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rahima baldwin dancy |
Rahima
Baldwin Dancy
Midwifery, Homebirth, Waldorf Parenting and Education
- Advocating homebirth
- Enriching academic schooling through Waldorf at home
- When to contact a doula or midwife
- Playgroups
- Advice for an HMO health insurance system delivery
- Safety of midwife prenatal care and delivery
- 'Cord Care' herbal remedy to heal the umbilical cord
- Making home daycare more "Waldorf"
- Resources on bonding with twins
- Encouraging art
- Differences between Montessori and Waldorf education
It's unfortunate that women's choices in birth are diminishing more and more, due to increasing pressures from insurance companies and from the medical community itself! If your doctor used to support home birth, he most likely knows its value and could cite studies for you. But the pressure on him are tremendous. It's unfortunate that ACOG, hospital boards, and insurance companies can threaten to increase or drop their insurance and/or threaten to take away their hospital privileges.
Those of us who have been active in the natural childbirth and home birth movements since the 1970s haven't managed to have much effect on ACOG—they've been issuing poorly constructed studies showing how "unsafe" homebirth is (for example, by including unplanned homebirths in the statistics) and ignoring reports from other countries and the prospective study by the Midwives Alliance of North America showing that planned homebirth with midwives is both safe an satisfying.
When I first started this work, I was shocked to learn that the medical community was not "scientifically" based—the studies were there showing that home birth could be safe, and yet they were ignored. Anthropologist Robbie Davis Floyd's work helped me to understand why: the medical model of birth is part of a set of core values that infuse our entire culture. The desire to control nature and to "rescue" the baby from the mother-baby diad is part of dominant masculine-based paradigm that has dominated all aspects of our culture for centuries.
Even the movement to have "evidence-based care" has not been well-received within the medical community, because it goes against many current practices and interventions. We need to understand that the institution (hospital birth) has a life or its own and does not want to give up power. It is not "power" in the sense of wanting to subjugate women, because practitioners within the medical model truly perceive and believe that they are doing what is best for "a healthy mother and a healthy baby"—despite all the studies and rankings showing we're doing (and exporting) the wrong things.
We weren't able to change ACOG—but we were able to revitalize midwifery and make it more available. But we had to do that, in part, by going outside the system. Unfortunately, what you're saying looks like the same things—that you may have to go outside the system to get the kind of birth to which every woman should be entitled. I'm really sorry it's still that way!
There's a lot of enrichment you can provide at home. You're right that creating an inviting environment with imaginative toys and lots of time for free play can help provide balance. Be sure to include plenty of time in nature! And you can still provide many of the activities associated with "Waldorf methods," such as telling a fairy tale and introducing a letter of the alphabet through a drawing connected with the story. This will be enriching, even if your daughter has already learned the letters in school. Resources for doing these things at home can be found at www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com and www.christopherushomeschool.org/.
Many parents in your situation have put together a group of families who are interested in a "Saturday club" or "Waldorf enrichment program" to bring some of the artistic and other activities to their children. This can include the wet-on-wet watercolor painting, beeswax modeling, coloring with block crayons, baking, knitting, and so forth. Resources for such a group can be found online at www.waldorfinthehome.com, including a DVD by a woman whose little group evolved into a regular program while her family was abroad.
The other thing to remember is how nurturing and supportive a rhythmical home life is for your child?and for every member of the family. In addition to having meals at regular times, think about how your child's day "breathes," i.e. what does she need when she comes home from school? What kinds of activities will help to balance her energy and her experience of the day. Spending a half hour together with a story, or letting her play by herself outside can go a long way to counteracting the effects of having been with a large group and having been worked at desks all day. Try to avoid lots of time in the car, running errands or lots of classes. Children need time to be dreamy, and time to "digest" the impressions of the day. Best wishes for this next phase in your child's life!
