Pumping: as often the cause as it is the cure

When I meet with expectant parents who have hired me to be their Doula, I give them what may seem like a very odd warning coming from a breastfeeding advocate: avoid pumping.

Pumps can be great tools.  I use mine almost every week as I drive to school, as many drivers on Toronto’s roads can confirm.  I am by no means anti-pump.  But pumps, like any other birth or breastfeeding intervention have a time and place and if not used correctly can do more harm than good.  The trouble is that the buzz about pumps seems to have elevated them to the level of a panacea for breastfeeding problems.

“Should I start pumping to make sure I have enough milk?”

“My nipples hurt so my doctor told me to pump.”

“She wasn’t gaining weight so they told me to pump.”

“I was tired/depressed/you name it, so they told me to pump.”

Pump, pump pump.  And whenever someone asks me if they should pump, for whatever reason, I always reply with “And then what?”  Invariably, I get a blank stare.  It’s absolutely vital that if you’re integrating pumping into your breastfeeding relationship that you have a clear plan for what you need to achieve and how to make it a part of your long-term feeding goals, not an impediment to them.

Know when not to pump.

There are times to pump and times NOT to pump.  It may not be what a mother wants to hear when she’s in pain from sore or cracked nipples, but the only way to fix the majority of breastfeeding challenges is AT THE BREAST.  Compare your new nursing relationship to a fledgling romantic relationship for a moment.  If you’ve just met the man of your dreams and you send your sister on all of your dates, do you think he’s more likely to marry you or your sister?  She may be very inferior to you, but he won’t know that because he doesn’t know you.  Unless your baby is completely unable to feed at the breast, whether from severe mechanical latch issues or due to separation, then it’s important to develop your feeding relationship at the breast.

Feed the baby, not the pump.

But let’s say that you are pumping, the next key is to make sure that you’re feeding the baby first and not the pump.  It sounds ridiculous, but believe me it’s not.  If you’re pumping exclusively due to a separation, this is straightforward enough, but most women I encounter are pumping in conjunction with feeding at the breast and it can be incredibly easy to mismanage this kind of situation.

Example number one: you’re told to pump after feeds to increase supply.  So let’s say it’s your first daylight feed of the day.  Baby starts to nurse at about 7 a.m.  By the time you let her finish the first breast, change her diaper and offer the second breast, she dozes off so you enjoy the quiet for a couple of extra minutes.  Then you hand her to dad or doula while you go pee and grab a super quick shower.  You sit down and hook up your pump and you’re ready to boost your supply!  Except, hang on, it’s 8:30 now.  If your baby is only a few days old, then he’ll be ready to eat again very soon.  Probably the second you’re done pumping, and maybe even before you’re done.  We know that breasts are never truly empty so technically this won’t actually cause a problem.  You can put baby to your recently drained breast and the milk will come.  The thing is, it is also true that when the volume of ready-and-waiting milk is low, the flow can be very slow.  Baby fusses and since you are already nervous about how much milk you do or do not have, and because you’re a new mama and hearing your baby cry for milk hurts your heart, you feed her the milk you just pumped.  Since you just pumped it, you may not think to pump again right away…  Repeat this several times a day and your breastfeeding relationship can easily turn into a bottle-feeding relationship at the same time that you deride yourself for not making enough, even though you are, you’re just feeding it to the machine instead of the baby.

Example number two: you’re told to pump every three hours.  This recommendation usually comes when mom and baby are having intermittent separations, like mom sleeping at home while baby remains in the hospital, but I’ve also seen it advised for supply increase, in between feeding the baby on cue.  So let’s say you’re with baby and again she has her first morning feed at 7 a.m.  You’re good about pumping right after she eats, so that’s at 8 a.m.  You continue on with your morning and babe eats again at 9 ish and then falls asleep.  Now it’s 10:45 and you’re just hooking up your pump because it’s almost been 3 hours, but baby wakes up cuing at the exact same time.  So often I see moms try to hand the hunger-cuing baby to dad or grandma or me to hold while she pumps because, after all, she’s been told that pumping is what will boost her supply!  The trouble is that baby’s natural feeding interval has been unnaturally stretched for the sake of maintaining the recommended pumping interval.  Pretty soon you can get a baby who is slow to gain.  Meanwhile, the pumping that was supposed be added on top of nursing in order to boost supply has actually just replaced the feeding at the breast.  Mom is trying so hard to do the right thing, but the outcome can be the opposite of what she wants.

