Although World Breastfeeding Week: Close to Mothers has come to a conclusion, we continue with Breastfeeding Awareness Month in the USA.  We will be bringing back our "In Their Own Words" for the rest of the month.

This series shares chronicles from students and readers about their own breastfeeding journeys.  Each mother has a unique story, one that I trust will empower you if you are learning about breastfeeding, and inspire you if you are in the trenches, struggling as you learn to breastfeed with your Sweet Pea.

Today's "Thoughtful Thursday" is not about breastfeeding specifically.  However, since a family's birth experience precedes the breastfeeding relationship, birth outcomes tend to directly influence the choice a mother makes about breastfeeding.  My thought relates to having a dialogue with your care provider about your birth:

"My obstetrician is trained medical professional.  He has years of schooling and experience about birth.  Who am I to question them?  Is it okay to question how they do what they do?"

"THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN touches on a number of past medical interventions that have gone terribly wrong. The film explores the use of the drug scopolamine in the 40s, 50s and 60s that put mothers into a kind of “twilight sleep” that didn‟t stop pain, but merely eliminated the memory of pain by attacking the brain functions responsible for self-awareness and self-control, resulting in a kind of psychosis, followed by post-traumatic stress-like memories in thousands of new mothers. In the 30s doctors routinely took x-rays of the pelvis, resulting in babies with cancer. In the 70s, use of the drug thalidomide, used for morning sickness, caused birth defects, while in the 90s, the drug Cytotec was used to stimulate contractions in mothers who had undergone previous Cesarean section. This was later found to cause ruptured uteruses and high infant mortality."  

Read more about the movie here:

http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/press/BusinessofBeingBorn.pdf