When I taught childbirth classes, I always encouraged couples to take the classes early in pregnancy, telling them they could take the labor and delivery class—or even the entire series—again for free at the end of pregnancy. Clearly, now is the time you're so curious about the changes that are going on and looking for support, not just in the last two months of pregnancy! So, in addition to looking into the many books and websites available, I recommend you start to attend a series of monthly LaLeche League meetings and investigate any of the privately taught childbirth classes in your area (by choosing a series taught by organizations such as BirthWorks, ALACE, the Bradley Method, etc. you are likely to find more support for natural birth than in many classes taught by hospital personnel about what is done in the hospital).
Similarly, I warmly recommend you start exploring who is available as a doula or midwife in your area. Starting early will give you plenty of time to consider the many options about where and with whom you want to give birth. If you are going to give birth with a doctor in the hospital, having a doula or labor assistant is the best investment you can make. She is someone knowledgeable about birth, who—unlike the doctor—will be with you throughout your entire labor and delivery. She can be your best help in preventing an unnecessary cesarean.
Choosing midwifery care throughout pregnancy and birth often means that you won't need a doula as well, as the midwife (and her assistant/s) are with you throughout labor and the postpartum hours. And, as you are figuring out, midwives often have suggestions about natural ways to work with the discomforts of pregnancy, such as nausea and insomnia. They usually have much more time to spend with you at each prenatal visit and can help you have a healthier pregnancy and birth. As you guessed, it's never too early to start informing yourself during pregnancy or to start connecting with the circle of women and other caregivers who will accompany you during this wonderful time in your life.
Best wishes to you and your growing family!
A playgroup such as you described can be a wonderful opportunity for mothers to get together on a regular basis and for the children to start to become familiar with one another. But they're on the young side to be playing with one another—up to the age of three they tend to play next to each other, rather than engage in the imaginative play of older children. And because the power of imitation is so strong in the young child, whatever they see another child doing or playing with, they immediately want the same thing! We can interpret this as their need to learn social skills, but it's a tricky age because they aren't yet old enough to understand sharing or being able to wait. So don't expect play to go smoothly, and remember to model the behavior you want ("We need to share with our friends") rather than swooping down with admonitions such as "Don't grab!"
Outside free play can work well at a park or in a yard, but if your weather is too cold, I might suggest some kind of mom-tot activity rather than just letting the children play at someone's house. Activities that work well might include cutting out cookies or kneading bread, then doing a little singing circle with some finger plays or movements, and then having snack together. Having it at the same person's house each time and sticking to a rhythm that works (once you find one) would also help the children to grow into the time by knowing what to expect. Although it's really possible to keep it simple and free form and get together at the park or in someone's home, if you want to create something with more structure, there are some good suggestions in the book by Sarah Baldwin, Nurturing Children and Families: One Model of a Parent/Child Program in a Waldorf School. It's available from www.waldorfearlychildhood.com.
I'm sorry you're not receiving the personal attention and celebration of your growing baby that you deserve! The frustration you're feeling is, unfortunately, built into the medicalized and depersonalized system supported by insurance. In trying to navigate within a large HMO, first make sure you know what your options are within that system. Do you have a choice of doctors--there's nothing wrong with interviewing and changing doctors! Does the HMO cover midwives at some other hospital? It could be worth driving an hour or two, if so.
Assuming you've made the best choices you can within the system, then the most important thing is to inform yourself about pregnancy and birth. You need to know what your options are regarding the barrage of tests they want to do during pregnancy. As you read, write down questions to take with you to your prenatal appointments, as it's easy to forget your questions and concerns in the "assembly line" care.
In addition to reading, take childbirth classes now, rather than waiting until nearer the end of your pregnancy. I would recommend skipping the hospital classes, because they are likely to explain "what the hospital does" rather than tell you what all your options are (they're working for the system, after all, and sometimes they don't have choices--like having to have an anesthesiologist come in and extol the virtues of epidurals, for example). You'll get a more complete picture by finding classes offered by an independent childbirth educator (trained by ALACE, Birthworks, the Bradley Method, etc.). You can find these instructors by searching the websites of these organizations, or by talking to other women in your community. Attending the monthly support groups offered by LaLeche League International will not only give you valuable information about breastfeeding, but it will also put you in touch with the local grapevine of childbearing women, who are in touch with all the resources in your community. Really becoming informed of your options can help you to formulate a written birth plan, which can be an important piece in navigating the system.
