4) Intact Perineum
An intact perineum is the goal of every birthing woman. Advising a
woman to do perineal massage in pregnancy implies a lack of confidence
that her tissues have been designed perfectly to give birth to her
infant. The intact perineum begins long before the day of the birth.
Sharing what the feeling of a baby's head stretching the tissues will
be like and warning the mother about the pitfalls in pushing will go a
long way to having a smooth passage for both baby and mother. The
woman will be receptive to conversations in prenatal visits about the
realities of the birth process. Here is the information I convey for
the second stage:
1. When you begin to feel like pushing it will be a bowel
movement-like feeling. We will not rush this part. You will tune into
your body and do the least bearing down possible. This will allow your
body to suffuse hormones to your perineum and make it very stretchy by
the time the baby's head is there.
2. The feeling will increase until it feels like you are splitting in
two and it's more than you can stand. This is normal, and no one has
ever split in two, so you won't be the first. Because you have been
educated that this is normal, you will relax and find this an
interesting and weird experience. You may have the thought, "(My
midwife) told me it would be like this, and she was so right. I guess
this has been going on since the beginning of humankind."
3. The next distinct feeling is a burning, pins-and-needles feeling at
the opening of the vagina. Many women describe this as a "ring of
fire." It is instinctive to slap your hand down on the now-bulging
vulva and try to control where the baby's head is starting to emerge.
This instinct should be followed. It seems to really help to have your
own hands there. Sometimes women like to have very hot cloths applied
to their perineum at this point. If you like or dislike the feeling,
say so.
4. Most women like pushing more than dilating. When you're pushing,
you feel like you're getting somewhere and that there really is a goal
for your efforts.
5. This is a time of great concentration and focus. Extraneous
conversation will not be allowed in the room. Once you begin feeling
the ring of fire, there is no need for hurry. You will be guided to
push as you feel like until the baby is crowning. All that will be
touching your tissues is the hot cloth and your own hands. It is
important for the practitioner to keep her hands off because the
blood-filled tissues can be easily bruised and weakened, which can
lead to tearing.
6. The point of full crowning is very intense and requires extreme
focus on the burning. It is a safe, healthy feeling but unlike
anything you have felt before.... Panting and rising above the pushing
urge will help you focus, and you will have less discomfort in the
long run.
7. You will be offered plain water throughout this phase because
hydration seems to be important when pushing. You can take the water
or leave it.
8. Once the head is fully born, you will feel a great sense of relief.
You will keep focused for the next sensation, which will bring the
baby's shoulders out and the baby's whole body will quickly emerge
after that with very little effort on your part. The baby will go up
onto your bare skin immediately, and it is the most ecstatic feeling
in the world. Your perineum may feel somewhat hot and tender in the
first hour after birth. The remedy that helps the most is to apply
very hot, wet cloths. This is in keeping with the Chinese medicine
theory that cold should never be applied to new mothers or babies.
Women report they feel instantly more comfortable when heat is
applied, and any swelling diminishes rapidly.
I also like to twist a diagonally folded bath towel into a very tight
roll and coil that into a ring for the woman to sit on when
breastfeeding.
-Gloria Lemay, "Midwife's Guide to an Intact Perineum," Midwifery
Today Issue 59
Crazy mama of two trying to figure it all out!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Avoiding Tears and Episiotomies
I just pulled this piece off notjustskin.org. A lot of the material seems to make sense to me. I don't know if in fact it works but I'm going to try some of it.
Avoiding Tears and Episiotomies
Presented with revisions on NotJustSkin.org by permission from the contributing author:
Rachel Silber, CCE, CD, CD(DONA), CLE, CPD, CPDT
perinatal educator, doula, lactation educator, postpartum doula trainer
www.beautiful-births.com
Introduction
An episiotomy is an incision in the vagina. Episiotomies have been marketed as a preventative to vaginal tearing during childbirth, however no research has shown them to be effective. Recent research has confirmed the assertions that childbirth assistants and educators have been making for years: Episiotomy is harmful whether you prepare to avoid tearing or not. An episiotomy is almost always worse than a natural tear. The most serious tearing is almost always initiated by an episiotomy incision.
The remainder of this page is information is a collection of thinking about how women can prevent or minimize vaginal tearing during childbirth.
Choice of Birth Attendant and Birth Place
Doulas: Hiring a doula can help you to avoid an episiotomy, especially if you plan on a hospital birth. Research has found that having a doula cuts requests for epidural by 60 percent and has a 40 percent reduction in forceps deliveries; both procedures are major contributors to high episiotomy rates.
Midwife-assisted Birth: Births assisted by midwives rather than by obstetricians have lower rates of most interventions, including episiotomies.
Birth at home or in a birthing center: Here you and your chosen assistants/partners have more control over the progression of birth. Also, if you are giving birth in a place where you can be most relaxed.
Nutrition
Good nutrition and hydration are very important for tissue health and elasticity. "Good nutrition is vital to your body's work in preparing the perineum for stretching during birth. Hormonal changes during pregnancy cause the tissues of your cervix and perineum to become extremely thick and elastic. Crucial to this process is an adequate intake of protein, vitamin E, and short-chain fatty acids, which consist of two types of 'good' fat, Omega-3 and Omega-6. Short-chain fatty acids are found in nuts and seeds, cold-pressed oils, all types of beans, and fish such as salmon and tuna" "Avoiding an Episiotomy", Nancy Griffin, Mothering Magazine, # 75, summer 1995, (p 60).
Vitamin E can be especially helpful (at least 1,000 mg per day). Food sources include: Wheat germ oil, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, almonds, pecans, safflower oil, peanuts, corn oil, soybean oil, and lobster.
Vitamin C is also very beneficial for tissue health, cellular integrity, elasticity and regeneration.
