The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
I was hanging laundry and heard a loud noise behind me. Realized it was the bees in the asparagus! They can't get enough of those little flowers.
All would be fabulous in the garden if it weren't for the rabbits. You'd think with a dog and a mostly feral cat (he kills an average of four squirrels a week!), we'd be good. But no.
I need a fence. Or rather, fences. The squashes are getting ravaged, the lettuce is a mere shadow of its former self. If they touch my beans…
On to our links!
- This post about this little girl with many special needs (including Chiari Malformation, which Bridget also had, without Clare's other issues) has two features to recommend it: 1. Clare's cheerful smile, and 2. good tips on how to help a family of a child who needs extended medical care. Even with my limited experience, I can attest to how exhausting it is to be at the hospital that is almost certainly not close to home — how hungry you get, how anxious, how sleep-deprived.
- A super-fun activity for kids: build your own epic marble-run! Is it raining where you are? Is it winter for our down-under readers? Kids just need a project? DO THIS.
- While you are sitting by the pool, sipping your iced beverage, you can be thinking educational thoughts — that is, thoughts about education. Just as we need Sunday to gain perspective over the works of the weekdays, raising our eyes beyond the horizon long enough to see who we are and why we are working so hard, so we need a break from school to think about what our goals are. This short essay by Joseph Pearce can give us some criteria about the kind of education we want for our children. Obviously, we want to read “Great Books” — but a “Great Books Curriculum” might not be the best kind of education there is.
“The Great Conversation adds the gravity of Tradition to the study of the Great Books, allowing the ancients into the conversation with their modern counterparts, thereby enfranchising all generations, born and unborn, into the convivial communion of the Great Conversation that continually animates the life of civilized man.”
- This article by Anne Maloney is a must read. We refuse to teach our children self control, we refuse to protect them, and then we wonder why they are so wounded. (Perhaps we are wounded too, living as we are with a “legacy” of libertine living.)
- An interesting study on the effect of telling a woman that her baby is “too big.”
“In summary, we found that while only 20% of women with SLBs [Suspected Large Babies] go on to have a baby weighing 4,000 grams or more, the suspicion of a large baby is independently associated with greater use of perinatal interventions that are currently not indicated for fetal macrosomia and may themselves confer unnecessary risks to women and their neonates. Maternity providers may not be aware of the impact of communicating fetal size concerns to patients on their perceptions about the likely course of labor and delivery and the need for certain perinatal interventions. Future studies are needed to review current policies and practices surrounding clinical management of pregnancies with suspected large babies, which will hopefully lead to the development of guidelines that ensure that women with SLBs experience care that reflects the best current evidence and standards.” [emphasis mine] [editor's comment: how about doing our best to encourage a woman to trust that her body was made for this job and it's very unlikely — statistically speaking — that she will need drastic intervention to birth her child.]
From the archives:
- For Independence Day, make this day about more than flag-themed desserts — we need to teach our children what we are celebrating! Practical civics through partying!
- Related to the Anne Maloney piece, above: What C. S. Lewis made me think about.
- And this: Standards and solidarity: Ten ways to give your child the gift of purity.
~We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~
Diana says
The fetal macrosomia thing drives me nuts. A few years ago, an acquaintance of mine was told that she was going to have a “huge” baby, and that they needed to do an early c-section (at 37 weeks) to “save the baby,” who would certainly be far too big to survive the birth process. Um, yeah. Baby turned out to be just shy of the seven pound mark. There are so many scare tactics used on women in today’s birth culture, and it’s so disappointing to watch it play out time after time.
Thanks for these great articles – I have several open in tabs to read later!! 🙂
Mrs. B. says
I am convinced that doctors do these things having law suits in mind, with the unspoken assumption that women “want” one child or two, so they feel they don’t have to worry about long-term consequences. Starting your “birthing career” with an unnecessary c-section is an awful situation for a mother who is open to life.
