Latest / MyMaine Birth / 166. MyMaine Birth: Babywearing, bonding, and trusting your instincts, Mary's Maine Birth story

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166. MyMaine Birth: Babywearing, bonding, and trusting your instincts, Mary's Maine Birth story · MyMaine Birth

• 0:00
  Mary: Even though like labor was it had its frustrating and scary moments, like her actually the the final, you know, birth was of course the most incredible indescribable feeling of my life.
• 0:19
  Mary: Like I it still like brings me to tears if I if I spend too much time thinking about it.
• 0:26
  Mary: Just it was so so magical.
• 0:32
  Angela: I'm Angela, and I'm a certified birth photographer, experienced doula, childbirth educator, and your host here on the My Maine Birth podcast.
• 0:41
  Angela: This is a space where we share the real life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine.
• 0:49
  Angela: From our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births, every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated.
• 0:58
  Angela: Whether you're a state-to-be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you.
• 1:06
  Angela: Hey everyone, hey everyone, welcome to episode 166 of My Main Birth.
• 1:14
  Angela: Before we dive into today's conversation, I want to share a little bit about my own early days as a mom.
• 1:20
  Angela: When I was 21 with my first baby, I knew absolutely nothing about babies.
• 1:27
  Angela: The pediatrician had told me to let him cry it out and to not let him nap on me.
• 1:32
  Angela: So I did.
• 1:34
  Angela: I would stand outside his door while he cried in his crib for naps, and I would cry right there along with him, but I didn't pick him up.
• 1:42
  Angela: I thought I was doing the right thing because that's what the doctor had told me to do.
• 1:47
  Angela: Looking back, it breaks my heart.
• 1:51
  Angela: I wish I had known then what I know now.
• 1:54
  Angela: That's why I'm so excited to bring on Mary from Mainly Baby Wearing today.
• 1:58
  Angela: She's here to share her own main birth story and to talk about the beauty and benefits of baby wearing.
• 2:06
  Angela: How it supports bonding, helps babies feel secure, regulates their nervous system, and makes those early days feel so much more connected and manageable.
• 2:17
  Angela: It's such a gentle, intuitive way to parent that feels so much more natural than some of the rigid advice that I received when I was a new parent.
• 2:25
  Angela: So here is my conversation with Mary.
• 2:29
  Angela: Hello, Mary.
• 2:32
  Angela: Welcome to My Main Birth.
• 2:33
  Angela: Hi, thanks for having me.
• 2:36
  Angela: So to get started, would you share a little bit about you and your family?
• 2:41
  Mary: Sure.
• 2:41
  Mary: I have one child who is a toddler.
• 2:46
  Mary: She's a little over 18 months now.
• 2:48
  Mary: My husband and I have been together since we were 16.
• 2:51
  Mary: So it's been 12, maybe 13 years now.
• 2:55
  Mary: We live in Maine, of course.
• 2:58
  Mary: Um, we are both Mainers born here.
• 3:01
  Mary: Um, I did go away for college, but I love Maine uh really deeply.
• 3:07
  Mary: So I came back as soon as I had graduated.
• 3:11
  Angela: Yeah, awesome.
• 3:12
  Angela: Jumping into birth now.
• 3:14
  Angela: Would you share about when you found out you were pregnant, like how you found out, and what your thoughts were in choosing your care?
• 3:21
  Mary: Yeah.
• 3:21
  Mary: So I was, we were actively trying to conceive, and I was at the time I found out thinking that my period had probably started because I had very similar feeling symptoms, and I had no idea what it was like to feel pregnant, of course.
• 3:39
  Mary: So I had actually texted my best friend, really disappointed.
• 3:45
  Mary: I was like, Well, I'm going to the drugstore to get a test, but I'm pretty sure that my period's starting.
• 3:52
  Mary: And um, I was a middle school teacher at the time, so this was right after school had ended for the day.
• 3:59
  Mary: It was a Friday, so that place cleared out really fast.
• 4:02
  Mary: Um, so I went and got the test and I actually went back to work and took the test in the staff bathroom.
• 4:09
  Mary: And I was very surprised that it was positive.
• 4:12
  Mary: So, and of course, told my family and my husband from there.
• 4:17
  Mary: We told family and friends right away, um, because I personally thought it was going to be more important to have a support network around me if something did happen with the pregnancy, rather than waiting until you know 14 weeks, like a lot of people choose to do, which is also very valid, but just not the route I wanted to take.
• 4:38
  Mary: And then in terms of choosing care, Maine has really limited options, I'm sure, as you know, um, and dwindling options too.
• 4:48
  Mary: Um, really recently, a um hospital that did have a birthing suite had two actually close by within driving range of where we lived, um, had closed their labor and delivery units.
• 5:02
  Mary: So we had pretty limited options.
• 5:05
  Mary: And we knew we wanted to have a hospital berth because we were just, you know, especially as first-time parents, we were concerned about what would happen if there were to be a medical emergency, especially being, you know, in rural Maine and not necessarily close to a hospital that would have everything we would need.
• 5:26
  Mary: So yeah, we were kind of choosing between just a few hospitals and have some personal family trauma with one of the nearby hospitals.
• 5:36
  Mary: So decided between really the two to go with the other.
• 5:41
  Mary: Thankfully, so we we delivered at CMMC in Lewiston.
• 5:46
  Mary: And thankfully, CMMC is a midwife-run L and D unit.
• 5:52
  Mary: Not to say that they're perfect, but I felt really comfortable with my midwife and she was really aligned and attuned with all of the research I was doing and everything I wanted for my care.
• 6:04
  Mary: So we had a really good experience with her.
• 6:07
  Mary: Unfortunately, she was not working at the time that I went into labor.
• 6:11
  Mary: And you care to share who she was?
• 6:13
  Mary: Yeah, Alita Joy.
• 6:15
  Angela: How were things looking throughout that pregnancy?
• 6:19
  Mary: Yeah, I um my pregnancy was really healthy overall.
• 6:23
  Mary: I was very sick for the first trimester and a half.
• 6:27
  Mary: Um, and ended up losing weight rather than gaining weight.
• 6:31
  Mary: So that concerned me a little bit.
• 6:33
  Mary: But I stopped feeling sick, like I want to say around 24 weeks, maybe, and you know, was able to gain from there.
• 6:43
  Mary: And the baby was growing fine the whole time.
• 6:46
  Mary: Otherwise, I think it was a pretty normal pregnancy.
• 6:49
  Mary: Personally, I know some people think being pregnant is incredible and wonderful.
• 6:55
  Mary: And I agree on an intellectual sort of level, but I was pretty miserable and hated being pregnant and had a lot of like mundane symptoms, but those symptoms still made me really uncomfortable.
• 7:08
  Angela: So, how were things looking like as you got further along into your pregnancy towards the end?
