Mindfulness for Mums

Relaxation doesn’t come easily to me.  I’ve always enjoyed being busy but being a parent brings busy to a whole new level, so when it comes to switching off, I struggle. Coupled with a thyroid problem that causes bouts of insomnia (to be continued…), means that I sometimes, spend days exhausted and in desperate need of R&R. So in my late night, “please help me sleep” internet searches, it was only a matter of time before I encountered mindfulness and started to take steps to integrate it into my daily life.

Mindfulness might seem like the latest buzz word but it’s certainly not new.  Its roots can be found in Buddhist meditation, some 2,500 years ago.  In more recent times, mindfulness as a secular practice has found its way into mainstream society, largely due to Jon Kabat-Zinn and his work at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he began his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program in 1979. Since then thousands of studies have been conducted into the physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness, and MBSR, in particular, making it a highly regarded technique for helping to combat anxiety and reduce stress.

Acceptance is a key component of mindfulness.  We not only bring our attention and awareness to our thoughts and our feelings, but we accept them, without judgement.  There is no right or wrong, good or bad way to feel at any given moment.  Rather, we focus our attention on our breath and our thoughts and tune into what we are experiencing in the present moment instead of focusing on the past or trying to imagine the future.

We don’t have to be sitting cross legged in the lotus position by the sea or half way up the side of a mountain to simply stop and take a moment to focus our attention, although both certainly do lend themselves beautifully to the experience!  It’s more about the everyday practice of coming out of our thoughts when we find ourselves lost in them.

Thinking, day dreaming and planning are all necessary activities and mindfulness does not try and change these things. What it does, is offer us opportunities to step out of negative self-talk and emotional reactions.  It releases us from rehashing painful memories and ruminating on the past and encourages us to focus on the now, instead of being anxious about the future. Awareness of our breath, the out breath in particular, is valuable because the out breath calms the nervous system.  It can also help to maintain presence of mind when we find ourselves in difficult situations.

In our Mindful Mums workshops we combine some gentle, stress releasing stretches, with mindful breathing techniques, a relaxing body scan, mediation and some positive affirmation work so that mums leave with some effective new tools to incorporate into our daily lives.

Our next Mindful Mums Workshop is on March 14th @ 7 in the tranquil setting of the Carlow Holistic Center.

See.www.TheBabyRoom.ie for more details and booking information.

Creating A Better Future Together - A New Maternity Strategy

During the week, I listened to mother Shauna Keyes bravely describe the sheer horror that she and her family endured at the hands of the HSE.  Shauna was 18 years old and in labour with her first baby when she was given a drug called Syntocinon, a synthetic form of the hormone Oxytocin, a drug used routinely in Irish maternity hospitals, to speed up delivery. 

Pic with thanks to the Irish Independent 

Baby Joshua did not tolerate the drug well and he died, an hour after being delivered by emergency caesarean section at the Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise.  Shauna and her partner were given several different reasons for the death of their baby.  They were told that his organs were too heavy, that he showed signs of Down Syndrome and would never have survived, that a heavy blow during pregnancy could have caused his death.  An eventual inquest into baby Joshua’s death ruled that he had in-fact died as a result of intrapartal anoxia, that is oxygen deprivation at birth. 

Shauna described having a few minutes with her son before he was taken from her.  She described how he was dressed in hospital clothing, not the new baby clothes that she had so lovingly packed into her hospital case. She described the utter indignity of how her son was left on a wheelchair, outside her room in an ill-fitting white box, with a lid, covered over by a sheet.  She was told not to hold him because he was “on ice”.  She talked about her battle for answers in the months and years following her son’s death.  Her voice didn’t falter as she talked about encountering other families on the maternity ward and not wanting her grief to intrude on their happiness. 

Lastly, Shauna talked about her “great hopes” for the future of maternity care.  She was referring to Ireland’s first National Maternity Strategy – Creating A Better Future Together, which was published last week.  The Strategy hopes to restore confidence in maternity services and to make them as safe as possible, working in partnership with expectant mothers.  A new National Women and Infants’ Health Programme will offer multi-disciplinary care.  A new community midwifery service will be developed.  Expectant mothers will be offered choices around their care, ranging from home birth to specialised assistance.  Services will be appropriately resourced, underpinned by strong, effective leadership, management and governance arrangements, and delivered by skilled, competent staff.

The death of baby Joshua, contributed to the development of this Strategy.  The deaths of four other babies at Portlaoise hospital in recent years, contributed to the development of this Strategy.  Their precious tiny lives and the lives of women like Savita Halappanavar, Sally Rowlette, Bimbo Onanuga, and Dhara Kivlehan, who all died as a direct result of their experiences within our maternity services, were not forgotten. 

