The Mule

If you gave birth recently, did you feel you had real freedom? Freedom to choose where you gave birth, who was present, what interventions took place and how you delivered your baby? Were you given access to all of the facts needed to make your choices truly informed? Who was the most powerful person in the room at the moment of birth? And did the experience leave you feeling exhilarated, disappointed, or downright traumatised? These questions are currently being considered on behalf of all mothers as part of a global movement to ‘take back birth’ and reclaim women’s power in the birth place. ‘The freedom in a country can be measured by the freedom of birth’, states Agnes Gereb , the midwife currently imprisoned in Hungary and held up as ‘the epitome of the very worst of what’s happening in birth today’ by the makers of Freedom for Birth , a UK based film about human rights in childbirth to be globally screened on September 20th. Over in the US, where caesarian rates are more tha...

People make different parenting choices, and that's fine. We don't all want to sleep with our baby in our bed, carry them in a sling, or nurse them until they're three. We might not like the idea of routines, we might despise the thought of spoon feeding a baby purees. But whilst these issues are often a source of interesting and sometimes heated debate, none of them really matter, or at least, they pale into insignificance compared to the bottom line, which is this: Parents need to be Responsive . No matter what other choices you make, as long as you try your best to be consistently and lovingly responsive to your child, you are 'getting it right'. Tantrums - which mostly happen at the toddler age - are a difficult area for all parents and it's sometimes hard to know what to do. But how we respond to our children in these testing moments is very important. I've written a detailed post about responding to distress in general here: Everybody Hurts: Ten Ways...

This article is on the front page of today's Huffington Post . (16th August 2012) What did you learn about breastfeeding in school? Chances are - not much. Whether you were a pupil in the 1950's or the 1990's, it's unlikely you were told anything at all about nursing a baby, because breastfeeding has never ever been a statutory requirement on the National Curriculum, and it still isn't, even today. Teenagers are taught about alcohol, emotions, contraception, cultural diversity and more as part of their PSHE lessons. But breastfeeding? Telling girls how to do that is dangerous and downright disgusting, according to many commenters in this recent article in the Daily Mail about a pilot scheme in Merseyside teaching the benefits of nursing to 14 year olds. Revolting!! Don't teach them how to read and write but teach them how to breastfeed...ye Gods. Teach them how to respect themselves, how to say NO and how to keep their legs closed, along with teaching them ...

For the past few weeks I've been trying to put together a post for World Breastfeeding Week about the various obstacles that women have overcome in order to breastfeed. I had a vision that I could somehow catalogue the stories in a series of posts so that they could be easily found in Google by others with the same issue or struggle. I've been asking you to send me your stories, and as I've been reading them, my original idea for the post has been eclipsed by what seems to me to be a far bigger and more pressing concern. Because what's emerging from your stories is that, whilst many women have various initial difficulties getting breastfeeding established, the most common and recurring theme , and no doubt the great big problem that's making breastfeeding difficult or even impossible for many women is simply a shocking level of ill informed, outdated and downright bad advice , often from the very professionals who are supposed to be helping and promoting breast...

I'm extremely excited to announce that I have been asked to edit a book - Water Birth: Stories to Inspire and Inform , to be published by Lonely Scribe . For me, the chance to immerse myself in a subject that I am so very passionate about, coupled with the fact that at the end of the process I will hold my book in my hands...well, it just couldn't get any better! The book will be about nine or ten months in the gestational stage, then spend it's fourth trimester with the publisher, so we are hoping to introduce it to the world around about July 2013. I'll obviously be blogging about the process along the way, and hopefully readers of The Mule will be able to help me out, as I am looking for stories of birth involving water. I'm hoping that the book will offer a wide variety of stories from different perspectives and serve to educate and inspire readers about the use and benefits of water during labour and delivery. This might be - a classic home or hospital ...

To get us in the mood for World Breastfeeding Week 2012 , I'm offering the chance to win a free copy of a wonderful new book on breastfeeding: Breastfeeding - Stories to Inspire and Inform , edited by Susan Last and published by Lonely Scribe . To enter all you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post - more details at the end of this review. Susan Last is a breastfeeding peer supporter and the mother of three breastfed children. The book begins with her informed and thoughtful introduction, in which she writes very cleverly and concisely about the politics of breastfeeding, it's value, and the main myths that surround it in our current society. The rest of the book is filled with over twenty women's stories of their breastfeeding experiences, and offers a wide and fascinating variety, from nursing a premature baby, to twins, to tandem feeding, and many more. In every tale, the women write passionately of both struggles and triumphs, of what helped, and what didn...

Back in March I wrote a post about products that sexualise our children, and shared a few thoughts and images of makeup, bras and slutty fairies that I had noticed being marketed towards my four year old daughter. If you are interested and want to know more about why I think 'stuff matters', please take a look at the original post: Dolled Up: Products That Sexualise Our Children You might also like to read this article about new research that shows that girls as young as 6 are associating tight and revealing clothes with popularity and already aspire to copy this look: Huffington Post: Why Six Year Old Girls Want to be Sexy Today in leading UK retailer Monsoon I discovered a whole range of high heeled shoes that start in a size 8, and would therefore fit my 4 year old daughter. Monsoon are a fairly 'conservative' shop; their clothes usually have a vintage and old fashioned feel, so it seems doubly surprising that they would choose to market products of this nat...