your birth team, or, like me, are sticking with their family doctor and anesthetist, take a moment to give a midwife her due. Check out their blogs - or blogs that discuss midwifery - for a start. Here's a few:
Pam, A Midwife (formerly SageFemme)
Let me know about other good mdiwifery or natural birth blogs in the comments. And if you've got strong opinions about midwives versus hospital births, I'd love to hear them.
]]>You need only look at the overwhelming Earth-love and eco-commitment that spilled out of so, so many computer screens this month in support of Earth Month and Earth Day.
I've said in this space before that my own motivations for being an eco-mom are largely selfish. I want my environment to be healthy so that I can be healthy, so that my kids - born and unborn - can be healthy, so that we don't have to worry about what might cause cancer or birth defects or whatever. But I believe this to be good selfishness, the best selfishness, and I want nothing more than for my children learn how to be selfish in exactly the same way. Which is why, although I think that blogging about the effects of environmental degradation on, say, maternal health is critically important, I think that blogging about ways and means of teaching our children to be environmental egoists - to love the environment as if it were their very own, to want to protect that environment because that environment is all about them them them, their world, their future - is even more important.
Which is why I think that we should celebrate, really celebrate, all of the efforts that bloggers have been making this month to spread their wisdom about greening the whole family - and greening our kids. Like Motherbumper, who made a strong argument that squirrel-chasing can be a powerful incentive for a toddler to get earthy. And The Full Mommy group review blog, which devoted this week to reviewing products that are both eco-friendly and teach environmental awareness to kids. And BlogHer's own Dana, who wrote an amazing article full of tips for getting the whole family to get green. As did Mir, too, in these very pages. And we should especially applaud those bloggers who've actually been actively getting kids involved, offline as well as on, like Greeblemonkey's Kid Art Auction for Earth Day, which combined kid's art efforts with fundraising. And holla to the kids - THE KIDS - that BlogHer CE Rita caught being green and rounded up here. (You might have caught your own kids being green - did you participate in Beth's Green Kids Video Challenge?)
BlogHers Act Canada, as I noted earlier this month, has devoted the month of April to the challenge of greening our kids. You can your kids involved in that challenge, right now, by getting them active in the garden and submitting photos of that activity to the BlogHers ACT Canada Earth Day Kids Gardening Photo Contest! (Better? Get your kids to take the picture! Bring on the kids' eco-art!)
Let's keep up the momentum here as Earth Month continues. Let's be selfish in our determination to make the world a healthier place for ourselves and our children, and let's be determined in encouraging that selfishness - the kind of selfishness that makes the virtues of selflessness (the commons belongs to all of us! so be good to it!) so totally obvious - in our kids.
]]>
Seriously. Because $15 will provide lunch to a class of 50 girls in Burkina Faso - girls who walk many miles to go to school each day and who would otherwise go hungry.
From the project website:
The Friends of Burkina Faso (FBF) supports NEEED, a Burkinabe
grantmakers organization that enrolls young rural girls in village
schools, using funds to purchase a lamb and school materials for
students’ first year of schooling. The family assumes responsibility
for their children’s education for 5 years of primary school, and 4
years of middle school for those who qualify. Each spring, parents sell
the fattened lamb. Proceeds are used to buy school materials and a new
lamb for the next year.Students walk 6 km to attend school from the local
village. They have nothing to eat throughout the day. The project will
provide a noon meal to students, enhancing their capacity to learn.
The establishment of the school was a wonderful first step in improving the lives of these girls and those of their families, but in order to really take advantage of the benefits that the school is providing, the girls need to be well-nourished. Contributions provide for that nourishment, but in addition to that, they help support the local economy, because they are channelled through local food providers, thereby generating and sustaining local employment. Which makes this all a triple-win situation - the girls win, their families win, and the local community and economy wins. It's sustainable development in its very best form.
But even if you just break it down to it's most basic component - getting food to schoolgirls who need it - it's a more than worthy cause. Imagine if your daughter went hungry every day at school? Imagine if she was unable to really learn because her tummy was rumbling and she couldn't concentrate on her lessons? Imagine that times fifty. Times hundreds.
