Niwha Stuart Hughes' birth story

At 38 weeks pregnant I was ready to have my baby (as many women are at that point)! I had a sore sacroiliac joint and had a horrible time attempting to go to a movie before my baby was born. I came home quite emotional for no real reason. Monday 2nd August was my husbands birthday and Eli decided that he didn't want to go to Kindy. I had to stay with him for more than an hour and he still sobbed when I left. He'd been settled at Kindy until now. That evening we had a very quiet family dinner to celebrate my husband's birthday, which was really a bit overshadowed by strange feelings from myself and Eli. That night my husband said, 'I really want to call your Mum and tell her to come down now'. She lives in Nelson and had a ticket to fly down that weekend. He had a feeling that we would need her earlier than that. My due date was the 11th August.

At 11.45pm that night my waters broke. I didn't wake my husband. I text Mum and asked her to see whether she could get down here as soon as possible. I called our midwife to let her know that my waters had broken and that I had one small contraction and a bit of the shakes. My

waters were pink with vernix so all normal. My husband woke up and I told him. 'Great' he said. We bought the pool in and started to fill it, but I wasn't having any contractions, just leaking lots of fluid! I had told our midwife I would call when things got going. She was pretty sure things would happen quite fast. By 1.30am we stopped filling the pool and went back to bed. There wasn't much sleeping going on with the anticipation and a contraction every hour or two.

No work or Kindy for the boys in the morning. Eli was very excited at the site of the pool in the lounge and it was a struggle to keep him and his toys out of it! Our midwife was due to visit in the morning anyway. It was good to see her and confirm that the baby and myself were all good. Mum was on the first flight down here. She ended up circling above Dunedin for an hour due to fog and was the last person in the shuttle to be dropped off so she was itching to get here. Contractions continued at 1-2 hours apart for the day. Our midwife came back late afternoon and found the baby had moved down a lot further during the day. Yeepppeee. Late afternoon after another walk contractions were about half an hour apart. I had a full dinner, but didn't feel like dessert! Any food went straight through me so I knew my body didn't want to cope with any thing else. Some of the contractions were good ones and I had to stop what I was doing and concentrate on the hypnobirthing slow breathing and visualising the vertical muscles of my uterus pulling up and the horizontal muscles around my cervix relaxing and opening out and up so the baby could move down.

As soon as Eli was asleep contractions started coming 5 mins apart. I used a Swiss ball and the hypnobirthing sleep breathing to fully relax in between contractions. I was visualising my baby in the optimal birthing position and moved into a position on my knee and leaning forward

onto the couch. Mum started timing contractions at 7.53pm and I called the midwife. She asked me to call after the contractions had been 5 mins apart for an hour or dropped to less than that. At the time I thought, a whole hour, really! I should have clicked then that I was progressing really fast. Our timing of contractions wasn't great. Mum was using the clock on the phone and I sometimes forgot to tell her I was having a contraction. I was slow breathing through each contraction and it mustn't have been that obvious to anyone else that I was having one. So sometimes the contractions were 2-3 mins apart and other were timed at 6-7. Sometimes a contraction was very strong and other times it was not and over with quickly so I didn't know if it 'counted'. Well it had pretty much been an hour when my husband called our midwife again. He told her I was keen to get in the pool. She asked me to hold off and she was on her way. My husband relayed the message and added 'but you do what you want to.' As my waters had been broken for 20 hours I didn't want to get in to soon either. However soon after my husband hung up I had a very obvious bearing down contraction. It was sooo intense. It felt like my uterus had lifted up and slammed the baby down against my vagina. I almost swore and had to pull myself back into a focused slow breath. I said 'That was a pushing contraction'. After the next one I could feel the baby's head pushing against my vagina and I said 'Text the midwife and tell her this baby is coming, but not to speed.' Then I said 'I'm getting in the pool'.