Bioflavanoids. These are the compounds that make oranges orange, blueberries blue, and cherries red. These crystalline compounds give foods their bright colors and great taste. More than 4,000 flavonoids are known. While sometimes-called vitamin P, they are not truly vitamins. The medicinal effects of many foods and herbs are due to their flavonoid content. The most well known flavonoids are PCOs (proanthocyanidins), quercetin, citrus bioflavanoids, and green tea polyphenols. Some foods rich in flavonoids are blueberries, cherries, citrus fruits, pears, grapes, cabbage, legumes, plums, and onions.
During Birth -- Positioning
Recommended positions:
Water birth encourages "good mechanics" A mom can float into a very natural relaxed position. She can push as she feels a need to. She may be more relaxed -- no one is flexing the head or has their fingers in her vagina. The warm water soothes and takes away the sting of crowning, so she is more able to slowly birth the head (some women push like gangbusters just to get the crowning over with!). There are very few tears in water births.
Squatting (can be done with a birthing bar or directly on the bed with support from labor partners) helps reduce tearing. It shortens the length of the vaginal canal and increases the diameter.
Lying on left side Most women do better if they lie on their left side to avoid tearing.
The following positions and techniques can actually CAUSE tears:
Any back lying position, including semi-sitting
Widely flexed legs -- lithotomy position or any back lying.
Coached pushing -- Standard American births, we coach to PUSH HARD until full crowning -- then tell the mom to slow down. This is TOO LATE!
Rushing the shoulders -- standard in the US.
During Birth -- Understanding Pushing
Avoid unnecessary pushing. This is commonly encouraged by impatient care providers and involves pushing before the mom feels an urge to push or before the head is reasonably low and is mostly rotated into the optimal orientation for birth. This is best avoided altogether.
True pushing occurs when the mom feels an uncontrollable urge to push because the baby's head is putting pressure on the nerves of the pelvic floor. This almost certainly means the head is low and rotated into birth position. This takes however long it takes for the mom to get the hang of it and to push the baby out. If the mom's instinctive pushing efforts are moving the baby, it doesn't make sense to mess with it.
Be wary of olympic-style "purple pushing" (the Valsalva maneuver), where the mom is encouraged to hold her breath and use all the muscles in her body, may occasionally be helpful; but it also can impede venous return and cause the swelling mentioned above.
Stop pushing when the head has been pushed through the pelvis and is beginning to stretch the perineum. Once the head is through the pelvis, it's just the delicate perineal tissues that are holding the baby in, and this is where a woman's perineum is either protected through careful coaching and hand maneuvers or allowed to tear through ignorance or a rush to get the baby out.
Ideally, the care provider is maintaining a good connection with the birthing woman. By letting her know through words, tone and manner that this is the time to stop pushing and simply to breathe the baby out, i.e. avoid putting any voluntary efforts behind the uterus, which is "pushing" all on its own. "There is a time to push, and a time simply to breathe". Prolonging the unnecessary phase of pushing may contribute to tearing, but prolonging the very end of pushing is likely to reduce tears, rather than cause them.
"When your baby's head no longer disappears back inside you after a contraction, it is about to slip out. At this point, not pushing can allow you to stretch without tearing. You may feel pressure, heat or burning. This too shall pass!"
To help women in second stage stop pushing when we are attempting intrauterine resuscitation (or waiting for the MD). Instead of telling her to "Stop pushing!" over and over, rock her hips side to side and tell her to "Rock your baby." The motion of the hips keeps the abdominal muscles from coming fully into play for a push effort and prevents an all out bearing down. Besides it is much nicer to say gently "Rock your baby." than commanding "Don't push, don't push." We want to have S L O W crowning and head birthing, supporting the tissues as the baby is born. It is important to ease shoulders through slowly, arms close to the chest.
Preventative: Exercises and Tissue Health
A good foundation in prenatal exercise is helpful. It is beneficial for circulation, which keeps tissues supple.
Kegel exercises for tissue health and elasticity. A Kegel is the name of a pelvic floor exercise, named after Dr. Kegel who discovered the exercise. These muscles are attached to the pelvic bone and act like a hammock, supporting your pelvic organs. To try and isolate these muscles, try stopping and starting the flow of urine. Once you have located the muscles simply tighten and relax the muscle over and over, about 200 times a day. These are basic Kegels. There are many variations on Kegels: elevator Kegels (Where you tighten slowly, in increments going in and out, like an elevator stopping on several floors.), you can hold the muscle tightened for five seconds, you can bulge the muscles out at the end, and many other variations.
Sexual activity, especially orgasms, help increase blood flow to the area thereby enriching the health and stretching ability of the tissues.
Perineal Massage
In a study, researchers asked women to massage themselves every day and found 24% of first time mothers did not tear, while only 15% of those who did not do the perineal massage did not. Perineal stretching seems to help both psychologically as well as physically. Most women (85%) who preformed the massage would recommend it to other pregnant women!
To perform a perineal massage, a woman or her partner places one or two fingers about an inch to an inch and a half into the vagina. Use almond oil, K-Y jelly, pure vitamin E oil, wheat germ oil or other lubrication. Gently stretch the lower part of your vagina, gently stretching the perineum, until you feel a slight burning or stinging sensation for several minutes. Concentrate on relaxing the tissues through the stretch. Then, gently, massage your lower vagina with your thumbs for several more minutes, avoiding the urinary opening.
In addition, oils can also be massaged into the perineum daily to help avoid episiotomy.
During Birth - Breathing
Focus on your throat while giving birth. The throat has a connection to the vagina. As you breathe deeply, try to open and relax the throat. As you relax, imagine all the oxygen getting to the cells of the vaginal walls… nourishing them with rich oxygen and making them more resilient and stretchy.
During Birth - Perineal support, compresses and oils
Olive oil or mineral oil gives a slippery quality to the perineum. It feels like hands move more easily over the skin without dragging or causing irritation. Use verbal imagery when applying the oil. "I'm going to put some oil down here now to help the baby slide out." Women find it a relaxing and reassuring image and it seems to help them believe in their ability to deliver intact.
