Don’t get me wrong — I’m a huge fan of breastfeeding. I devote swaths of print in Parenting for Peace to the reasons and ways it contributes to raising a peaceful (i.e., empathic, innovative, flexible, self-regulating, and yes, intelligent) generation. But I frankly get annoyed when media trumpets the connection between breastfeeding and IQ, when it is social intelligence we desperately need for the survival of our human family! {Read more at mothering.com}
Posts Tagged ‘breastfeeding’
Breastfeeding for IQ — Really??
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Protecting a Woman’s Right to Choose…Breastfeeding
Author Ray Bradbury pointed out, chillingly, “You don’t need to burn books to destroy a culture — just get people to stop reading them.” Similarly, you don’t need to actually ban nursing to decrease the incidence of breastfeeding — just make it more and more difficult to do.
The ways our culture makes breastfeeding ever more difficult range from the insidiously subtle (hospitals’ goody-bag full of formula) to the outrageously overt (Bill Maher’s infamous rant equating breastfeeding — “a private thing” — with “farting or masturbating or pissing”).
Bottled Up! from The Milky Way on Vimeo. (Includes the aforementioned Maher rant)
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Mothering Touch used under its Creative Commons license
Vaginal Birth Triggers Brain Boost, C-Section Doesn’t: Part of Nature’s Plan for Intelligence?
Along with the cascade of benefits that most Mothering readers already know comes with vaginal birth, new research from Yale has identified yet another: vaginal birth triggers the expression of a protein in baby’s brain cells that optimizes development of the hippocampus — an area central to such “complex behaviors in the adult” as learning, memory, and stress response. C-section delivery may actually impair this protein’s expression.
I find it of interest that earlier this year another study came out linking early nurturing by mothers with larger hippocampal regions in school-aged children. And while the Yale study is very preliminary — using mice, not humans — to me it all points to a notion I hold dear: Nature has an elegant plan for the unfolding of optimal human intelligence (including the required brain structures to mediate that intelligence), and it involves such quaintly natural things as birthing through the birth canal and letting mothers closely nurture their young ones! {Please continue reading at mothering.com}
Silver Reflections on Motherhood ~ My Son is 25!
I was taken by the crucible called motherhood a quarter-century ago: my son Ian turns twenty-five today. The baby who was born smack on his auspicious due-date (seven-eleven!) arrived to find a mother in emotional disarray, to say the least. I have said it countless times, in keynote talks…classes for grad students…casual conversations…and even in my book: Motherhood brought me to my knees. Cracked me open. Excavated me. {read rest of post at mothering.com}
Empathy: An Organic Anti-Bullying Program
This morning on The View they shared the story of a mother who was arrested for throttling a boy who had allegedly texted unspeakably awful things to her daughter (including — and I’m surely not getting this exactly correct, so pardon my paraphrase — “you’re so ugly I wouldn’t even rape you”). Evidently his tirade of abusive texts had been going on for some time, and the daughter had made anguished comments to her mother that hinted at possible self-harm. When Mom and daughter happened to see this boy at the mall one day…and evidently with sangfroid he reported he was not going to stop the cyber-bullying…well, if you’re a mother, you can probably imagine how she felt as she ended up with her hands around his neck.
That very ability, to imagine it — the feelings of a mother whose child is being mercilessly bullied and whose repeated attempts to get their school’s attention and help, to no avail — that is empathy: (more…)
Of Love & Milk: Facing Our Breastfeeding Ambivalence
Most parents know mother’s milk is the best nourishment for their babies, but they may not know how really miraculous the biochemistry of breast milk is. Nature has prepared it as a most exquisite elixir, to perfect and complete our journey from one fertilized cell to a young human being. Given the evidence about the comprehensive benefits of nursing our babies, why is there so much ambivalence about breastfeeding? Why do mothers wrestle with the choice of will I or won’t I breastfeed?
This inner tug-of-war about breastfeeding is not a modern burden: (more…)