Have a plan for your pumped milk.

If your instructions to pump are coming from someone who does not have lactation training – read: most family physicians and paediatricians and even (as I’ve sadly discovered) many midwives in Ontario – then they often don’t give you any instructions about how to deliver the pumped milk.  That’s because they don’t know any way to deliver the milk other than by bottle.  The truth is, if you want to resume your breastfeeding relationship, then you need to deliver the milk in a way that protects that relationship.  My personal favourite is to use small feeding tubes because they can be used at the breast or, if necessary with a finger.  But there are many ways to deliver milk other than bottles and it’s important to explore those options.

Understand the demands of pumping.

Like with so many things, the media has a tendency to distort the reality of pumping.  It’s often made out to be the secret to getting your pre-baby freedom back.  Movies show moms sleeping blissfully while their partner drags himself out of bed to pull a bottle of pumped breastmilk from the fridge.  Moms who pump, we’re told, can leave the house for hours without a care in the world.  It is absolutely crucial to understand that feeding the baby pumped breastmilk is still feeding the baby with your body and it places just as many, if not more, demands on your body as feeding at the breast does.

The first thing to know is that pumps are much less efficient at withdrawing milk than skilled breastfeeding babies are.  And even with the best pump, not all breasts will release milk readily.  So pumping often takes longer than breastfeeding.  Sure, you may have slightly more flexibility about the pumping intervals, but that’s a scheduling benefit, not a time savings.  And when I say slightly more flexibility, I really do mean very, very slightly.  The number one question moms ask me is “Can I pump during the day so someone else can do the night feed.”  Technically, the answer is yes, but there is a long list of caveats.  The first being that, as I’ve said, when you’re mixing feeding at the breast with pumping, you have to be very careful to feed the baby, not the pump.  And it’s important to know too, that most moms don’t actually sleep through that feeding time.  When that baby that you love so much cries, it will make every molecule in your body vibrate.  Warming bottles takes time and during that time, baby is likely to be crying, waking you up, not to mention stressing you out.  Even if you do manage to sleep through it, your body has been awake making milk for that feed.  So it’s possible you’ll wake up an hour later anyway but with full, sore breasts.  If this is happening before your supply is established, it’s very likely to signal your body to make less and less milk.  Believe me, I know it’s important for mom to rest, but there are so many better ways to achieve that than skipping feeds.

I don’t mean to paint a horrifying picture, many moms do manage to pump, either exclusively or when separated from baby.  Like I said at the start, I’m one of them.  After returning to work when Lady Fair was 6 months old, pumping was a work-day reality for me.  So let me paint you a real picture of what it’s like to be pumping when you’re away from baby.  When I get in the car to rush off to a birth, I take a gigantic enormous bin with me, full of the stuff I need.  More than half of the contents of that bin are not for the birthing mama, but rather for pumping and storing milk.  Sometimes I take more luggage into a birthing room than the woman who is giving birth.  And even though I pack and check my kit ahead of time, things go wrong.  I’ve had to recharge my pump in a birthing room before.  I’ve had to dump perfectly good milk down the sink because I ran out of freezer bags to store it in.  I’ve had to dump perfectly good milk down the sink because I dropped part of my pump on a scuzzy hospital visitor bathroom floor and didn’t trust that the subsequent milk wasn’t contaminated (blech!!).  I’ve had to do my best to focus on supporting my client while remembering not to put my right arm down because my work duties didn’t allow for regular pumping breaks and now my super-producing breast is engorged.  Only the one breast, mind you, so I’ve also had to walk around in public with one boob that’s twice the size of the other!  And probably my personal favourite, I’ve had strangers walk in on me pumping because I forgot to lock the door.  Oops!  It’s absolutely wonderful that I can provide breastmilk for my babe while I’m away and when it’s all said and done, these little hiccups make fun stories, but while you’re doing it, it’s challenging, and it’s important to be realistic about that.

