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30 March, 2010
Of bowels, birth and common sense: staying off your back during delivery
9:01 PM
Sense and Sensibility is hosting the 5th Healthy Birth Blog Carnival, the theme chosen is : Avoid giving birth on your back and follow your body’s urges to push. So I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in!
If you look at the way birth is portrayed in our modern culture, you’d think the only way to give birth is laying flat on your back, with your legs up and some masked OB sitting between your legs yanking the baby out all the while you would be screaming your lungs out and cursing the world for what’s being done to your precious nether parts...
Well, turns out, it's probably the worst way to give birth! The lithotomy position actually narrows the pelvis, crushes your internal organs, decreases your blood circulation and forces you to work against gravity, going uphill, to push your baby out. Now, who on earth had that idea in the first place? Feminists would probably answer that it was the dominantly male medical world that first decided that it would be best for women to give birth that way. Historians may argue it was King Louis the fourteenth, who, wishing to see one of his favourite ladies give birth, asked that the lady be positioned on her back on a bed so he could have a better view... I think it really does not matter who first started this particularly poor habit in modern obstetrics, what matters is that we work to change that perception and help women birth in a more comfortable position, a position that makes sense.
I’ve been reading a fair bit about the fact that obstetrics are not so much based on evidence and science than on habits. The result is that women suffer interventions, poor positions and lack of proper support to suit the needs and comfort of their health practitioners. Many women and women’s health advocates argue that this situation needs to change. Women in labour need not to be submitted to unhealthy positions to suit other people’s comfort. If they were given the space and the right support to birth, chances are the intervention rates and outcomes for these women and their babies would be far better...
Now, what does common sense teach us? One of the analogies I really like, although some might find it kind of gross, is that of the bowel movement. Yes, there is another bodily function that no one likes to talk about, much less think about. Well, if you look closely at the way our body functions, it is much easier to have a proper bowel movement in an upright position. Who would ever think of having a bowel movement while lying down? No one right? Same goes with a baby being born. Newton taught us the importance of GRAVITY: gravity helps bring down whatever needs to come out of our bodies. So proper positioning is crucial when giving birth. Being upright, whether sitting on a birth stool, squatting, using ropes or a hammock to bear the body down, being on all fours and leaning against a bed, a birth ball or a support person, lunging or standing up really rocks! These types of positions can help the pushing stage be shorter, less painful for the mom and most of all, will probably help prevent much damage to the perineum.
The perineum... “Love thy perineum” should be a motto for all birthing women and their attendants... A healthy perineum is essential for a women’s health, even years after giving birth to their children. This bring me to the second point about the pushing stage: why on earth are practitioners still asking women to push before their body starts feeling the urge to push and why are they still advocating for women to forcibly push, using a vasalva maneuver, holding your breath and pushing pushing pushing? Research has proven that this type of pushing is actually bad for moms and their babies. It usually results in a much longer pushing stage, more tears and often leads to distress in the baby which in turn can lead to a caesarean section. Later on there may also be consequences for the mom’s health such haemorrhoids, weak perineum, pain during intercourse, leaks or prolapses.
Once more, common sense shows us how really ridiculous this is. As a biologist, I was privileged to witness a great many births in the natural world, especially in mammals such as ourselves. Why would humans be the only ones that give birth with so much pain and difficulties? It did not make any sense to me. Research has actually demonstrated that the human body does feel the urge to push when the baby is ready, that is when his head has properly molded to fit into the narrow pelvic opening. The head needs time to take the proper shape to slip pass the pubic bone. The perfect fit sometimes takes time... and does not obey any schedules, clocks or other means of timing. Most practitioners do not allow moms that time and forcibly encourage pushing once the mom is dilated to the proverbial 10 centimetres. Dilatation of the cervix is not all that is needed for a baby to be born: other delicate factors come in and should be taken into consideration.
In natural and “normal” birth, once the baby is ready, mom will feel the urge to push. She should be encouraged to go with the flow and as some have dubbed it “breathe baby down”. By using this slower, yet gentler technique, babies will experience less distress and slip out easily. Reminds you of something? Yes, back to the bowel movement. Straining when having a bowel movement is neither healthy nor helpful. It is much easier to just “go with the flow” and let your body (and gravity!) do the work. Straining results in pain, haemorrhoids and other distasteful things. Even when experiencing constipation, sometimes drinking more fluids and giving the body a few more hours will do the trick. In time, the body will resolve the issue. And so does it in birth, once the baby is properly positioned, gently breathing with the body’s urges to bear down will help baby be born without too much stress on the woman’s body, thus preserving the wonderful perineum!