• 7:14
  Mary: Like I said, everything was she was growing really well as far as the as far as they could tell by you know measuring my my my belly, my fundus, I think is what it yeah.
• 7:26
  Mary: And the few, I I only got the you know, the required scans.
• 7:31
  Mary: I didn't get anything above and beyond that, but those all came back normal, healthy.
• 7:38
  Mary: And we did get an IPT testing that came back fine.
• 7:42
  Mary: It was it was all it was all really good, actually.
• 7:46
  Mary: Um, I did have to take the second set of gestational diabetes testing because I failed it the first time.
• 7:54
  Mary: And my midwife was really surprised.
• 7:56
  Mary: And I spent the whole day at work crying because of course they called me in the morning.
• 8:00
  Mary: So I had to just be like hiding these tears from my middle school students.
• 8:04
  Mary: Um, and then it's so harsh when they use the words fail.
• 8:08
  Angela: You failed.
• 8:08
  Mary: Like I know.
• 8:09
  Mary: Yeah, but then I took the second test and it was fine.
• 8:13
  Mary: I had eaten apple pie for breakfast that morning, which in hindsight was a bad idea.
• 8:18
  Mary: So I think that could have been part of it, but yeah, so interesting.
• 8:24
  Angela: So, how are you feeling like mentally throughout your pregnancy?
• 8:29
  Mary: What's really interesting is that I struggle with anxiety and depression and insomnia.
• 8:35
  Mary: Like I was actually medicated for all of those things prior to pregnancy and chose to um stop during the pregnancy.
• 8:43
  Mary: And I was concerned, but aside from sleep, I've never slept well.
• 8:48
  Mary: And I definitely didn't sleep well while I was pregnant.
• 8:50
  Mary: I actually was like my mental health was the best it had ever been, which was really bizarre for for me, and I think probably outside of the norm.
• 9:00
  Mary: But I did work with one of our school nurses.
• 9:03
  Mary: She had worked in LD for years before becoming a school nurse, and she said, It's probably all those extra hormones flooding your brain.
• 9:11
  Mary: Like it's just kind of rewiring things for you.
• 9:14
  Angela: So wow, that's interesting.
• 9:17
  Angela: As a side note, if you don't mind me asking, after that your birth, had did you decide to go back on those, or do you feel like it kind of like the pregnancy might have like shifted some things for you?
• 9:27
  Mary: Yeah, I I think it's possible that the pregnancy could have shifted some things.
• 9:31
  Mary: Um I did not also because I'm I'm breastfeeding, I'm still breastfeeding, I'm doing um extended breastfeeding.
• 9:38
  Mary: And I totally support people taking medications that they need to take for their well-being through pregnancy, breastfeeding, whatever.
• 9:46
  Mary: It was just the personal choice that I wanted to make.
• 9:50
  Mary: Um, but I've I've been doing really well.
• 9:53
  Mary: And I do know there's a lot of research that shows that pregnancy does permanently change your brain in certain ways.
• 9:59
  Mary: So it could be partly that.
• 10:02
  Mary: I'm also a stay-at-home mom now, and I think you know, that could change things too.
• 10:08
  Mary: Being a public school teacher in a low-income area is really challenging for a lot of reasons.
• 10:15
  Mary: So I don't know.
• 10:16
  Mary: It's hard to say exactly.
• 10:19
  Angela: Yeah, it's so interesting.
• 10:20
  Angela: And there's like you said, it's just so individualized and it's just there's no right or wrong way.
• 10:24
  Angela: It's just like what you chose for yourself.
• 10:27
  Angela: So yeah, how are things looking now this kind of like last few weeks and then days leading up to when your labor started?
• 10:34
  Angela: And yeah, about your birth.
• 10:36
  Mary: Well, I I actually went into labor early, about a month early.
• 10:42
  Mary: I was 36 weeks and four days, I want to say, um, which I was not expecting as a first-time mom with a totally healthy typical pregnancy.
• 10:52
  Mary: I just truly did not foresee that coming.
• 10:56
  Mary: I thought about it on occasion, only in that I had read many, many pregnancy books while I was pregnant.
• 11:05
  Mary: I became like kind of obsessed.
• 11:08
  Mary: And so sometimes I would say to my husband, you know, we've got to get these things done because babies come when they want, and you never know.
• 11:15
  Mary: It's unlikely, but you never know.
• 11:16
  Mary: But I didn't really believe it.
• 11:18
  Mary: So I went into labor Christmas night.
• 11:23
  Mary: And so Christmas Eve, I was very uncomfortable.
• 11:28
  Mary: I was in a lot of pain.
• 11:29
  Mary: I had had lots of Braxton Hicks, and I had had prodromal labor, which I had gone or sorry, pro-dromal contractions, which I had gone to the hospital to have monitored on a couple of different occasions.
• 11:41
  Mary: But I didn't think necessarily that that meant anything.
• 11:44
  Mary: Um, because from what I had read, people could have Braxton Hicks or prodromal contractions for weeks and weeks before um going into labor.
• 11:54
  Mary: And every member of my family, I swear, on my side and my husband's side, are like, yeah, we could totally tell you were gonna go into labor.
• 12:04
  Mary: You were so tired.
• 12:05
  Mary: And I was like, maybe I was just tired and in pain because I was very pregnant and I had spent the entire day like wrapping gifts and baking and doing all of these things.
• 12:17
  Mary: So I don't know, that still miffs me.
• 12:20
  Mary: Like the idea that they all knew I was going to go into labor and I didn't.
• 12:25
  Angela: Did your water break?
• 12:27
  Mary: Yes, yeah.
• 12:28
  Mary: So my water broke first, and it really like it was a lot.
• 12:32
  Mary: In fact, we found out after the fact because my sister and my best friend came to clean our house and prepare for the baby since we weren't really ready for that.
• 12:43
  Mary: Like I was just going into Christmas break.
• 12:45
  Mary: I thought I was going to have a whole week at home to really nail everything down, and that was all, you know, swept away from us.
• 12:53
  Mary: So we found out after the fact that it was so much amniotic fluid that it had soaked through the mattress onto the carpet below, and my sister had to throw out our mattress.
• 13:05
  Mary: Thankfully, we had purchased a new one because we were preparing to potentially co-sleep.
• 13:12
  Mary: And so we knew we needed a harder mattress.
• 13:15
  Mary: So she was able to get that on our bed instead.
• 13:18
  Mary: But yeah, so my water broke and I like woke up immediately.
• 13:27
  Mary: I didn't like have a popping sensation, I think like some people do, but it it was just like I don't know, it's so hard to describe.
• 13:36
  Mary: I was asleep and then I was all of a sudden very awake and was like in this puddle and just was totally shocked.
• 13:45
  Mary: And so I woke up my husband and was like, we need to go, we need to go to the hospital, we need to call someone, we have to do something.
• 13:53
  Mary: You need to pack a bag for us.
• 13:55
  Mary: Like something is happening.