So what am I supposed to do if pumping is out of the picture?

Really, there’s nothing magical.  Know that most of the time, you and your baby only need each other to breastfeed successfully.  Focus on feeding frequently and supply will follow.  Focus on finding a comfortable position and chances are, a good latch will follow.  Surround yourself with people who know about and value breastfeeding and confidence will follow.  And if you do need to intervene, do it with a clear plan and good support.

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Was it just me?

I came across this in my Facebook feed this morning and promptly felt like poopoo:

Do you see all of those moments of instant connection there? Ya, that wasn’t me.

If there had been a camera in my (first) birthing room, it would not have recorded me getting all gooey eyed like these lucky ladies.  It would have caught me staring blankly at Little Man and it may have even picked up a single, barely audible word:

“Huh.”

Yup, that was my first reaction to my son.

Oh don’t get me wrong, he was a very wanted baby and everything.  We had both spent hours on the couch feeling (and trying to film) his kicks through my belly.  And I secretly didn’t hate the 13 ultrasounds our OBs put us through because I loved to watch him on the screen when we went.  I loved this kid.  But in the very first second after they put him on my chest and I looked at him it hit me: I actually had no clue who he was.  He was a stranger.

You see, when you’re bonding with your baby in utero, what you’re bonding with is a collection of limbs that poke out at you from within your own body.  You’re aware that they belong to someone else, but they’re still inside your body.  They’re yours in a way.  Then you push this little person into the world and suddenly he is exactly that – a whole other person.  You’ve never seen his face, or the shape of his toes.  You don’t know what colour his eyes really are or whether he’s got his dad’s chin.  He’s a totally new entity.  How do you love someone you don’t know?

And all of this is not to say that I didn’t bond with Little Man.  There was definitely bonding.  If not instantaneously, then at least by the time we put him to the breast.  That part was a no-brainer… literally.  It’s some sort of hybrid between a chemical reaction and an unconditioned reflex.  But it wasn’t love, per se, and it didn’t make me all sloppy.  That came later, slowly.  As I got to know him, memorized his voice and breathed him in, I fell totally in love… finally.

So was it just me?  Am I the only one who didn’t have that “Wow” feeling at the first moment?

 

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The best non-toys

OK, you’ve all heard the cliché about the big fancy toy in the cardboard box.  This is not about that, but it is about the other random, mundane, unexpected and even weird things that I’ve discovered have the ability to captivate little ones for far longer than anything Mattel makes.

Silicone pastry/basting brush: If I were planning on roasting my baby, she’d come out so juicy and golden brown that Martha Stewart would be envious.  That’s how much Lady Fair likes to be ‘basted’.  She vibrates with happiness when we tickle her feet with it.  The best part is that it’s totally dishwasher safe, so when Little Man decides to grab it out of his sister’s hands and tickle his scrotum with it (boys and their dangly bits, I tell ya) we can clean it right up.

Spoon: Little Man was NOT a toy-lover.  In fact, the first ‘toy’ he ever paid attention to was a spoon and that was when he was sitting up in a chair.  I suppose it’s a nice teether, especially if run under chilly water first.  The main benefit from a parent’s perspective though is that you really never have to pack it.  Every relative you visit and restaurant you patronize has a spoon on hand.  It’s a lazy mother’s dream.

Pill organizer: It should go without saying that I’m talking about an EMPTY pill organizer.  Not sure why, but something about opening and closing (and opening and closing) each one of those compartments is positively addictive.  It also serves as a perfect storage spot for little rocks (read more on rocks below).

Keys:  Keys, keys, wonderful keys.  How would I ever get through a grocery shopping trip without you?  I bet you didn’t know the coin slot on your grocery cart was actually a lock waiting to be opened by a toddler with keys, did you?  Well, I did because Little Man’s been working on that lock weekly for the last 18 months or so.

Rocks:  Luckily he doesn’t actually look like the Rock Biter, but Little Man’s taste for putting rocks in his mouth is straight out of the Never Ending Story.  Which also brings me to thanking goodness we did Baby-led solids, so his skills with foreign objects in his mouth were very advanced.  When he’s not eating them, he’s banging things with them, stacking them, filling his pockets with them.