This is really a circle, it brings me back to positioning: to be able to “breathe baby down”, women need to be helped in proper positioning. The upright position will help baby come down using gravity and help mom breath easily. Have you really tried breathing with your chin tucked in your chest? Not that easy right? Opening the chest and lifting the head is much better. And guess what? If mom breathes better, so does baby! Baby needs the oxygen to make his journey a little faster and littler easier.
Navelgazing midwife actually wrote an amazing post about helping a woman who had an epidural give birth sitting upright against the bed. This shows that even if you are hooked up to a electronic foetal monitor and an IV line, you can still find ways to get upright for the pushing stage.
None of this is rocket science; it’s just common sense and proper observation of how human bodies work. Bringing back common sense in labour and delivery rooms may just be what’s needed to get women to birth in a gentler and easier way, sparing lives that may be more endangered by overuse of technology, intervention and operations. “First, do no harm” remember? Technology should remain an exception, when there is clearly a life-threatening situation.
Birth remains a natural event and most women are capable of giving birth naturally if given the time, space and support, otherwise, how would the human species have survived this long?
So... going back to evidence-based science: much of what I lightly described above, including the analogy with the bowel movement, has really been observed, documented and proven by scientific research, so why is it that obstetrics are still the one medical area where the practices are more based on habits that on evidence and science? If I were a conspiracy-prone feminist, I could possibly argue that it’s just another way to rob women of their power in one event where their power is so obvious. So ladies, time to reclaim your birth power! Make sure you and your support team know how to birth in an upright position and enforce your choice with your health practitioners! Old habits can be change as long as a critical mass of change-makers is reached, let us hope that the bad habit of making women give birth in positions that do not suit them will soon disappear...
Photo of the BirthRite Birthing Seat
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25 March, 2010
Reproductive health and foreign aid or when feminism needs to become political
"Canada's 'signature' initiative at June's G8 summit - a strategy to improve the health of mothers and young children in poor countries" will not include family planning programs, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said on Tuesday, the Globe and Mail reports. Cannon said the initiative "does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning. Indeed, the purpose of this is to be able to save lives."
According to the newspaper, "Cannon's statements distressed those who had hoped for some flexibility" with the plan, even though the government had hinted that it might not include family planning provisions.
"Maternal-health advocates worry that the government's desire to steer clear of the abortion issue - and therefore not upset part of its political base - is also pushing it to rule out all other family-planning programs, like distributing contraceptives," the Globe and Mail writes. "I'm very concerned that they're equating family planning with abortion," said Katherine McDonald, executive director of Action Canada for Population and Development.
As read on http://www.news-medical.net
This is what I’ve been reading about the last couple of days. This whole issue triggered much debate on parliament hill and around kitchen tables. Needless to say it was mayhem on the news wires and on blogging platforms… Just thought I’d through in my two cents on this issue.
During the past three years, I have been working on a project that engaged Canadian citizens in a dialogue on foreign policy. And guess what: one of the five areas Canadians wanted their government to lead by example was promoting human development and gender equality:
Well guess what government officials, gender equality starts with giving women the right and means to manage their own reproductive health.Why is reproductive health important? Because you cannot save mothers and babies if you don’t allow women to choose when and how many babies they want. Multiple pregnancies in a short span of time, in conditions where hygiene and safety are not warranted leads to a higher rate of maternal and infant death. Period.
Educating women and giving them the tools to manage their own reproductive health has been proven to improve health outcomes both for them, their children and their communities. It has also been proven over and over that empowering women in that sense results in them becoming change leaders. Women who have the choice and are educated usually manage to improve the lives of their communities.
I think it would be very foolish to follow the footsteps of policies only aiming at promoting “abstinence only” programs. We know that teen pregnancy rates in our western countries have certainly not improved but worsened by choosing abstinence education over other forms of sex-ed. Seriously, you cannot expect abstinence to be the best way to prevent the spread of AIDS or unwanted pregnancies… Or you really have a very rosy and unrealistic view of human nature…
In war-torn countries, women are often subjected to rape on a routine basis, leading to pregnancies that are neither desired neither healthy. Allowing women not to carry the fruit of such traumatic events is essential, even if it goes against the beliefs of well-meaning men on our side of the planet. How hard is it to understand?