Warm compresses at the perineum feel great and encourage relaxation of tissues. Do not use hot compresses, as temperatures that are too warm can bring excess blood flow and cause swelling.
Castor oil packs for the perineum can help relieve prenatal pain around the perineal region as well as make your tissues supple and help prevent tearing when you give birth. Castor oil has healing and restorative properties so the relief builds up over time and the heat increases blood flow to the area, relieves pain, improves circulation and relieves venous congestion. You have to use cold pressed castor oil. Soak an old washcloth or a flannel in the oil, wring it out and put it right on your perineum. Then cover that with something waterproof and put a heating pad of some sort on (electric, microwave, hot water bottle, it won't matter.) Cover the compress because the castor oil will stain and also to avoid shock if you use an electric heating pad. Leave it as long as you can but at least 30 minutes. You can't do it too much, and it can only help not hurt.
Additional practices to avoid:
Multiple vaginal exams -- irritating the tissues.
IODINE SOLUTIONS ARE IRRITATING AND MAY BE DAMAGING. Toss out your betadine!
Avoiding Tears and Episiotomies
Presented with revisions on NotJustSkin.org by permission from the contributing author:
Rachel Silber, CCE, CD, CD(DONA), CLE, CPD, CPDT
perinatal educator, doula, lactation educator, postpartum doula trainer
www.beautiful-births.com
Introduction
An episiotomy is an incision in the vagina. Episiotomies have been marketed as a preventative to vaginal tearing during childbirth, however no research has shown them to be effective. Recent research has confirmed the assertions that childbirth assistants and educators have been making for years: Episiotomy is harmful whether you prepare to avoid tearing or not. An episiotomy is almost always worse than a natural tear. The most serious tearing is almost always initiated by an episiotomy incision.
The remainder of this page is information is a collection of thinking about how women can prevent or minimize vaginal tearing during childbirth.
Choice of Birth Attendant and Birth Place
Doulas: Hiring a doula can help you to avoid an episiotomy, especially if you plan on a hospital birth. Research has found that having a doula cuts requests for epidural by 60 percent and has a 40 percent reduction in forceps deliveries; both procedures are major contributors to high episiotomy rates.
Midwife-assisted Birth: Births assisted by midwives rather than by obstetricians have lower rates of most interventions, including episiotomies.
Birth at home or in a birthing center: Here you and your chosen assistants/partners have more control over the progression of birth. Also, if you are giving birth in a place where you can be most relaxed.
Nutrition
Good nutrition and hydration are very important for tissue health and elasticity. "Good nutrition is vital to your body's work in preparing the perineum for stretching during birth. Hormonal changes during pregnancy cause the tissues of your cervix and perineum to become extremely thick and elastic. Crucial to this process is an adequate intake of protein, vitamin E, and short-chain fatty acids, which consist of two types of 'good' fat, Omega-3 and Omega-6. Short-chain fatty acids are found in nuts and seeds, cold-pressed oils, all types of beans, and fish such as salmon and tuna" "Avoiding an Episiotomy", Nancy Griffin, Mothering Magazine, # 75, summer 1995, (p 60).
Vitamin E can be especially helpful (at least 1,000 mg per day). Food sources include: Wheat germ oil, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, almonds, pecans, safflower oil, peanuts, corn oil, soybean oil, and lobster.
Vitamin C is also very beneficial for tissue health, cellular integrity, elasticity and regeneration.
Bioflavanoids. These are the compounds that make oranges orange, blueberries blue, and cherries red. These crystalline compounds give foods their bright colors and great taste. More than 4,000 flavonoids are known. While sometimes-called vitamin P, they are not truly vitamins. The medicinal effects of many foods and herbs are due to their flavonoid content. The most well known flavonoids are PCOs (proanthocyanidins), quercetin, citrus bioflavanoids, and green tea polyphenols. Some foods rich in flavonoids are blueberries, cherries, citrus fruits, pears, grapes, cabbage, legumes, plums, and onions.
During Birth -- Positioning
Recommended positions:
Water birth encourages "good mechanics" A mom can float into a very natural relaxed position. She can push as she feels a need to. She may be more relaxed -- no one is flexing the head or has their fingers in her vagina. The warm water soothes and takes away the sting of crowning, so she is more able to slowly birth the head (some women push like gangbusters just to get the crowning over with!). There are very few tears in water births.
Squatting (can be done with a birthing bar or directly on the bed with support from labor partners) helps reduce tearing. It shortens the length of the vaginal canal and increases the diameter.
Lying on left side Most women do better if they lie on their left side to avoid tearing.
The following positions and techniques can actually CAUSE tears:
Any back lying position, including semi-sitting
Widely flexed legs -- lithotomy position or any back lying.
Coached pushing -- Standard American births, we coach to PUSH HARD until full crowning -- then tell the mom to slow down. This is TOO LATE!
Rushing the shoulders -- standard in the US.
During Birth -- Understanding Pushing
Avoid unnecessary pushing. This is commonly encouraged by impatient care providers and involves pushing before the mom feels an urge to push or before the head is reasonably low and is mostly rotated into the optimal orientation for birth. This is best avoided altogether.
True pushing occurs when the mom feels an uncontrollable urge to push because the baby's head is putting pressure on the nerves of the pelvic floor. This almost certainly means the head is low and rotated into birth position. This takes however long it takes for the mom to get the hang of it and to push the baby out. If the mom's instinctive pushing efforts are moving the baby, it doesn't make sense to mess with it.
Be wary of olympic-style "purple pushing" (the Valsalva maneuver), where the mom is encouraged to hold her breath and use all the muscles in her body, may occasionally be helpful; but it also can impede venous return and cause the swelling mentioned above.
Stop pushing when the head has been pushed through the pelvis and is beginning to stretch the perineum. Once the head is through the pelvis, it's just the delicate perineal tissues that are holding the baby in, and this is where a woman's perineum is either protected through careful coaching and hand maneuvers or allowed to tear through ignorance or a rush to get the baby out.
