One year ago, I took a postpartum doula course to launch a side business assisting new mothers in my community. I hit the ground running and entered my first postpartum home in the following month where I assisted a mom with the care of her triplets. No Lamaze class could ever prepare me for a baby better than caring for three during 12-hour overnight shifts for four months. I felt satisfied and confident with where preparenting had brought me, having spent five years doing deep healing and personal development work with the hopes of becoming a mother down the road. I gained tons of hands-on experience with postpartum doula work. I read the books, listened to many podcasts, sorted through a bunch of research studies and offered moms tools and resources to help them make informed decisions daily. I felt prepared to dive into early motherhood myself, knowing all the current recommendations and guidelines for caring for a newborn — from safe sleep practices to diapering, from finding the best products to breastfeeding. In my entire life, I have never prepared for something better than I prepared for birth and motherhood. But when I held my newborn on what I now call ‘‘my darkest night,’’ approximately 72 hours postpartum, I had to throw all my training out the window for a minute while I recalibrated my moral compass and made decisions for my family. I could not advise new mothers on this until I faced it myself. It has become my ultimate advice to new moms. It takes precedence over everything I could teach on parenting and postpartum care. Postpartum Flowers would not exist without it, and I share this with you all not only as a doula, but as a new mom, as a friend and a divine sister.
My aunt said it to me in French. It was the one thing I needed to hear that resonated with me the most. It was the solution to exactly what I was going through. It was the permission I needed to give myself. “Suis ton coeur de maman,” she said over Facetime, as I was on the brink of tears trying to wrap my head around how unnatural it felt to do the things that were apparently the safest based on research. (Meaning: follow your heart, your new heart, your mother heart.) That, paired with the brilliant words of my husband that came the next day, triggered an important shift in my postpartum journey. Whatever your choices are during your postpartum time, know that your choice is the right choice if it makes your coeur de maman feel good and safe. For me, personally, that meant doing something very differently than I had imagined.
Before my daughter was born, I had an image in my head of what things would look like: swaddles, flat surfaces with a single thin breathable sheet, sleeping on her back in a bed separate and away from mine, shallow bath water, timing feeds with alarms on my phone, sleep training and a routine with nap times and wake windows that were the same each day. Eat, sleep, diaper change, repeat. When my daughter was born and I met her, we quickly got to know each other and instantly felt safest close together. The first time she was taken from my arms, a picture was taken of me watching the midwife weigh her as she kicks and cries. My eyes are the same of a lioness about to rip a gazelle to shreds in a Discovery Channel documentary. I needed her back in my arms, her skin against mine. My body temperature adjusts hers, our systems regulate together, our bodies belong with each other. My coeur de maman felt good and safe when she felt good and safe. She needed contact, closeness and comfort so I needed contact, closeness and comfort. I could not sleep with her far from me and she could not either. But I could also not sleep with her close, as the ads for dangerous sleep practices, my training and the SIDS stuff played over and over in my head. I cried to my husband: “She can’t be in here.” I’d put her back in her bassinet where she would stay for a bit until she could no longer smell me or feel my heat. I’d pick her up right away. I wanted nothing more than for her to be close, to have my breast nearby should she need. That felt natural to me. “There must be a way to do this safely,” I thought. The internet told me there wasn’t. Studies told me there wasn’t. My doula books told me there wasn’t. But my heart told me there was. I looked at my husband through all the tears and said it out loud: “What if I wake up and she’s dead?” He did not know what to say. “I feel like this is best but I know better and I shouldn’t be doing this.” My nervous system and my body’s response to her being far said one thing, my anxiety when she was close said another. I felt like I couldn’t win. I couldn’t make this decision on my own. I wanted her to know that I’m right here. I’m always right here. It’s all I have to do right now. It’s my only job. It’s exactly what I want to be doing right now. I want to tend to her and care for her and have her know that I’m right here for her no matter what she needs and whenever she needs it. I want her to never have to scream-cry because I know her, I respond to her early cues and I’m always right here. That is what feels right for me. “Then let’s do that,” he said, trusting me and my instinct the most. “But the studies…” That was the start of so many of my sentences. Eyes full of water feeling so perplexed about what I know in my head but feel in my body, I would tell him about the studies, the research and the recommendations. “But the studies…” I told him all about the studies. But then would go on about secure attachment and what my instinct was telling me. I went from being a doula that looked at studies considering all the babies, to being a mother who had only one baby to consider: my baby. The mass scale numbers and all the scary United States and Canada statistics did not fit in my master bedroom. As a doula, I had to tell moms what the information out there was. But as a mother, all I wanted was for my daughter to know I was right here and she was never alone.
