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Peggy O'Mara

A Quiet Place

Am I Pregnant?

February 20th, 2012

What are the early signs of pregnancy? Thousands of women come to Mothering.com every day to ask this question.

BREAST CHANGES

One of the first things many women notice when they become pregnant is breast changes. Breasts can be sore, swollen, or heavy feeling. Nipples can be tingly and tender, which you will notice especially if you are breastfeeding when you become pregnant. Extra B-vitamins can help with this breast tenderness.

CHANGES IN THE CERVIX

I remember going to the doctor when I was pregnant with my third and he could tell I was pregnant because my cervix was blue. Sure enough, when you’re pregnant, the color of your cervix changes from pink or red to blue or purple. The feel of your cervix also changes when you’re pregnant. Normally, the cervix feels like the end of our nose. When you’re menstruating, the cervix opens a bit to let the blood out. If you’re pregnant, your cervix will feel softer than usual but will be closed tightly rather than open slightly as you approach menstruation.

TEMPERATURE CHANGES

A basal thermometer is designed to take the temperature upon waking and can detect small changes in body temperature associated with ovulation, and thyroid function. I used one when I was practicing natural birth control. One of the very early signs of pregnancy is an elevated basal body temperature of between one-half to one degree Fahrenheit. You would probably have had to have been tracking your basal thermometer before you became pregnant to notice the difference.

DIGESTION AND ELIMINATION

One of the the early signs I noticed when I was pregnant was that I wanted to urinate more often. Some women notice increased constipation or intestinal bloating.

DISCHARGE

Pregnancy can increase vaginal discharge in general and a white, milky vaginal discharge may be noticed in early pregnancy. Some pregnant women experience implantation bleeding, or spotting 6 to 12 days after the egg is fertilized; this may be accompanied by mild cramping.

FATIGUE

A sure sign that you are pregnant is the desire to just lay down and go to sleep at a moment’s notice. This is not necessarily an early sign of pregnancy, however, though it tends to be more pronounced during the early months of pregnancy.

OTHER SIGNS

Other signs of pregnancy include nausea, morning sickness, food aversions, food cravings, headache, back pain, dizziness, and fainting.

Are you pregnant? What signs have you experienced? What signs let you know that you are pregnant? Check out this community poll on early pregnancy signs.

 

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Facebook Censors Nude Breastfeeding Photos

February 17th, 2012

 

 

Documents recently leaked to Gawker confirm what the breastfeeding community has always suspected. In the leaked “Abuse Standards Violation” document, Facebook employees are specifically directed to delete images of “Mothers breastfeeding without clothes,” and “Naked children…”

Facebook has been widely criticized for its content moderation standards and those who complain are often referred to the vague Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.  According to Gawker, “If users knew exactly what criteria was being used to judge their content, they could hold Facebook to them. It would be clear what Facebook was choosing to censor according to its policies, and what amounts to arbitrary censorship.”

In addition, according to the whistle blower, content management services are outsourced to countries like Turkey, the Philippines, Mexico and India where workers are paid from $1 to $4 an hour. Aside from the ethical questions raised by this arrangement, how could workers from different countries interpret the FB standards consistently?

Internet censorship is a hot topic right now because of the recent controversy over SOPA and PIPA, and as Facebook prepares to go public, the company is being closely scrutinized. “I don’t know whether dictatorship is the right word, but it more or less defies every vestige of shareholder democracy known to man…I don’t think it’s how business should be run.” said Larry Haverty of Gamco Investors Inc. in the San Francisco Chronicle last week.

With these kinds of standards and governance in place, how can the breastfeeding community continue to impact Facebook? Last week thousands of breastfeeding mothers demonstrated in front of Facebook headquarters around the world. Historically, these types of nurse-ins have been effective in bringing an issue to public awareness but they have not been successful in changing the censorship policy of Facebook.

What I wonder about in regards to the FB censorship is how breastfeeding photos are being reported. Though Facebook is a public forum, images are semi-private. You have to be friends with someone to see their photos. Nude breastfeeding photos don’t often appear as someone’s main photo. This means that someone who reports a photo may be befriending and then stalking someone they don’t know. Are voyeurs reporting these photos? Maybe they are the ones who should be reported.

I’m not sure where we go from here, but I know that the breastfeeding community is among many voices challenging Facebook at this time. What do you think?

Are all breastfeeding photos appropriate for Facebook or are some private?

Is there a different standard for an image in a general forum, like Facebook, than for an image in a breastfeeding-friendly forum like Mothering, for example?

What do you think would be the ideal breastfeeding image standard for Facebook?

 

 

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When Do Babies Sleep Through the Night?