Their lives mattered and their deaths mattered.  They have helped to shape the future of our maternity services and I for one, will be forever indebted to their families, for their bravery, determination and love. 

www.thebabyroom.ie

Teaching Toddler Yoga

When I tell people I teach Toddler Yoga, I think they envisage some form of organised chaos.  It might be hard to imagine 18 month old's actively engaged in yoga poses and relaxation, yet this is exactly what happens in my classes, and a whole lot more.

I trained as a Toddler Yoga Instructor with The Birthlight Trust, a UK based non-profit organisation, dedicated to enhancing the health and well being of women and their families from conception through to the fourth year.  I teach their SMART Toddler Yoga programme, which stands for Stretch, Move And Relax Together. 

Toddler Yoga classes offer a structured base for parents to exercise and have fun with their children.  Our five-week course promotes strength, flexibility, balance and relaxation to contrast with the energetic activity of our weekly expeditions to The Zoo, The Moon, Weather Walk, Old MacDonald’s Farm and our Under Water Adventure. 

It enhances the physical wellbeing of both parent and child.  The weekly use of songs and rhymes helps to stimulate language, listening and developmental skills and provide a sense of continuity, helping to lay the foundations for a healthy life style.

Toddler Yoga also helps to nourish the spirit and to foster and strengthen family bonds.  As toddler’s make the transition from infancy to independent movement, physical contact with their parent often lessens, new babies very often make an appearance too, which can leave toddlers struggling to make sense of their changed place in the family unit.  Toddler Yoga can help to support loving and playful contact, helping parents to share a new experience and learn new ways of interacting with their child.  It is also a fantastic way of encouraging parents to get in touch with their own “inner child”.  There’s nothing like crawling on the floor, shaking our imaginary lions tail, to remind us that we’re never too old for play time!!

The emphasis on relaxation is another key element of our Toddler Yoga class.  It teaches parents the skills they require to disengage and be in a quiet, still, calm state whilst still being physically present with their child.  Parents are encouraged to relax so that their child can relax.  It’s vital that our children learn to respect that we need time for ourselves, and so class finishes each week with dedicated relaxation time, where I dim the lights, put on some music and encourage parents to let go, to just breathe and to concentrate on themselves, their strength’s and their capabilities.

Francoise Freedman, the Founder and Director of Birthlight, is a medical anthropologist.  The philosophy which underpins the development of her baby and toddler yoga courses is that “in the increasingly fast pace of the modern world, our children need all the help we can give them in order to create a foundation of well-being, that will serve them all their life”.

Our Toddler Yoga Classes take place Tuesday and Saturday mornings in the tranquil setting of the Carlow Holistic Centre.

Visit www.TheBabyRoom.ie for more details.  

Becoming An Attachment Parent

I didn’t set out to become an “attachment parent”, it just evolved.  The early days of my first son’s life, 7 years ago, are a bit of a haze.  I found becoming a mother a very hard transition.  I had given up my job at a national radio station and suddenly spent large parts of my day alone, covered in one form of bodily fluid or another. My family weren’t close by and I had very little idea of what to do with a baby. I struggled with breastfeeding. We had to have weekly weigh ins to ensure he wasn’t “failing to thrive”.  We were given differing advice from health care professionals every day.  I had a very medicalised birth and developed an infection which really drained me.  I was in a two bed, second floor Dublin apartment, packed with baby paraphernalia that I had no clue how to work.  The buggy required an engineering degree and left me red-faced on more than one occasion, reduced to tears by the devil on four wheels!

I attended ante natal and pregnancy yoga classes.  I listened to my hypnobirthing tracks and made lists of what to bring in my hospital bag but I was totally unprepared for after birth. So, I read books. Books that told me my baby MUST be in a routine, that without three naps a day, he’s suffer a lifetime of sleep deprivation.  While he slept, I should express because if he didn’t take a bottle, then he’d STILL be breastfeeding when he went to college / his father wouldn’t get to bond with him / I’d never get my life back / some version of all of these.

I studied child psychology, had worked with children for years and was a trained infant massage instructor, yet I found myself totally floundering as a new mum.  I felt completely and utterly out of my depth.  I wanted desperately to get out to meet other mums but didn’t because I was so restricted by the “routine rules”.  Finally, after reading advice that encouraged me not to make eye contact with my baby when he woke at night, I realised the ridiculousness of what I was doing, to both of us. Imagine taking the advice of someone who encouraged me to go against every instinct I have? 