Ideally, the care provider is maintaining a good connection with the birthing woman. By letting her know through words, tone and manner that this is the time to stop pushing and simply to breathe the baby out, i.e. avoid putting any voluntary efforts behind the uterus, which is "pushing" all on its own. "There is a time to push, and a time simply to breathe". Prolonging the unnecessary phase of pushing may contribute to tearing, but prolonging the very end of pushing is likely to reduce tears, rather than cause them.
"When your baby's head no longer disappears back inside you after a contraction, it is about to slip out. At this point, not pushing can allow you to stretch without tearing. You may feel pressure, heat or burning. This too shall pass!"
To help women in second stage stop pushing when we are attempting intrauterine resuscitation (or waiting for the MD). Instead of telling her to "Stop pushing!" over and over, rock her hips side to side and tell her to "Rock your baby." The motion of the hips keeps the abdominal muscles from coming fully into play for a push effort and prevents an all out bearing down. Besides it is much nicer to say gently "Rock your baby." than commanding "Don't push, don't push." We want to have S L O W crowning and head birthing, supporting the tissues as the baby is born. It is important to ease shoulders through slowly, arms close to the chest.
Preventative: Exercises and Tissue Health
A good foundation in prenatal exercise is helpful. It is beneficial for circulation, which keeps tissues supple.
Kegel exercises for tissue health and elasticity. A Kegel is the name of a pelvic floor exercise, named after Dr. Kegel who discovered the exercise. These muscles are attached to the pelvic bone and act like a hammock, supporting your pelvic organs. To try and isolate these muscles, try stopping and starting the flow of urine. Once you have located the muscles simply tighten and relax the muscle over and over, about 200 times a day. These are basic Kegels. There are many variations on Kegels: elevator Kegels (Where you tighten slowly, in increments going in and out, like an elevator stopping on several floors.), you can hold the muscle tightened for five seconds, you can bulge the muscles out at the end, and many other variations.
Sexual activity, especially orgasms, help increase blood flow to the area thereby enriching the health and stretching ability of the tissues.
Perineal Massage
In a study, researchers asked women to massage themselves every day and found 24% of first time mothers did not tear, while only 15% of those who did not do the perineal massage did not. Perineal stretching seems to help both psychologically as well as physically. Most women (85%) who preformed the massage would recommend it to other pregnant women!
To perform a perineal massage, a woman or her partner places one or two fingers about an inch to an inch and a half into the vagina. Use almond oil, K-Y jelly, pure vitamin E oil, wheat germ oil or other lubrication. Gently stretch the lower part of your vagina, gently stretching the perineum, until you feel a slight burning or stinging sensation for several minutes. Concentrate on relaxing the tissues through the stretch. Then, gently, massage your lower vagina with your thumbs for several more minutes, avoiding the urinary opening.
In addition, oils can also be massaged into the perineum daily to help avoid episiotomy.
During Birth - Breathing
Focus on your throat while giving birth. The throat has a connection to the vagina. As you breathe deeply, try to open and relax the throat. As you relax, imagine all the oxygen getting to the cells of the vaginal walls… nourishing them with rich oxygen and making them more resilient and stretchy.
During Birth - Perineal support, compresses and oils
Olive oil or mineral oil gives a slippery quality to the perineum. It feels like hands move more easily over the skin without dragging or causing irritation. Use verbal imagery when applying the oil. "I'm going to put some oil down here now to help the baby slide out." Women find it a relaxing and reassuring image and it seems to help them believe in their ability to deliver intact.
Warm compresses at the perineum feel great and encourage relaxation of tissues. Do not use hot compresses, as temperatures that are too warm can bring excess blood flow and cause swelling.
Castor oil packs for the perineum can help relieve prenatal pain around the perineal region as well as make your tissues supple and help prevent tearing when you give birth. Castor oil has healing and restorative properties so the relief builds up over time and the heat increases blood flow to the area, relieves pain, improves circulation and relieves venous congestion. You have to use cold pressed castor oil. Soak an old washcloth or a flannel in the oil, wring it out and put it right on your perineum. Then cover that with something waterproof and put a heating pad of some sort on (electric, microwave, hot water bottle, it won't matter.) Cover the compress because the castor oil will stain and also to avoid shock if you use an electric heating pad. Leave it as long as you can but at least 30 minutes. You can't do it too much, and it can only help not hurt.
Additional practices to avoid:
Multiple vaginal exams -- irritating the tissues.
IODINE SOLUTIONS ARE IRRITATING AND MAY BE DAMAGING. Toss out your betadine!
She weighs...
Not to give my daughter a complex before she's born but she weighs 7lbs 10 oz as of week 35 day 4. So, Dr. Maclaren is predicting that she will weight about 8.5 lbs at birth. Which I guess isn't huge but for my Asian butt --it IS! I weighed 6lbs 3 oz and my sister's also weighed around that. John's sister came in over 10 lbs and he about 8 lbs or so.
We went to our all-day childbirth class at VHC and it was okay but the group kept asking the same questions over and over and it became quite annoying. It was a relief to find out that that we knew so much already! Even John was saying that he knew a lot.
The labor and delivery rooms at VHC are ample and they do have cable TV.
My new fear is the episiotomy. I really really hope that I will not have to have that and instead will S-T-R-E-T-C-H!!!!
We went to our all-day childbirth class at VHC and it was okay but the group kept asking the same questions over and over and it became quite annoying. It was a relief to find out that that we knew so much already! Even John was saying that he knew a lot.
The labor and delivery rooms at VHC are ample and they do have cable TV.
My new fear is the episiotomy. I really really hope that I will not have to have that and instead will S-T-R-E-T-C-H!!!!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Definitely freaking out...
I'm definitely freaking out. My to-do-list keeps growing and I don't know anything about being a mommy or going from what I was (married, career, vacation, eating person) to mommy. Being that my mom is emotionally unavailable, I'm worried that I will be that to my child (my therapist says I won't) but I'm still worried about that. There seems to be so many things to coordinate, file and get my head around but it's all sending me into spinning.