February 15th, 2012

 

Babies don’t sleep through the night until between two and three years of age. I wish this weren’t true. I wish I had a magic wand that would take away the challenge of night waking, but I’m afraid it comes with the territory. The good news is that it does get better; the bad news is that it’s not over as soon as we’d like.

My personal experience with four children tells me that it takes about two years for the nervous and immune system of a child to mature enough to foster the ability to sleep through the night. Sleep has developmental milestones such as the progression from sleeping more in the day to sleeping more at night and the progression from waking during the night to sleeping through the night.

SLEEP STUDIES

Informal and formal research confirms this. kellymom has a great page on her site listing several studies of normal sleep. Here are some provocative quotes from the abstracts of these studies. Quotes link to the study:

84% were not sleeping through the night at six months.

…night waking at the end of the first year is a common developmental phenomenon.

The increase in night waking towards the end of the first year coincides with significant socio-emotional advances which characterizes this developmental stage.”

It is not until after 24 months that regular night waking (requiring attention) becomes much less common.

Babies who slept well at night were exposed to significantly more light in the early afternoon period.

“Infants who were breast-fed into the second year did not develop sleep/wake patterns in conformance with the norms. Instead of having long unbroken night sleep, they continued to sleep in short bouts with frequent waking…The sleep/wake development accepted as the physiologic norm may be attributable to the early weaning and separated sleeping practices in western cultures…As prolonged breastfeeding becomes more popular in our society, the norms of sleep/wake patterns in infancy will have be be revised”

WHAT CAN WE DO?

If our culture appears to be in a state of illusion regarding babies’ sleep habits and parents’ ability to control them, it is because we are a bottle feeding culture. A breastfeeding culture has different norms. On good days, we know this. On bad days, we want to make sure we’ve tried everything we can just in case there is something to be done about night waking. Here are some things to consider:

Is your baby hungry?

Is the room too hot or too cold? Is the baby’s clothing right for the temperature of the room?

Is your baby overstimulated? (Does your baby feel, see and hear things more acutely than other babies? Those with low sensory thresholds wake more at night.)

Is your baby teething?

Is your baby sick or getting sick?

Is your baby getting bit by bugs or does your baby have pinworms?

Could your baby be having dreams or night terrors?

Is your baby overtired?

Is your baby active enough during the day?

Is your baby sensitive to anything in his or her diet?

Unusual things that could keep a baby awake at night include: inadequate cortisone levels, cerebral allergy, allergic-tension fatigue syndrome, low blood sugar, central nervous system, glandular or mineral imbalance, mold in mattresses, petrochemicals, down comforters, or sleeping bags. These, of course, are things to talk about with your health care practitioner.

GRACE

The vast majority of the time, however, night waking is perfectly normal. All we can do is change ourselves: don’t take night waking personally;  stop feeling sorry for yourself; make time and space to have a nap; practice relaxation techniques and keep everyone’s blood sugar up. The rest is grace. May you have that grace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What is Love?

February 13th, 2012

 

Like most of us, I have long pondered the meaning of love. As a young woman, I equated love with sad poems and tragic romantic scenarios. Now I see love as an action rather than a feeling. In The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck defines love this way:

“GENUINE LOVE IMPLIES COMMITMENT AND EXERCISE OF WISDOM…THE WILL TO EXTEND ONESELF FOR THE PURPOSE OF NURTURING ONE’S OWN OR ANOTHER’S SPIRITUAL GROWTH.”

In order to explore the more mature love that Peck describes, one must be able to delay gratification, accept responsibilities for one’s actions, speak and act honestly, and keep things in balance. These are all things that we are challenged to learn to do during the early months of parenting and that then inform our couple relationship.

Our couple relationship is fragile during the early years of parenting because we have so little time for ourselves, much less for one another. We are also both changing so much and learning so much as new parents that we have to redefine, just like everything else, our couple relationship.

“WHERE LOVE IS, NO ROOM IS TOO SMALL.” Talmud

How can we make room for our love once baby has come? Without putting too much pressure on yourselves, be ready to respond to a time when the baby first goes down for sleep at night, for example, as a time to check in with one another. Eventually find two hours a week to be together to talk. You don’t have to go out; make a special candlelit dinner at home. Have a picnic on the living room floor. As the baby can tolerate it, go out for two hours together one time a week. This is a period during which the ability to delay gratification will come in handy.