So I took a deep breath and said “you’ve got this”! The books went in the bin and my baby came into my bed (and shock horror sometimes still does). He fed when he wanted to, for as long as he wanted to. I carried him in a sling, while the buggy grew cobwebs.  I started to listen to my baby. My body grew him and birthed him and I realised that I knew him and he knew me. Somehow I knew what he needed and I was never going to find that in a book, because it came from inside me.  So I trusted myself and my baby and together we muddled through.

www.TheBabyRoom.ie

My First Column Piece For The Nationalist

My baby turns one this week.  I don’t know how it happened.  It seems like I blinked and my teeny tiny, pink skinned new born was replaced by a hungry, one toothed, bum shuffling, kitten terrorising, small person,  who’s most coherent argument is “no”.  

I’m not sure why time choose this particular year to hurry itself up so much.  Or why, when one of my favourite things in the world is to be holed up in my Momma cave, with a new born on my chest, time thinks it’s ok to force me to move forward.

It truly feels like only yesterday since we welcomed him into our world.  He was born here, at home, in an incredibly gentle water birth.  He opened his eyes and looked at me like he had always known me, before making his way to my breast and feeding.  (The breast crawl is worth YouTubing).  In those first awe inspiring minutes of his life, there was a such a sense of quiet calmness.  Time stopped and there was only stillness.  

Bliss, which lasted all of zero point five seconds until big brother and sister bounded in to introduce themselves and it quickly became apparent that he should, in fact, have come with a health warning - “Danger, severe risk of utter chaos if comes into contact with other small humans”.

3 children, one husband, one dog, 3 chickens, one goldfish and a kitten sure do make for some interesting times.  Possibly one reason why time has flown by – what else could it do when every second of every day is packed full of living?  Also possibly why I live beside my Mammy!

I love being a mother.  It’s one of the few things in life I feel I do well.  Knowing the strength and resilence my body is capable of, having carried, birthed and nursed three children, has inspired such confidence in me and my own abilities.  I love the sense of achievement and reward I gain from loving my children and meeting their needs.  I especially love babies.  So much so I’ve decided to have another one (she says as she barricades the front door to prevent husband running for the hills).

Just kidding! For now!  

It does seem apt though, that as my youngest boy turns one, I find myself nursing a new baby – my business baby - The Baby Room. The Baby Room aims to provide pregnancy, postnatal, baby and toddler classes locally, under one roof.  Building on my background in social care, media, my training as an infant massage and toddler yoga instructor and my ongoing training in nutrition and pilates, I hope that I can inspire some of the same confidence and empowerment in the women and families I meet through my work.  When we believe in ourselves and our abilities great things can happen.  Corny as it seems, I buy into Whitney’s philosophy that the children are our future.  If we teach them well, they will lead the way.


www.TheBabyRoom.ie

This Girl Of Mine

My daughter is amazing. She's clever and funny and kind and a million things rolled into one beautiful package. She's asleep beside me, curled up with her favourite blankie, a raggedy old thing, that was once her older brothers.  She looks so peaceful, content now that the anxieties that drove her from her own bed to mine have been kissed away.  

Watching her dream her dreams makes my heart swell.  I want so much for her, this incredible girl of mine, who tests me every single day with her fierce determination.  The very things that challenge me while trying to parent her are the things I'm most proud of  - her passion, her spirit, her tenacity, her confidence, her creativity, her exuberance.  She loves and loathes with equal ferociousness.  Watching her chest rise and fall I smile.  I smile because she's the kind of girl who throws her clothes off in the store so she can immediately wear the new dress we've bought.  I smile because when I'm in the middle of correcting her she'll turn her shinning green eyes towards me and blow me a kiss. I smile because when she puts her little arms around my neck and tells me I'm the best mom in the universe I know there could be no greater compliment.  I think about a time in the future when she might hold her own child and in that moment understand how utterly she is loved.  I smile because yesterday she asked me how to spell shoe rack! 

And I worry.  I worry because the very word vagina still causes blushes. I worry because breasts, partially covered by a nursing babies head cause hysteria. I worry because around the world almost one third of women who have been in a relationship have experienced physical and or sexual violence by their partner.  For all our advancements as a society, my daughter is still growing up in a country where women are paid 14% less than men.  The board members of the largest publicly listed companies here are 90% male.  Gender quotas are being introduced to boost the paltry representation of women in Dail Eireann.