I'm definitely not ready for the breast pump. That's really really scary!!!!
I'm definitely not ready for the breast pump. That's really really scary!!!!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
34 Weeks...
I'm 34 weeks and 3 weeks away from being full-term! I'm feeling pretty good with the exception of being a little bit swollen in my hands and feet. I'm eating constantly but I'm trying to keep it to mostly healthy things. I just had my Group B strep test on Friday so, hopefully that comes up negative. My sugar was a bit high---froyo and a slice of caramel, pecan turtle cheesecake might have done that trick!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Parent Shock: Children Are Not Décor --NYTimes
February 14, 2008
Parent Shock: Children Are Not Décor
By JULIE SCELFO
WHEN Jacqueline Brown and her husband, Gavin Friedman, were in their early 30s, they lived in a condominium in Santa Monica, Calif., with a black leather Ikea couch Mr. Friedman had bought for law school, a few modest pieces from Pier 1 Imports and assorted hand-me-down furnishings. Within a few years, though, having acquired professional and financial stability — both were litigation associates at prominent law firms — they bought a house in Cheviot Hills, an affluent neighborhood in West Los Angeles, and began remodeling and decorating.
During two renovations, each costing more than $100,000, they built a two-sided fireplace to separate the living and dining rooms, put in a wine cellar and installed a sleek maple and granite kitchen. They bought molded-wood chairs in the Arne Jacobsen style, Murano glass pendant lamps and a custom walnut entertainment unit. Ms. Brown, who had become obsessed with interior design in law school, poured heart and soul into the projects.
But just as Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman were establishing their first truly grown-up residence — she was 38, he 37 — Ms. Brown gave birth to their first child, Harrison, a boy who turned out as bouncing as most.
Suddenly they were confronted with a question that had never before occurred to them: given the way baby gear and toys take over households, the uncivilized habits of toddlers and the dangers posed by sharp-edged contemporary furniture, could Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman continue to live their high-design dream?
It is a question they are not alone in facing. As Elizabeth Gregory, director of women’s studies at the University of Houston and the author of the recent “Ready: Why Women Are Embracing the New Later Motherhood” (Basic Books), pointed out, “being a later parent has become part of the mainstream.” (In 2005, Ms. Gregory says in her book, 10 times as many women had their first child between age 35 and 39 as in 1975, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 13 times as many had their first between 40 and 44.)
At the same time, people age 35 to 44 are the most dedicated group of furniture consumers, outspending adults of all other ages, per household, according to Jerry Epperson, who tracks the American furniture market for Mann, Armistead & Epperson, an investment banking and corporate advisory firm in Richmond, Va. “That’s what these people are willing to invest in,” Mr. Epperson said.
And when the investment has been not in cribs or other nursery furniture but in the classic “double income, no kids” fantasy of a pristine, high-style home for grown-ups, the transition can be hard.
“Going from being a couple to becoming a parent, your whole world changes,” said Robin Gorman Newman, who four years ago started a support group called Motherhood Later ... Than Sooner in New York (it now has chapters across the country), after becoming a first-time mother at 42, 10 years into her marriage. “Once you become a parent, your home is not your own,” she added. “I think you mourn your previous life, at least for a while. You’re never going to have what you had.”
Nevertheless, some people try. Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman — who of course were thrilled to have a child, like all the later-in-life parents interviewed for this article — were also determined not to let Harrison “take control of the house,” Ms. Brown said. They went ahead with putting in flat-front lacquered maple cabinets in the kitchen, even though they soon had to watch a professional babyproofer drill 300 holes in them for safety latches. (Ms. Brown still cringes.) They put up silk Shantung draperies in Harrison’s bedroom, knowing that they might well end up stained, as they soon did — with yogurt. And they held onto the molded-wood chairs, which were not an easy transition from the highchair. “They have a very sleek bottom,” Ms. Brown explained. “He slides off it.”
OTHERS, like Debra Cherney, 49, and Hartley Bernstein, 56, were more resigned to giving up control. They were possibly even happier than most late parents at the birth of their twins, a boy and a girl named Cole and Brooke, in 2003, having lost their daughter Raine to respiratory failure in 2001. When the twins became mobile, the couple realized that they would need to create a designated play space in their prewar Park Avenue apartment. Still, the room they sacrificed — the formal dining room — was tough.
“I’m pretty sensitive aesthetically, and it does something for me when I look at a pretty room,” Ms. Cherney said. “Looking at what the room used to be was the visual equivalent of listening to Bach or Mozart. Now it’s the visual equivalent of listening to Barney.”
She felt the full impact when she and Mr. Bernstein put their 18th-century mahogany dining table and chair set in storage. “When I bought the table I was envisioning these beautiful, lovely dinners with fine china,” she said. “Once you have kids and once you give up those things, it was like, ‘Who was I kidding?’ I remember thinking this room will look nice again — in about 18 years.”
The issue of safety, too, can pose vexing choices for parents in thrall to design. Even before Kipp Cheng and his partner of 15 years, Mark Jarecke, arrived home with their son, Beckett, last March, they could see that many of the furnishings in their Maplewood, N.J., colonial house, including a set of four Barcelona chairs and a glass-top Noguchi coffee table, were accidents waiting to happen. But they weren’t eager to act.
“We are both small-town guys who lived in the city and tried to establish an aesthetic point of view that was largely modernist and minimalist,” said Mr. Cheng, 40, a playwright and a publicist for the American Association of Advertising Agencies. “But when you become parents, you kind of have to throw that out the window.”
As difficult as the prospect of change was for Mr. Cheng, who recalls the details of nearly all the couple’s furniture purchases, it was even harder for Mr. Jarecke, 37, the creative director of CondéNet, the Web division of Condé Nast.