I want to raise my daughter to know her mother is always there and has been there from the start, right next to her. That she is my priority. That my life is going to adapt to her needs, not her needing to adjust to my life and schedule. There is no life before her. My own upbringing’s philosophy of keeping baby out of the bedroom to not disturb the marital bed has negatively impacted my own development and attachment. My parents, still to this day, will go on and on about how independent I was as a baby, like it’s something to be proud of or a special skill I had. “Breanna would fall asleep in her toys, under her bed, she’d put herself to sleep anywhere at anytime, such an easy baby, so independent.” “You’d never hear her. Off she went, we didn’t know where she was. Oh! Here she’d be sleeping on the floor in the living room.” They’ve been recalling that forever, but constantly since I became a mother. We heard it a hundred times already. It’s a point of pride, like I was born able to walk, but instead I was born able to self-soothe and put myself down for naps. I see it differently. To me it explains why I never felt like I could rely on my parents to answer to my needs. Why I felt like I had to do everything myself. Why I had horrible night terrors throughout my childhood. Why I clung to teachers and had severe separation anxiety when they left for the lunch hour or when school was over. Why I spent my entire summers at friends’ houses. Why I took on full responsibility to provide for myself at such a young age. Why I always had three jobs since I was 15 and felt like I could not depend on my caregivers. Why I was always gone, out, alone and spending hours at the park on the swings until sundown by myself. Why they felt like siblings more than parents. Why it was always easy for me to be far away or not see them for months. Why I moved out at 16. Why I moved to the other side of the country straight out of high school. Why I estranged myself and went no-contact for years. Sure, there are many reasons why this all happened. But being the independent baby definitely set the foundation for this distant and disconnected relationship. I don’t want that for my daughter, and I feel in my gut, in my heart, in my DNA, that it starts right here, right now, in the first 72 hours after her birth. I never felt like I had roots planted anywhere. I want her to have roots and I know I am planting them, watering them and caring for them at this very second. I feel deep in my coeur de maman that if I let her cry and give up on the expectation that I’m close and will pick her up, if I let her cry and abandon all hope that I’m near, if I let her cry and destroy her assurance that I’m right here, if keeping the martial bed warm takes priority over her needs, over the security she finds in feeling my warmth and smelling me next to her, that these roots will rot and she will be another child in my lineage that always leaves. I understand now that when I left for the park after school until sun down, when I left for friends’ houses for the entire summer, when I left to live at my uncle’s for months, when I left to live on the other coast for three years, when I left without contact for four years… I was searching for assurance. I was looking for my roots. I was searching for a maternal bond. A father figure. I looked for a place to belong. I don’t ever want my daughter to feel like she has to leave to find what should be in our home. I don’t want her to look outside my bedroom right now for attachment and security and connection. I want her to feel in her bones that it is here, it is right next to her at all times. So that she does not become a child and teenager and adult who always leaves to find what is missing from our home. It’s here. I’m here. I will always be right here.
”But the studies…” My husband does this thing where he says very short and simple sentences that sum up all the words and complex explorations and explanations I have in my head. He’s a man of few words, where I’m a woman of many. I write the long form articles, he comes up with the titles. It’s a perfect pairing, like Carl and Ellie from Up. After going on and on about my worries, my fears, my feelings and the studies, he looked at me and said: “Studies don’t raise children.” And just like that, he came up with the title for this piece and the most important reminder for us all in this life-altering season. Studies are useful. They are great resources and identifiers for trends, remarkable connections, risk factors, and issues affecting large, small or specific populations that raise questions, lead discussions and benefit society. As doulas and educators, it’s important to refer to research to lay a foundation upon which we can make recommendations or assist mothers in making informed decisions. However, they are but tools to be used if our gut is not leading, if our compass needs assistance and if we want to educate ourselves on a wider scale. If you feel in your coeur de maman what is best for you, please do that. Listen to it. Give yourself permission to do what you feel is right for you and your family. Unapologetically make decisions based on your child’s needs and your own, not what the world tells you to do. Use studies to help adapt your choice, to help tweak it until it feels perfect.
Studies are useful to identify issues and risks, like the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) from CDC research showing us that 1 in 8 women with a recent live birth experiences symptoms of postpartum depression. This is important information we can use to highlight the prevalence of depression symptoms in new mothers, educate ourselves about the warning signs so we can identify early and treat effectively. But perhaps studies make us more disconnected from our personal decision-making powers and looking to wider populations to help us make choices that aren’t aligned with our heart and our core values, which itself leads to postpartum struggles. Studies tell us that three babies die of SIDS every week in Canada, which can help us be the most informed possible on the risks of SIDS and safe-sleep practices. But can also scare us to a point where we make decisions that put our babies and our families at risk of other things. If I listened to everything I know about SIDS, my baby and I would not co-sleep. But because I listened to my coeur de maman and my baby’s needs, safe co-sleeping has been the fertilizer of my postpartum flowers. The research helped me adjust my co-sleeping to the safest way I can make it work. But it did not change my decision to keep my daughter close. This is what works best for my husband, myself and our baby. Studies should propel us towards education and adaptation, but our instinct and our moral compass should still be leading the way. We have tuned out our internal wisdom and have forgotten how to trust our gut because the masses, the statistics, the media, the numbers, the leading brands, fear-mongering and influence has been so loud. If we find ourselves playing follow-the-leader for major decisions in our lives, our health and our homes, we need to return to ourselves and honour our innate capabilities and knowing. Especially during times that are as important and have a major long-term impact as postpartum.
All babies are different and every birth experience is different, so there is surely no one better to make decisions for a baby than the woman who carried them, birthed them and will raise them. Remember that mothers do what they believe is best for their babies. Even if a mother makes a decision you disagree with or would never make, trust that it’s because she believes in her heart that it is what is best. Mothers don’t go about their day looking for ways to put their children in harm’s way. That’s just not true. Mothers make decisions based on what is best for them and their babies. Studies can help support these decisions, but studies don’t raise kids. Mothers do. Fathers do. Families do. Use studies to educate yourself and to support you as you make informed decisions, but the decision is yours to make. Always listen to your coeur de maman.
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