Hi. Hello there. If you’ve found this blog you are looking for insight into your baby (or your soon to be baby), feeding, behaviour, sleep and everything in between. Hopefully I will be able to deliver this to you and help point you to other resources that can also help.
The Newborn Journey, what does that mean? It can mean many things. For me this is a new journey in my life, a way for me to help more parents to be and new families. It’s your new journey as a parent whether you’ve had a baby before or if this is your first time. And of course it is your baby’s journey through the early days.
So who am I?
My name is Sam, I’m a thirty something mum of a nearly 5 year old boy. I’ve been a midwife for nearly 8 years and a specialist in infant feeding for over 2 years, I’m training to be a Lactation Consultant. I have learnt so much in the last 2 years that I’m almost bursting at the seams and so I feel the need to share it with you. From learning that I had barely scratched the surface of infant feeding before I started my specialist training and role. To having the most mind shattering light bulb moments that I need to share. To understanding why breastfeeding can seem so hard to overcome but that it is worth it.
You see I had a very clear idea of the type of midwife I was going to be. I had gone into my training as a midwife and my early career with a vision. I was so keen on supporting ‘normal’ birth, I was going to work in a midwife led birth centre or join a home birth team. So clear was my conviction that when I found myself pregnant 3 years into my career that I planned a home birth because of course. As is often with best laid plans they don’t always go according to your wishes no matter how hard you tried.
After my experience of the early postnatal period on the other side, as a mother, I was restless. I saw that postnatal care is often seen as something to just get on with. That parents will know exactly what to do with a newborn without any preparation. Most of us now come from small family units that have minimal access to newborns and infants, no idea of what is normal, and you can forget about breastfeeding. We have been told and told and told ‘breast is best’ which of course it is, it’s the biological norm, it is the milk that human babies are meant to have. But we do not live in a culture of breastfeeding therefore it is like Sisyphus trying time and again to roll that boulder uphill but inevitably it rolls back down again.
And so when the opportunity came to move into the infant feeding field I decided I needed to do it. Birth is important of course it is. But the early postnatal period is what sets families up for life (we will revisit this concept time and time again throughout this blog as the importance of those early days on the development of your baby is one of my favourite subjects) is so very important but doesn’t seem to get the time or resources to deliver on the needs of families.
I also have a degree in Anthropology so I will also bore you to tears with talk of culture and evolution. Really Sam? Again Sam? I can hear you already
So what’s the plan?
I’m hoping that this will be a weekly blog that can share some insights into that early postnatal period, useful information, new research and book reviews. I want this to be the blog that I was so desperate for in those darker days of my own early postnatal period.
Let’s go on this journey together. Ready?
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article sponsered by Northern Michigan certified lactation consulting and Mother Hubbards Country Cupboard
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