I got in the pool and my husband pushed record on the video camera and stayed with me. He used light touch massage and massaged the dimples on my lower back, both were really good. A one stage he started reading me some of the hypnobirthing affirmations. After the first one, I said 'I'm way past that' and after the next one I said 'shut up'. We laughed and he said 'good they're in the fire.' Mum tried to get Eli up

to be there for the birth, but he said he didn't want to. A couple of intense contractions bought the baby's head to crowning. I felt with my hand and smoothed around his head. I relaxed and enjoyed the break before the next contraction that I knew would birth the head. After his head came out I said to my husband 'The heads out'. He replied with 'ahem'. I little bit shocked and nervous I think, but he had complete confidence that I could birth our baby successfully. The midwife still hadn't arrived. I felt around the baby's head and waited for the next contraction that would bring him out. As the rest of his body was born I moved from my knees bringing one foot forward and supported my baby out. I turned him over, felt over his body and looked at him under the water before bringing him out and to my chest. My husband asked what sex he was and I replied that he was a boy.

This is when we were a bit nervous as he didn't breath spontaneously. I sucked his mouth and nose as I had seen women do on the 'Birth As We Know It' DVD and waited. I mentioned that we might need oxygen, just not knowing how long it would take him to breath on his own. I knew the cord was still attached and would be providing him with something. My husband rubbed his stomach and I sucked his mouth and nose a number of times before he gasped and cried loudly. We laughed with relief and I bought him to my chest again. It was still a few seconds before he started to breath continuously, but once that started we all relaxed and laughed. We kept him warm with face cloths and I kept him in the water as much as possible. He indicated that he was keen to feed, so that is what he was doing when the midwife arrived 11mins after he was born. She was very pleased that all was well. My mum said 'missing the birth must happen every now and again does it?' She said it was only the 3rd time in 25 years that she'd missed a birth. 'Keeps me humble' she said in her wonderfully humble way.

It took a couple of hours to birth the placenta as I just couldn't be bothered! Figured it would come out when it was ready! I was keen to birth it in the pool, but the water was getting cold and I was struggling to feed my baby and keep him in the water and warm. I got set up on the couch and after a couple of half hearted attempts to birth the placenta over a bowl I finally did. The placenta looked good and healthy. We were unsure how long we would leave it attached as we were considering a lotus birth. We decided to cut it.

We were in bed by 1am-ish at which point Eli woke up and asked what I was doing. When I said I was feeding the baby he was soooo excited. He wanted to sleep next to him and was not impressed when we said he had to get back in his bed. He wasn't going back to sleep so my husband and Eli swapped with Mum who was in the spare room. She slept in Eli's bed and in the morning my husband and Eli came back in. The family bed had 3 generations in it for a wee while that morning. It was lovely.

Niwha Stuart Hughes was born about 9.15pm on Tuesday August the 3rd. He weighed 6.4lbs, 2.8kg. Almost 2 pounds lighter than Eli who was 8.3lbs! Wow never thought I'd grow such a little baby. He is healthy and strong, just skinny. He was 50 cm long which was not much shorter than Eli. Head circumference 34cm.

Below is a 6 min clip of the birth from crowning to first cry. It is G rated. No gore and not too much nudity. Look forward to writing a post on preparation for a natural birth. My birthing experiences have shown me just how important physical and mental preparation is in having a successful natural birth.

Hypnobirthing

Ok, so with Eli's birth in mind I was quite scared at the idea of giving birth again from the moment I discovered I was pregnant. I was slowly coming around to the idea and realisation that what happened was so rare and bizarre that it would not happen again and chances are I'd have a great birth this time when I was introduced to the book Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie Mongan.

I must admit that it sounded a bit out there for me. I had all the standard prejudices around hypnosis but was open to reading the book. The book is fantastic. Great history around birthing particularly Grantly Dick-Read's work in the 1800's. He came up with the Fear-Tension-Pain Theory. The theory explains that when someone is fearful it creates tension in their body due the flight/fight response and tension leads to pain. In the context of birth any tension centers around the uterus as a birthing woman is fearful of the pain, experience or idea of having a new baby. Tension in the uterus means that blood to the area is restricted and the baby is pushing against hard muscles causing pain and obviously a Failure To Progress, which funnily enough has the same acronym as Fear Tension Pain (FTP). Obstetricians who have performed cesarians on women who have Failed to Progress have found the muscles of the uterus to be white. So the main objectives of hypnobirthing are relaxation, visualisation, imagery, affirmations to create a calm, gentle, even painless birthing for you and your baby.