15 bucks is nothing, to feed a classroom of children, and to help a community get on its feet.
(And spreading the word? FREE! Blog it, button it, tell all your friends!)
The Burkina Faso project is one of the projects being supported by Global Giving, an online program
that connects potential donors with community-based development
projects. As Lisa Stone announced at the beginning of this week, BlogHer has teamed up with Global Giving in an effort to save as many women's lives as possible between now and Mother's Day. Getting food and education to young girls seems a pretty good way of supporting that goal.
]]>
I live in the West, in North America, and I expect this. If I were a Nepalese woman, I could not expect this. I could not expect anything close to this. And if I were a Nepalese woman living in the Rasuwa district of Nepal, I could probably expect the opposite. And if I were lucky enough to not lose my child - or my own life - I would face a long-term struggle to keep that child - and myself, and the rest of my family - healthy. The mother and child mortality rate in Rasuwa is two to three times higher than that of Nepal, which itself has among the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world. It's for this reason that the Karing For Kids Mother and Child Health Clinic is such an important project.
From the project webpage at Global Giving:
Prior to KFK’s Clinic it was difficult to find a mother who had not lost a child and impossible to find a household without a sick person. Child and Maternal Mortality rates of these communities have been almost two-to-three times higher than the national average. KFK's Mother and Child Health Clinic provides critical medical services to the 7,000 residents of Rasuwa district. In 2006 the Clinic provided over 1,200 patient visits, training sessions, and traveling health care services.
Karing For Kids established the clinic in 2000 to address the fact that Rasuwa's mortality rates were directly due to a lack of medical resources - the nearest hospital is over a day's walk away, and outreach programs were simply not reaching these rural areas. The clinic has now been providing services for almost eight years, and has saved countless lives.
The KFK Mother and Child Health Clinic in rural Nepal is one of the projects being supported by Global Giving, an online program that connects potential donors with community-based development projects. As Lisa Stone announced at the beginning of this week, BlogHer has teamed up with Global Giving in an effort to save as many women's lives as possible between now and Mother's Day. The Mother and Child Health Clinic is one such project, one that has already saved many lives and will save many more.
You can support the project in a number of ways. 1) DONATE: ten dollars will provide a year's worth of medical care to five women and children. (TEN DOLLARS. That's a grande latte and a low-fat blueberry scone.) 2) BLOG IT: write about the project on your blog. Post a button or widget linking to the project (get these here). Tell your friends, and tell them to tell friends. 3) DONATE and BLOG and SPREAD THE WORD: seriously. One post, and ten bucks, and a few e-mails. Just to help save some lives.
Priceless.
]]>There are a gazillion reasons why a woman might not want to have children - at a certain point in her life, say, when she isn't ready, or, perhaps, ever. And I'm absolutely certain that most of those reasons are perfectly good, perfectly reasonable ones. But one reason that strikes me - and feel free to disagree with me here - as entirely unreasonable is this one: because it's good environmental practice.
Some years ago, an environmental activist by the name of Toni Vernilli had an abortion and then had herself sterilized because, she said, she wanted to "protect the planet... Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet." She went public with her anti-natalist position last year, and very quickly became a key figure in extreme environmentalist circles that hold to the idea that human life is a plague upon the planet. Her views were in the news again this week when Greenpeace founder Paul Watson said, in reference to an accident during which four seal-hunters were killed, that the death of seals is "a greater tragedy" than the deaths of any humans. Humans, after all, are destroyers of the earth, and seals are cute and fluffy. You do the math.
