Becoming a Mum or Being a Mum

What Cyndi Recommends
Read Changing Habits Changing Lives and the reports recommended Supplement your diet with the Changing Habits Colloidals, Probiotics and Greens Invest in the Changing Habits seaweed salt and rapadura sugar to use in place of refined foods, for you and your children.

Reports Recommend

• Fertility 
• Breast Feeding 
• Hormones
• Lying labels
• Drinking Soft Drinks
• Soy Report
• Allergies
• Gluten Intolerance
• Immunity Why Not Keep It

Becoming a Mum or being a Mum can be very daunting.  The whole fertility, pregnancy, infancy experience has become so mechanised with tests, medications, vaccinations, allergies, food intolerances, breast vs formula, that one can become very confused or complacent and just go with the flow.  I believe that we need to question the flow and become informed in order to make decisions that are right for the health of not only children but parents as well. 

40% of children in Australia are now born or in their first year of life have a life long illness.  Therefore doing what everyone else is doing is obviously not working.  My aim is to educate as much as possible so that you can make an informed decision about being a Mum and all the things that follow.

I’m a mum but a mum that is now almost an empty nester, much to my distress.  Motherhood has been the most significant part of my life and the most enjoyable times have been with my children as they have grown into adults.

When our daughter left home and went down the road to live my husband and I really felt her absence.  Going past her bedroom was hard, we knew she wasn’t there because we could see the floor for the first time in many years.  But Casie didn’t stay away too long she knew where to come when there was no food in her house so we saw her frequent the fridge and kitchen.  Then when our son left home to go overseas my husband and I cried for two days.  It was such an empty feeling and I had such a pain in my heart which I didn’t  enjoy.  That too past but I still find our house empty without him.  My very independent 18 year old still lives in the house but sometimes you wouldn’t know it and I haven’t seen her floor in quite some time.  

I think back on my life and I remember having a goal to marry have 12 children, live on a farm and live happily ever after.  I don’t think I thought about life after children so it was a rude shock when I had to rethink my life.  

Finding out I was pregnant with my son (my first born) was very exciting and I relished in the pregnancy.  I decided to have a natural birth with no interference and breast feeding was on the cards.  I had a long birthing process but was fortunate to give birth without intervention and I was able to breast feed without any problems.  

For about a week after my sons birth at around four in the afternoon I had a weird feeling come over me that was something like nostalgia and sadness.  I believe it was my mourning of my lost life and the enormity of this tiny baby.  The responsibility and the absolute pure love I felt was taking hold of every part of my being.

Breast feeding is all part of the bonding but not everyone has such an easy slide into motherhood.  I have one friend who wanted exactly what I wanted but it didn’t happen that way, both her births were difficult and she could not breast feed.  She was not someone to give up, I watched her pump her breasts night and day in order for her baby to have her milk.  She was tenacious in her fight to breast feed.

What is interesting about my friend Jodie was that her mother had the same problems.  But Jodie was born in a remote area of the Northern Territory and there was no supplement feeding available so a wet nurse was used.  One of the local aboriginals became Jodie’s wet nurse enabling Jodie to have a good supply of human breast milk.

Both Jodie’s babies were able to latch on, but her problem was that she could not produce the milk.  She told me that when she was producing colostrom, (first three days of breast milk) that she didn’t want to waste anything so after her children had drunk from the bottle she would scoop the colostrom out of the bottle with her finger and put it on her babies gums.  Now that’s dedication.  

Jodie tried herbal remedies like fenugreek and blessed thistle in order to increase her milk production.  Her doctor suggested the medication motilium to increase milk supply but nothing seemed to work.  At best she would produce 10-40ml of milk at each pumping interval of an hour.  Her babies were losing weight and the need to supplement feed became increasingly obvious.  Her milk stayed with her for about 12 weeks then vanished all together.
 
Jodie’s breast feeding efforts created a lot of stress in the end but she wanted to make sure she went as long as she could to not only benefit her baby but also to benefit herself, emotional, physically and chemically.

Then there is the story where the mother has no wish to breast feed and the child is immediately put on formula and the mother is given drugs in order to dry up the milk supply.  When I was in my 20’s working at a gym in Melbourne there was a medical doctor who was always at the gym.  She became pregnant with twins and continued to be a gym junky to the very end.  Her diet was lacking and I always saw her with a diet drink in her hand.  As the pregnancy proceeded she seemed to get skinner and her bump grew moderately.  She told everyone she was giving birth putting them on formula so that they would not disturb her life and career.  She came back to the gym 1 week after the birth of her twins started an aerobics class and collapsed.  I left the gym soon after that so I’m not really sure about the rest of her story.

There are many scenarios as to why someone will choose to breast feed or not.  This discussion is for everyone but I have a very strong bias, of course, for breast feeding as I believe all infant formulas are junk food made from ingredients I wouldn’t give to an adult let alone a new born baby.  But having said that there are healthy alternatives to formula, so don’t despair.   

In my breast feeding report we’ll discuss the following;

1. The importance of breast feeding and all the wonderful things it does for the benefit of    both mother and child. 
2. The ingredients of Infant formulas.
3. The healthy diet for a lactating woman to benefit both mother and child.
4. Is there a good supplement formula and if so what is it?
5. Introduction of solids, when and what.

The other reports are all there to help you on your journey from couple to family.  I recommend that you read my book Changing Habits Changing Lives as this will give you an overview of food.  Being informed about food before you start a family is very important.  

Happy Changing Habits on your journey through motherhood.
Cyndi O’Meara