Anyway there is more to it than that and I strongly recommend a read of the Hypnobirthing book. So now I was really interested in the philosophy and skills that hypnobirthing had to offer. The woman who recommended the book to me had recently arrived in Dunedin, New Zealand with her family and is a Hypnobirthing instructor. She wanted to run a course for couples she had met. Unfortunately (fortunately for us) we ended up being the only couple interested and I was already in the second half of my pregnancy. So our instructor was happy to run it just for us. There were pro's and con's to that, but ultimately it was a fantastic course. As well as the skills of relaxation, visualisation, imagery and a really positive view of natural birth we also had the opportunity (created for us by our instructor) to process Eli's birth and have time together with this new baby pre-birth. It was a great opportunity for my partner to understand what I was trying to achieve and ways that he could support the process and be involved in the birth of his child. The fact that the course is run for couples is a great thing.

I would recommend a hypnobirthing course to anyone. Great to get it right the first time and if the first time wasn't ideal it's great for setting you up to have a more ideal birth the second time. As part of the course we watched 'Birth as we know it,' a fantastic DVD created by a Russian midwife. Also highly recommended.

I really hope that the hypnobirthing instructor here in Dunedin continues to offer courses to couples and that midwives around the world start to adopt the philosophy and skills of this wonderful technique.

Look forward to writing a post on my birth experience to come and how hypnobirthing helped me.

Eli's birth story 3 years on!

I've never written Eli's birth story as it's been hard to deal with. I'll try to keep it short!

Eli was in a good position for his birth. My waters broke at about 10am and I went into labour at 8pm that night and he was born about 2am. Labour progressed smoothly and reasonably easily. I was at home, the pool was full and warm and I utilised it in the later stages of my labour. Eli's heart rate was good. I opted to let the midwife use the Doppler so I didn't have to get out of the pool. When I shared the feeling of an urge to push I was encouraged to feel for the babies head. I was fully dilated and it was obvious that I had experienced transition. When I felt for Eli's head I described it as soft and squishy. The midwife was a bit puzzled by this and assumed that his waters hadn't broken completely. I followed the next urge to push and Eli's umbilical cord prolapsed (a loop fell out of me).

For those who don't know, this is a major emergency. As Eli was attempted to birth he was cutting off his own oxygen by compressing his cord. My husband was the only person to ask a question about this rare ( between 0.14% and 0.62%) event in our antenatal classes! In class we were told head down, bum up, keep the cord safe and moist etc and get to the hospital. Well that just wasn't going to happen. I was fully dilated, ready to birth and needed to get Eli out fast! My husband called an ambulance without a prompt. We all knew this was serious. My midwife looked at me and said 'We need to get this baby out now'. I said 'Ok, I'm pushing.' I pushed regardless of contractions, as hard as I could. Our backup midwife arrived, thinking she was coming to a swift moving, easy birth. My yells were the first indication to her as she got out of her car that things may have changed. She helped me out of the pool as our LMC (Lead Maternity Carer) had decided that an episiotomy would help get my baby out as fast as possible. At one stage I was told to have a rest and refused. As our LMC got the anesthetic ready I yelled 'Just cut me'. So she did and it hurt, but I wasn't going to risk taking any more time!

Eli was born in 12 minutes from the moment his cord prolapsed. He was blue and limp and not breathing very well. But he was breathing! He was alive. Many babies don't survive a prolapsed cord. His heart never stopped, though it got as low as 6o beats per minute (I think?). To sum up, the ambulance arrived, we went to the hospital, nasal oxygen helped Eli instantaneously and he had a few hours in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit NICU (at 8.3lbs he was by far the biggest healthiest baby there!). I was stitched up, while my husband stayed with Eli. We were convinced to give him antibiotics 'in case' of infection, grrrr! I wasn't allowed to feed him for 10 hours while his breathing was monitored. He was on a glucose drip. We were allowed home after one night in hospital.

Eli is a happy, healthy, clever almost 3 year old so we were very lucky. On visiting Eli in NICU and learning of his birth a consultant doctor at the hospital said of the birth, something along the lines of 'It was a strange happening within a rare event'. It was reassuring to know that. I had done everything I knew (and I'd read a lot!) to have a healthy, safe pregnancy and birth and I felt pretty disappointed at what happened. Put in perspective I had a live and healthy baby!!!!