You could suspect the Harper government to have something against women and their rights to equality with this type of policy. What worries me more is that the public’s tax dollars may not be used wisely and in line with what the tax-payers actually wish. Yep, you heard me. No need to prorogue parliament once more to avoid this delicate question!
I you care about how Canada spends your tax dollars on foreign aid, write to your member of parliament and let them know how you feel. Reproductive health is a right for women here and there and obscure political agendas should certainly not get in the way.
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23 March, 2010
Post-cesarean birth kits now available at Mama Goddess Birth Shop
I just love their stuff! Their birth kits are pretty amazing and I know for a fact my midwives recommend them a lot. Well, the lovely ladies of Mama Goddess have just put together a post-cesarean birth kit that includes salve for your scar from Earth Mama Angel Baby (great stuff!) and More Milk tea. A lot of mamas may experience some breastfeeding issues post-cesarean and having some of this lovely tea may just ease things a bit.
So a big up to Mama Goddess!
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Baby massage workshop at Lilli'Q café
Hey beautiful mamas! There is a fantastic baby massage workshop at Lilli'Q café in Yaletown on May 7. The workshop was originally scheduled for March 26 but the lovely Evangeline only had 3 people registered.
Baby massage is a great way to bond with your newborn and later on to calm upset tummies or overexcited and tired babies and toddlers. Touch is a very important sense, especially in young children. Massage is a traditional way to engage children in discovering their sense of touch and to nurture them.
Research actually shows that babies that are regularly massaged sleep better and cry less.
If you are interested, go to Lilli'Q Café's website to register for the workshop or drop by the café at 1268 Pacific Blvd. in Yaletown.
"Touching is the first communication a baby receives" Frédéric Leboyer, acclaimed author of Birth without Violence and Loving Hands: The Traditional Art of Baby Massages
More about Baby massage workshops and baby and mama pilates with Evangeline on her website: neomama
Photo of the Lilli'Q café by Erica Miller
19 March, 2010
Healthy birth practices videos and giveaway!
Lamaze and Mother's Advocate have a series of great videos available online on healthy birth practices here :
I really encourage women who are expecting to take a look at these videos. I found them both educational and empowering. Science and Sensibility is actually hosting a giveaway to get a DVD of these videos. If you are a doula or a childbirth educator, these can really help your clients, and since it's not always possible to have an internet connection where you teach, these DVDs could be really helpful.
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18 March, 2010
Share your birth story!
I hate scary birth stories, I really prefer empowering birth stories! I will soon be creating a new page on this site to post great, empowering birth stories from mamas all around, whether they had a natural homebirth or a cesarean birth and everything in between. Please feel free to email me your story to share on this site at birthing.goddess AT gmail.com
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First ICAN meeting in Vancouver
Vancouver now has an ICAN chapter! Yeah for Mieke Bray of the Cesarean Parents Network for her hard work to make this happen! The ICAN chapter met for the first time last night. We explored the different things we could be doing at the next chapter meetings. Topics that will be explored are:
- Recovery issues (talks with yoga teachers and physiotherapists...)
- Making spiritual cesareans a reality in our local maternity wards and improving the outcomes for both moms and babies
- Healing through art
- VBACs (preparing a VBAC and finding a supportive health-care provider)
- Latest research
- Sharing stories
ICAN will be present at the Birth Fest event on April 10th at the Britannia Community Centre
ICAN chapter meetings will be held every third wednesday of the month at the Kiwassa Neighbourhood House on Oxford Street, in the upstairs living-room. Visit ICAN Lower mainland for more info.
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Listening to heal and not proselytizing
Many of us desired a natural, medication and intervention-free childbirth. Turns out, most of us actually experienced at least some degree of intervention during our labour and delivery. As much as I advocate for natural, peaceful births for moms, I also feel it is important to acknowledge that some moms really do need interventions during birth. These women often have very strong feelings about what they had to endure during this crucial moment of their lives and as it is don’t need people nagging at them because they could’ve, should’ve done differently. Birth is journey for everyone and each one of us will learn something from it. Making women feel positive about their births is really important for their health and their babies’.