Clothes pins:  Not only are they good for pinching your frenemies, they double as jewelery and hair clips and you can make sculptures out of them.

Peri bottles: Yes, you read that right.  The thing your midwife or OB gave you to wash your bruised and battered bottom after you pushed your kiddo into the world, don’t throw it out.  In just a few short months that will become the most sought-after bath toy of all time.  Consider disinfecting it in the meantime though.

And then of course, there’s that cardboard box too…

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It’s Not About a Fear of Letting Go, But It Is About Knowing It’s OK To Hang On

One of the lines of thinking that comes up so frequently from people who don’t understand attachment parenting is that it’s about the mother’s need to cling to the child.  That it’s about her fear of letting him go, of letting him move away from her and be independent.  That is categorically not what it’s about.  But what it is about, is knowing that it’s OK to hang on.

Mainstream western parenting philosophy is rooted in minimizing the child’s need for its parents.  Soothers, swings, schedules, bottles, cribs and sleep training were all created to reduce the amount of time a parent (usually a mother, in the early days of infancy) needs to spend tending to her child’s needs.  New parents are warned not to let their baby ‘get used to’ nursing or rocking to sleep.  They’re told not to respond to a cry too quickly or hold the baby too much for fear of ‘spoiling’ her.  And how many times have your heard that if you let your child sleep in your bed you’ll NEVER get him out?

The thing about attachment parents is that we see through that propaganda.  We understand the universal truth that everyone grows up, that it happens on its own and that it happens faster than you expect.  So yes, we hang on to our kids.  We hang onto them until their adorable little hands let go, because we know unequivocally that they will let go. 

Whether you snuggle your baby in a sling or put them in a swing, when they’re 6 or 7 they’ll still ask you to take the training wheels off their bike.

Whether you breastfeed them for 3 minutes or 3 years, either way, you’ll be the least cool person on the planet when they’re 13.

Whether you cuddle them to sleep or they cry themselves to sleep, they still won’t be asking you to come to their dorm room.

Every day your child will need you less and less, and before you know it he’ll be all grown up and won’t need you at all.  But for right now, he does need you and the point of attachment parenting is that that’s OK.  It’s OK to immerse yourself in this job while it lasts, because it will. not. last. forever.  It’s OK to hold them in your lap while they still fit, to breathe them in while they still smell so sweet and to be there while they still need you.  Because very, very soon they won’t, and that will be OK too.

No one spends their old age regretting the moments they spent cuddling their kids, but if the popularity of Harry Chapin’s song is any indication, then plenty of people do regret the moments they wasted, and attachment parents know that.

I’ve long since retired, my son’s moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, “I’d like to see you if you don’t mind”
He said, “I’d love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job’s a hassle and kids have the flu
But it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad
It’s been sure nice talking to you”

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He’d grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin’ home son?
I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son
You know we’ll have a good time then

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The Truth About Attachment Parenting

“Why Attachment Parenting drives some mothers to extremes…” reads the sub-head of the much debated TIME Magazine cover.  It immediately affirms that the author is NOT an attachment parent.  If she were, she’d know the truth: that most of us do this because we’re NOT extreme.  We do this because we’re laid back and would prefer to work with our children’s needs than waste time and energy altering or denying them.  Many of us get into Attachment Parenting, not by design, but by accident, because it was the intuitive (aka easy) route.  Yes, the truth is that attachment parents are, in many ways, lazy.

It is true that, generally speaking, we do this because it fits with certain overarching values that we have.  We do it because we feel it benefits our children now and in the future.  We believe that the psychological foundation we’re creating will help to make our children into strong, empathic adults who can form healthy interpersonal relationships because their first relationship – that of parent and child – was so secure.  But let’s be honest, NO ONE actually makes all of their daily decisions about the minutiae of parenting with that sort of forethought.  Not even this notoriously overthinking mama.  If you want to know the truth about why I choose AP, not as a philosophy, but as a daily practice, have a look at this snapshot of my thought processes:

Why spend hours reading safety reviews for, and assembling a crib when you could just tuck the baby into the (appropriately prepared) bed you already own?