Well this post started off as a post on Hypnobirthing as now 33 weeks pregnant with our second child my husband and I have just finished a hypnobirthing course. The greatest benefit of the course was the opportunity to finish processing Eli's birth and go into this one without fear.

We are having this baby at home, in the pool and it's all going to be great! We have the same midwives and I know this one will happen the way I envision it.

Now that this story is told I'll post about Hypnobirthing! :)

Protecting your child from injury or being overprotective?

It has been a horrendously long time since I last posted on my blog. Always lots to write about, not always the time to write it!
So here we go. My son has be proving himself quite the daredevil lately. Mostly on his bike - I will add a clip of a rather good downhill, with a good crash at the end, when I get to the computer this clip is on! And here it is...



Just yesterday day we had our first tree climbing experience. Well Eli has been climbing trees with his Dad a couple of times a week during their lunch break together while I finish work. So it was really just my first experience tree climbing with Eli. Not that I climbed the tree. I was invited to join him, but at 25 weeks pregnant I decided I'd stay on the ground. Not as climbing fit as I was when pregnant with Eli, teaching multipitch traditional rock climbing at 25 weeks pregnant!

Anyway, I milled around on the ground, trying to be in good 'spotting' positions in case of a fall without looking like I was trying to protect him. I trust his ability to know what he can and can't do. He does push the limits as is good for everyone and yes one day this might have a significant consequence. I believe the consequence is worth it for developing a confidence, skillful person who is aware of his body and what it is capable of.

At quite a young age he climbed to the top of our gate, resting his knees on the top cross bar. The kids up the road who he was trying to watch (most probably join them) came running down yelling that Eli was on the gate. My husband wandered out the sliding door to find him precariously perched. He wandered back inside to get the camera, saying 'You should see this.' As he was out taking photo's and this movie. Myself and a friend who was visiting came outside. As much as we tried to be nonchalant about what we saw, Eli released where he'd put himself, panicked and tumbled over the gate landing flat on his back on the grass. A bit winded and in a bit of shock there were lots of tears, but nothing more. I breathed a sign of relief that he'd gone forward and not backwards onto the concrete!


So, should we have plucked him off as soon as we saw him? Should we have supported him down? Or was what we did ok? The kids walked off in a bit of bewilderment as the realised that we didn't share the panic and fear that they did. Maybe we should have?

Needless to say, since then he has been most careful about what he climbs up! For a while he freaked out when he'd climbed something and wanted down. We continued to refuse to help though we did offer advice and sometimes a spot as he found his way down.

I feel confident and happy in the way we have dealt with Eli's 'sticky situations'. My feelings come from a number of philosophies. Jean Leidloff's, Continuum Concept talks about trusting kids innate ability to keep themselves safe. Also their ability to cope with a bit of pain and suffering and the knowledge that they can come to their parents/caregivers for comfort if they need it. Most of all my belief in Experiential Learning as one of the most powerful types of education. Eli learnt after falling over the fence that there are consequences to climbing past your ability and he hasn't done it since. He pushes the limits and is well aware that there maybe a consequence to doing so. We could not have taught him that more powerfully than through the experiences he's had. Yes, we teach him the danger of the road. Explaining why there was a squashed, dead bird on the road one day was helpful for that lesson! We supervise him when he's using a knife etc, but we don't 'protect' him from these dangers!

There is a risk in everything. To not expose your child to a physical risk is to expose them to the risk of being fearful, scared to put themselves out there and not learn their limits. A bit of physical risk is worth it in my opinion.

Anyway, enough babble from me. Love to hear your thoughts! Anna :)

Submission to the Tertiary Education Strategy

Submission to the Tertiary Education Strategy

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the Tertiary Education Strategy. This is a fantastic opportunity for New Zealand to deliver on the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014).

Following are our comments in relation to the goals of the UN Decade.

Key points on the Vision

1.2

We need our current and future workforce to act sustainably. Therefore they need the skills to do this. e.g. 'raise the skills and knowledge of the current and future workforce to meet labour demand, economic, societal and environmental needs.' The Tertiary Education sector must be directed to provide the learning to think and act for a sustainable future.

It is great to see a mention of sustainability in the vision. It is important that this is worded to show the interconnectedness of our economic, social and environmental systems. "...respond to the interconnected needs of our economic, social and environmental systems."

