Best Beginnings for your Baby and You

Woodhouse Sarah

Description

Best Beginnings for your Baby and You provides a bridge of understanding and trust between expectant and new parents and all perinatal professionals who care for them - during what can be a very exciting but a difficult and demanding time. During the earliest years the traits of kindness, playfulness, sensitivity, generosity, compassion, 'goodness' and trust are built indelibly into your child's life forever. This book draws from outstanding initiatives worldwide to heal and protect children from early harmful influences and experiences.It is also designed to help parents everywhere to feel less alone, and to encourage them to share with other parents what they have learnt. Accompanied by pictures, shared stories and experiences to remind us that we are all in this together, doing our best to be the best parents that we can be.

Sujets

• Pregnancy

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 23 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838599348
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 Sarah Woodhouse
The moral right of the author has been asserted. Logo, cover design and typesetting by Rebecca Maun
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
The information and advice presented in this e-book has been reviewed and approved by medical doctors and childcare professionals. It should not, however, substitute for the advice of your own doctor or trained healthcare professional. You are advised to consult with them with regard to all matters that may require medical attention or diagnosis. The publisher and author specifically disclaim any responsibility for any risk which may be claimed or incurred as a consequence of the practice of anything presented in this book.
See www.right-from-the-start.org for details of further Right from the Start books, products and parent support.
Matador Unit E2 Airfield Business Park Harrison Road Market Harborough Leicestershire LE16 7UL Tel: [phone] Email: [e-mail] Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador Twitter: @matadorbooks
ISBN 978 1838599 348
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
This book is dedicated to Emma Barlow, whose loving energy, joy and vision inspired me to start writing.
Her faith and courage shone out for all who knew her.
She died on 22 January 2003 aged thirty-two.
Right from the Start’s logo of the Dolphin and Child comes from the 18 foot bronze statue by David Wynne on London’s Chelsea Embankment, by the River Thames.
The child and dolphin playing together symbolises the trust, love, adventure and sense of unity in all creation which each of us should be able to understand and enjoy – and share with each other – from earliest childhood to the end of our lives.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. THE PEACE OF THE WORLD BEGINS WITH BABIES
Babies are the seeds of life, belonging to us all
Parents, especially mums, hold up the sky for their children
Our world of rapid changes and uncertainties
A strong community around you
Conceiving your baby
Serious choices to think about…
Unexplained infertility
2. I’M PREGNANT! WHAT AM I FEELING?
Feelings and intuition
What’s going on in your head and your heart?
Imagining your own birth journey
First memories
What are you eating these days?
3. WHAT HELP AND ENCOURAGEMENT DO YOU NEED?
Now it’s your health and happiness which matter most!
Putting yourself first
Ways to help yourself
HOW HERBS, HOMEOPATHY, AROMATHERAPY AND FLOWER REMEDIES CAN HELP YOU AND YOUR BABY
Herbs
Homeopathy and aromatherapy
Flower remedies
5. DADS ARE NEEDED FROM DAY ONE
The provide-and-protect instinct
No dad around?
Being there for the birth
Learning together
Sharing your baby
What kind of dad do you want to be?
6. YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR HEART
Your baby’s brain and how it develops
Growth spurts in your baby’s brain
There is also a brain in your heart!
Your heart and electromagnetic energy
7. TIME IN THE WOMB
The amazing pace and order of your baby’s development
There is a gymnast inside!
All the senses coming to life
Your unborn baby’s memory, intelligence and understanding
8. MAKING CHOICES FOR YOUR BABY’S BIRTH
How can I have the best possible birth?
Who will be there to support you before, during and after the birth?
There are lots of things that work better than drugs!
Finding out about your own birth
9. WHERE WILL MY BABY SLEEP?
Let’s spend the night together
Checking out the physical risks of bed sharing
Checking out the lifestyle risks of bed sharing
Co-sleeping bedside cribs, the best alternative
Introducing the Bednest
The many, special benefits of sleeping close
You can’t touch a baby who is out of reach!
Other cribs and cots
10. THE BIRTH
Your intuition
Your hormones – oxytocin, endorphins, adrenaline
What does your baby need most?
The Magic Window – touch and closeness
11. BREASTFEEDING
Your baby knows best
The Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative
To make life as easy as possible for every mum
Things to understand
12. AFTER THE BIRTH
Recovery
Go walkabout… talkabout
Loving touch matters all our lives