I really want to point out to this post by Navelgazing midwife where she talks about a mom who was hoping for a VBAC but had to undergo a repeat caesarean that was probably necessary in her case. She describes a “homebirth proselytizer” that made this mom feel bad about her experience. This situation reminds me a lot of people I have met during the course of my involvement in the environmental movement. For them, as for this woman described in the post, everything is back or white and they tend to forget that life is actually mostly in the grey zone. I have noticed that such people actually have a lot of fear and issues of their own that they tend to deal with by trying to be more royalist than the king. Needless to say their efforts are often counterproductive and tend to give a bad image of the movement they so want to put out there.
Many factors come into play during labour and birth and so do they in the environment. We should always keep that in mind when listening to someone else’s birth story. Listening is sometimes a hundredfold more important than giving unwanted advice or criticism. So let us remind ourselves to advocate with heart and not with judgement as each situation may be different. For me the most important thing we should really advocate for is the right for women to CHOOSE. The choice of my friend may be very different from mine, but she nevertheless deserves respect. Her needs may be very different from mine. Where I feel more comfortable giving birth at home, she may feel more comfortable giving birth at the hospital. Let's just celebrate our differences and ensure we both get the safety and the dignity we deserve in birth, whatever the circumstances.
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15 March, 2010
Babywearing do's and dont's and bag-carrier warning
Bag carriers have been linked to suffocation in babies. They were quite trendy when I was pregnant and I actually own a JJ Cole Premaxx bag carrier. A lot of people were buying them at the time because some celebrity had been seen with one.
We hardly ever used ours, Liam prefers being either in the Mei Tei carrier or in the wrap. I actually never figured how to nurse with the bag carrier ! I guess it was all the better for Liam, who spends a lot of time being worn either by me or his dad.
But, babywearing should not be blamed for these deaths. Babywearing has been traditionnaly used to soothe, nurse, carry babies all around the world and actually has a number of benefits for the wee ones. If bag-carriers have been associated with infant-deaths, other means of wearing babies have not and are still very safe to use. As Dou-la-la wrote very sensibly about in her blog, these trendy new carriers may just not have been conceived with baby in mind but more to meet a bottom-line:
So you may as well try a sling designed by a thoughtfull mom instead. There are scores of wonderful options available, with different designs and fabrics. You are sure to find one that will suit you and your baby. Check out our resource section for links to great babywearing gear made by mamas.
The most important thing to recognize is that wearing babies is like everything else: it should be done mindfully and properly. Safety instructions should always be read and followed and common sense should not come as an option! I really loved what Justine at State of the Heart wrote on her blog (emphasis mine):
As much as I feel for the parents who lost their child in such terrible circumstances, I can't help but notice that more and more parents want to rely on "things" to parent their children for them and then lay all the blame on objects or third-parties when something bad happens. I see it as a dangerous trend in our societies. Babies should not be left unsupervised and putting them in a sling or a carrier entails that you actually keep a very watchful eye on them and on their breathing patterns.
Whatever the carrier you choose, babywearing does take some practice at first. Try taking a class to learn all the different and safe ways you can carry your baby, or practice with a soft doll to get a hang of it. At first, have a friend or a partner close by who can check that you are doing it properly. That person can also help you hold baby or reposition baby if needed.
Positioning baby in a ring-sling:
More information about sling safety on Sleeping Baby with some great visuals and links.
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We hardly ever used ours, Liam prefers being either in the Mei Tei carrier or in the wrap. I actually never figured how to nurse with the bag carrier ! I guess it was all the better for Liam, who spends a lot of time being worn either by me or his dad.
But, babywearing should not be blamed for these deaths. Babywearing has been traditionnaly used to soothe, nurse, carry babies all around the world and actually has a number of benefits for the wee ones. If bag-carriers have been associated with infant-deaths, other means of wearing babies have not and are still very safe to use. As Dou-la-la wrote very sensibly about in her blog, these trendy new carriers may just not have been conceived with baby in mind but more to meet a bottom-line:
This is pure opinion on my part, but there's something about all these slings, not just the most notorious Infantino, that bother me, aside from the deeply flawed design. It seems to me that these are inauthentic slings at the core. What the heck do I mean by that vagueness? My gut feeling is that these particular brands were created in a response to a trend, without much if any real research, and without a fundamental belief in babywearing as a practice. I don't think Eddie Bauer executives happened to be reading Dr. Sears and decided to start promoting attachment parenting tools; I don't think Boppy was out for anything more than another product in a different aisle of Babies R Us. I think these companies saw a growing number of consumers purchasing Maya ring slings and Mei Tais and Moby wraps, not to mention the burgeoning legions of WAHMs putting their own lovingly created wares up on etsy, and they decided to try to get in on the action.