I think seals are adorable, and I would prefer, strongly, that they not be slaughtered. HOWEVER. I'm also pretty fond of human beings - being one myself - and find the view that humans, as a species, are a plague abhorrent. And aborting babies and sterilizing women to reduce the impact of said plague? Abhorrent, squared. (I'm not alone in this. Canadian environmentalists are withdrawing their support from Paul Watson's projects in droves. He has, in the words of one Canadian blogger, LabLady, "gone too far. Again")
I've written about anti-natalism before. In short, I think it's stupid (I've addressed the abhorrent issue above.) It tilts invariably to reductio ad absurdum - if fewer children = fewer human beings = better, why not kill off everybody? If we support abortion and sterilization for environmental reason, how great a step is it to supporting euthanasia and the abandonment of sick children and dying mothers in, say, Nepal (more on Nepal below) for the same reasons? And? Are humans not part of nature? What purpose does it serve to eliminate humanity? Shouldn't we get rid of the jet planes and the McMansions and every single frill of life in developed society before we start putting an end to the babeez?
But the bigger reason is this: women (and men) who love their children are also inclined to love the earth and want to protect the Earth. "For our children" is one of the most powerful refrains of the environmental movement, and it's one of the primary reasons why there are so many "eco-moms" out there pursuing eco-activism with a passion.
I could go on and on - about how painful and challenging such arguments are for women struggling with infertility, for women who have lost children, about, again, how stupidstupidstupid the arguments are when you push them to their logical conclusions don'tevengetmestarted - but I won't.
I'll just say this: I thank the gods every day that I am happily, healthily pregnant with my second child, and I every day pledge to those same gods to do whatever I can to make this world a better place.
With that in mind... go have another look at the efforts going on this month - EARTH MONTH, y'all - to teach our children the virtues of eco-consciousness. Check out the BlogHersAct Canada eco-KIDS-challenge for the month, and find out more about the super awesome Kids Art Auction For Earth Day.
And then - because no you are not done - go straight to Global Giving and find out how just a small donation can help save the lives of mothers and children in Nepal. It's part of BlogHer's partnership with Global Giving to empower women to help other women. To SAVE. LIVES.
Because life IS worth saving. Always.
]]>Earth Day itself is actually April 22, but the idea of making concerted springtime efforts toward aiding the earth in its renewal (and/or doing what we can to stop or slow down those things that impede the earth's renewal) has been such an intuitively compelling one that April has really become Earth Month. And in Canada, we really get into Earth Month, not least because we're all jacked up on maple syrup after sap season, and feelin' pretty lovey about our trees, maple and otherwise
BlogHers Act Canada, of course, is jumping into April/Earth Month with all feet. April is Encouraging Your Kids To Be Green Month, because that whole renewal/regeneration of the earth thing? That really relies upon new generations of human beings who have concern for the environment - our kids' generation. We can turn out the lights all we want, recycle all the bottles and plastic that we want, reduce and reuse all we want -ETC - but unless we teach our children the value and virtue of doing these things - unless we instill in them a commitment to doing these things, Earth Months and other such inspiring and hopeful initiatives will only be sustained through our own lifetimes. Which are really insufficient to the task of aiding the Earth in maximizing her lifetime, seeing as that lifetime so exceeds - or, should exceed - our own.
So for the month of April, we're asking the following questions: how do you encourage your kids to be green? What are you doing to instill a love of the Earth and a concern for its fate? How do you make eco-friendly activity fun for your family? Share your stories and ideas with us - leave your comments here, or, better, write posts and link to BlogHersAct Canada - and we'll share them throughout the month. (Note: you don't need to be a parent to participate. Aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends - anyone who is interested in encouraging eco-enthusiasm in children is welcome - encouraged - to participate.) (Another note: you don't need to be Canadian. BlogHer Act Canada's eco-challenges are spearheaded by Canadians, but directed to the wooooorld
Need ideas? Check out this site - EcoKids - for tips on getting kids involved with Earth Day, Earth Month, and an Earth lifetime. Wanna really be inspired? Check out their EcoKids blog, written by kids, for kids and parents, about strategies for getting and staying eco-inspired. It's wonderful.
(Hey! Get your kids to start an eco-blog! Or make it a family eco-blog! That? Would be super cool. If any of you do that - or know of such blogs already - let me know IMMEDIATELY.)
]]>And now it looks like if it's in my garden or the crisper in my refrigerator, it's probably toxic, too, enough to give my unborn baby leukemia or some other such horrifying cancer of the whatever.
