Pregnancy and birthing q&a

What after birth care choices do i have?

After the birth is where the real down pour of parenting decisions take place. Here are a few choices you will want to carefully research before you have your baby so that you can instruct the hospital staff of your wishes.

When do you want the umbilical cord clamped?

Do you want to store the cord blood? Donate the cord blood?

Do you want to room in with your baby?

Do you want your baby circumcised if it is a boy?

Do you want your baby vaccinated?

Do you want your baby to take a pacifier or bottle?

These choices are intensely personal, but I can tell you what choices I made, and what choices I will make the next time I have a baby.
I wanted to delay cord clamping, so my baby could receive all the benefits of the cord blood, which they say is very good for them. Really, I had wanted to donate the cord blood, but I couldn't because I had too recently had a tattoo (it works under the same rules as regular blood donation). Next time, I will donate the cord blood.
I chose to room in with my baby. Next time I hope to have a home birth, so rooming in is pretty much my only option there.
I am strongly opposed to circumcision, so much so that I would have a hard time finding anything unbiased to say about it. I realize that it is a very personal decision, but I want to say this. Only 15% of the worlds male population is circumcised. Most of the circumcised men in the world are Muslims. Obviously, 85% of the world's men do not have any kind of problems with their intact penises, or more people would be circumcised. I understand that there are religious reasons to circumcise, but I would have you know that most of the world's Christians are intact (not circumcised), as are most of the world's Athiests, Buddhists, Pagans, Agnostics, Hindus, etc. I know there is a movement in the Jewish faith against routine circumcision, you can learn more at JewsAgainstCircumcision.org. Other websites I recommend to learn more about circumcision and the functioning body part the procedure removes are Nocirc.org and Sexasnatureintendedit.com.

I did get the first few rounds of vaccinations with my son, then decided to delay vaccination until he was a year old upon learning more about vaccination. In the future, I will delay vaccination of my children, and get the vaccinations we wish to get on a drawn out schedule. I will avoid vaccinations for generally harmless childhood diseases, like chicken pox.
I offered my son a pacifier, but he never really took one. I'm not sure if this was a good thing or not. Many experts believe that it is better for babies to use the breast as a pacifier. Admittedly, this is probably the only way I was able to keep my milk in, I believe I would have dried up entirely if it weren't for the fact that my son was almost always nursing. But, it would have been nice to have a break every now and then, or to have been able to give him something to suck on when we were somewhere where we couldn't stop to nurse right away. Many experts believe introducing a pacifier or bottle too early can cause nipple confusion. Next time, I may offer a pacifier once nursing is strongly established, but I won't push it.

Ultimately, all these choices are up to you, but the only real choice is an informed choice. If you make a choice based not on what you know to be the pros and cons, but instead based on what other people are telling you to do, you are actually being coerced. Do your research on all of these issues, and pick the option that will work best for you and your child. This is YOUR pregnancy, YOUR birth, and YOUR child. Don't let someone else step in and take over for you.

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