So you may as well try a sling designed by a thoughtfull mom instead. There are scores of wonderful options available, with different designs and fabrics. You are sure to find one that will suit you and your baby. Check out our resource section for links to great babywearing gear made by mamas.
The most important thing to recognize is that wearing babies is like everything else: it should be done mindfully and properly. Safety instructions should always be read and followed and common sense should not come as an option! I really loved what Justine at State of the Heart wrote on her blog (emphasis mine):
By all means, let’s please include warnings that your sling is a parenting tool, not a replacement for common sense and observation…but saying that no one should ever use a sling is NOT a reasonable recommendation on the part of the CPSC or Consumer Reports. Shame on them.
As much as I feel for the parents who lost their child in such terrible circumstances, I can't help but notice that more and more parents want to rely on "things" to parent their children for them and then lay all the blame on objects or third-parties when something bad happens. I see it as a dangerous trend in our societies. Babies should not be left unsupervised and putting them in a sling or a carrier entails that you actually keep a very watchful eye on them and on their breathing patterns.
Whatever the carrier you choose, babywearing does take some practice at first. Try taking a class to learn all the different and safe ways you can carry your baby, or practice with a soft doll to get a hang of it. At first, have a friend or a partner close by who can check that you are doing it properly. That person can also help you hold baby or reposition baby if needed.
Positioning baby in a ring-sling:
More information about sling safety on Sleeping Baby with some great visuals and links.
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11 March, 2010
Tuba City, Arizona: lessons in safe hospital birth
The New York Times just ran a story about what is happening in rural Arizona, where women are given the space and time to birth their babies, resulting in healthier outcomes both for moms and kids. In Tuba City, Arizona, the local hospital is not run in the way most hospitals are run in the US. The hospital is run by the Navajo Nation and is federally insured against malpractice, lessening the fears of lawsuits for doctors, nurses and anaesthesiologists. Doctors earn a fixed salary, and are not paid according to the procedures. Practitioners live close-by in case of an emergency so there is no need to “rush” moms during labor. The hospital provides an environment for women to give birth in a safe way. The results are there: Tuba City has one of the lowest rate of caesarean births in the country and one of the highest rates of VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean).
At the Tuba City hospital, most births are attended by nurse-midwives, who usually have a track record of fewer interventions. It was really nice to read a mainstream media article that actually stressed that fact and stressed the need for hospitals that provide safe environments for women.
Giving birth without being ill-treated by overworked personnel, rushed into operating rooms by doctors who are in a hurry to get to their golf game or forced into uncomfortable birth positions because of liability issues is a right that women should fight for. Giving birth is not a medical emergency except for very rare cases. Women should and must be allowed to give birth in a safe, secure way, in a way where their integrity and dignity are respected. Birth should not be portrayed as a catastrophe in waiting or as a necessary trauma.
In Navajo country, the article states that:
Birth is a joyous affair here, and the entire family — from children to great-grandparents — often go to the delivery room. [...] As a result, many young women have already seen children born by the time they become pregnant, and birth seems natural to them, not frightening.
I think we should all learn something from the Navajo way: there is an alternative to the way we treat birth today. For those who don’t want the “granola-eating-tree-hugging” sort of birth as some view homebirth, hospital birth should be just as safe, peaceful and fulfilling. Most important, birth attendants should always have the mother’s and baby’s health and interest in mind, not their own...
Photo by: Facerock productions
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2 March, 2010
The big sleep issue... tips and tricks for the sleep-deprived mama
Yes, every mama out there has heard the dreaded question: “is he/she a nice baby, does he/she sleep through the night?”, starting as early as a few days after she gave birth to her little bundle of joy.
When you become a parent, sleep can quickly become an obsession: is the baby sleeping enough or too much? Where and how should the baby sleep? Are we getting enough sleep as parents? What is the minimal number of hours of sleep you need to properly function during the day? And so on and so on. The first weeks, you get into a routine of waking up a night several times to feed your little one. After a few months, it’s a whole other story, the expectations of the outside world grow and it can become very challenging for young parents to deal with the mounting concern from family, friends and well-meaning relatives who all have something to say about their baby’s sleep.