We all already knew that pesticides were bad news, but recent reports are suggesting that it's worse - especially for pregnant women - than we thought:
Pregnant women exposed to household pesticides may increase the risk of their children developing leukemia, according to a recent study conducted in France. These findings add more weight to the idea that pesticides play a role in childhood blood cancers and may shed light on the actual causes of the diseases...
The use of household pesticides (which includes insecticides, herbicides and fungicides) by mothers during their pregnancies was higher in the leukemia group than the randomly chosen controls. More than half of the mothers whose children had acute leukemia or non Hodgkins lymphoma used pesticides at least once during their pregnancy compared with a little more than a third of the control group mothers.
So, used any kind of bug-killing product, inside or out of your home? Used anything in your garden? Consumed anything that might have been exposed to such products? DANGER.
I'm generally pretty careful when it comes to these things. We eat organic as much as we can around here, I try to avoid using chemical-laden anything in the home, and never use pesticidal products in the garden (they're not necessary - check this interview with Will Allen, author of The War on Bugs, for the deets, no pun intended) (also, gardening? HA. Here in Canada none of us have been able to see past the snow for MONTHS.) But I can't say for certain that I haven't been exposed to these things - visited someone's home where Raid had been sprayed, say, or rooted around in an antiques shop or old bookstore where moth-destruction efforts might have been made.
I'm going to have to try to not worry about what I have already been exposed to, and direct my energies toward minimizing my exposure in the future. One way of doing that: ensuring that any and all of my spring-cleaning efforts this year are completely green (so, nothing with words ending in 'cide' on the label. That, and making my own cleaning products from natural and benign materials like lemon and salt and vinegar.) (Mmm, salt and vinegar. Chips.) Another way of doing that: convincing everybody else to do the same thing.
Luckily, an organization called Women's Voices For The Environment is already on that for me: they're doing a massive promotion of the importance of green spring cleaning by pitching 'green spring cleaning' parties. Sign up and they'll send you a party kit and everything. Which, cool, no?
You can also sign their petition asking companies to remove toxic chemicals from household cleaning products.
Or, just toss the Clorox and pull out the lemons and have at it. Your house will smell awesome and you'll sleep a little easier knowing that your unborn children were exposed to that much less leukemia-causing toxicity today. And that's worth partying about. Or would be, if I weren't so freakin' pregnant.
]]>This, I thought, was an interesting question. I consider myself an 'eco mom,' and I've pretty much convinced myself entirely that my environmentalism stems entirely and more or less equally from two motivating factors: my desire to preserve the Earth for my children (tree-huggerism), and my desire to preserve myself and my children for more time on this Earth (paranoia about health and wellness). It had never occurred to me that my membership in this group might somehow conform to a stereotype, or that it might be compromised in some way by some kind of stereotyped trendiness.
But here's what I read when I followed one of the links, to the Consumer Reports blog:
'In recent years politicians on both sides of the aisle have tried to woo soccer moms, NASCAR dads, and Starbucks Republicans. But during the 2008 U.S. presidential election, candidates might have to focus their efforts on voters whose party color isn’t Republican red or Democratic blue but green . . . in the eco-friendly, environmentally aware sense....
What’s the hot new voting bloc, the fashionable faction? EcoMoms. In living rooms across America, these moms-on-a-mission are gathering to discuss ways to run more-sustainable households and shrink the carbon footprint of their families. Think 21st-century versions of Tupperware parties (without the plastic) or makeup-buying get-togethers (minus the chemical-laden cosmetics).'
They might have added, 'on blogs across the interweb...' Because, yes, we're everywhere, we eco-moms (I happen to be a Canadian eco-mom, so my status as a member of a potential voting bloc is irrelevant in the context of the original article, but still: I gots my opinions) and we have, as a group, some power. But does it do us a disservice to characterize us as just the latest incarnation of Soccer Moms?
