Gentle First Year: The Essential Guide to Mother and Baby Wellbeing in the First Twelve Months. Karen MacLeod Swan
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new mother and baby rested, recovered and were restored from the birth for 40 days. During this time, the mother did not come out of the tent, but literally fed and slept with the baby, and was massaged and tended to by the other women.
It is still customary in India for the expectant woman to stay at her parents’ home from the 28th week (seventh month) of pregnancy, and then for three months after the birth. The mother rests in a specially designated room where she is nourished, nurtured and allowed to heal in much the same way as advocated by the ancients. I grew up seeing at first hand the restorative effects of such intensive post-partum care. It is my wish to prescribe to my mothers a unique, powerful – and empowering – postnatal programme, which integrates these philosophies of the red tent with mainstream medical practices.
creating a cocoon
Of course, for the Western lifestyle, a literal interpretation of the red tent confinement is unrealistic. Many mothers try to discharge themselves from hospital the day after the birth, so convincing them to stay in a room for three months is hardly a viable option. But what is relevant is the idea of ‘cocooning’ yourself, drawing a metaphorical curtain around you which shields you from the demands and pressures of daily life. Life is not normal in those first three months – your sleep is broken, your body may well feel battered and bruised, and you face great challenges as you ease your baby into this noisy, bright world. But recovery and discovery lie before you, and the bond you cultivate with your baby has the transforming power to change both your lives.
tips for moving beyond the red tent
The wisdom behind the confinement of the red tent is to promote rest, recovery and deep bonding. My strongest advice to new mothers is to stay at home as much as possible – certainly for the first three weeks, ideally up to six weeks and, in my dreams, up to three months. But there invariably comes a time when the outside world must become part of your lives again, and although you might have to go out with the pram to do the weekly shopping, it’s also lovely to go for a gentle walk around the park. When you do start to go out together, dab a drop of Australian Bush Flower remedies – such as Angelsworth or Fringed Violet or the easily available Rescue Remedy – on the baby’s fontanelle. This will soothe the baby from the cacophony of outside stimulus and can become a comforting ritual on your first excursions together.
how this book will support you
I feel this book will have succeeded in its purpose if it helps you to receive physical assistance in the early weeks after the birth, and emotional support for the developmental and nurturing issues which come thick and fast in the first year. You will find that the emphasis of this book naturally shifts as the baby grows.
In the first three months, the principal issues are physical. We can, together, help treat and heal any specific trauma you may have suffered from the birth; advocate treatments that fine-tune your body’s transition out of the pregnant state; as well as addressing and resolving your emotional issues surrounding the birth. For your baby, we can explore how to make him or her feel emotionally held and secure; advise physical treatments that eliminate any residual pressures from the birth; boost natural immunity; and offer practical tips to help soothe, calm and settle your baby into deep slumber.
After navigating this intense healing period of the first three months, the emphasis moves to a more emotional plane, showing you and your baby how to enjoy each other. I am opposed to the hot-housing trend, which places undue pressure on early achievement, and firmly believe that babies thrive when nurtured by delighted and committed parents.
It’s not the ‘big’ things that matter – like speaking French or sleeping through the night – but the delicious little gestures that convey love, security and comfort.
To paraphrase John Lennon, ‘Life is what happens to you whilst you’re busy making other plans,’ and there couldn’t be a better sentiment for parenting. It’s not the ‘big’ things that matter – like speaking French or sleeping through the night – but the delicious little gestures that convey love, security and comfort. A cashmere teddy bear may be intended as a big show of love, but a bedtime massage feels just as blissful to your baby; what’s more, it is profoundly bonding and can become a much-loved part of your daily routine. So find the extraordinary in the ordinary, and look for joy – not perfection – in the details.
If having a baby takes away many things – freedom, independence, sleep, seats on the bus – it also gives back so much more: a sense of wonder, bold curiosity, seeing the world with fresh eyes again. A rebirth, perhaps!
CHAPTER 1
The First Week
Embracing Motherhood
Bonding with the Baby
She knew very well how babies smell; she knew precisely. ‘Well,’ the wet nurse began. ‘… They don’t smell the same all over, although they smell good all over. Their feet, for instance, smell like a smooth warm stone, or like fresh butter … And their bodies smell like a pancake that’s been soaked in milk. And their heads, up on top, at the back of the head, where the hair makes a cowlick … here is where they smell best of all. It smells like caramel. Once you’ve smelled them there, you love them whether they’re your own or somebody else’s.’ Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Having delivered thousands of babies over the years, one of my favourite moments is watching the new mother smelling her newborn baby’s head for the first time. Most are hardly aware they’re doing it, but in that split second when the mother inhales the exquisite scent of new life, she falls in love. After nine long months, she can at last see her baby, touch her baby and hear her baby, but it’s when she smells her child’s pristine dewiness that the cocktail of bonding hormones really starts to fizz. And it’s not just a temporary kick. Years later, mothers can be found wistfully sniffing talcum powder bottles in supermarket aisles and wearing talc-based perfumes (astute perfume houses cottoned on to our nostalgia long ago).
Happily, it’s a requited love. Whilst it takes weeks for the baby to decipher faces and sort out voices (everything sounds muffled in the womb), a newborn infant can detect the smell of her mother’s milk almost immediately. It has been shown that a minutes-old baby, placed on the mother’s tummy, will grapple, heave, shake her head from side to side, nuzzle into the mother’s breast and find the nipple to suckle, led entirely by smell.
It’s an amazing thing to see in action. At every birth I attend, I’m always looking for that transforming moment when the fundamental survival instinct and urge to protect becomes something deeper and more spiritual; an impulse that takes a parent beyond the instinct to merely raise a child to maturity, and actually nurture, cherish, indulge and adore the child to its best possible self.
We all know this as bonding, of course, the pop-psychology buzzword for the modern parent. But whilst bonding is indeed an inherent part of parenthood, we don’t always acknowledge that it is not an automatic response. If you want a deep, nourishing relationship with your child which soothes your soul, then it will need tender cultivation, shared experience and, yes, a smattering of hormonal alchemy.
There’s a line in Lucy Atkins’ book, Blooming Birth, which really resonates with me: ‘Birth is just the start – parenting’s the biggie.’ She’s absolutely right, and the biggest help you can have when negotiating the myriad minefields of toddlerhood, pre-pubescence and adolescence is the solid bond you establish with your child during your pregnancy and at birth. Bringing with it an empathy, sensitivity and kindness that endure throughout the myriad experiences life throws at you, it starts right here, with your newborn and her soft, fuzzy head.
why bonding matters
The endorphins released mutually by mother and baby during the birth process are very important for the deep bonding and mutual attachment necessary for the survival of the infant. This is one of the reasons why I work so hard to deliver gentle births that will promote greater levels of endorphins being released at birth. In the interests of mother–child bonding, health professionals should be geared towards