• 13:57
  Mary: My water definitely just broke.
• 13:58
  Mary: And he was like, What do I do?
• 14:00
  Mary: What do I do?
• 14:00
  Mary: And I was like, I don't know, but do something.
• 14:02
  Mary: And so I stood up, and then on top of all of that amniotic fluid, I also peed myself as one does.
• 14:10
  Mary: Um, and then I knew that some sources suggest that you shouldn't potentially introduce water if your water has broken.
• 14:22
  Mary: But I was like, I'm gonna shower.
• 14:24
  Mary: I don't, I don't really care.
• 14:25
  Mary: I feel really gross, so I'm gonna shower.
• 14:27
  Mary: So I took a quick shower, I called the hospital, they said to come in.
• 14:33
  Mary: And um, and while I was in the car on my way, that my contractions started.
• 14:42
  Mary: So I also had known that sometimes your water will break and contractions don't start, and you have to, you know, be given Pitocin or whatever.
• 14:52
  Mary: And so I was really thankful that the contractions were starting.
• 14:56
  Mary: And they weren't too bad at first.
• 14:58
  Mary: So I I was like, oh yeah, I can do this.
• 15:00
  Mary: I had been planning to do an unmedicated birth.
• 15:03
  Mary: And so I was like, yeah, I've got this.
• 15:04
  Mary: I've totally got this.
• 15:05
  Mary: But they ramped up really quickly, and I was completely unprepared for how painful labor contractions can be.
• 15:15
  Angela: So yeah, they started in the car, and then how were things once you got to the hospital?
• 15:19
  Angela: Had they like really ramped up before you got to the hospital, or was it kind of once you got there?
• 15:24
  Mary: It was more once I got there, yeah.
• 15:26
  Mary: Like I remember I walked in and went through like check-in and you know, giving them all my information again, and I remember feeling like silly almost.
• 15:40
  Mary: Like I know I'm in labor, but also this feels fine, and I feel like it shouldn't.
• 15:48
  Mary: So yeah, but they once I was checked into the room, maybe a couple of hours in, is when I started really feeling it.
• 15:59
  Angela: God, how did that go for you?
• 16:03
  Mary: Yeah, my my labor and delivery experience was really interesting.
• 16:07
  Mary: First, they didn't actually believe that I was in labor.
• 16:10
  Mary: The OB on call, because it was the middle of the night, they at CMMC they don't have the midwives don't come in except for the day shift.
• 16:19
  Mary: So even though I would have usually been attended by a midwife and was once the day shift started, it was an OB instead, which I think is important because I I almost feel like if it was a midwife, they would have believed me.
• 16:32
  Mary: But the OB was like, well, you know, we don't really know.
• 16:39
  Mary: Um, we're gonna have to check to make sure that this is, you know, amniotic fluid and that your water is actually broken.
• 16:45
  Mary: And so they first, you know, did the cough test.
• 16:51
  Mary: They were like, we're not really seeing enough liquid here.
• 16:54
  Mary: And then I know that yeah, that's what I wanted to say.
• 17:00
  Mary: And I was like, I also know it's not urine because my water broke, and then I peed myself.
• 17:04
  Mary: Like it was like boom, boom.
• 17:06
  Mary: But then they did the furning test, and the OB again was like, I don't know, I'm not really seeing it.
• 17:14
  Mary: And so they sent a sample to the lab.
• 17:18
  Mary: And I'm sure you know what the name of the exact test is.
• 17:21
  Mary: I can't remember, but they finally were like, Oh, yeah, that is in fact amniotic fluid.
• 17:26
  Mary: This is like almost an hour or two later after we got there.
• 17:32
  Mary: They were finally like, Yeah, you're in labor.
• 17:34
  Mary: Of course, I'm in labor.
• 17:36
  Mary: That's what I've been saying this whole time.
• 17:38
  Mary: As your contractions are getting more intense and you're like having these conversations.
• 17:43
  Mary: Yeah, it can be really frustrating.
• 17:45
  Mary: I I try to be really like kind and caring and supportive about medical staff because their jobs are incredibly hard.
• 17:54
  Mary: But yeah, I was really frustrated by that whole experience, definitely.
• 17:58
  Mary: And then let's see.
• 18:01
  Mary: Oh, I like I said, I wanted to do an unmedicated birth, but I had had my group B strep test on Christmas Eve.
• 18:10
  Mary: So it had not had enough time to come back negative or positive.
• 18:14
  Mary: So they told me I had to be on antibiotics.
• 18:18
  Mary: And I was not necessarily so much anti-epidural as I was anti-IV fluids and antibiotics.
• 18:26
  Mary: And so I was like, if I'm getting all of the things I didn't want anyway, then I might as well not be in pain.
• 18:34
  Mary: So I like kind of waffled on that for a long time and kept asking my husband what he thought I should do.
• 18:40
  Mary: And if I was a failure and he was like, it's totally up to you, and you're not a failure either way.
• 18:46
  Mary: And um, he was being as supportive as he could be.
• 18:49
  Mary: I really just wanted him to give me answers, but obviously that's not the thing.
• 18:53
  Angela: Tell me what the right thing to do is.
• 18:55
  Angela: I totally get that.
• 18:56
  Angela: I think we all do when we look to our husbands like that.
• 18:58
  Angela: Yeah, our leaders almost in guidance of our family, right?
• 19:02
  Angela: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:05
  Mary: Um so eventually I did get the epidural.
• 19:10
  Mary: Um, and I was able to sleep for a little while.
• 19:13
  Mary: Prior to getting the epidural, we also tried some form of IV pain medication.
• 19:19
  Mary: Um, and that was honestly a terrible experience because everyone who was there, like the nurses and my husband, they were like, Yeah, you were so much better.
• 19:29
  Mary: And it was, I was not better.
• 19:32
  Mary: I still was in a lot of pain.
• 19:33
  Mary: I was just severely drugged.
• 19:35
  Mary: Like I didn't have any sense of myself and could barely speak and could barely move, but I was still in incredible pain.
• 19:45
  Angela: Um so it looked from the outside like, oh, she's being helped, but it's just like this like messed up thing that you're like, and you just can't like communicate what you're really feeling.
• 19:56
  Angela: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:57
  Mary: It was it was not the best experience.
• 20:00
  Mary: I definitely won't be using um the IV pain medication that they recommend again.
• 20:07
  Angela: Did you ever consider saying no to the antibiotics?
• 20:11
  Mary: Well, I had like I had said, I I had done a lot of, I think I read 12 different pregnancy labor and delivery books by the time I gave birth.
• 20:22
  Mary: And so I feel like I was really well informed on all the potential risks of the side, all the sides of different like treatments and and interventions.
• 20:35
  Mary: And I I'm extremely risk averse.
• 20:39
  Mary: I know everyone has a different risk tolerance, and that's totally acceptable, but I'm I am very risk averse, especially with it having been my first pregnancy and my first baby.