Sustainability research is interdisciplinary research. The Performance-Based Research Fund with it's discipline based panel structure must be reviewed so as to provide for essential interdisciplinary research such as sustainability.


2.1 Priorities

It must be a priority to develop people who have the ability to take a systems thinking approach to all that they do and understand the interconnectedness of our socio-economic systems. Students and our future workforce must understand that we live in a closed system with finite resources and we must therefore operate in a way that our species will be sustained by these resources for many generations to come. It must also be a priority to develop people who can consider others on a world wide scale. It must also be a priority to develop people who can participant and act in the democratic process in the New Zealand system and many other systems globally.

To sum this up it must be a priority for the government to see tertiary education providers develop people who can think and act for a sustainable future.

2.2 How priorities will be achieved

This priority can be achieved by encouraging/expecting providers to integrate teaching and learning for a sustainable future by providing: learning in systems, critical and creative thinking; an understanding of the interconnectedness of our living systems; understanding of ethics across time and space; the motivation and ability to act for a sustainable future.

2.2.2

It is great to see that 'encourage collaboration and shared resources' as part of improving sector performance. Through Open Educational Resource we can expand this further to contribute to the provision of education world wide, enhancing New Zealand's reputation for high quality education. The use of quality Open Educational Resource (OER) will encourage those who have the ability to pay for facilitated and/or face to face education in New Zealand and to be acknowledged through certification for what they have achieved to do so. As well as providing education for those who do not have the same privilege and enhance international links.

3.1 Expectations of Providers

The government must expect tertiary education providers to educate for sustainability. We can no longer afford to ignore the interconnectedness of our living systems. Tomorrows leaders must be able to move our country forward with a systems thinking, collaborative, action approach to addressing the decline of the health and abundance of the natural resources in which we rely.

All tertiary education providers must provide education for sustainability for all their students. All education must have real world application and our future 'real world' must be a sustainable one.

3.3 Monitoring

The government must not only monitor the 'contribution that tertiary education makes to New Zealand's economy and society,' but must monitor the contribution that tertiary education makes to New Zealand's integrated economic, society and environment systems.

Recommendations:

1. Add the integration of Education for Sustainability as an expectation of tertiary education providers.

2. The ability to act for a sustainable future must be an explicit core capability, such as numeracy and literacy. Eco-literacy is an essential skill for all for New Zealand's future.

3. Interdisciplinary study and research must be supported in order to gain strong, worthwhile sustainability research.

Aspects of living sustainably:

The good old days

Home cooked meals (from scratch) almost every night.

Growing a lot of the households food in the back yard.

Walking or biking to school or work every day, rain or shine.

Putting more clothes on when it's cold.

Showering once a day or less!

Home baked goodies in the cardboard.

One car families.

Three or four changes of clothes, not a walk in wardrobe full.

Taking the bus was fun.

Everything that could be re-used was.

Take away coffees etc, didn't really exist – we all just sat down for one.

We didn't need a clothes drier, microwave, 2 or more TV's, 2 or more computers, 2 or more stereos, a slow cooker, an electric can opener, heated towel rails etc, etc.

How can we still live comfortably, yet decrease of impact on the environment?

I had a discussion with my husband as we were driving to work/pre-school with our 2 year old last week. Before we had our son we had a car each, vans infact – both with beds in them – the single, vagrants dream. We now have one old stationwagon and it's great. My husband commented that we do fine with only one car. In fact he couldn't imagine having another car that he drove to work and left there all day. What a cost and what a waste he said, though reminding me that he didn't used to think like that – my influence. Because he's so used to taking the bus and occassionally riding his bike he just doesn't see it as an inconvience or hard work.

This is what has happened. As people have increasingly been able to afford ever cheaper appliances and cars and marketing has done a fantastic job at telling us we can't live without these things we have come to believe that this is true.

My husbands experience in getting to and from work has become habit and therefore easy. We do have the benefit of being close to a bus route both at home and at work. So all we need to do is change the way we do things and stick them out until they become habit and easy!

Watching Dunedin go through the transition to using cloth bags in the supermarket is an interesting one. I made this transition 4 or so years ago and constantly forgot to put my empty bags back in the car, then forgot to take them into the supermarket and so on. It was frustrating, but after a few months perserverance it became habit and easy. I'm watching frustrated people work at remembering the change of routine now.