Terri says
Your garden looks charming–sorry about the bunnies. My dogs apparently hate rabbits and keep our yard clear of them. The downside is that occasionally we hear screaming bunnies. 🙁 At least the squirrels don’t scream, right?
Thanks for the great links.
Becky says
I was repeatedly told how my 3rd child would be quite large. Admittedly, I had soundly been unable to birth my 2nd child via VBAC for a variety of reasons. One of them was that she was 2 pounds larger than my 1st child (still a rather reasonably 9 lb 2 oz). I also had the distinct thought, midway through labor, that something just wasn’t right. We later discovered that Megan had never actually engaged with the birth canal, among other things.
I had gestational diabetes in my 3rd pregnancy (much to everyone’s shock) and between that and my 2nd baby, it wasn’t completely unreasonable to expect a larger 3rd baby. BUT! I kept telling the OB that this baby just didn’t feel as big. I could feel Megan pressing against my upper ribcage in ways this baby just didn’t. I kept being assured that this was merely a function of things getting more roomy with each pregnancy. My OB was quite willing to wait until I actually went into labor to preform the c-section but was firm about me needing a c-section, in part because of the presumed size of the baby. I went into hard, fast labor and I had the distinct thought that something felt quite right and that I was quite certain that I *could* birth this baby.
Noah was 7lb, 7 oz, was fully engaged, and was extremely close to being pushed out via what my body was just doing, when he was born via c-section.
In short, there is something to be said for trusting and affirming a woman’s intuition.
Rebekka says
My first was assessed as big, both by palpating and by ultrasound. As late as in the delivery room they had her at 4000g. She was born with ventouse at 38+5 and 3250g. When I was pregnant with my second I said “I measure large, aim low”. She popped out on her own at 4200g, 8 days past due. I suspect it helped that I wasn’t in the US!
April L. says
I’m so thankful for the midwife during my most recent pregnancy. She told me the day before I went into labor (8 days past my due date) that she expected baby to be about 9 pounds (I had previously birthed a 7lb7oz baby and my second was 8lb12oz). I said, “Oh my…don’t tell me that!” And she said, “Oh, you can totally birth a big baby. You’ll be fine!” Keep in mind I’m 5 foot nothing. That baby came out weighing 10 pounds, healthy as can be, and I didn’t even tear. Though I will say her size made labor quite long (25 hours), but because I had a wonderful, patient, competent midwife who trusted my body, everything was fine.
Anne says
I actually had a large baby…2 of them. Being that I was 9 lbs. 11 oz. and 23.25 inches long and my ex was 8 lbs. 8 oz, we knew our chances of having a nice small baby were as good as a snowball’s chance of surviving in Phoenix, Arizona.
I was past my due date with my daughter…and ended up having a section in labour because of labour not progressing, and my contractions breaking down. I was coming up on 48 hours in labour and no progress…she was stuck at -1 and not budging, no way, no how. When she was born, she was 10 lbs. 5 oz and 23.5 inches long. Her head was HUGE…and my family has large heads. She was head down, but face up…also made for painful labour.
My son was a scheduled section, one week before his due date. He was head down, face up (yay)…huge round head. And 9 lbs. 11 oz.
If I had smaller babies with footballs instead of soccer balls for noggins, I’d likely be in the camp of having normal deliveries. But…such was not my case.
I’m sharing this because there are those of us out there who do have large babies…and who do need “drastic intervention.” While I wish I could have delivered naturally…I am also thankful that I live in a country (Canada in my case) where I have access to interventions that gave me live births. We forget how fragile life is…and we take for granted so much that childbirth always = a living healthy baby and mum.
Leila says
Anne, the point of the post is not that interventions are not sometimes needed, but that big babies can be delivered normally as a matter of course and — and this is important! — that telling a mother that her baby is big and she may not be able to give birth normally can lead to an increased need for intervention.