It is time for parents to stop making excuses for the way their baby sleeps. Yes, it may be teething, or the fact that the baby is learning a lot of things and sometimes needs to “rehearse” his newly acquired skills at night, or it may be constipation, or gassiness or whatever else. It really doesn’t matter. Your baby is a unique little person and perhaps, well, he or she may not sleep soundly for 12 hours. There is no need to feel like a failure, like some parents have come to feel. Most babies eventually will sleep through the night.
Before you go running off to some “sleep expert”, here are some tips we’ve learned from having a baby with very funky sleep patterns and from sometimes being on the brink of exhaustion and feeling like we were total failures:
- Stop comparing your baby to others, it is very likely some parents actually lie about their kid’s sleep. It’s only natural to want your baby to “look good” and to sometimes exaggerate their abilities...Chances are, that mom who looks really great and keeps telling everyone her baby sleeps soooo well (you know the one!), well, chances are she is probably wearing as much concealer as you are to hide those dark circles, and chances are, her baby probably wakes up as much as yours for the all-night milky bar! I remember being on the brink of explosion after our family had once more compared our 6 months-old son who woke up routinely once or twice at night to feed to his cousin, three weeks older, who slept 12 hours straight... Well it's OK to tell people to let it go! Trust me, I wished I had done it sooner!
- Don’t have too many expectations about sleep. Some babies sleep really well the first few months before hitting some hurdles due to teething, new acquisitions or something else. Some babies have a rocky sleep routine from the start, some will have crazy nursing sessions 5 times a night and some won’t. Everyone is different! Just like adults have very different sleep patterns and habits, babies are individuals with their own rhythms. What works for one baby does not necessarily work for another. Even siblings can be very different sleep-wise!
- Remember that babies actually “sleep through the night” if they’ve had stretches of 5 or 6 hours of sleep. If you go to bed a lot later than he/she does, than yes, his/her “night” may be over when yours is just starting...
- Try turning off the TV. Sometimes too much stimulations prevents baby from going to sleep.
- Try moving your baby’s sleep routine to an earlier time. We used to put our son to sleep at 8PM, since we moved his bedtime to 6:30-7:00, he sleeps a lot better.
- Watch for cues: babies will rub their eyes or sometime go through a period of crazy-hyperactive state, that’s usually a sign that they’re exhausted, it’s time for some down-time like reading stories and getting ready for the night.
- Keep the same routine (yeah, I know, that’s a hard one), all the books say the same thing and actually it really helps to have some sort of routine even if from time to time you don’t respect it.
- Wear baby in the day. I cannot stress how much babywearing is part of our everyday life. There are so many advantages to wearing your tiny one! And Dr Sears is actually right about that one. Our son goes to sleep a lot easier if he’s been worn during the day. Sometimes if he has a hard time going to sleep, his daddy will wear him for a bit and that usually does the trick! I wear him a lot during the day, it allows me to get things done around the house and it’s a great way to get around without lugging a huge stroller around (especially on the bus, where strollers take up a lot of space...)
- From time to time, instead of nursing baby to sleep, try having him spend some time tummy to tummy with Daddy. Our son loves going to sleep on his Dad, it must date back to his first few days when he would sleep most of his night on Dad’s chest between nursing sessions.
- Organize sleep shifts if sleeping really becomes an issue. We have a bed in the office and one of us sometimes goes there to sleep part of the night before taking over early in the morning so the other adult can get some rest. It works out ok and there are plenty of other times to be intimate without baby there...
- If crazy nursing sessions are the problem, consider co-sleeping. It may help you get some rest while feeding baby. (And no, feeding him/her more food, solid or not, before going to sleep does not make any difference, it may just make the baby more uncomfortable because of digestion issues!) Try taking naps during the day or learn how to train your body to recuperate with micro-naps like sailors do.
- Remember: this is a little mammal, and not sleeping through the night at an early age is actually a survival skill, our society’s expectations aren’t...
And yes, we all have dark circles at some point! Try some frozen green-tea bags to get rid of the puffiness! And yes, from time to time it’s perfectly ok to wander around the house in your PJs at 4 in the afternoon... Just put a sign on the door to ask visitors to please come back another day! Have a good laugh about it and remember your little one will outgrow this stage at some point and before long you will be worrying because the baby is now a teenager and is sleeping until noon because of too much party last night... Become a professional procrastinator, some things can just wait for another day and the fate of humanity will not be worse! (except if you are a biologist working on some crazy cancer cure or something of the sort...)
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