And seek out a doula! Doulas are women who are experienced in birth and who have had special training to accompany you (and your partner) in labor and delivery. Spending the extra money to have a doula during labor and delivery is the best investment you can make--and your best protection against having an unnecessary cesarean. You can find doulas who have been trained by organizations such as ALACE and DONA--search on the web, and start asking around!
Since you can't expect the system to change, I recommend finding other sources of celebration and empowerment with women in your community. In addition to looking into La Leche League meetings, is prenatal yoga offered in your community? Or prenatal massage? It's too bad that no one during your prenatal visits wants to listen to you, but they're not likely to be the ones who are present at your birth, in any event. So formulating what you want in writing and having a doula are your best bets for having a good birth--unless, you want to leave the system altogether by having a homebirth and can find (and afford) experienced homebirth midwives in your community. Best wishes!
It sounds like you’re both united on the level of your needs: you both want a safe birth and a healthy baby. A good thing to do would be to listen empathically to what he is saying (mirror back his underlying feelings and needs) and ask what he hears you saying. Then you find that you’re in agreement on a deep level, but not in agreement about strategies, based on different understanding. As you are finding, shifting from the dominant paradigm that the American obstetrical model provides the safest and best birth while midwifery care does not involves a lot of re-education, but science is on your side, and you still have plenty of time ahead of you.
In fact, midwives attend the vast majority of births in those industrialized countries with the best perinatal outcomes. The safety of midwifery care has been established by a large body of mainstream research. I don’t know of any one site that would convince your fiancé, but since it sounds like he wants “objective science,” I’d go for the big guns and search PubMed, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's database of over 4,000 biomedical journals. Most are too technical to want to read, but you might copy the abstract and the source to share. Here a few quotes from recent studies:
“In terms of quality, satisfaction, and costs the midwifery model for pregnancy and maternity care has been found to be beneficial to women and families, resulting in good outcomes and cost savings....With its focus on pregnancy as a s normal life event and health promotion for women of all ages, them midwifery model of car is an appropriate alternative or complement to the medical approach to childbirth.” (from a position paper in the American Journal of Public Health, 91:3, March 2001).
At the state level, in California the Pew Health Profession Commission and UCSF Taskforce on Midwifery concluded in 1999, “It is the finding and vision of the Taskforce that the midwifery model of care is an essential element of comprehensive health care for women and their families that should be embraced by, and incorporated into, the health care system and made available to all women.” These and other quotes can we found at the Citizens for Midwifery website.
My favorite, a meta-study was done in Canada that pulls together all the studies in English concerning best practices in pregnancy and birth, is described in a book for the public called A Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth, edited by Murray Enkin. Their conclusion: “It is inherently unwise, and perhaps unsafe, for women with normal pregnancies to be cared for by an obstetric specialist….Midwives and general practitioners, on the other hand, are primarily oriented to the care of women with normal pregnancies, and are likely to have more detailed knowledge of individual women.”
Anne Diamond summarizes other studies: “In 1998, the
National Center for Health Statistics released its findings that the risk of
infant mortality occurring in the first 28 days of life was 33% lower for births
attended by certified nurse midwives. It also found that the risk of a low
birthweight infant was 31% lower. A survey published by the Public Citizen
Research Group found that the Cesarean section rate for certified
nurse-midwifery practices attending hospital births was 11.6% — half the
overall Cesarean rate for the United States. These outcomes were achieved with a
substantially lower use of drugs, anesthesia, and episiotomy.