Why get up and trudge to another room in the middle of the night to feed a baby if you could just roll over, aim a breast in the right direction and go back to sleep?

Why spend hours plugging your ears to a baby’s scream to get her to fall asleep alone if you could just cuddle her for a few minutes and then enjoy a movie with your partner in peace and quiet?

Why wake up and listen to a monitor to check the baby is still breathing in another room if you could stay asleep feeling him breathing right next to you?

Why speed home from work to catch the last precious minutes before baby goes into his crib for a book-prescribed 12 hours if you could drive safely knowing you’ll get to snuggle him all night long?

Why blend and strain food into oblivion, and coax it into the mouth of a baby too young to do it himself, when you could wait another month or two and simply move a piece of broccoli from your plate to his?

Why spend an hour trying to airplane a bite of food into a kid’s mouth when you could just trust her instinct to stop eating now, and start again well before she starves to death?

Why stalk magazines for tips on filling the gaps in a picky toddler’s diet if the answer could be as simple as ‘nurse her’?

Why count ounces of milk and worry over growth charts if you can let baby eat as often and as much as she wants and know she’s the perfect size for her?

Why struggle to explain to a child that he can’t nurse because he’s 366 days old instead of 365 if you could just continue to enjoy the relationship, knowing that it WILL end either way and that one day you’ll look back and realize it was over in a flash?

Why try to navigate a busy mall/market/airport with a bulky plastic stroller when you can just strap the baby to you with a beautiful piece of fabric and go?

Why race home for elaborate go-to-sleep-in-a-crib routines if baby can sleep in a sling while you stay at the party a little longer?

—–

I know, I know, it’s all so EXTREME, isn’t it??

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Wishes

Little Man, your second birthday is tomorrow and I can’t believe it.  Last year for your birthday I made you some promises and I think (hope at least) that so far I’ve kept them.  Since then, so many things in our life have changed.  You’ve changed.  You’re becoming your own little person, multifaceted and beautifully different from every angle.  How do I possibly sum up what you are, what you mean to me and what I hope for you in a few words?  I can’t.  So this is as close as I can get.

“May you live all the days of your life.” – Jonathan Swift

“Reach for the stars. Even if you only make it halfway, you’re still an astronaut.” – Grandpa Dave

“You may be different, but we’re all creatures.  All dinosaurs have different features.” – Mrs. Pteranodon, Dinosaur Train

“Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it.” – Anne Shirley

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman

“And we’ll collect the moments one by one.  I guess that’s how the future’s done.” – Feist, Mushaboom

“The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.” – T.E. Lawrence

“Friends and good manners will carry you where money won’t go.” – Margaret Walker

“Where a man feels at home, outside of where he’s born, is where he’s meant to go.” – Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“I’ll remember the strength that you gave me, now that I’m standing on my own.” – Madonna, I’ll remember

“I’m sorry you fell down, but I’m glad you had fun climbing up.” – Mommy

“Again.” – Little Man

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Let’s Admit, Erica Jong, That Working Takes Resources

This post could alternately be titled: “Math is Not Erica Jong’s Forté” or “Woe is We: Erica Jong Wishes Americans Were as Rich as the Chinese”.

If you saw Monday’s Room for Debate on the New York Times website, then you’ll know what I mean.  The topic was Motherhood vs. Feminism and it included some spectacular responses.  But one response was, I have to say, not so spectacular.  Erica Jong may be an incredible feminist thinker, but that fact that she confuses Ann Romney for an Attachment Parent, shows that she’s seriously out of touch with parenting.  More than that, her arguments betrayed a serious lack of understanding for the economics of childrearing, both at the individual level and on a global scale.

Consider her closing argument:

So let’s look at the whole picture, not snapshots. An affluent mom who doesn’t need to earn can afford co-sleeping, making pure food, using cloth diapers and being perfectly ecological. Let’s admit that it takes resources.

Ok, why don’t we look at that whole picture Erica?  My whole picture, to be exact.  With the exception of being perfect in ecology or anything else, that little statement pretty much fits us to a tee.  My husband does earn enough from his job that I don’t ‘need‘ to earn additional income in order to make the mortgage payment.  And yes, I stay home with our children.  But where Erica’s math doesn’t add up is her assertion that I do so because I can afford to drain our resources for the sake of my chosen parenting style.  It simply isn’t the case.