We are by no means perfect when it comes to living sustainability. Few people are, but we do a reasonable amount and are very conscious of the decisions we make and how they impact all. We don't own a clothes drier and never have, yet we have a two year old. We raised him 'nappy free' from 6 weeks old, but that's another story. He still has wet pants and dirty clothes and of course my husband and I need to do washing too. Dunedin is by far the sunniest of cities, yet we manage to get most of our washing dry on the line even through most of winter. When we can't we use my husbands designed ceiling clothes rack that sits against the roof near the fire or clothes racks and if something we want to wear is wet, well tough we have to find something else!

We have a eco wood burning fire that has a wet-back attached and we can cook (use a frying pan even) on the top of it. Our power bills in the winter can be as low as $55 and we rarely go over $100 any time of the year. I have applied the fake double glazing to our windows at $25/room and we now have no condensation on our bedroom window sills in the morning. We had to replace our cracked sliding door so we topped up the insurance pay out to get a double-glazed one and most recently we have taken up the Government insulation grant. Unfortunately we can't get under our floor but we able to get two layers of wool (our choice for environmental reasons at a bit more expense) in our ceiling. I'm happy to reveil that we only had to pay $650 of the $1600 it cost as we have community services cards that gave us 60% off with the governments subsiby.

We are not a wealthy family. We earn enough to live comfortably and we only have holidays because we careful about what we spend our money on. Sensible insulation and heating and only 1 car saves us heaps!!!!

I'm an experiential gardener and would hate to have to fully feed my family on what I grow – we'd be hungry!!! But it definitely compliments the huge amount that we spend on food. We eat a lot of organic food, cook meals from scratch as much as possible and buy in bulk avoiding heaps of packaging, though this is defintely what fills our rubbish bin over 3 weeks. Yes, weeks to fill one 65L rubbish bag in a 3 person household. Not bad, but it could be better. I simply refuse in most cases to buy something that can't be re-used as infinitely as possible or recycled or both.

It's not hard or expensive to do little things that will make a huge difference to the quality of our environment. I don't need a heated towel rail, don't even have a heater in our bathroom – it encourages a quick dry and change into warm clothes. I don't need a walk in wardrobe. My op-shop buys see me through and I don't feel bad about passing them on to buy more from the op-shop when I need a change.

As I said, I'm by no means perfect when it comes to living sustainably. The reason I wanted to share some of these things with you is to show you that it's not hard to do, it's cheaper, which means you have more money for things like holidays – or you can simply do less work! Give it a go. Take one thing that you know that has a huge impact on the environment and change it. Stick with it for a few months (convince some others -family or friends/flatmates) to join you and pretty quickly you'll find that it's habit – good habit!! Thanks. Anna :)

Wearing your baby

My introduction to baby wearing was in my early 20's when I meet a friend of a friend in a market. She was wearing her baby wrapped up in a sling. I could just glimpse his head tucked against her chest. I loved what I saw, it looked so right to me. Although I was far from needing to know all about it I wanted to know how she had tied him so snugly to her. Not long after this meeting the first of my friends had a baby. As a gift I made her one of the slings I had seen that day in the market. It became my standard gift as more of my friends had children. It wasn't until 8 or so years later when I was to have my child that I learnt the reasons why you wear your baby.

The Continuum Concept written by Jean Liedloff talks about our innate expectations at birth formed over a long evolutionary process of thousands of years. One of those innate expectations is close and constant contact with our primary caregiver initially, then any family members or friends from birth to crawling. This stage has been aptly named 'The In-Arms Phase' which happens from birth to 6-8months.

It has only been in the last 100 or so years that we have moved away from this evolutionary practice of carrying our babies to more 'convenient' separateness of placing a baby in a cot, car seat or the floor. This practice denies the baby it's expectation of closeness, warmth, smell, sounds of mum's breathing and heartbeat and constant movement that he/she has experienced for the last 9 months.