“We spent years collecting meaningful, quality pieces,” he said. “Getting those kinds of pieces — the handmade silk pendant lamp, the teak Danish sideboard — it’s a huge project. Basically each room was finally done, and then it all got blown apart.”
Among the most troubling matters was the fate of the Barcelona chairs, whose “corners are basically razor blades,” Mr. Cheng said. After much deliberation, they put three in the garage and wrapped the corners of the fourth in foam so it could stay in the living room. “It was just sad,” Mr. Cheng said.
As for the coffee table, they avoided doing anything until Beckett gave them no choice: while learning to walk last summer, he used it as his main training prop. “He’d cruise and trip and hit his face on the table’s edge,” Mr. Cheng recalled.
Mr. Jarecke initially refused to discuss parting with or altering the table in any way, but they eventually compromised and decided to wrap the edge of the top in foam. “As I’m taping it,” Mr. Cheng said, “I’m saying, ‘I’m taping over what makes the difference between this being a Noguchi table and a Kmart table.’ ” Mr. Jarecke was even more distraught. “It transformed this beautiful modernist piece of furniture into a piece you’d find in a ’70s rec room,” he said.
FOR some design-minded parents, certain compromises are too much.
In 2004, Bob Stratton, a design technologist who specializes in home automation, and his wife, Sandra McLean, 50, a food activist and writer, bought a former tool and die factory in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and set about turning it into a two-story, 4,000-square-foot loftlike home appropriate for themselves and their son, Vin, and daughter, Fia, then 2 and 5.
“We spent many, many hours designing a place that would be kid-friendly as well as sensitive to our need to live in a well-designed adult environment,” said Mr. Stratton, 48. Construction took a few years, and the family settled in last March.
They built a kitchen and dining area in the center of the first floor, using durable Corian for both the cabinets and a Parsons-style dining table designed by Mr. Stratton. “I wanted the Corian top so there would be no repeat of the famous carving incident,” Mr. Stratton said, referring to the time when Fia, at 4, used a pen to carve her name into a cherry dining table just delivered from France. (“I thought I would die,” Ms. McLean said.)
They put down cork tiles throughout, as protection for glassware and other breakables, including the children themselves, and they set up a 500-square-foot play area in the basement, with a trade-off that some parents would consider draconian: “They can play with a toy in the main living area, but it has to go away when they’re done,” Ms. McLean said. “I’m very concerned with what’s in my visual space. When people come into the house, I very much do not want them being bombarded with toys.”
She also refused to babyproof furniture when the children were younger. She was “never one of those mothers” who put safety corners on coffee tables, she said. “That stuff is just gross, and I don’t feel you have to sacrifice living space to that degree.” And she decided not to install wire railings on the open side of the floating walnut staircase Mr. Stratton designed to connect the first- and second-floor living spaces.
“We couldn’t bear it,” she said. “It was too ugly. So basically what we did was we trained the kids to hold onto the handrail, and it’s worked. No one’s ever fallen off.”
Still, even extreme devotees of design seem to end up relaxing their standards over time. After several expensive pieces from Ligne Roset were delivered to the McLean-Stratton home last June — a brown microsuede one-arm sofa, a low white leather swivel chair, a white shag carpet and an arched chrome floor lamp — Ms. McLean instructed Fia and Vin not to eat on the couch, and told them half-jokingly not to “sit on it, stand near it or even look at it.”
But in the last several months she has grown to appreciate how the children delight in wrestling on the rug and using the swivel chair as an oversize Sit ’n Spin. “You know what?” she said. “They jump all over it, but it’s good furniture, and it actually holds up fine.”
Parent Shock: Children Are Not Décor
By JULIE SCELFO
WHEN Jacqueline Brown and her husband, Gavin Friedman, were in their early 30s, they lived in a condominium in Santa Monica, Calif., with a black leather Ikea couch Mr. Friedman had bought for law school, a few modest pieces from Pier 1 Imports and assorted hand-me-down furnishings. Within a few years, though, having acquired professional and financial stability — both were litigation associates at prominent law firms — they bought a house in Cheviot Hills, an affluent neighborhood in West Los Angeles, and began remodeling and decorating.
During two renovations, each costing more than $100,000, they built a two-sided fireplace to separate the living and dining rooms, put in a wine cellar and installed a sleek maple and granite kitchen. They bought molded-wood chairs in the Arne Jacobsen style, Murano glass pendant lamps and a custom walnut entertainment unit. Ms. Brown, who had become obsessed with interior design in law school, poured heart and soul into the projects.
But just as Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman were establishing their first truly grown-up residence — she was 38, he 37 — Ms. Brown gave birth to their first child, Harrison, a boy who turned out as bouncing as most.
Suddenly they were confronted with a question that had never before occurred to them: given the way baby gear and toys take over households, the uncivilized habits of toddlers and the dangers posed by sharp-edged contemporary furniture, could Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman continue to live their high-design dream?
It is a question they are not alone in facing. As Elizabeth Gregory, director of women’s studies at the University of Houston and the author of the recent “Ready: Why Women Are Embracing the New Later Motherhood” (Basic Books), pointed out, “being a later parent has become part of the mainstream.” (In 2005, Ms. Gregory says in her book, 10 times as many women had their first child between age 35 and 39 as in 1975, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 13 times as many had their first between 40 and 44.)
At the same time, people age 35 to 44 are the most dedicated group of furniture consumers, outspending adults of all other ages, per household, according to Jerry Epperson, who tracks the American furniture market for Mann, Armistead & Epperson, an investment banking and corporate advisory firm in Richmond, Va. “That’s what these people are willing to invest in,” Mr. Epperson said.
And when the investment has been not in cribs or other nursery furniture but in the classic “double income, no kids” fantasy of a pristine, high-style home for grown-ups, the transition can be hard.
“Going from being a couple to becoming a parent, your whole world changes,” said Robin Gorman Newman, who four years ago started a support group called Motherhood Later ... Than Sooner in New York (it now has chapters across the country), after becoming a first-time mother at 42, 10 years into her marriage. “Once you become a parent, your home is not your own,” she added. “I think you mourn your previous life, at least for a while. You’re never going to have what you had.”