Because I stay home, I don’t have to earn $19,200 to put my children in a moderately priced daycare this year.  (And let’s not even get me started on the feminist hornet’s nest that is cheap childcare provided by immigrant women, often forced to leave their own babies in another country in order to come here and earn a less-than-legal wage looking after our kids.)

Because I breastfeed my children, I don’t have to earn the $2,400 that formula would cost.

Because I tucked my children up into the bed we already owned, I didn’t have to earn the (minimum) $200 a crib, mattress and sheet set would cost.  Nor do I have to earn the additional $100 for a Pack n’ Play to travel with.  My husband and I also wake up well-rested (unlike this poor schmuck) so that the performance of our daytime tasks is less compromised.

Because I have cloth diapers and wipes, my kids’ bums cost me $600 instead of $5,200.  Sure, it takes a bit of time to wash them, but obviously not that much, since my wage-earning husband takes on that chore in our house.

Because I don’t have to travel to a job every day, I don’t have to spend $1,440 on transit passes this year, or 10 hours per week commuting.  Let alone the near $20,000 it would cost to buy a used vehicle, insure and fuel it if transit were not an option.

Because I don’t earn a wage, the tax man lets my husband keep $1,700 more of his every year.

What does it add up to?  I would have to dish out at least $27,000 for the privilege of going to work this year.  The job I left when I had my son paid me $31,200 after tax.  I value time with my children a lot higher than that, and so does my husband.

Now, I expect everyone to point out that I did still forfeit $4,200 every year in order to stay home.  And were I not affluent, I wouldn’t have been able to make that choice.

But hang on, Erica Jong!  There’s still something missing from this equation.  Oh yes: I earned my salary – more than TWICE the minimum wage (based on hours worked) – because I have a university degree, paid for by my affluent parents.  In short, it’s only because I was affluent to begin with that there was even a snowball’s chance in hell that wage earn would be an option.  Is it any wonder that so many families, especially those headed by women are forced (yes, forced) out of the workforce and onto social assistance?

Because I can afford to work, I don’t have to stay home. 

You could pit one mother’s account books against another’s all day long though, so Erica did us the favour of applying her fuzzy math on a global level: namely in the ludicrous suggestion that the Chinese are somehow rolling in dough while Americans are in an economic shambles.  Last time I checked, the United States had six times the per capita GDP that China did and it was 51% of the Chinese population, not the American population, that had no toilets.

It is true, that if we lived in China, our parents would probably be participating in the care of our children.  But not because the Chinese are more affluent than (North) Americans.  They would be participating because the Chinese, as a society, value children and child rearing in a way that America categorically does not.  They understand that someone has to raise the children, whether it be their parents, grandparents or that poorly paid immigrant daycare worker.  They understand that providing your aging grandparents with free housing so that they can retire and be loving and invested caregivers for the newest generation is a win-win situation.

So Erica, if Americans find they can’t retire, perhaps it’s time to rethink the math.  It’s time to make sure that no grandparent is forced out of retirement because they had the audacity to get cancer without private insurance.  It’s time to stop supporting a political party whose primary objective is to subjugate women into perpetual child-bearing.  And it’s time that American’s, as a society, put a value on children and childrearing by demanding paid maternity leave.

Once you get that equation right, then parents can choose to stay home, or not; grandparents can choose to retire, or not; our children can get a little bit more of that perfection we all seek for them; and we can all stop bickering over whose diapers are better.

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My Perplexing Converation With the Prime Minister’s Office Re: Motion 312

The Conservative government’s attempt to criminalize abortion me scared enough that a couple of weeks ago I actually wrote to both my own MP (Judy Sgro) who happens to be vice-chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, as well as to the Prime Minister’s office.  So far I’ve heard nothing back from Ms Sgro, but I did get a brief, ambiguous and frankly unsatisfying response from the PM’s Office.  Let’s have a look, shall we?