I thought about this again when I read this post about Halle Berry 'going green' with her newborn's nursery (correction: nurseries). How's Halle going green? By decorating her three (THREE) nurseries exclusively with organic materials. (For a less consumerist example of a celebrity eco-mom, see this post on Andie McDowell). Which, on the one hand, great: more power to anyone who makes an effort and promotes the cause of eco-friendly anything. On the other: is this a sincere effort to serve the cause of environmentalism and protect her own and her baby's health, or just an effort to be on trend? To be an 'eco-mom,' because it's cool? And, does it matter?
My gut tells me that it doesn't matter. It is, in part, because of the growing eco-maternity movement - fuelled in some part, yes, by its trendiness - that moms everywhere have a better understanding of the connections between the environment and their health and the health of their children (which, let's be honest, is generally priority number one for mothers in considering environmentalism: how does this effect the health of my born and unborn children? how does this effect my own health?) We know, most of us, about bisphenol-A and toxins that can effect fetuses and about the reasons why organic cotton is gentler on skin and about issues concerning exposure to pesticides fumes and smogs and other icks precisely because these issues have become, to some extent, trendy to follow. And if it seems that politicians are now more likely to listen to moms on these issues because the trend has expanded so far to include virtually everybody, well, hey - that's not a bad thing, is it?
Not if it gets results, of course. But what if it undermines the cause? What if the 'trendiness' of eco-maternity really does just make it seem as though eco-moms are just another version of soccer-mom: fundamentally absorbed in their own interests and disinclined to think beyond their own communities? As a mere mom-fad? What if becoming just another voting bloc - or, egads, just another market - diminishes the reputation of eco-maternalism (I am, of course, totally making all of these words up) as the crucially important cause that it is?
For me, being an eco-mom is all about preserving my health - my life - and the health and lives of my children (I hug the trees because they help me breathe - not because they're pretty). It's pretty freaking important to me. So to hear it compared - however lightly - to being a soccer mom bothers me. This isn't about minivans. This is about our lives. Trendy or not, it's serious. And I want it to be taken seriously. Really seriously.
What do you think?
]]>We had to do a bit brainstorming about this one. The obvious things that come to mind are crunchy clothes like hemp t-shirts and organic cotton jammies, but not everybody is into hemp, and organic cotton can be pricey, and in any case - even though we know you're all religiously using recycled shopping bags now - more shopping isn't really the greenest solution to eco-fying one's wardrobe. So what's a green fashionista - or just a mom who wants to keep from filling up landfills with used onesies - to do?
Amy/Assertgirl's solution: freecycle.
Yesterday I pointed out to my step-mom the fact that the outfit I was wearing was free. "How did you manage that?" she asked.
I was wearing a nice pair of jeans from Randy River and a cotton, long-sleeved top from Roots. Except I hadn't visited either of those stores or spent a dime to acquire these pieces. "Freecycle," was my simple reply.
Over the weekend someone offered up a bag of women's clothing. I jumped on it, and had soon picked up a large garbage bag filled with (mostly) gently used clothing. I went through the bag in my laundry room, putting the items I planned to keep in my washing machine, and folding the rest up and returning the pile to the bag. I was happy to find several nice sweaters, a couple of t-shirts and a pair of jeans that fit me.
When I was finished, I re-offered the rest of the clothes, and they were scooped up quickly by a local dad who said his daughter has been growing like a week. He picked them up the next day.
When I told my step-mom about how this worked, she said, "Plus, you're keeping that stuff out of the landfill!"
EXACTLY.
Me, I've always grooved on vintage clothes, and have the awesometastically funky and totally wearable collection to prove it. (Vintage, of course, just being fancy talk for second-hand; second-hand being another term for keeping stuff out of landfills.) Trouble is, not a single piece - including footwear - fits my pregnant body, so I've been struggling to figure out how do the maternity wardrobe thing without a) wasting money on maternity clothes that I may never wear again (I freecycled and gave to friends most of the mat wear from my last pregnancy), and b) not have to wear the fugly stuff that I find in secondhand maternity wear stores. I've been getting by on organic cotton yoga pants, but I'm craving some variety. Anybody got any green suggestions?