Nevertheless, some people try. Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman — who of course were thrilled to have a child, like all the later-in-life parents interviewed for this article — were also determined not to let Harrison “take control of the house,” Ms. Brown said. They went ahead with putting in flat-front lacquered maple cabinets in the kitchen, even though they soon had to watch a professional babyproofer drill 300 holes in them for safety latches. (Ms. Brown still cringes.) They put up silk Shantung draperies in Harrison’s bedroom, knowing that they might well end up stained, as they soon did — with yogurt. And they held onto the molded-wood chairs, which were not an easy transition from the highchair. “They have a very sleek bottom,” Ms. Brown explained. “He slides off it.”
OTHERS, like Debra Cherney, 49, and Hartley Bernstein, 56, were more resigned to giving up control. They were possibly even happier than most late parents at the birth of their twins, a boy and a girl named Cole and Brooke, in 2003, having lost their daughter Raine to respiratory failure in 2001. When the twins became mobile, the couple realized that they would need to create a designated play space in their prewar Park Avenue apartment. Still, the room they sacrificed — the formal dining room — was tough.
“I’m pretty sensitive aesthetically, and it does something for me when I look at a pretty room,” Ms. Cherney said. “Looking at what the room used to be was the visual equivalent of listening to Bach or Mozart. Now it’s the visual equivalent of listening to Barney.”
She felt the full impact when she and Mr. Bernstein put their 18th-century mahogany dining table and chair set in storage. “When I bought the table I was envisioning these beautiful, lovely dinners with fine china,” she said. “Once you have kids and once you give up those things, it was like, ‘Who was I kidding?’ I remember thinking this room will look nice again — in about 18 years.”
The issue of safety, too, can pose vexing choices for parents in thrall to design. Even before Kipp Cheng and his partner of 15 years, Mark Jarecke, arrived home with their son, Beckett, last March, they could see that many of the furnishings in their Maplewood, N.J., colonial house, including a set of four Barcelona chairs and a glass-top Noguchi coffee table, were accidents waiting to happen. But they weren’t eager to act.
“We are both small-town guys who lived in the city and tried to establish an aesthetic point of view that was largely modernist and minimalist,” said Mr. Cheng, 40, a playwright and a publicist for the American Association of Advertising Agencies. “But when you become parents, you kind of have to throw that out the window.”
As difficult as the prospect of change was for Mr. Cheng, who recalls the details of nearly all the couple’s furniture purchases, it was even harder for Mr. Jarecke, 37, the creative director of CondéNet, the Web division of Condé Nast.
“We spent years collecting meaningful, quality pieces,” he said. “Getting those kinds of pieces — the handmade silk pendant lamp, the teak Danish sideboard — it’s a huge project. Basically each room was finally done, and then it all got blown apart.”
Among the most troubling matters was the fate of the Barcelona chairs, whose “corners are basically razor blades,” Mr. Cheng said. After much deliberation, they put three in the garage and wrapped the corners of the fourth in foam so it could stay in the living room. “It was just sad,” Mr. Cheng said.
As for the coffee table, they avoided doing anything until Beckett gave them no choice: while learning to walk last summer, he used it as his main training prop. “He’d cruise and trip and hit his face on the table’s edge,” Mr. Cheng recalled.
Mr. Jarecke initially refused to discuss parting with or altering the table in any way, but they eventually compromised and decided to wrap the edge of the top in foam. “As I’m taping it,” Mr. Cheng said, “I’m saying, ‘I’m taping over what makes the difference between this being a Noguchi table and a Kmart table.’ ” Mr. Jarecke was even more distraught. “It transformed this beautiful modernist piece of furniture into a piece you’d find in a ’70s rec room,” he said.
FOR some design-minded parents, certain compromises are too much.
In 2004, Bob Stratton, a design technologist who specializes in home automation, and his wife, Sandra McLean, 50, a food activist and writer, bought a former tool and die factory in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and set about turning it into a two-story, 4,000-square-foot loftlike home appropriate for themselves and their son, Vin, and daughter, Fia, then 2 and 5.
“We spent many, many hours designing a place that would be kid-friendly as well as sensitive to our need to live in a well-designed adult environment,” said Mr. Stratton, 48. Construction took a few years, and the family settled in last March.
They built a kitchen and dining area in the center of the first floor, using durable Corian for both the cabinets and a Parsons-style dining table designed by Mr. Stratton. “I wanted the Corian top so there would be no repeat of the famous carving incident,” Mr. Stratton said, referring to the time when Fia, at 4, used a pen to carve her name into a cherry dining table just delivered from France. (“I thought I would die,” Ms. McLean said.)
They put down cork tiles throughout, as protection for glassware and other breakables, including the children themselves, and they set up a 500-square-foot play area in the basement, with a trade-off that some parents would consider draconian: “They can play with a toy in the main living area, but it has to go away when they’re done,” Ms. McLean said. “I’m very concerned with what’s in my visual space. When people come into the house, I very much do not want them being bombarded with toys.”
She also refused to babyproof furniture when the children were younger. She was “never one of those mothers” who put safety corners on coffee tables, she said. “That stuff is just gross, and I don’t feel you have to sacrifice living space to that degree.” And she decided not to install wire railings on the open side of the floating walnut staircase Mr. Stratton designed to connect the first- and second-floor living spaces.
“We couldn’t bear it,” she said. “It was too ugly. So basically what we did was we trained the kids to hold onto the handrail, and it’s worked. No one’s ever fallen off.”
Still, even extreme devotees of design seem to end up relaxing their standards over time. After several expensive pieces from Ligne Roset were delivered to the McLean-Stratton home last June — a brown microsuede one-arm sofa, a low white leather swivel chair, a white shag carpet and an arched chrome floor lamp — Ms. McLean instructed Fia and Vin not to eat on the couch, and told them half-jokingly not to “sit on it, stand near it or even look at it.”
