I have come to the conclusion (my own) that a significant issue with western health is that we are an individualistic society – we see ourselves in isolation: we talk about OUR jobs and OUR achievements. (Eastern culture is still very community based). What’s this got to do with health? I’m not really thinking about community in terms of the breadth of people in our lives (the need for a “villiage” is a whole other post!), I’m thinking in terms of inheritance. We are of the mind that it’s my body, my health, I’m an adult and I can do what I damn well please. Sure you can. There is however more and more evidence to demonstrate that this is totally selfish and not true – every generation is affected by what came before and will affect future generations for a loooong time to come.
So let’s go back to the beginning – your grandmother probably had limited access to modern medicine, processed food and birthed naturally (go gran!). Mum’s generation started using antibiotics, introduced more conventient processed food but generally still ate home-cooked. Most likely birthed naturally but may have been convinced that formula was scientifically developed and therefore sooo much healthier than boring old natural breastmilk.
Now? Now we have choices. It’s all about mum choosing. No dammit. Alternatives weren’t developed to be “choices” – they are supposed to be “in case of emergency”. We should be empowering women to believe in their own biology, not undermining at every step offering all this stuff they mostly don’t need. Yes, there are exceptions. Riddle me this though: private hospitals have approx 85% caesarian rate – you CANNOT tell me they are all emergencies and that kickbacks to the hospital for every intervention performed is a good public health policy!
I know I can’t control the choices of all the mum’s out there who get a myriad of contradictory (and mostly crap) advice, topped with a healthy serving of family and peer-pressure: baby should do this and sleep like that and…bullshit. Sorry but it is. Nature has spent MILLIONS of years perfecting this system and whilst it’s not 100% perfect, it’s pretty damn close. Please mum, don’t second-guess yourself, don’t second-guess your baby – you have a beautiful connection and you should trust that above anything or anyone else (including me).
But I think I’ve digressed. Let me go back to inheriting our problems and why this generation has such a massive incidence of Autism, Asthma, Eczema, Allergies, etc, etc, etc…it’s only going to get worse for future generations if we don’t start reading the writing on the wall and here’s why: the way we birth, counts. The way we feed, counts. What we eat, medicine we take, how we clean our home…counts, counts, counts. It all counts toward the establishment of our gut flora and an unhealthy gut flora has been linked with: autism, depression, schizophrenia, allergies…just about EVERYTHING.
This is not to guilt anyone – we each have our own journey. But it pains me the number of women who feel they were robbed of their first birth experience because they didn’t know that what the Drs were telling them could be questioned, they didn’t know they could say no to intervention. We trust the experts…they are supposed to be experts. Problem is they’re not. Drs aren’t experts in childbirth, that’s the course you do if you’re studying to be a midwife. Drs are trained to intervene with life-saving medicine – great! Just bugger off until you’re needed please!
The movie Microbirth is brilliant. It isn’t about guilt either – it’s about solutions. So we know that caesarians have long term health implications for a child (yep, sorry but that’s fact) – so why? What can we learn to do better? or do to couteract the impact of a caesarian birth if it is really, genuinely required? One thing that is now being done (yet to become mainstream) is to seed the child with the mother’s bacteria – they aren’t going through the birth canal so they miss this important step – so we can give it to them. We can also help the gut establish a healthy flora with long-term breastfeeding and loads of skin to skin. We KNOW what to do, where are the experts who are giving mums this advice?
We know that breastmilk has phenominal properties – we are still discovering the millions of different antioxidants, antibodies and nutritional goodies that are in every dose. The health benefits are amazing. Why aren’t lactation consultant services free? Or at least heavily subsidised? Can’t we at least try to support mums to get this happening? Can’t we normalise it and see it as just part of becoming a mum: you give birth and you breastfeed, you’re sleep deprived and haven’t showered for a while…it’s ALL NORMAL.
Like I said, I’m not about guilting and shaming – there are mums who jump through hoop after hoop trying to do these things. I’m asking where is the support? The knowledge and resources when they are so desperately trying to find them. What about the mums who just don’t know how much they need to try to do this? Where’s the education? When I was having my second my midwife wouldn’t even say how long someone should breasfeed for fear of being seen to “pressure” mums. The World Health Organisation says 2years MINIMUM. We might not all get there, but can we at least be honest about what we are aiming for?
But let’s get away from birth and breastfeeding altogether – we can still make the same argument – the food you eat, the antibiotics you use, they affect your gut flora, your microbiome. Your kids can only inherit what you have to give. If they inherit flora in their gut that isn’t beneficial they will have ongoing health issues, so they get antibiotics and so it goes on. There are fragrances in your soaps and cleaning products that can turn genes on and off – guess who’s inheriting those genes? The problem is it’s not just an unhealthy cycle, it’s a snowballing effect – every generation is getting sicker. I’ll say it again – we have all the benefits of clean water and sufficient nutrition at our disposal, all that modern medicine has to offer and EVERY GENERATION IS GETTING SICKER.
I have a friend who is copping flack from her family because they don’t get why she feeds her daughter healthy organic food. Poor deprived child. THIS IS WHY. My friend had an ’emergency’ caesarian (she now believes was totally unnecessary), then her daughter had formula shoved down her throat until she vomitted by hospital staff for her first few days of life (hospital has a policy about the baby needing to gain weight before they will discharge, no policy about how they achieve it or the health of said child). Guess what? She developed all sort of allergies and then caught Rotavirus from the vaccine (most likely because of this early insult to her gut). My friend has done everything she can to heal that gut – long-term breastfeeding, healthy nourishing organic foods and seeking natural treatments to her daughter’s health issues. By about 3 years of age she had outgrown all but 2 of her food intolerances and is a healthy, active, very bright little girl.
So is it about choices? I guess it is. But I’m hoping it’s about educating and understanding the impact our choices can have. The chemicals in our home, in our food, in our medicines, they all count. We need to look at what we are doing now or our grandchildren are not going to stand much of a chance. Honestly, that makes me so desperately want to spread the word and support people to make a different choice. Can we share this knowledge and not be seen as judging or criticising? I’m not sure, but it’s a message that needs to be understood and I think we are almost at tipping point for a new awareness…I hope so.