My Letter:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

As Prime Minister you have stated publicly on more than one occasion that
your government has no plan to reopen the abortion debate.  Yet, a member
of your own government, MP Stephen Woodworth, has done just that by tabling
Motion 312 ‘Canada’s 400 year old definition of human being.’  This motion
is a blatant attempt to not only criminalize abortion, but also to infringe
on the rights of all childbearing citizens of this country.

The motion wrongly asserts that the definition of a human being found in
section 223 of the Criminal Code of Canada is founded in a lack of
understanding that a foetus is biologically human prior to birth and that,
having now improved our understanding of human gestation, the definition
can be changed.  However, the very wording of the section in question
displays that this definition is borne not of a lack of understanding of
biology, but of a complete understanding of the ramifications of extending
legal protection to an unborn child under the Act.

To extend legal personhood to a foetus is to automatically infringe on the
personhood of the woman in whose body the foetus resides.  Whether pro- or
anti-choice, no one relishes the thought of terminating a pregnancy, but
changing the Act in the manner suggested would expose women to prosecution
for all of their personal medical decisions in pregnancy as well as many of
their non-medical choices, and this does every Canadian a disservice.  The
best way to reduce the number of abortions that are sought is not to
infringe on the mother’s rights, but rather to strengthen her rights.  It
is not to extend rights to the unborn child, but to provide the best care
and opportunities to those who are born.  We need to protect the right of
women to choose when and if they become pregnant by ensuring unmitigated
access to contraception and providing protection from sexual violence.  We
need to remove barriers to childbirth and parenthood by providing coverage
of maternity services to all residents; by creating a minimum maternity
leave benefit that ensures that low income women can afford to utilize the
benefits offered by their government; and by increasing childcare subsidies
for low income families who must work out of the home.

I urge you to keep your promise to Canadians and end the abortion debate
that your government has now opened.  I also ask you to encourage Mr.
Woodworth to prove that he genuinely does care about all human beings by
working to provide these and other protections and services to the women
and children who are already citizens of this country.

Thank you very much,

Sincerely,

Krista Fairles

———-

And now, the response I got:

On behalf of the Prime Minister, thank you for your recent correspondence regarding Member of Parliament Stephen Woodworth’s statement proposing that Parliament lead an examination into human rights protection for children before birth in the later stages of gestation.

This is an emotional issue for both sides.  However, the Prime Minister has been very clear that our Government has no plan to reopen this debate.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write.

———-

So, why do I say this is perplexing?  Well, for one, there’s that bit about him having no intention to reopen the debate even though the whole reason I’m writing is because he HAS reopened it.  So either he’s confused about what his members are doing or I am…  Or, if I let go of my cynicism for a minute I might be able to believe this to mean that he won’t allow the motion to pass vote.  But frankly, I’m not holding my breath.

But the bigger issue is this bit: “human rights protection for children before birth in the later stages of gestation.“  Who-what now?  See, the motion says nothing about what stage of gestation should be examined, it just says before birth.  And the way the law works is that you have to spell things out very specifically.  Before birth means, legally, everything before birth.  The law isn’t able to judge that he meant the last week or month before birth only.  So again, either he’s confused about what his party is doing, or he’s a party to what his party is doing and will be spinning the bill in this highly untruthful way when it is debated.

Let’s hope it’s not the latter.

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Parenting Pipedreams

As I’m relearning now that Lady Fair is here, duration of night time sleep is held by our culture as some sort of penultimate measure of not only baby’s ‘goodness’ but of the parents’ ability to enjoy their daily activities as adults, even in the midst of the most intense parenting period.  I like my sleep, I really do.  I’ll appreciate it when my kids are old enough to walk themselves over to me for a goodnight kiss, walk themselves up to bed and stay there until they walk themselves downstairs for breakfast in the morning.

But you know what?  There are so many other things I’ll appreciate every bit as much as a full night’s sleep, that NO ONE ever asks me about.  Here’s a short list of what are currently pipedreams for this mama:

• Finishing my entire cup of coffee without having to reheat it once, let alone 5 times
• Having a phone conversation without having to shush anyone, or leap up off the couch to prevent my toddler from breaking a limb
• Using the bathroom without having to simultaneously bounce a baby… or leap off the toilet to prevent my toddler from breaking a limb
• Writing a blog post without having to swat little fingers away from the oh-so-exciting computer power button
• Watching a movie without falling asleep
• Clipping all of my toenails in one sitting

There were many others, but I forgot what they were when I went to reheat my coffee…

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Motion 312: Wombs for Woodworth

For the past many weeks I’ve been watching in horror as anti-woman rhetoric has become the focal point of the Republican Party primaries in the United States.  I have read in shock as state after state proposes and debates laws that so infringe on a woman’s right to bodily integrity as to meet the legal definition of government-mandated, doctor-performed rape.