1. The baby might not be as big as the practitioner thinks (there are margins of error in measurements).
2. As we all know, the mother’s psychological state makes a big difference in how her body reacts to childbirth. Frightening her is not necessarily the best way to go.
3. Steps can be taken later on in the process. The study is suggesting that the determination that “the baby is too big” be made at a more propitious time.
Becky G says
I had a third trimester ultrasound because my practitioners were concerned that my baby was too small (I was exposed to fifth’s disease while pregnant and measured small for the second half of my pregnancy)…then I was told that the margin of error for estimating weight in third trimester ultrasounds was plus or minus 1-2 POUNDS (this was 3 years ago, so maybe things have changed)! So, they tell you they are estimating 7 pounds, which means your baby will be anywhere from 5 to 9 pounds. So….somewhere between tiny and large. Uhhhhh…thanks for the info? In most cases, this would be useless information. Not to say that ultrasound technology doesn’t have it’s uses, but Moses smell the roses, this is just silly. By the way, my baby was fine, coming in at 6 pounds 7 ounces of healthy, rosey, goodness.
Annie says
My midwife did everything she could to not let me know I was going to birth a large baby. My three previous had been 9lb 3oz, 9lb 1oz, and 8lb, 10oz. I was kinda insulted when she kept referring to #4 as large, so I insisted that she be weighed before I began nursing her. 10lb, 2oz! I was shocked! The labor was hard, but lasted only 4 hours and no tearing. I was so grateful to have been in the dark while labor was going on. Ignorance is bliss! And now that I look back at pictures, it was so obvious that I was going to have a huge baby, but thankfully I wasn’t looking at them then. It was a powerful lesson to me of a midwife’s wisdom and the providence of a loving Heavenly Father.
Shari says
Thanks for the marble run idea. I organised my husband to organise to do it for his father/son group at church. 😊
Anel says
Dear Leila. The Joseph Pearce article was very interesting. Those older philosophers are all but forgotten. And people don’t know where many of the bad ideas come from! I wish there was somewhere one could go for a quick reference when touching on topics like these with one’s friends/colleagues. Something like: this is what Mao said, Marx said, Nietzsche said, Rossouw said, More said, Aquinas said, Aristotle said, Socrates said, Plato said [and many more], even what Jesus said. You know, the gist of their philosophy.. however incomplete that might be. Even only to trigger a need to know more. Education in general and curricula at school is so without depth. Everything dangling in thin air..
About your garden: lovely. I want to know how you keep the bugs/fruit flies out of your pear/apple trees.. Here, if one does not spray pesticide, almost all fruit would be larvae invested. Not to speak of the birds who take their lion’s share..! But, randomly, figs and grapes rarely are bug infested. Any wisdom you wish to part with in that department?
Thanks
Leila says
Well, there’s always Wikipedia! Seriously, sometimes you just need a little summary 🙂 However, from there you can simply read many of these “great authors” to know what they say. Some, not so much (hello, Kant).
I don’t spray my trees, because I don’t know how/can’t wrap my mind around it. Some years are better than others. I usually cut out the bad parts and make sauce with the rest. This year, however, there will be no pears 🙁 Frost got them.
Anel says
So sorry to hear about your pears!!
Well, one needs to know how certain people buggered up the world… Kant gets quoted so regularly… so one needs a counter argument.
Wikipedia, here I come
Anamaria says
Frederick Copleston (sp?) has decent intros and Mary Warnock is excellent for the existentialists (even funny!), if you want to go more in depth. And Kevin Hart for postmodernism.
Mary says
My experience was different. With my third baby, I knew he was big. About two weeks before his due date, he projected birth weight was greater than nine pounds. But my doctor felt no need to intervene. I was ready to go, so he induced when the baby was due. I labored normally, and there was some intervention but less than with my first baby. My third child weighed 11 lbs. 10 oz. and was delivered naturally with no complications. I feel very blessed. He is a joy, and as his doctor has expressed is “just a big kid.”