• 20:51
  Mary: And so I even though the chance of me having group B strep was pretty, I think I would say pretty low, I like did not want that to potentially have any negative impact on my on my baby.
• 21:08
  Mary: So I wasn't going to like to say no to it, even if that wasn't ideally what I would have wanted for my delivery.
• 21:18
  Mary: So I didn't really feel I I'm grateful that I didn't really feel a lot of pressure to do any particular thing while I was in the hospital.
• 21:31
  Mary: But I also think one of the biggest shortcomings for me was that I didn't feel any support either.
• 21:40
  Mary: Like I kind of just felt like there were people who were like coming in to take my vitals and leaving, and that was all.
• 21:47
  Mary: And like we had to advocate for our own care if we wanted anything above and beyond that.
• 21:54
  Mary: And I was not in the right mindset to advocate for myself even.
• 21:59
  Mary: Though I was going into it, I was really certain that I would be.
• 22:03
  Mary: Like I thought that I would be able to handle labor much better than I actually was able to.
• 22:13
  Mary: And um my husband, he was doing his best, but we didn't even finish our, he didn't read, you know, the 12 books that I read.
• 22:22
  Mary: And we didn't finish our birth class.
• 22:25
  Mary: We were, we were taking a birth class online because the baby came four weeks early.
• 22:31
  Mary: So I think he felt really overwhelmed and underprepared.
• 22:35
  Mary: And I like was not in the right state.
• 22:39
  Mary: Um so between the two of us, like the advocacy really wasn't there, and the folks working at the hospital probably super overworked.
• 22:53
  Mary: They probably didn't really have the capacity to give us the level of care that we really needed.
• 22:59
  Mary: But um like there was there was no one suggesting alternative pain management because I think any of that would have required a lot more of their time.
• 23:11
  Mary: You know, like they have, I was told beforehand that they have, you know, birth balls and and ropes and um tubs and all of those things, but no one was like recommending them to me.
• 23:27
  Angela: Yeah, like let's try them, let's do this, let's get this out, let's like help you through this journey that you're going through and like are here for us to like you know help you through, right?
• 23:38
  Mary: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 23:39
  Mary: Exactly.
• 23:40
  Mary: And so like it just felt like pain medication was the only option at that point.
• 23:46
  Mary: Um, I just everything that I had taught myself just went totally out of my mind.
• 23:54
  Mary: And so like we didn't even consider even something as simple as switching birth birthing positions, like we didn't consider any of that.
• 24:03
  Mary: The only back a lot.
• 24:05
  Mary: I was in the end.
• 24:07
  Mary: Okay, so this is like still when I'm just contracting, not not when I'm not when I've had the urge to push, but yeah, I was like the only thing that was helping was my husband applying pressure to my hips.
• 24:24
  Mary: And um, that was in the in the moment, it was the only thing I could remember.
• 24:29
  Mary: So yeah, I got the epidural, that worked for a little while, and I slept.
• 24:35
  Mary: And then maybe two or three hours into having the epidural, it started failing on one side, and I the pain was really coming in, and um and I kept telling the nurse that the epidural was failing, and it was almost like again, she didn't really believe me, because she was like, Well, let's try rolling you onto your side, or let's try upping the dosage, and I'm like, No, it's not working.
• 25:04
  Mary: Like, I need you to get the anesthesiologist back in here, and by the time they actually did that and he was on his way, I was too far, progressed.
• 25:16
  Mary: So then the really terrible thing is I couldn't move, but I could feel all the pain.
• 25:24
  Mary: So my epidural failed in the in the worst possible way.
• 25:29
  Kate Sutherland: Oh no.
• 25:30
  Angela: Um yeah, your legs, you couldn't feel your legs, but like you could feel your belly and like other areas down there.
• 25:37
  Angela: Yeah, oh geez.
• 25:39
  Mary: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:40
  Mary: It was a it was so strange.
• 25:42
  Mary: So then let's see, what happened next?
• 25:47
  Mary: I at some point I had started, no, before I'd even started pushing, the baby's heart rate was dropping.
• 25:55
  Mary: So that's when they started getting me into different positions.
• 25:58
  Mary: And so a couple of nurses would come in because it would take a couple to move me since I couldn't really move myself.
• 26:04
  Mary: A couple of nurses came in and started like shifting me into different positions to try to get her heart rate up.
• 26:12
  Mary: And I was cognizant enough to know, like I could hear on her monitor that her heart rate was dropping.
• 26:22
  Mary: And I was terrified and you know, felt very helpless.
• 26:27
  Mary: And I was just willing to do anything, really, to make sure that she was safe.
• 26:32
  Mary: Thankfully, they moved me around enough to get her heart rate back up.
• 26:36
  Mary: And then soon after that, I started feeling the urge to push.
• 26:40
  Mary: And the midwife came in and checked, and I wasn't dilated enough to push.
• 26:45
  Mary: And so, you know, my the nurse who was my like primary attending nurse, she was she kept telling me that I couldn't that I was going to swell my cervix if I pushed, and I couldn't stop myself.
• 27:01
  Mary: I really couldn't.
• 27:02
  Mary: The urge to push was extremely forceful.
• 27:05
  Mary: It like took over my whole body, really.
• 27:08
  Mary: And so I I said to her, I'm I'm going to push, I whether or not I want to, I'm currently pushing.
• 27:20
  Mary: So I did try, you know, the the sort of um the horse lips to and and like the kind of shallow breathing to to try to get myself to stop as much as I could.
• 27:34
  Mary: But then the baby's heart rate started dropping again.
• 27:37
  Mary: And so they started moving me into new pit positions once again, and nothing was helping.
• 27:42
  Mary: And so the midwife was like, you're just gonna have to, we're gonna have to go for it anyway.
• 27:49
  Mary: And she called an OB in in order to see if we would need a oh no, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.
• 27:57
  Mary: So then I did start start pushing and I pushed continuously.
• 28:01
  Mary: I didn't just push with contractions.
• 28:04
  Mary: I pushed, would take a really fast breath in and then kept pushing um because they wanted the baby out really fast um because of her heart rate and the inability to get it to come back up.
• 28:16
  Mary: And it was just like steadily dropping, dropping, dropping.
• 28:19
  Mary: So then after, I don't know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, the midwife called in an OB to see if they would need to do a forceps extraction or a vacuum extraction.
• 28:33
  Mary: And she kept trying to explain to me what those things were and asking for consent, which I think is like really important.
• 28:40
  Mary: But I was very scared and angry about the whole situation, and I already knew what those things were because I had done all this research, and I was like, Yes, I consent to literally anything that is going to get this baby out of me safely.
• 28:55
  Mary: I do not care.
• 28:56
  Mary: Whatever it takes, just do it.
• 28:59
  Mary: And so the OB comes in, and right as he walks in, he's like, Oh, the baby's crowning.
