oA lot of things you don’t realize until your newborn is just how much you bless you by simply leaving the house. “Well done to get out,” they say. Getting out may sound like a low benchmark, but you can feel like an epic sum of all human efforts, wearing clothes, bagging, and using that narrow window to the world during those early weeks with that narrow window between sleep, feeding, poop and screaming. Screw in the Scrovegni Chapel fresco.
I’ll explain my reaction when I read that new guidelines Featured in the British Journal of Sports Medicine The new mother says that in addition to “daily pelvic floor muscle training,” they should strongly encourage at least two hours of moderate to intense exercise, as well as developing a “healthy sleep hygiene routine,” to avoid screen time and “maintain a dark, cool, quiet environment before bed.”
Hahahahahaha.
Where should I start now? It could be the phrase “strongly encouraged” as if the new mother hadn’t gotten enough of it. Without proper and structural support, society has strong encouragement. I made an anonymous call I received a few days after we were discharged from the hospital and was still upset from the complicated birth (when people asked what kind of it was, “I think maybe… they’re all about them?”) I picked up the phone. “Hello?” he said tentatively. I was in the bathroom at the time and observed the massacre of my life and body with something like the peeling of stones associated with sleep and opioid withdrawal. “Hello. Are you exercising your pelvic floor?” the woman yelled at the line. “Who is this?” I said. “I’m calling from Whittington Hospital. I need to make sure I’m doing kegel. Goodbye.”
In France, pelvic floor rehabilitation is the basis of postnatal care, and the government provides physical sessions. Here, a midwife with a list of numbers and robust phone manners will scream at you about your ruined vagina. I think I still love her. But if she told me to do two hours of exercise and develop a healthy sleep routine, I think she “highly recommended” to do something else on her phone.
See, I’m not saying that advice is not important. As the experts who wrote this paper say, postpartum periods put women at risk for all kinds of health problems and “a unique and important window of opportunity for identifying people at high risk for future chronic diseases and implementing early interventions to improve lifelong health.” Of course, it’s beneficial to get mobile as soon as possible after birth and get as much sleep as possible physically. The new mother knows this. But they also know that in many cases it can feel impossible to accomplish basic tasks without much support. When I tried to create an explanation of a healthy bedtime routine, my son did a 5 hour cluster feed (and cluster poop) and was essentially entrusted to a dark room. Is it no wonder I chose the flapjack to eat in front of a back-to-back Stanley Tucci: Looking for Italy?
After giving birth, you need a support system around you to open up time for exercise and sleep. You need a visit from a medical professional, an enthusiastic partner who won’t return to work in just two weeks, and your family around you (this paper also acknowledges this). I was lucky enough to get this and found it difficult to find a moment for myself, so if you’re not very supported, I can only imagine how difficult it would be. These guidelines predict that many new mothers will be another thing that feels like they are failing, and the NCT agrees that parents may find pressure “overwhelming.”
I read Becky Barnicote’s glorious, hilarious cry when the baby crys. This is a graphic memoir soaked into the frenzy, wild liquid-stained liquid a few months after giving birth (she is a proponent of achieving absolutely nothing as a survival tactic). There is a section of the book where she goes to a postnatal doctor visit six weeks after the emergency C section and he is embarrassed by her not exercising. The next image of her tear-in-the-mouthing pram inside her house viscerally captures the impact that some unkind words have on you at this point of deep vulnerability.
Many of us had moments like this, although someone may have been kind, and not. Regarding the guidelines for new mothers, delivery methods seem to be under-considered. Sometimes, “advice” is delivered very cruelly and can be with you for years afterwards. For post-natal women, better health care, better support (like the Netherlands), better parental leave, and often sadly, better husbands. But most of all, I hope people have gotten a little better for them.
What’s working
My son enjoys the new trampoline his father gave him on his third birthday, especially the soundtrack of disco music. I confirm my belief that “ambient shift” can work incredible when parenting is tricky. I was emotional and exhausted yesterday, but when I saw him bounce and grinned, I felt that somehow everything was fine again.
it’s not
Several good friends deal with toddlers who sometimes run away into traffic. The reins are largely frowned upon by parents of this generation (one friend received a comment on the judgment to use them near real lions while in the safari park), but they thought about how they played a very important safety feature. Is it time to rehabilitate them, or at least get to know each other a little more?