Just watch!
Kangaroo care and closeness
13. BABYWEARING – PLEASE CARRY ME!
Your baby longs to be carried
The best solution is babywearing
14. VALUABLE BABY-CALMING SKILLS FOR NEW PARENTS
‘Talking’ to your newborn baby
Watch, mirror and respond
The Thumping Heel Sway
Calming your screaming baby
15. IS YOUR BABY’S CRYING STILL A BIG WORRY?
Why does my baby cry so much?
Screaming fits
Never, never, ever smack or shake your baby
16. YOUR SPIRIT AND YOUR SOUL
Electromagnetic energy
The energy of love
Your spirit is the energy of your soul
APPENDICES
1. Protecting your baby’s health in the womb
2. Obesity and Childbirth
3. Recovering from a Hard Birth
4. ‘Baby Blues’ and Postnatal Depression
5. Born Disabled
6. Abortion
7. What If my baby dies?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Helplines
Organisations that can help you
Helpful books
Music to help you and your baby calm down and sleep
Products
Acknowledgements
Many people have been involved in the planning and drafting of this book, some people perhaps without knowing it.
For their extraordinary knowledge, wisdom and humanity and the support and encouragement they have given me, my deepest gratitude must go to Dr Joseph Chilton Pearce, Dr Frank Lake, Nim Barnes at Foresight and Anna Verwaal. Special thanks to Anna – midwife, birth educator and birth photographer – for her sensitive and intimate sepia photographs.
The brilliant minds and loving energy of these people have motivated and taught me so much over many years as the Helping Parents Shine – Right from the Start project developed, and this book was being drafted.
Warmest gratitude to Maggie Howell whose birth preparation support and natal hypnotherapy gives such comfort to mothers. And to Dr Rosie Knowles who set up and runs the Sheffield Sling Surgery. Her advice and help in drafting the chapter on babywearing and providing the photographs for this chapter have been outstanding.
I am warmly indebted to Sheila Kitzinger, Andrew Chevalier, Phillipa Howell (Homeopath), Melanie Cook, Harvey Karp and Margo Sunderland for their stimulation and help. I would like to thank Sheila Kitzinger in particular for her original permission to draw anything from her book, Being Born , including some of the photographs of a baby’s development in the womb by Lennart Nilsson.
I thank the Brain Gym® Foundation UK for permission to describe some simplified Brain Gym® exercises in Chapter 3 . Warm thanks to Claire Dolby for her sensitive and personal story, ‘The Birth and Death of My Baby’ in Appendix 7 .
I have also drawn gratefully from the research findings of Jaak Panksepp, Alan Stone, Joseph E. LeDoux and Christopher Walsh at the Boston Children’s Hospital.
Perhaps most importantly, my heartfelt thanks must go to all the parents, grandparents, midwives, health visitors, family friends, neighbours and generous strangers who shared their experiences, their feelings and their hopes with me. Their stories and descriptions are what truly bring this book to life and make it a shared endeavour.
Special thanks also to Deirdre Youngs and Patrick Tomlinson for their editing expertise. Deirdre has been a matchless adviser and co-author as well as editor. Her continuous, loyal support and involvement throughout have been a source of creative inspiration and joy to me. Final and warm gratitude also to Noёl Riley and Caroline Bushell for their devoted efforts to perfect and polish the manuscript and bring it all together so well.
Sarah Woodhouse
Introduction
If we hope to create
a non-violent world
where respect and kindness
replace fear and hatred
We must begin
with how we treat each other
at the beginning of life.
For that is where
our deepest patterns are set.
From these roots
grow fear and alienation
– or love and trust.
Suzanne Arms
I DIDN’T KNOW ANY BABIES WHEN I WAS GROWING UP!
More people than ever before go through their own childhood without ever holding a baby in their arms or helping a toddler walk and talk. This can be a disadvantage when you find yourself expecting your first child.
This Best Beginnings book is for reading before your child is born, ideally before or as soon as you conceive. Keep it nearby so you can re-read any part of it which you feel might help you. Share those pages with your midwife and someone close to you.

I can’t imagine what it would be like having a baby to think about all the time, every single day. I mean, I wouldn’t know where to start. It could drive you mad!
Karen

Best Beginnings for Your Baby and You is a friendly, comforting, ‘stand-in’ when you need it and there is no one close by to help you.
This book is full of pictures, shared stories and experiences to remind us that we are all in this together, doing our best to be good parents, needing to learn from each other and help each other. This puts into perspective, and helps us cope with, those difficulties which life may throw at us.
This book is not just for expectant and new parents, grandparents and helpful and friendly neighbours. It is also for midwives and health visitors in training or at work and everyone else involved in any way with mothers and their babies from the