• 29:05
  Mary: You guys got this, and he left.
• 29:08
  Mary: Like that was it.
• 29:09
  Mary: He was like, She's crowning, you got it, and he walked back out of the room.
• 29:14
  Mary: So, yeah, 40 minutes of pushing, and she was born.
• 29:18
  Mary: And that was even though like labor was it had its frustrating and scary moments, like her actually the the final, you know, birth was of course the most incredible, indescribable feeling of my life.
• 29:39
  Mary: Like I it still like brings me to tears if I if I spend too much time thinking about it.
• 29:47
  Mary: Just it was so so magical.
• 29:51
  Mary: Um and I didn't think like the actual like the crowning in the ring of fire it that wasn't that bad.
• 30:04
  Mary: I felt like my labor contractions were way worse than that, but also at that point it was probably like just the drama of the whole situation leading up to it.
• 30:13
  Mary: I was just kind of relieved.
• 30:17
  Angela: Wow, oh my goodness, that's incredible.
• 30:21
  Angela: Whew.
• 30:22
  Angela: So how was your like immediate postpartum?
• 30:25
  Mary: Uh thankfully I had a really like a really pretty easy healing experience.
• 30:31
  Mary: I did have a second degree tear, which honestly I feel like it could have been worse considering how like hard I needed to push, including outside of contractions.
• 30:42
  Mary: Um so that was in a sense lucky.
• 30:46
  Mary: I mean, obviously no one wants to tear, but but that was it could have been worse.
• 30:52
  Mary: And yeah, I my husband was really great.
• 30:56
  Mary: He was home for three weeks, which I'm really grateful for.
• 31:00
  Mary: I know some people don't really get anything.
• 31:02
  Mary: And you know, he made sure I was super cared for.
• 31:06
  Mary: And friends and family came together as they do and brought us a lot of meals, so we had that off of our plate.
• 31:14
  Mary: And the only the only thing I really struggled with was hemorrhoids.
• 31:18
  Mary: That was the only thing, and I was still struggling, struggling with them until I was about six or seven months postpartum, but everything else was totally fine, despite being early.
• 31:30
  Mary: Like her, she latched right away, never had any latch issues.
• 31:35
  Mary: It didn't take very long for my milk to come in.
• 31:38
  Mary: They prepared me for it to take a long time, and we bought a ton of donor milk and then used one bottle of it because my milk came in.
• 31:46
  Mary: She did have jaundice and was like right, literally on the very, very cusp of needing the like photo light therapy that they do for babies with jaundice.
• 32:00
  Mary: But they said like the number one thing you can do is like really flush her with milk.
• 32:06
  Mary: And so we pushed hard.
• 32:07
  Mary: Like we were always, I was breastfeeding and also pumping, and so we were triple feeding, and so we just just barely scraped past that too.
• 32:17
  Mary: So yeah, postpartum was it was honestly a good experience for me.
• 32:25
  Mary: I think I was very lucky.
• 32:26
  Mary: I just got to soak up all the newborn snuggles.
• 32:30
  Angela: Oh, that's the best.
• 32:31
  Angela: Yeah, so speaking of ways to get more newborn snuggles, when did you find your passion for baby wearing?
• 32:42
  Mary: Yeah, so I knew I wanted to do baby wearing like when I was pregnant, just because uh I really only had one friend that had a that had a child, but she was like pretty pro baby wearing and had given me a couple of carriers to borrow.
• 32:58
  Mary: And so I was like, I knew I wanted to do some of that, especially because I was like really pro, like as much contact between caregivers and baby as possible.
• 33:12
  Mary: Um, during the fourth trimester, everything I had read had talked about how important that was for infant development.
• 33:20
  Mary: And so I was like, baby wearing, that'll be a means to do it.
• 33:25
  Mary: And then I started with a stretchy wrap, and I was kind of scared because she was preterm.
• 33:33
  Mary: Um, there were there's a lot of fear mongering in the baby wearing world, especially when you're new to it, and preterm infants in particular have higher risk factors.
• 33:48
  Mary: So I wouldn't wear her for longer than 20 minutes at a time, and I only wore her once a day for the first couple of weeks, and I slowly built up from there, and when she got big enough that the stretchy wrap wasn't really feeling supportive anymore, I hosted on Reddit actually, and was like, what do I do to get this feeling of closeness?
• 34:13
  Mary: Like the stretchy wrap makes it feel like she's still inside of me, and it's it's like just such a beautiful, comforting feeling for both of us, I think.
• 34:22
  Mary: Where do I go from here?
• 34:23
  Mary: My my structured carriers are so bulky and like ugh.
• 34:27
  Mary: And someone was like, You should try woven wraps, and that's really what did it for me.
• 34:32
  Mary: I I tried a woven wrap through there's a there's a US distributor of baby carriers from from all over.
• 34:40
  Mary: They have carriers from Canada and Europe and called Little Zen One, and they have this program where you can try carriers for a week before you buy them or just send them on if you don't like them.
• 34:49
  Mary: And so I tried a woven wrap and I was just hooked.
• 34:52
  Mary: Like I fell fast and hard down the baby wearing rabbit hole after that.
• 34:57
  Angela: That's awesome.
• 34:58
  Angela: I did that with my daughter, and I didn't do it with my older two boys, and my daughter's my youngest, and yeah, I just thought the closeness that it's just it's so special, really.
• 35:09
  Angela: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Angela: Besides being able to have your hands free, right?
• 35:11
  Angela: And actually does.
• 35:20
  Mary: I feel like.
• 35:21
  Angela: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:22
  Angela: So what do you think are some like common myths or mistakes that people make with baby wearing and how can new moms avoid them?
• 35:30
  Angela: Yeah.
• 35:30
  Mary: I mean, I think that there are like different pathways of like totally different myths depending on sort of the parenting philosophy you're coming into your pregnancy and your birth with.
• 35:43
  Mary: So, I mean, I think there are the folks that, you know, maybe aren't up to date on modern research on infant development.
• 35:55
  Mary: And so there are the myths around like babies manipulating you or babies becoming spoiled, or babies not learning independence if you hold them too much.
• 36:07
  Mary: And so, of course, those folks would want to avoid baby wearing probably altogether.
• 36:11
  Mary: And I think those myths are really easy to buy into if you don't have maternity leave.
• 36:19
  Mary: And if you, you know, have to work full-time or more, minimum wage, you know, really hard jobs in order to provide for your family.
• 36:28
  Mary: And so I don't fault those people at all.
• 36:31
  Mary: But if you're doing all those things and you're really exhausted all of the time, and you like don't have the energy to necessarily put into soothing a crying baby who might be crying all the time, because that's sometimes what newborns do.
• 36:48
  Mary: Um, it's a lot easier to think, well, this is actually better for them anyway, you know?