The difficulty with quotas is that they don't tackle our culture of masculinity and they sure don't foot the bill for some of the most expensive childcare in the world. 

I worry that against this backdrop my daughter will doubt herself, her capabilities, her power. I fear that the same lack of confidence I possessed as a girl will hold her back. I hope that I am doing enough to build her up so tall that life won't knock her down. I so desperately want the world to hold its magic for her.  She's my princess, my warrior, my adventurer, my comic. She's my girl.

A Thank You From The Milk Bank

Today was a tough day at the Momma Q office. I've started to wean my nearly 9 month old son. We've had ongoing issues with posterior tongue and upper lip ties.  He had laser revision a couple of weeks ago but unfortunately, as with previous revisions, we haven't seen any improvements and this time I feel all out of options.  It's not something I'm doing lightly.  I absolutely love the connection breastfeeding brings and frankly not being able to nourish and comfort my baby in the way that he seeks is really breaking my heart.  I'm down to two feeds a day and I'm in the middle of yet another infection so the letter I received in the post today really brought a tear to my eye.

Token of appreciation from the Milk Bank 

It was from the Milk Bank, thanking me for my recent donation and sending me a little commemorative pin as a token of their appreciation.  I've always been a blood donor and since having children donating milk is something I've wanted to do.  Thankfully I have never had any issues with supply and our own difficulties this time around spurred me into action.  I knew that if I had to stop feeding my own son then I would be relying on the kindness of strangers to help us through and so expressing milk for donation to babies in need of it seemed like a very natural thing to do.  

Ireland has one Human Milk Bank, situated in Fermanagh.  Here, human milk is collected and processed before being made available to neonatal units and hospitals right across the country.  The Milk Bank issues over 1,000 litres of breast milk every year, helping in the region of 700 babies. There are well over 200 mums donating, including some incredibly selfless warrior mommas who have lost their own babies and choose to donate milk to honour their child's memory .

In order to donate, my own baby had to be 6 months or under.  This limit can vary from time to time but a quick call to the Milk Bank answers any queries and I collected milk right up until Ruairí was 7 months old.  During my initial chat with Ann we had a detailed conversation about my health and history.  I then received my starter pack of pre-sterilised 7 ounce bottles.  Each of these is filled with expressed breast milk, named, dated and then frozen.  Once I had these filled, the remainder were sent, along with a blood testing kit for my GP.  Every donating Mum has their blood screened for infectious diseases.  Receiving a blood transfusion or IVF treatment, in addition to some medications automatically rule a mother out of donating.  Mums are asked not to express for 48 hours after taking over the counter medications and herbal treatments also.

One 7 ounce bottle

When I had filled as many bottles as I could manage (3 litres) and had my blood test done, I contacted the Milk Bank to let them know I would be sending it on. They provide insulated storage containers and the milk is packed tightly into these.  Any extra space is filled with bubble wrap, plastic or news paper.  The blood sample is placed on top of this box and then it is sealed and packaged within another box and sent via express mail.

Packing milk for postage

Once donated milk is received, it is checked for protein and fat content.  It is then pasteurised and then rechecked for bacteria,  Only after this thorough screening process is milk sent out to hospitals for the babies in their care.  Donated milk is matched to babies of a similar age.  The list of benefits provided by breast milk is pretty endless.  From lower incidences of asthma, eczema, diabetes and childhood infections to better health outcomes in later life, the research is well documented. Antibodies strengthen the immune system and help fight viruses.  Of particular importance is the protection it provides against Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), a potentially life threatening condition affecting a babies gut.  All babies are at risk of NEC but particularly babies who are born prematurely or with a heart condition.  Those that survive the condition often require surgery.  Research has found that babies who receive donor breast milk are at a reduced risk of developing this condition (some studies suggest by as much as 79%)  Truly for some infants receiving breast milk is a matter of life or death.

Separation from baby, maternal illness, supply issues are all reasons a family may opt to use donor milk for their baby.  Donor milk is also given to mums feeding multiple babies.  Breast milk is often referred to as liquid gold and anyone who has ever expressed milk will testify to the fact that every drop counts.  Breastfeeding, expressing breast milk and bottle feeding, donating milk - it's not always easy but since becoming a mother nearly seven years ago it is definitely up there with the most rewarding things I have done.  It has given my children such a great start in life and thanks to the Milk Bank for their lovely letter I now know that my milk helped three other precious little ones to recover from surgery.  

Being a mother teaches me new things every day.  Today's lesson though is an old one - the best things in life truly are free.  Kindness, a helping hand, a smile, a thank you - these are the things that really matter.