As far as kids go, the above suggestions can be applied just as easily - if not more easily - to children's wear as they can to grown-up clothes. Also: hand-me-downs (which I propose renaming 'green-me-ups')! Keep the onesies and jumpers out of the landfill, and save money!
And if you don't have a community of parents handy with whom to swap kids clothes (and even if you do) you can check out Zwaggle. It's like Freecycle, but for parents, and with a cool online social networking component to boot. It is, in a word, AWESOME.
(FYI: the Parent Bloggers Network is doing a blog blast this Friday to spread the word about Zwaggle and about the eco (and wallet) benefits of swapping and sharing the stuff that parents and kids no longer need. Just do a post this coming Friday about how you're sharing, saving and simplifying. Details here.)
What else? Sewing your own clothes. Knitting. Buying locally.
Any other ideas? How do you keep your wardrobe green? And if you don't - what kind of effort might you make this month? Leave a comment - or, better, write a post and link it to BlogHers Act Canada, so that we can do a round-up of blog responses. Share your green style!
]]>Which, if you are a mom, or an expectant mom, is not news. Call it mommy brain, pregnancy-induced brain farts or 'momnesia' - as a recent report is calling it - it all adds up to the same thing: have baby, will gap out. Every mom knows this.
Still, there's something reassuring about being reminded that 'momnesia' is totally normal.
According to a report posted on USA Today this week, researchers say that while they can't explain all the ways motherhood affects a woman's memory, they do agree that there's a pattern, and that that pattern is a pretty universally blurry one.
For example, they point out that "many moms feel mentally foggy (UNDERSTATEMENT) in the days after delivery. And they notice that the details of labor and delivery, which are scenes one might expect to be seared into a woman's consciousness, began to slowly slip away." (Again: DUH DUH DUH DUH. But, good to know that researchers recognize this as normal.)
In another example of stunning understatement, one expert notes that "few parents enjoy feeling so scatterbrained." Neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain, adds that (need I point out again that this is understatement understatement understatement and, also, duh, obvious?) "momnesia can be dangerous, such as when moms forget to fasten the straps in an infant's car seat."
BUT - and here's where the report gets most reassuring- "momnesia may give modern mothers an evolutionary advantage," Brizendine says. (It's worth noting here that she's not the first to say this: Katherine Ellison's book 'The Mommy Brain' covered this ground pretty well already.)
"It turns you into someone who serves that little infant, to keep it alive no matter what," says Brizendine, founder of the Women's and Teen Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic at the University of California in San Francisco. "Other parts of your brain that are usually on high alert are sort of taken offline."
So, even though those brain farts might make one feel stupid, mothers don't actually get dumber after childbirth. Instead, new-mom brains are get a workout that exercises different parts of the brain. "You are learning a lot," says Brizendine. "Once your mommy brain gets readjusted, you get more efficient, and you become smarter and learn things faster, but it won't happen all at once." Why does it happen this way?
According to the report: 'Mothers need to be "hyper vigilant" about their infants, who may develop symptoms of illness that are apparent only to those who have scrutinized their every coo and cry, Brizendine says. "You're on the mother beat all the time. It requires certain parts of your brain to work hyper, hyper, hyper well. But it requires other parts of your brain to play second fiddle."'
Right. At the moment - third-trimester of pregnancy with a two-year old running circles around me - those quote-unquote 'other parts of my brain' are actually playing fourth fiddle in a jug band somewhere well outside of my psyche. 'Momnesia', in my case, is more akin to a partial lobotomy - and will, I'm sure, approach full-lobotomy status by the time Baby #2 arrives. So, while it's good to know that it serves some purpose, I cannot, from moment to moment, remember what that purpose is.
What about you? Have you written about 'mommy brain' or 'momnesia' or some experience - that time you forgot your husband's name/left your car keys in the freezer for days/got lost walking home from the corner store - that falls into the category of momnesiac behavior? Tell me about it, or drop a link in the comments - I'm interested in reading about and maybe following up on what this looks like for other moms, and how everybody else copes with this.
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