• 36:54
  Mary: Um, and so in that regard, I think like we all have a lot of work to do on a systemic level to better support parents, especially new parents, um, not only to educate them, but also like to just literally make sure that they are fed, that they are housed, that they are able to care for themselves and their families without killing themselves.
• 37:20
  Mary: And then there's there's like the the people who do want to get into baby wearing.
• 37:27
  Mary: And um, but maybe they don't do any research.
• 37:31
  Mary: And again, totally fine.
• 37:34
  Mary: We, you know, are all stretched thin.
• 37:37
  Mary: We don't necessarily have a lot of time to be like deep diving.
• 37:41
  Mary: And it's like overwhelming with all of the options too, right?
• 37:44
  Mary: Oh, yeah, totally, totally.
• 37:47
  Mary: And so some folks, though for those folks, the myths around baby wearing or not necessarily myths, but the things that are concerning sometimes is that like they might not know about correct positioning, or you know, they might see what they see on the internet that influencers are doing and don't know that those are unsafe things to do.
• 38:09
  Mary: Like you can't forward face a baby prior to independent sitting, it's not safe because they can't protect their own airway.
• 38:17
  Mary: You shouldn't have a stretchy wrap over your baby's face, even if that seems really snuggly, um, because of the risk of rebreathing.
• 38:25
  Mary: So, for those folks, as you know, I have I have an Instagram and a TikTok and a Facebook, and I post a lot of like really outrageous, silly reels because there are tons of baby wearing educators that are fantastic and doing incredible work, but they're often, I think, reaching a sort of an echo chamber, like the audience that already wants to know those things because they gear a lot of their work towards being highly informational, um, which again, I think is important and amazing.
• 38:58
  Mary: And I super respect and then and am friends with a lot of those folks.
• 39:02
  Mary: But I make the silly outrageous stuff because I'm really trying to get to the people who aren't looking for it.
• 39:10
  Mary: And so I think that's part of it, you know, just like finding different means, different ways to reach those folks.
• 39:17
  Mary: And then the last are the people like me who were doing deep diving.
• 39:21
  Mary: And especially when you're new to baby wearing, it's like, like I said, a ton of fear-mongering.
• 39:29
  Mary: It sounds way scarier than it actually is.
• 39:31
  Mary: Like the true, there is risk, but the true risk is really low.
• 39:36
  Mary: Like it's riskier to put your infant in the car, you know, they're more likely to be harmed in a car accident.
• 39:42
  Mary: Humans have been baby wearing since the beginning of time, since the beginning of us being humans, really.
• 39:49
  Mary: Archaeologists found baby carriers with some of our earliest tools.
• 39:54
  Mary: Um, so it's not inherently dangerous.
• 39:57
  Mary: Um, you should know some of the basic rules about positioning, but other than that, it's really a very safe practice.
• 40:05
  Mary: So I think for those folks, like everybody just everybody who loves baby wearing needs to just like chill a little bit.
• 40:13
  Mary: Like take take a step back.
• 40:16
  Mary: If someone's asking for help and they're a new parent, the very first thing we should say is you're doing a great job.
• 40:21
  Mary: Yeah.
• 40:22
  Mary: Like you're doing what you need to do to care for yourself and to care for your baby.
• 40:26
  Mary: And that is beautiful, good work.
• 40:29
  Mary: And and then, like, okay, here are maybe a couple of things you could do to be a little bit safer or a little bit more comfortable.
• 40:37
  Angela: So, how can partners members get involved with baby wearing?
• 40:41
  Angela: And does that matter?
• 40:44
  Mary: Yeah, it hugely matters.
• 40:46
  Mary: In fact, especially for fathers, there is research out there that shows that fathers who baby wear become better attuned to their infants and respond to their cries more frequently and more accurately.
• 41:02
  Mary: So, like interpreting what a cry means, whether the infant is, you know, needs a change or needs to be fed or whatever.
• 41:10
  Mary: And also, fathers, even in who are in um demographics where they're maybe at higher risk of being less involved.
• 41:19
  Mary: For example, fathers who have faced a lot of adverse childhood experiences, they are more likely to sort of buy into fatherhood and feel really connected to their infants.
• 41:33
  Mary: So, yeah, baby wearing for caregivers who are not moms is extremely important and extremely valuable.
• 41:40
  Mary: And sometimes it's hard to get that message out there.
• 41:44
  Mary: Um, I'm really grateful that my husband is interested, was right away in the concept of baby wearing.
• 41:51
  Mary: He actually wore our daughter before I did.
• 41:54
  Mary: Um, he was the very first person to baby wear her.
• 41:57
  Mary: But like even for him, it can be hard.
• 42:00
  Mary: Like he works 40, sometimes 50, 60 hours a week.
• 42:04
  Mary: And um, coming home, he doesn't necessarily want to put the baby on sometimes.
• 42:10
  Mary: And in those instances, you know, like it's if they're on top of that, dads who are reluctant, whether they're worried about safety or they feel like it's not necessarily the father's role, or like it's a feminine thing, or whatever, add in all those factors, and it can be really hard to get dads baby wearing.
• 42:36
  Mary: Um, and then of course, not just dads.
• 42:39
  Mary: I know a lot of grandparents who are part-time caregivers, um, who baby wearing has been really important for them.
• 42:47
  Mary: My neighbor slash friend, who is a lovely, incredible woman, and um, we're, you know, raising her to refer to her as um grandma Katie, she right from the beginning would baby wear uh my daughter for walks.
• 43:03
  Mary: And that was, I think that's really important to, you know, build that connection with someone outside of her parents, um, and to start to learn that like there are other safe people out there.
• 43:15
  Mary: And it was also really helpful for me to, you know, have 40 minutes or an hour or whatever, to like have some time in a quiet house.
• 43:25
  Angela: Yeah, yeah, that can just be so special.
• 43:28
  Angela: So, you know, you mentioned positioning.
• 43:31
  Angela: What are some signs a mom can look for to know her baby is positioned safely and comfortably in a carrier?
• 43:38
  Mary: Well, so let's start with the newborn.
• 43:40
  Mary: And I'm not necessarily going to work all the way up through, but the important thing to note is as they get older and more developed, these things become less and less important.
• 43:49
  Mary: Basically, all of the positioning rules for for safety become less important as your infant is able to maintain their own airway and You know, move their hips around in their in a comfortable position by themselves.
• 44:04
  Mary: Um, so the biggest things to look for are basically you want to worry about the airway, number one priority.
• 44:14
  Mary: And you want to, and that includes mouth, neck, and back, spine.
• 44:22
  Mary: Um, and I I'm gonna talk more about that in a second.
• 44:25
  Mary: And and you can worry about the hips.
• 44:30
  Mary: There's a lot of fear around hip dysplasia, but in fact, unless an infant is already unless an infant already has risk factors for hip dysplasia, such as it being in the family, there's very little risk of a of an infant getting hip dysplasia, even if their hips are improperly placed in a carrier.