‘LOVE CONSISTS IN THIS, THAT TWO SOLITUDES PROTECT AND TOUCH AND GREET EACH OTHER.” Rainer Maria Rilke

Do nice things for one another. Leave a loving note. Write something on the bathroom mirror. Offer to help out with an inconvenient task. Notice something that needs to be done before someone mentions it. Lean on one another. Pick up the slack for each other. Let yourself be helped.  Here’s where accepting responsibilities for one’s actions will go a long way.

I HAVE FOUND THE PARADOX, THAT IF YOU LOVE UNTIL IT HURTS, THERE CAN BE NO MORE HURT, ONLY LOVE. Mother Teresa.

We suffer for love. Real love is not always convenient and we can’t control it. The early months of parenting are a time that we just have to suffer through and we must not criticize ourselves if we break down at times and feel that we’ve reached our limit. This is simply evidence that we have the courage to suffer for love. Here’s where speaking and acting honestly will help ameliorate the suffering.

YOUR TAKS IS NOT TO SEEK FOR LOVE, BUT MERELY TO SEEK AND FIND ALL THE BARRIERS WITHIN YOURSELF THAT HAVE BUILT AGAINST IT.” Rumi

Through suffering the early months and years of parenting, we learn to take ourselves seriously. We see that our children are mirrors of ourselves and learn from our example. If we want to love them, and hope to guide them, then we have to change ourselves first. We always have to change ourselves first. And, at the same time, we have to refrain from taking ourselves too seriously and continue to trust that things are as they should be. A healthy sense of humor can help keep things in balance. Humor is the universal antidote to any and all of our negative emotions.

When I’m feeling sorry for myself and over-dramatic about my own suffering, I like to listen to Monty Python’s, “Four Yorkshiremen.‘

How do you keep your sense of humor as a parent and a partner?

 

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Are we Abandoning Families with Autism?

January 25th, 2012

On June 19, 2002 I attended the congressional hearing, “The Status of Research into Vaccine Safety and Autism” in Washington DC. This hearing was part of the oversight investigation of the Committee on Government Reform, headed at the time by Congressman Dan Burton (IN-REP).

According to the background material presented to the Committee by Congressman Burton, “When the Committee began its oversight investigation in 1999, autism was thought to affect 1 in 500 children.” In 2002, when the hearing was held, autism was thought to affect 1 in 250 children. CDC data from 2010 indicates that 1 in 110 children have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

As I was leaving the hearing, I saw a woman standing outside holding a sign detailing the $30,000 a year it cost to care for her autistic child.  According to a 2007 study by Michael L. Gantz, MS, PhD, “The Lifetime Distribution of the Incremental Societal Costs of Autism,” autism costs our society “upwards of $35 billion in direct (both medical and nonmedical) and indirect costs to care for all individuals diagnosed each year over their lifetimes.”

For families this translates into direct medical costs estimated at $29,000 a year; direct non-medical costs of between $38,000 and $43,000 a year; and indirect costs, such as lost wages for parents, of $39,000 to $130,000 a year. Read one family’s story, “The High Cost of Autism” by Theresa Wrangham.

With these sobering numbers in mind, shock waves are reverberating through the autism community because of recent news of proposed changes in the definition of autism. The American Psychiatric Association is in the process of editing the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and their expert panel is currently reassessing the definition of autism. It is expected that the panel will tighten this definition and thus reduce the rate of diagnosis.

Proponents for the change contend that the vagueness of the current DSM definition of autism may have contributed to the increase in the diagnosis of autism. Opponents fear that families will be left out in the cold. Changing the definition of autism could effectively end the autism epidemic, according to Fred. R. Volkmar, PhD, director of the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine and author of a new analysis of the negative effects of the proposed changes. Quoted in the New York Times of January 20, 2012, Volkmar said, “We would nip it in the bud–think of it that way.”

Writing in The Health Care Blog, Anne Dachel says, “…these children aren’t going away regardless of what we call them…there will be lots of very angry parents who rightly feel that their children mean nothing to the medical establishment whose only aim is to make them disappear.”

Lisa Sykes, founder of CoMeD and mother of a son with autism says, “Deciding to count only some but not all of the children on the autism spectrum is no different than deciding to count some but not all of the children who get hit by a car.  It doesn’t mean they aren’t injured; it just means that we as a society are turning away from the victims and their very real needs.  This manipulation of the autism rates should unite advocates for children and for the disabled to challenge this change in the DSM-V.”

The New York Metro Chapter of the National Autism Association urges families, caregivers, and professionals affected by autism to contact the American Psychiatric Association and other organizations:

American Psychiatric Association

1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1825

Arlington, Va. 22209-3901

1-888-357-7924

apa@psych.org and dsm5@psych.org

Comment on their Facebook page.