The
safety of birth center care has also been clearly demonstrated by research. Most
notably, a study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in
December, 1989, which examined over 11,000 births in 84 birth centers and
revealed a Cesarean section rate of 4.4% and an overall infant mortality rate of
1.3 per 1,000 births (as compared to a national infant mortality rate of over 9
per 1,000 births in 1989).”
Walk lightly and just slip him an
article with breakfast every few weeks.
Good luck! Rahima
How would a Waldorf teacher deal with toy snatching between 2.5 year olds?
When 2-1/2 year-olds snatch toys from one another, it is first necessary to understand that it is completely normal. Young children learn everything by imitation-and it's on such a deep level that it's involuntary, just as when you yawn right after someone sitting next to you has yawned. So when a toddler sees another child playing with something or doing something, they
naturally want to do the same thing! They have no concept yet of ownership or of sharing. Children's play at this age tends to be alone with an object or next to one another, not the creative "stream-of-consciousness" play that starts around age 3-1/2, or the socially directed play of the 4-5 year old.
However, our task remains to guide children, gradually, into the social graces and to teach them "right action." So here are some guiding principles, which will vary according to the actual situation. The first thing to do is to check the environment to make sure that it is rich with objects, and some that are similar. In Waldorf circles we provide toys that are often household utensils, objects from nature, or toys made from natural materials because the "living qualities" of wood, cotton and silk bring a different message to the child's open senses than does plastic or other
man-made materials.
The next thing is to breathe and relax ourselves. We need to not react with anger or frustration, but calmly to enter ourselves into the situation. We might offer to trade another toy so the first child can resume his or her play. Because children learn by imitation, be careful not to snatch the toy from the second child-your actions trump your words every time. And let your words be positive, saying what you want to see happen, such as "We share with our friends" rather than, "Don't do that!" Then you might turn to the first child and ask, "Can you give Jonah a turn with the truck now? Come let's...."
There's no "one right formula" for dealing with this situation-only a number of small events which, together with the child's increasing maturation, will result in his or her learning social skills. If we remember, above all else, that children learn through imitation, then we'll employ the principles of modeling and movement to help them learn what needs to be done, rather than punishment or being excessively verbal and rational about what has just happened.
A friend of mine used an herbal remedy called 'cord care' to heal the umbilical cord of her first baby. The midwife used it and it worked beautifuly. She has moved away (the midwife) and I want to use it on my baby. Ever heard of it ? Know what might be in it ? Can I make it myself?
When I was actively midwifing, we would wait to cut the cord until after the
placenta had been delivered. This is probably the "most natural" way, if
you think about what a woman who was birthing alone would do: she'd pick up
the baby, push out the placenta, and then probably start thinking about how
to separate the baby from this extra piece of meat. This method assures
that the baby gets just the right amount of blood from the cord and the
placenta (i.e., the amount nature intended), and we never jaundice or other
problems, as the medical literature fears.
There are several advantages to waiting until after the placenta is out to
cut the cord. One is that it encourages the placenta to detach from the
uterine lining, and it provides the baby with more oxygen-rich blood than
with immediate clamping. And by waiting until the mother asks for the cord
to be cut, she is put in charge and we're not interrupting her bonding
experience for an "intervention."
The final benefit is that it results in cords that usually fall off by the
second day! But regardless of when the cord is cut, the most important
thing about cord care after birth is to keep the cord stump above the
diaper, where it will stay dry and allow the air to dry it more quickly
through a gauze pad and a "onesie" rather than staying wet behind a thick
diaper. It has been my experience over the years that it isn't necessary to
do anything else. But in answer to your question about powdered herbal cord
care, Cascade Health Care sells a combination of goldenseal and Oregon grape
root (barberry) specifically for this purpose. You can find it online at
www.1cascade.com.
I'm doing daycare for three other children (ages 2-5) so I can afford to stay home with my son, who is 3. How can I make what we do "more Waldorf?"