Wearing your baby is simply a continuation of the womb. In our evolutionary process we as humans have had to be born earlier and earlier due to the increased size of our brains. Our bodies have not had time to develop in the womb which is why we can't walk soon after being born as most other mammals can. For this reason carrying a baby constantly in a sling has only benefits for their physical development. Babies do not need to kick on the floor to grow strong enough or practice movements towards crawling. They know innately how to crawl they simply need time and strength (that can be gained through being worn) to do it.

Wearing your baby in a sling or other ergonomic device as constantly as possible during the in-arms phase of his/her life meets a baby's innate evolutionary expectations, therefore helping them to feel secure, develop their self esteem and become independent. Yes meeting a babies expectations of constant physical contact during the in-arms phase (among other innate expectations such as being breastfed on demand) actually helps little humans to become more independent. This makes sense when you understand that a secure, confident baby naturally seeks their independence as they grow. Meeting a babies needs in the present moment meets their expectations. It does not spoil them!

There are many more benefits to wearing your baby. These include:

The physical strength your baby (and you) gains from being carried in a safe, ergonomic way. A baby's legs are often straddled with the thighs or even whole legs fully supported by the sling. The support along with constant movement helps to strengthen the baby's joints.

Babies who are worn have less digestive problems and rarely experience colic or reflux. The upright position and constant jostling help the digestive system through an indirect stomach massage.

A baby in a sling is able to closely observe and be a part of the life of his/her carrier. This is how a baby learns about the world. They disperse their energy through their carrier and are stimulated by the everyday routines of this person.

There are also many benefits for the person wearing the baby, often the mother initially. In some cultures a woman who has recently given birth wraps her torso to support her internal organs in gently finding their correct place again (having been moved and squashed by the presence of the baby). Wearing your baby in a wrap around sling has this added benefit.

It also allows you the freedom to do chores and go where you wish knowing that your baby is happy and secure and can sleep when he/she wants to. Your baby has slept when he/she wants to for 9 months in your womb and does not need (or want) a quiet, still bed in which to sleep.

Fathers and other family members are able to experience the intimate closeness to their new love that wearing a baby offers.

Families who practice Elimination Communication find that wearing a baby makes it very easy to pick up on their need to pee or poo. They quickly learn that the sling is their little nest and do not wish to eliminate in it. They often squirm and do what ever else they can to be let out to eliminate in an appropriate place.

There are many types of babywearing devices available. Here are some of my favourites and more that I am not so familiar with. Please note that the popular 'front pack' (there are a number of brands) does not support your baby's thighs therefore the baby's legs hang and all the weight is on their spine. This is not ideal and I don't recommend a front pack for this reason. I also don't recommend wearing your baby in a outward facing direction. This goes against the natural curvature of their spine and again is not ideal.

Wrap around slings: There are a number of brands out there or you can make your own! You don't even need a sewing machine unless you want to get fancy. For a young baby you can use cotton lycra, 50cm wide and 4.2 metres long (longer if you are big). As your baby gets heavy this type of sling is not ideal. For the first couple of months it's great.

The other option that will also take you through to carrying your baby as a toddler is a tight knit cotton with 'give' but no stretch. Make this one 65cm wide (in order to be able to wear your baby on your back when they are strong enough) and 4.2 metres long (longer if necessary). Depending on the type of material you use it may need hemming or overlocking.

Otherwise there are heaps of wrap around slings on the market. My favourite is the Girasol. Contact Irma Jager at intune@clear.net.nz as she is the NZ importer of these beautiful slings and see http://www.peppermint.com/ for wearing instructions and more great information on baby wearing. This site has heaps of different types of slings that I won't talk about here.

Another good baby wearing device is the ERGO. For information and purchase within New Zealand is http://www.junglemama.co.nz/

As well as the website links in this post - one that will lead you to La Leche League International site! The following book on baby wearing looks interesting. Click on it to read a review. Babywearing: The benefits and beauty of this ancient tradition

Recently (early 2010) there has been talk in the media of the 'dangers' of slings. The hype was quite unsubstantiated but some good points about safe baby wearing has come out of it. www.slingbabies.co.nz a great New Zealand, not for profit educational website has an article on safe babywearing that is worth a read. It also has really good information on wearing, benefits, history, the philosophy of baby wearing and more article - one for Dads.

ENJOY THE WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE OF CARRYING YOUR BABY DURING HIS/HER IN-ARMS PHASE!