• 44:51
  Mary: So um, for a newborn, you're always going to want them facing in toward the caregiver.
• 44:57
  Mary: You're going to want their head at a kissable height without straining.
• 45:03
  Mary: So you want to be able to bend down and kiss their head.
• 45:06
  Mary: And that has a lot to do with how hard the plane of your chest is, right?
• 45:12
  Mary: So they are not going to be at risk of potential suffocation because or rebreathing because your chest is hard enough that their airway is going to be able to be open, um, even if they've kind of plonked their face against your chest, which some newborns like to do.
• 45:30
  Mary: That that was mine for sure.
• 45:32
  Mary: Um, until she fell asleep, then I could kind of tilt her head to the side, but she really liked to be nuzzled right in there.
• 45:39
  Mary: And you want their chin to be off of their chest.
• 45:44
  Mary: So a newborn's um airway is really delicate and really small.
• 45:50
  Mary: And if their chin is hitting their chest, you can kind of think of it like a straw getting a kink in it.
• 45:56
  Mary: And so obviously, air can't move properly through a kinked straw or you know, liquid if it's a straw.
• 46:03
  Mary: So you want their chin off of their chest, and then you want their back supported, so you don't want them slumping in, which basically means you want your carrier to be pretty snug.
• 46:15
  Mary: You don't necessarily want it to be super, super over-tightened because you want their spine to be in that natural C curve that a newborn is used to, but you want it to be pretty, pretty snug because you don't want them to be able to move around and shift and slump while they are inside the carrier.
• 46:32
  Mary: So, really, those are the number one things.
• 46:35
  Mary: And baby wearing is not kind of like a set it and forget it sort of activity.
• 46:40
  Mary: You want to be actively monitoring.
• 46:42
  Mary: So you want to be double checking that their chin hasn't hit their chest or that they haven't sort of shifted positions, especially because you know there's a lot of room for error.
• 46:54
  Mary: And maybe you thought your carry was really snug and there's some extra slack somewhere, and it gets introduced as you're moving around, and that's okay, but you just want to be, you know, continuously monitoring.
• 47:07
  Mary: And then the last ideal thing is to have their hips um in an M position.
• 47:14
  Mary: So you are going to want their knees uh higher than their bum.
• 47:19
  Mary: So their legs are going to kind of come up to make the first portion of the M and then back down to the bum and then back up to the other knee and then down the leg.
• 47:28
  Mary: And that's gonna give you that M position.
• 47:31
  Mary: And that achieving that has a lot to do with the type of carrier you're using.
• 47:37
  Mary: So making sure the carrier goes from one knee pit all the way to the other knee pit, and then also with something called a pelvic tilt, which is rotating the baby's pelvis in towards you after you've placed them in the carrier.
• 47:51
  Mary: So you just kind of take their hips or their legs and scoop them toward your body.
• 47:57
  Mary: And that probably seems overwhelming.
• 48:01
  Mary: Like to me, those are really simple things because I've been doing it for a while now.
• 48:06
  Mary: Um, but even with that simple sort of checklist, that can be really overwhelming, um, especially when you're, you know, maybe postpartum, have anxiety, um, or working with this little tiny, tiny being that you're still attuning to yourself.
• 48:24
  Mary: And with all of that, there is a growing network of baby wearing educators and lending libraries and other baby wearing leaders out there who are, you know, around to support.
• 48:37
  Mary: Uh, part of the reason I got my certification in baby wearing is when I had been freshly postpartum, like a newborn myself.
• 48:46
  Mary: I had looked to see if there were any lending libraries or any baby wearing educators in Maine and couldn't find anything.
• 48:52
  Mary: And so I really wanted to, you know, be that support that I needed.
• 48:59
  Mary: So there are definitely still places out there with gaps, but like I said, the network is growing all the time.
• 49:05
  Mary: My cohort was about, I want to say maybe 30 or so people, most of which are in the United States.
• 49:16
  Mary: There are a couple in other um countries around the world, but most of which were US based.
• 49:20
  Mary: So you have to think about, you know, every, you know, quarter of the year, there are 30 or so people getting certified.
• 49:31
  Mary: And this is just one certification pathway.
• 49:34
  Mary: So um, so yeah, the the help is probably out there.
• 49:41
  Mary: It might be hard to find.
• 49:43
  Mary: You can always reach out to other baby wearing educators on on the internet and see if they can send you to someone more local because we tend to know each other.
• 49:52
  Mary: But yeah, the help is out there.
• 49:55
  Angela: Awesome.
• 49:55
  Angela: And what area are you located in again?
• 49:58
  Angela: Like, and do you want to share a little bit about what you offer, like for local bombs here in Maine?
• 50:03
  Mary: Sure.
• 50:04
  Mary: Yeah.
• 50:04
  Mary: Uh I'm personally in South Paris, but I do monthly baby wearing meetups in Augusta, Goram, Auburn, and then there's a weekly walk in Norway that I join in on.
• 50:16
  Mary: Um, so I have a number of different like programs, I guess you could say.
• 50:25
  Mary: The baby wearing meetups are free um and they're drop-in.
• 50:29
  Mary: And you can come use a demo doll, try on baby carriers for uh for newborns all the way to preschool age children I have in my lending library, um, and kind of just chat and hang out with other parents that really like baby wearing, um, which it can be really fun to you know meet some parents who are aligned with you and have some commonalities.
• 50:56
  Mary: And then I have my lending library.
• 50:59
  Mary: You can borrow a carrier for two weeks or four weeks for free.
• 51:03
  Mary: We have a suggested donation because most of the time these carriers are being purchased with my own money.
• 51:10
  Mary: And I'm also, you know, kind of managing, sending them out with people and getting them back in and caring for the carriers, washing them.
• 51:18
  Mary: Some of them have to be hand washed in the bathtub with special soap and so on and so forth.
• 51:23
  Mary: But but that is free.
• 51:26
  Mary: And then I also do one-on-one private in-home consultations.
• 51:32
  Mary: Um, I do virtual consultations too, but I prefer to send people to in-person support.
• 51:39
  Mary: So whenever people reach out to me about that, I just say, well, tell me your closest city, and maybe we can find you another educator that you can go to in person.
• 51:49
  Mary: Yeah.
• 51:50
  Angela: Oh my gosh, that's awesome that you offer all of that.
• 51:53
  Angela: Couple more questions.
• 51:55
  Angela: What are some like tips that you might have for like baby wearing during daily tasks, like cooking, walking, or like running errands?
• 52:03
  Mary: I guess the only thing I have to say about cooking is if you're able to get baby on your back, that can be a little bit safer, especially if you're working with things that are sharp or hot.
• 52:14
  Mary: But I do cook with my toddler on my front sometimes.
• 52:17
  Mary: And then other household chores, again, it really depends.
• 52:20
  Mary: With newborns, it's a little bit harder because they're so floppy.
