I sent you a PM, Unauthorized Cinnamon, as I would like to know more about the alternative birthing center.
On topic, I am very much a believer in breast milk- I share some of the beliefs in the [del]purifying powers of[/del] antibiotics natural to it, (lol) but I have seen repeatedly on my mom’s intentional community where folks with pinkeye have it cleared up in less than 24 hours with direct from source breast milk applications…
I don’t have any beliefs beyond thinking that it is possible, however. Totally confirmation bias, as not part of studies, and I just haven’t ever seen it not work, but have heard of it not working.
My mother is rather crunchy, and doesn’t believe in medicine unless we are talking stitches, bone fragments, etc…
While I fully believe in Informed Consent Before Action, I am fine with doctors; I just accept that I may need to decline some medical advice if the person I am dealing with is totally 100% medical intervention needed, as I am not 100% that.
Responding before I’ve read the entire thread- I breastfed my son for twenty months. He almost fully breastfed for more than a year, wasn’t keen on solids. Lots and lots of nursing. He got Type 1 diabetes at 22 months. It’s like lightning- nothing can really prevent it, and guilt about not nursing long enough is unnecessary.
I’m a little dismayed to see how readily “crunchy” and “granola” are employed as epithets against this kind of thinking. I think I agree with every objection and frustration mentioned in the thread, and I know several granola-crunchers who would as well. A few of them are scientists, or a physician.
Yeah, momcats eat the placenta. They also eat the kittens’ waste. They do this to keep the nest clean. Humans have other alternatives. We’ve evolved thumbs, and I for one am going to USE my thumbs. If cats had thumbs, well, I’m sure that they’d be happy to use them too. And NOT necessarily for embroidery.
'Cause the sun is all natural and stuff. Or ancestors walked around naked in the sun eating green stuff and brown stuff and dirt and we should do the same to have beautiful, youthful skin. I blame Victoria’s Secret for this world view.
Re:Eating placentas. If the moms want to do it then they should do it the same way animals do, by chowing down on it raw while giving birth. Then we’ll see who’s hardcore or not.
I think if you stayed on that board much longer, come summer solstice you would have found yourself inside a large pregnant woman statue made of wicker and smelling smoke.
Well I guess I’ve completely thrown my chi out of whack! Why did no one warn me?
I have a few friends who are more granola than I am. We simply don’t talk about parenting things, because otherwise we get along quite well. I used to visit one parenting website more or less local to me (that is, the majority of mothers on it lived in the same area as it was intended) and just faded off of it for similar reasons.. Never felt I had much in common with them.
That’s the thing - the crunchy is the part I’m looking for, but it came with a side of crazy. And it does seem this particular kind of crazy coincides with crunchy a lot. But I embrace the crunchy! Here is how crunchy I am:
Natural childbirth outside the hospital
Exclusive breastfeeding for 6mos
Child led weaning
Baby led solids
Cloth diapers
Pro-bedsharing
Attachment parenting
For those wondering about the placenta thing, the reasoning goes that animals do it, and that the placenta contains iron and hormones, which will replenish what your body needs and prevent post-partum depression. And people generally have it cooked or dried, then ground up and put in capsules, to take like pills. I agree, it would be way more hardcore (and actually probably preserve the hormones better if that’s the goal) to just bite into that bloody bag of goo, like sheep and stuff do.
Animals also kill and eat their babies when they’re stressed. They also quite often abandon them to die, or just kill them, if they’re sickly or have an obvious defect. What the hell does “animals do it” have to do with anything?