There are several keys to enriching your daycare program, which apply to anyone who is at home with young children. They include valuing the activities of daily life, making your day rhythmical, and building activities around nature and the festivals of the year. LifeWays provides excellent resources for creating an in-home program that is relationship based and that emphasizes "the living arts" (nurturing, domestic, creative and social). The principles and practices Cynthia Aldinger has articulated at www.lifeways-center.org can help you transform your daycare into an experience that helps young children connect with the living world and with their creative imagination. And you'll have more fun in the process!
In addition to my book on Waldorf indications and activities from birth to six, You Are Your Child's First Teacher, Donna Simmon's book on Practical Waldorf at Home: Kindergarten with Your Three to Six Year Old (www.christopherushomeschool.org) can provide you with both an understanding of how the young child develops and a practical grounding in "what to do." Good luck!
I am looking for resources on bonding with twins as I am expecting twins in June. I don't see much in the bookstores about bonding with twins and am wondering how this may be different than with a singleton. I also have a 4 year old.
Bonding is a process that begins during pregnancy and picks up speed when you behold the "intimate strangers" you have known for nine months, but not yet seen. The time after the birth is especially advantageous for bonding because a mother is very open hormonally and emotionally, so the mother-baby diad should be respected much more than it often is. Bonding really involves adults establishing enough connection to make space in their lives for taking care of this new being (or beings!); children always respond to and love their primary caregivers, unless there is such neglect and abuse that they "check out" and fail to thrive. I can't think of any differences in the process of bonding between a mother or father and multiples compared with a single baby. One thing to remember, of course, is to keep your awareness attuned to the fact that they are separate spiritual beings, and see what is revealed to you at birth and throughout life. Another thing to recognize is that they already have a particularly close bond with one another and to honor that by not separating them unnecessarily (I feel it's crazy that most hospitals still keep them in separate "boxes," especially if there are any problems).
One of the best things you can do for your twins to avoid prematurely or a surgical delivery is to eat well and gain about 50-60 pounds so they don't decide to exit the womb early. Twins we dealt with as midwives always went to term and weighed 6-8 pounds. Good nutrition also helps to prevent toxemia. And try to have a natural delivery, which should be possible with the right practitioner, unless factors such as sharing the same amniotic sac or being in a position where the chins could lock make vaginal delivery too high risk. However, if you do need a cesarean delivery, this does not necessarily mean a breakdown in bonding! Bonding with human beings does not have a "critical period," as it does with many other animals. It's an ongoing process. The key with twins is to get enough help that you have time to heal and regain your energy after the birth and so you aren't always exhausted. I feel that we're in a "bonded state" whenever we treat the baby as a feeling and knowing person rather than as an object. And that's harder to do when you're exhausted!
So I would recommend putting extra time into planning the first six weeks after the birth. In many cultures this is a time of honoring the mother, enabling her to really recover and be with her baby in that magical time after the birth. Do you have friends who can come in and do special things with your four year old? Can you (or a friend) line up people to bring dinners by every night? Can you afford to pay for help from a postpartum doula, or arrange for housecleaning for the first couple of months? Can your partner take time off from work? Have you connected with a "Mothers of Multiples" support group? [check out MotheringDotCommune's Parenting Multiples forum]
One thing many mothers wonder about when they have a second child is how they will possibly love this child as much as the first. But love doesn't work that way-it's not a finite pie that can only be divided into so many pieces. Time, on the other hand, fools us because it appears so linear, and it is natural to wonder how you are going to be able to manage. Twins are a powerful impetus not only to learn to be in the moment, but to learn to accept help gratefully-you're actually doing people a favor by letting them help you. Bonding grows with the time mothers spend with their babies and the love that springs forth when the baby responds. Twins are twice as much love, but also twice as much work. Good luck!
