I haven’t got much time to write but I just wanted to share with you a friend’s tough time at the moment. Everything started off relatively smoothly with a C-Section delivery and a nice 5 day rest in a posh hospital. But at some point after nights of really bad sleep (believe it or not, as tiring as all these middle of the night wake-ups are, a baby that is not in pain will just drift off to sleep pretty quickly) she realized things were not all right. Then started a round of questions in her head about what the hell was wrong with her poor kid and what food should she stop eating and the homeopath telling her to drink lots of fennel and chamomile tea and then the doctor informing her that her little baby had acid reflux.

This was all by week 5 in postpartum and then she got mastitis and so she had to go onto heavy antibiotics. At the same time she put her son on medication for the reflux and the next thing you know, people are telling her to stop breastfeeding. When I last spoke to her, she was desparately trying to hold onto her sanity and the ability to breastfeed (because let me tell you, as stupid and irrational as this sounds, if someone told me to stop breastfeeding right now, I would literally question how my child is going to survive!!). She had also just called up a breastfeeding consultant who hopefully was going to help her map out a plan because it was all becomming so complicated.

Making decisions in the beginning after you have given birth is very hard. Even more so when it has anything to do with your darling newborn. You just want things to run smoothly. You’ve got a lot on your plate and another huge adjustment period. So when everyone is chiming in with their two cents, as much as you want to hear their opinion, you kind of don’t want to hear it either.

I guess I am saying, if you have a friend who is having a hard time at the beginning with her newborn, just think all she really wants is for things to run smoothly and for it all to feel “normal.” Every maternal instinct in her body is trying to take control of the situation. So before you fling a barrage of ideas (and yes I am guilty of it too) ask her first how you can help. I’m sure she will have a few ideas.

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March 9th, 2007 | Permalink