 

 

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SOPA, PIPA and Online Communities

January 17th, 2012

 

 

Today, January 18, 2012, several major internet sites, including Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing, are dark to protest two new pieces of federal legislation, SOPA and PIPA.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), House Bill 3261, would allow copyright holders to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Proponents of the bill hope to stop the illegal copying of movies and music. Opponents say it would require websites to police their members as well as seriously limit freedom of expression on the internet.

The Senate version of SOPA is The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011) or PIPA, Senate Bill 968. A vote on PIPA is scheduled for January 24, 2012.

The bills are supported by The US Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, among others and are opposed by the Mozilla Corporation, Facebook, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Yahoo, Google, reddit, American Express, Reporters Without Borders, eBay, Google and others.

How would these laws affect us here at Mothering? We routinely publish photos, links and videos uploaded by our community members. While we are always diligent in removing anything that represents a copyright violation when it comes to our attention and include cautions about this in our User Agreement, we might not catch everything. According to opponents of these bills, our entire domain could be taken down due to something erroneously posted by me, another blogger or a member of our forums.

Wikipedia has a good overview of these bills, once the site is viewable again on January 19th. Below are four non-profit sites where you can learn more. Three of the four sites below will also be black today in protest of SOPA and PIPA but their sites will link you to political action tools.

Center for Democracy and Technology

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Reporters Without Borders

Stop the Wall

Whether it’s identity security, as highlighted by this week’s hacking into Zappos customer accounts; personal privacy, as illustrated by the new hit TV series, A Person of Interest; or commercial property vs. personal liberty, as dramatically juxtaposed in SOPA and PIPA, the new frontier is the internet. We need to understand the implications of these and other internet laws and act to protect ourselves and our liberties.

 

 

 

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Apocalypse Not

January 16th, 2012

 



Because optimism is a job requirement for parents, I look for ways to interpret life that do justice to the hope implied by my children’s existence. Yet, pessimism tempts me every day.

The word apocalypse is often used to describe our times and to frighten us into believing that the end is near. I don’t want to believe this so I looked up the word apocalypse in the dictionary and found, to my surprise, that the word does not mean the end of the world at all. The word has come to be associated with the end because The Apocalypse of John, the last book in The New Testament, and other Christian and Jewish texts, contain prophetic visions of imminent destruction.

Apocalypse comes from the Greek word, “apokaluptein,” which means to uncover. According to Wikipedia, apocalypse means “a lifting of the veil or revelation, a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception.”

One could interpret this to mean a new beginning, a fresh start.

The Mayan Calendar ends in 2012, but it also begins again in 2012. Do we see the end or do we see a beginning? We make the choice every day.

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Toys with a Conscience

December 13th, 2011





The holiday season can be a tough time for the conscience. We want to give presents to our children, but we don’t want to overwhelm them with consumerism. We’re concerned about fair trade and how things are made, but we don’t always know how to determine this. Plus we have a limited budget for presents so price is also a consideration. We have to get creative.

First, it’s good to remember how little children really want. A ball in a big box wrapped with lots of paper (could be newspaper) to rip off is always a hit. In a great column from last year, GeekDad identified the 5 Best Toys of All Time:

A Stick

A Box

String

Cardboard Tube

Dirt

I would add toilet paper, pots, pans and wooden spoons to this list.

For great ideas on handmade gifts, check our community thread on The Annual Mothering Homemade Gifts Ideas Contest. It’s six pages and still going. Come vote for your favorite idea.

If you have a budget for store bought gifts, take a look at Mothering’s Natural Toy Review Guide 2011. It includes reviews of Dolls and Doll Houses, Baby Toys and Rattles, Art Supplies, Push, Pull & Ride, Games & Puzzles, Educational and Imaginative Play and Blocks and Stackers.

This is the criterion we used for selecting toys to review:

Must be designed for use by children ages infant-16 years.

Must be made of at least 80% natural or recycled materials.

Must be manufactured in the US or Canada or in a facility outside the US that is proven to provide fair working conditions.

Must meet all current US testing standards.

Toys like these contrast with what the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) calls the Nagging Nine, toys and games most advertised on children’s cable television networks during “Black Friday” week. According to CCFC, “Lego Building Sets, which lead the list, were advertised 415 times during these seven days. “If we want companies to stop advertising to kids, we have to stop rewarding the ones that do,” said CCFC director, Susan Linn. The Nagging Nine is a play on the title of Mothering’s article, Why They Whine by Gary Ruskin, an exclusive report on how advertising to children is designed to make them whine for new toys.

If you want to support artisan toy manufacturers who “preserve unique handmade and small batch toys, clothes and all manner of children’s goods in the USA,” check out the Handmade Toy Alliance. Make a donation to the organization or support the members with your purchases.