My 2.5 year-old son has recently begun insisting that I draw things for him during his painting or coloring time. He gets frustrated when he cannot draw or paint likenesses of various objects to his satisfaction. I firmly believe in open-ended art and the idea of art as a process rather than a product, so his frustration is distressing to me. He is drawing wonderful circles and spirals just like he should be at this age. He resists my attempts to encourage him to do his own artwork, and I am embarrassed to say that I get frustrated at his insistence that I do it for him. Where did his self-consciousness about his work come from? Is this normal? How can I encourage him to enjoy doing things himself and to not feel like he has to draw or paint?
I share your impulse to let art be an open-ended process for your child. Young children take in the experience of color so deeply, and one way to encourage this is to use block rather than stick crayons. Stockmar makes wonderful beeswax block crayons that are sold by many Waldorf on-line stores (see www.waldorfshop.net <http://www.waldorfshop.net/> for connections to several of them).
By using the side of the crayon, your child will be less likely to take up drawing objects and more likely to be interested in experiencing the colors—and the way the form arises from the colors. Here is where you come in: when you color with your child, model using the broad strokes. And if you do draw an object, it will be less formed and will have been suggested by the colors.
You can also respond obliquely to your child’s requests to draw things for him with something like, “Mama is just playing with the colors today.” On the other hand, actually making a simple book for him with one familiar object per page can become a treasure, as something you have made with love. But don’t let him push you around—have fun and deflect his demands.
You also mentioned that your child wants to paint realistic objects and is frustrated by not being able to do so. Again, changing the medium can eliminate this situation and give him many years of wonderful color experience. By using a wet-on-wet technique, the watercolors remain fluid, floating on the surface of the paper. The book Echoes of a Dream has lovely, color illustrations of both the painting and the coloring techniques I’ve just described. My book, You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, also has a chapter devoted to encouraging your child’s artistic development in these ways.
Can you please give an explanation of the differences between Montessori and Waldorf education?
The educational philosophies developed by Rudolf Steiner and Maria Montessori are similar in that they both involve a comprehensive view of the human being that goes beyond just educating the intellect. However, they differed in their understanding of how best to meet the needs of the growing child. While both agreed that young children shouldn't be sat down with workbooks, Montessori education tends to introduce concepts tactilely, through specially designed "toys" that can be manipulated in only one way. Steiner, in contrast, advised to allow the young child to be in his or her natural creativity until the age of seven, so "toys" in Waldorf tend to foster children's imaginative play.
In a Waldorf early childhood program a great deal of time is devoted to free play and to artistic activity that comes from the child him or herself (water color painting, coloring with block crayons, beeswax modeling, etc). The play is nourished by seeing the adults do real work and by a rich storytelling tradition. This emphasis on nurturing a child's natural creativity as a wellspring for future academic and creative work is absent in the Montessori programs. Montessori endeavored to provide children from 3-6 years of age with the freedom to choose activities and explore them deeply without interruption, but these were a^?oelearning activities.a^?? The teachers introduce new materials and concepts as individuals and small groups become ready for them, and this can include early reading.
In contrast, direct academics would be absent in a Waldorf early childhood program because Steiner felt awakening the cognitive functions before the neurological changes around the age of 6-7 can be harmful to children's health - they don't gain any advantage, and they lose a year or two of the kind of consciousness that a young child has and revels in hand will grow out of by age seven no matter what we do!
Those are a few of the major differences. Before I discovered Waldorf, I had my oldest child in a Montessori school because it was seemed to have a coherent, spiritual vision of the child. He was very awake and was reading by age four, but when we got into Waldorf (he was in second grade), he actually seemed to get younger and more balanced emotionally and artistically.
I would say that if you want to know more about the differences, the best way would be to visit both types of schools, if they exist in your area. There are also two interesting articles available online, "Montessori and Steiner: A Pattern of Reverse Symmetries" by Dee Joy Coulter at www.oakmeadow.com/resources/articles/coulter.htm and "Three Approaches from Europe: Waldorf, Montessori and Reggio Emilia' by Carolyn Pope Edwards at http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v4n1/edwards.html.
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