But in the last several months she has grown to appreciate how the children delight in wrestling on the rug and using the swivel chair as an oversize Sit ’n Spin. “You know what?” she said. “They jump all over it, but it’s good furniture, and it actually holds up fine.”
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Bar in Apgu...April 2007
I miss not being bloated, or having heartburn, swollen feet, joints popping...
Soon and very soon, things will go back to normal...sort of right?
DUKKBOKKI!!!
There's something to be said for great Korean street food. Though I'm having the worst heartburn in my life, I would still not turn down some street dukkbokki!!! Yummy!!!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Korean Method - after the baby is born
POST-PARTAL PERIOD
A woman enjoys a three-week to one-month post-partal "recovery" period, during which time she can expect to be cosseted (i.e., pampered) by her mother-in-law. Traditionally, this has been especially true if a woman gave birth to a male child. (One interviewee reported that she knew of husbands who left home for a few days because they were disappointed that they did not "get a son." She also reported that, following the birth of a female child, a woman's mother-in-law might overtly press her to bear additional children, to "try for a baby boy.")
For at least one week after giving birth, a woman must not not take a tub-bath; only sponge-baths are permitted.
Following birth of a child, a woman's body is to be kept covered; warmth is believed to promote healing. (It is believed that, if a woman is not kept warm during the post-partal period, rheumatism and bone problems will occur later in life.)
During the post-partal period, a woman is encouraged not to be overly active, but she may perform non-strenuous duties in the home.
Only immediate family members are permitted to see a newborn in the initial post-partal period. (Others must wait at least 15 days, or up to one month, to visit.)
After a newborn's umbilical cord falls off, and for the first year of the baby's life, a mother keeps the cord "stump" in a special place, along with the blanket and clothing first used by her child.
For at least two weeks after giving birth, a woman will eat seaweed soup (miyeok guk) one or more times each day. (The ingredients in this soup are believed to promote breast milk production and quality, as well as increase energy and advance healing in the post-partal period: one interviewee stated the dish "helps flush out and push out the bad stuff.")
A woman enjoys a three-week to one-month post-partal "recovery" period, during which time she can expect to be cosseted (i.e., pampered) by her mother-in-law. Traditionally, this has been especially true if a woman gave birth to a male child. (One interviewee reported that she knew of husbands who left home for a few days because they were disappointed that they did not "get a son." She also reported that, following the birth of a female child, a woman's mother-in-law might overtly press her to bear additional children, to "try for a baby boy.")
For at least one week after giving birth, a woman must not not take a tub-bath; only sponge-baths are permitted.
Following birth of a child, a woman's body is to be kept covered; warmth is believed to promote healing. (It is believed that, if a woman is not kept warm during the post-partal period, rheumatism and bone problems will occur later in life.)
During the post-partal period, a woman is encouraged not to be overly active, but she may perform non-strenuous duties in the home.
Only immediate family members are permitted to see a newborn in the initial post-partal period. (Others must wait at least 15 days, or up to one month, to visit.)
After a newborn's umbilical cord falls off, and for the first year of the baby's life, a mother keeps the cord "stump" in a special place, along with the blanket and clothing first used by her child.
For at least two weeks after giving birth, a woman will eat seaweed soup (miyeok guk) one or more times each day. (The ingredients in this soup are believed to promote breast milk production and quality, as well as increase energy and advance healing in the post-partal period: one interviewee stated the dish "helps flush out and push out the bad stuff.")
34 Weeks and HUGE!!!! (Je suis une grand hippopatame)
Well, I'm huge and I can't stop eating. I'm an eating machine. This baby wants sugar, carbs, meats and repeat. Yesterday I went to P.F. Chang's with Kath and we ate the salt and pepper shrimp and those chicken lettuce cups! Yummy. Then we walked to Cheesecake factory and split a slice ( I say split but I ate it all) the caramel pecan turtle cheesecake with extra whipped cream. I waddled back to the car and the only exercise I really got was walking the doggies down the street for their last pee for the night.
The maternity jeans that have seen me through up until now do not fit anymore so, I've turned to wearing dresses over maternity leggings. My danskos do not fit anymore so, I'm wearing my UGG boots which are nice but a bit warm and underdressed for the office.
My brain seems to still be functioning for the most part but there are moments and gaps where things are not processing at all or I don't remember what my last thought was or for what reason I'm at Safeway.
I've gotten really really clutzy and drop everything on my boob landing or my tummy landing. It's not a pretty sight.
I tried to do some basic laundry and being that I have an "old-style" washing machine it opens from the top and I couldn't really reach in all the way to pull the clothes out because of my growing belly.
Baby "Y" and I have a hide-n-seek game we play in the evenings--around 6 p.m. when she sticks a part of her body out and then I push on it and then she sticks it out again and I push back. My doggies think I'm speaking with them but I'm talking to the baby. I think it might be confusing for them at first.
I can't wait until my DH comes back!!! HELP ME.
The maternity jeans that have seen me through up until now do not fit anymore so, I've turned to wearing dresses over maternity leggings. My danskos do not fit anymore so, I'm wearing my UGG boots which are nice but a bit warm and underdressed for the office.
My brain seems to still be functioning for the most part but there are moments and gaps where things are not processing at all or I don't remember what my last thought was or for what reason I'm at Safeway.
I've gotten really really clutzy and drop everything on my boob landing or my tummy landing. It's not a pretty sight.
I tried to do some basic laundry and being that I have an "old-style" washing machine it opens from the top and I couldn't really reach in all the way to pull the clothes out because of my growing belly.
Baby "Y" and I have a hide-n-seek game we play in the evenings--around 6 p.m. when she sticks a part of her body out and then I push on it and then she sticks it out again and I push back. My doggies think I'm speaking with them but I'm talking to the baby. I think it might be confusing for them at first.
I can't wait until my DH comes back!!! HELP ME.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
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