See the natural wooden toys that we just added to the Mothering Shop. The educational toys, arts and crafts and kids room furniture are made by Guidecraft, a 40-year-old company and leader in the industry.

Buying with a conscience doesn’t have to be cumbersome. There are plenty of companies deserving of our respect and our patronage. We just have to know where to look. Let me know how you keep your integrity intact during the holidays.

 

 

 

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Vaccines for Pregnant Women?

December 7th, 2011

 

I’ve been receiving unsolicited emails from a neighbor telling me where I can get the flu vaccine. Last week when I went to Walgreen’s there were signs up all over the store urging me to get vaccinated. The excessive marketing of the flu vaccine can make it hard to know your own mind.

This is especially true for pregnant women. Up until recently pregnancy was a contraindication to the flu vaccine; now it is recommended for pregnant women. Generally when we are pregnant we want to refrain from ingesting drugs or receiving invasive procedures. The current flu recommendation can seem contradictory.

One of the contradictory things about the flu vaccine is that it must be created newly every year in anticipation of the upcoming flu season so it is, by nature, not that effective. The CDC says that the influenza vaccine is 60% effective for all age groups combined. The swine flu vaccine only has an overall efficacy of 40 to 45%.  In addition, 80% of illnesses that appear to be flu are not, in fact, flu and of the 20% that are, most resolve on their own.

Another concern for pregnant women considering the flu vaccine are its additives. Flu vaccines still contain mercury in the form of the preservative thimerosal, which has been taken out of vaccines for children due to health concerns. In addition, flu vaccines can contain adjuvants, an additive that primes the immune system. Adjuvants have not been tested on pregnant women and many contain squalene (shark liver oil), implicated in autoimmune disease in animals and/or polysorbate 80, implicated in infertility in animal studies. In addition, flu vaccines are recommended for pregnant women after 14 weeks because of fear of possible miscarriage.

I’m old fashioned and want to inform pregnant woman. I asked Jennifer Margulis, who wrote The Vaccine Debate, to investigate flu vaccines for pregnant women. We’re featuring her hard hitting, exclusive article, What You’re Doctor Isn’t Telling You About the Pregnancy and the Flu Vaccine in a Vaccination Special Report that includes other articles and resources.

Some of you may have already gotten the flu vaccine; others may still be debating. As long as you are informed about your options, whatever decision you make will be right. I hope that you find our new article helpful in making your decision.

 

 


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Earth to Congress: Tomato Paste is Not a Vegetable

November 17th, 2011




If you had any doubts about the loyalties and efficacy of the US Congress, you need look no further than the today’s spending bill, the fourth emergency spending bill since April.

Hailed as a “breath of fresh air” by Steven LaTourette (Rep-OH)), the bill effectively blocks school lunch standards that would limit French fries, pizza and salt and increase the use of whole grains. It also allows tomato paste to be counted as one of the required vegetables in federally subsidized school meals. I’m not making this up.

It’s pitiful to think that we have to wage a national campaign to remind our representatives that healthy food for our children is important. But, even if we did, it wouldn’t make a difference. Congress is beholden to the pizza industry, the potato-growing states, and the American Frozen Food Institute.

So, don’t wait around for Congress to help; do it yourself. There are many inspirational models for healthy school lunches that you can duplicate in your community. Here are just a few:

Download The Rethinking School Lunch Guide from the Center for Ecoliteracy. The guide has ideas and strategies for changing your local school lunch programs.

Chef Ann Cooper, known as the Renegade Lunch Lady, has new ideas, strategies, tips and recipes for transforming school lunch and tools for connecting to a network of people doing the same.

Thelunchbox.org is an online toolkit with free tools and recipes that have worked well for school districts around the country.

Farm to School connects local farms with schools so that healthy meals can be served in school cafeterias.

Cooking with Kids, started by Lyn Walters in the Santa Fe public schools is being duplicated all over the country.

The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, California, an initiative to build and share a national food curriculum, is supported by Alice Waters and The Chez Panisse Foundation.

Salad Bars 2 Schools is a comprehensive grassroots public health effort to support salad bars in schools. Partnered with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Initiative, the goal of Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools is to fund and award 6000 salad bars by the end of 2013. Schools can apply for grants online.

I’d love to hear what’s working in your community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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    Welcome to A Quiet Place

    Mothering's long-time editor and publisher, Peggy O'Mara, shares observations and insights about overcoming parenting obstacles, appreciating unacknowledged epiphanies, and taking care of yourself. Also, great food ideas and recipes, as well as beautiful home and garden tips.

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