I’ve watched and I’ve felt smug.  I’ve joked to friends that while American politics has devolved into a nationwide campaign of misogyny, we have nothing to complain about except that our governing party may have hired someone with a ridiculous alias to make telephone calls asking voters to go to the wrong polling station.  And asked politely, no less!  But it turns out, we’re not immune to the insanity after all.

At the beginning of February, Stephen Woodworth, honourable member for Kitchener Centre, tabled a motion to convene a committee tasked with redefining fetuses as ‘human beings’ under the Criminal Code.

Never mind that this motion, entitled “Canada’s 400 Year Old Definition of Human Being”  is a blatant attempt to criminalize abortion.  Never mind that his bias is unequivocally revealed within the motion itself when he refers to the “fundamental human rights of a child before the moment of complete birth” as though the definition had already been changed.  Never mind that this wording would be prejudicial to the consideration of the motion.  And never mind that this is an issue that our Prime Minister promised us would never be opened by his government.

Let’s instead talk about Mr. Woodworth’s assertion that the current law exists because, at the time of its creation, we did not understand that an unborn child was human.

I think the first question we need to answer is "What is this woman?"

For starters, the criminal code of Canada is not, in actual fact, 400 years old.  It’s 120-odd years old.  But even if it were as old as this motion’s title suggests, would we really think that it was drafted out of a belief that a “child magically transforms into a human being when their little toe pops out of the birth canal” as Mr. Woodworth says?  Even without ultrasounds and fetal monitors, I’m fairly certain we would all be aware that we don’t begin our lives as tadpoles or bunnies, and that our humanity is not solely the result of Professor McGonagall bringing her transfiguration skills into the birthing room.  Is section 223 of the criminal code, then, a result of the ignorance or stupidity of our early lawmakers?  No, it is a result of their complete understanding of the legal travesty that would result if the remainder of the criminal code applied to unborn children.

Let’s take the very next section of the code, for example.  Section 224 states that “Where a person, by an act or omission, does any thing that results in the death of a human being, he causes the death of that human being…”.  (Emphasis is mine).  Defining a foetus as a human being for the purpose of this law would make just about every foetal loss an indictable offence.

Amniocentesis, for example, results in a miscarriage once out of every 200 procedures performed.  Those would all become murders.

Babies who die in the course of a vaginal childbirth would all have been murdered too.  Caesarean sections can be performed, after all, at the first sign of distress on a fetal monitor.  How many such charges do you think would have to be laid before every woman is offered a C-section the minute she walks into the hospital?  And women would no longer be able to decline these ‘offers’ without risking prosecution themselves.

Stillbirths are more likely to occur after the expected due date, so any woman who refuses an automatic induction or C-section and subsequently loses her child is similarly exposed to homicide charges.  Even deaths as a result of genetic abnormalities could be argued as being the result of ‘omitting’ to undergo genetic testing with your partner prior to conception.

And what about the “lesser” charges?  Section 215 relates to the duty of parents and guardians to their children.  Any child born with spina bifida is evidence that his/her mother failed her duty to consume enough folic acid and thus caused “the health of that person to be endangered permanently”.  That mother could face up to five years in prison if her child were considered a person at the time that she neglected her vitamins.

No, the Criminal Code’s definition of human being was not created in ignorance.  It was created because our lawmakers understood that even if they could send every mother to jail that had an abortion, it would not justify having to send even a single mother to jail who is grieving the unexpected loss of her child.  A law like that protects no one, including foetuses.

I think it’s pretty clear that, 400 years later, it’s actually Mr. Woodworth with the deficient understanding if he fails to see the abhorrent consequences should his proposed committee make the changes he seeks.

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