• 52:25
  Mary: You sometimes, you know, even in a carrier, have to be ready to support their neck or to support their head.
• 52:31
  Mary: But um, I got chores done.
• 52:33
  Mary: You just have to move slowly and be ready to kind of like use your arms, have your arms out in front of you.
• 52:40
  Mary: And then as they get older and you can switch them to your hip or switch them to your back, it just gets easier and easier.
• 52:46
  Mary: With my infant on my back, I started wearing her on my back and a Ma'ai and a woven wrap at four months.
• 52:52
  Mary: I was unstoppable.
• 52:54
  Mary: I could do anything, you know, hike mountains, garden, even chop wood.
• 53:00
  Mary: There are some things you shouldn't do, of course.
• 53:02
  Mary: All things within reason.
• 53:04
  Mary: But getting daily chores done is huge.
• 53:09
  Mary: I actually recorded myself doing the same set of tours with and without baby wearing with my toddler and did the math, and I was saving myself something like 180 hours over the course of a year by baby wearing my toddler while doing the chores rather than like letting her wreak havoc around the house while I was trying to get them done.
• 53:31
  Mary: So it can make a monumental difference, always 100% of the time.
• 53:37
  Mary: Yeah.
• 53:39
  Angela: In your opinion, in today's world, why do so many new parents feel pressured or even scared to hold their babies too much or respond too quickly when they cry?
• 53:49
  Mary: Yeah.
• 53:49
  Mary: So I have some information about this out there already on my social media channels.
• 53:55
  Mary: But so basically, there actually wasn't a lot of parenting, sort of self-help books or information out there prior to, you know, the late 1800s, early 1900s.
• 54:09
  Mary: A lot of information about caregiving, about raising an infant just came from your village, your tribe, you know, passed down from your own parents or your grandparents or whatever.
• 54:20
  Mary: And so when psychologists and pediatricians did start writing books about how to parent, there actually wasn't really any research that had been done about best practice for parenting.
• 54:36
  Mary: No one had really thought about it prior prior to that time period.
• 54:41
  Mary: And so they weren't drawing from any body of evidence or any body of research.
• 54:48
  Mary: They were drawing from the cultural norms of the time.
• 54:50
  Mary: And what was going on during this time period was, you know, a real rise in industrial capitalism.
• 54:57
  Mary: So, you know, we were moving away from agrarian societies and instead were really focused on consumerism and products and and you know factory work, et cetera, et cetera.
• 55:15
  Mary: And so the parenting philosophies that were written and were really pervasive were about those sort of like cultural shifts.
• 55:24
  Mary: And a lot of that had to do with creating a good worker.
• 55:29
  Mary: And a good worker at the time was someone who, you know, was obedient.
• 55:34
  Mary: They didn't question things, they just kind of sat down, did their job, didn't push back against being exploited because that's you know what was happening.
• 55:44
  Mary: And what makes someone docile like that?
• 55:48
  Mary: Well, insecure attachment.
• 55:51
  Mary: There wasn't attachment theory wasn't really a thing yet, but some of it is also just like kind of common sense.
• 56:02
  Mary: And someone who is insecurely attached or disorganized attached is like going to be a lot easier to beat into submission than someone who feels confident and secure in themselves and their community.
• 56:17
  Mary: So there was that.
• 56:20
  Mary: And then there was also sort of doing whatever you could to get parents back into the workforce and doing whatever you could to get parents buying whatever contraption was out there.
• 56:34
  Mary: Instead of, you know, encouraging parents to follow their natural instincts and to spend as much time with their infant as they could, people were being encouraged to go back to work.
• 56:46
  Mary: People were being encouraged to, you know, buy swings or whatever, um, to replace uh to make their baby stop crying, but replace the thing that the baby really wanted, which was being held by their caregiver.
• 57:01
  Mary: And so those parenting books, those early parenting books, were and still are kind of like the the base for a lot of people.
• 57:12
  Mary: I've been told, even by pediatricians, that infants will become spoilt, won't be able to sleep independently, will like manipulate you, which is just the science isn't there.
• 57:25
  Mary: In fact, the science that we now have is the exact opposite.
• 57:29
  Mary: Yeah.
• 57:30
  Mary: Kids become more securely attached and more independent if during infancy and toddler years they are really quickly responded to by parents.
• 57:40
  Mary: And actually, baby wearing supports sleep.
• 57:44
  Mary: Infants who are baby worn early and frequently, they show, and I'm not a sleep specialist, but but the organization of their sleep is is better aligned with them having fewer sleep struggles.
• 57:59
  Mary: Although mine is not a good sleeper, even now.
• 58:02
  Mary: So take that with a grain of salt, but but that's what the research says anyway.
• 58:07
  Mary: Um, so yeah, it's it's still really challenging to push back against those early parenting philosophies.
• 58:18
  Mary: And everyone I know has heard those myths from someone, and usually someone really important in their life, you know, like their own parents or their own grandparents.
• 58:28
  Angela: Um even like you said, like it the pediatrician, and it can be really sad and confusing for a new parent that might not really know anything about babies to hear from the pediatrician who is like supposed to be the one that knows everything about babies, you have to go do every, you know, with these well visits and all these things.
• 58:46
  Angela: And yeah, like to hear them say that to you can be really impactful on new parents that might not otherwise know, you know, that there are other options out there.
• 58:55
  Mary: Yeah.
• 58:56
  Angela: Yeah, definitely.
• 58:58
  Angela: Crazy.
• 58:59
  Angela: All right.
• 58:59
  Angela: So, how have recent culture and medical systems contributed to the idea that comforting a baby too much will spoil them or create these bad habits?
• 59:10
  Mary: Well, I think like I don't think that the research recent research supports that at all.
• 59:17
  Mary: But I think part of the issue is that, and again, I am not an expert in the medical field.
• 59:24
  Mary: I'm just an expert in baby wearing.
• 59:26
  Mary: But as far as I've learned from pediatricians themselves and from other experts in various places within pediatric and like neonatal care, is that pediatricians aren't really trained in infant sleep.
• 59:44
  Mary: They aren't really trained very deeply or broadly in infant psychology, and they aren't trained in baby wearing at all, of course.
• 59:53
  Mary: They're usually not super well trained in lactation, like there are a lot of these things that all are important in attachment theory in regard to infant care that pediatricians aren't necessarily informed in unless they're going above and beyond to inform themselves.
• 1:00:12
  Mary: And so I think for a lot of parents, especially like in Maine and in lower income communities where parents are sort of exhausted by their work and not able to do research kind of above and beyond, they just take at face value what their pediatricians tell them about infant care.
• 1:00:33
  Mary: And that's really like all that they have the time and the energy for.
• 1:00:36
  Mary: Yeah.
• 1:00:37
  Mary: So I think um there's a lot of work to be done, sort of getting pediatricians more up to date on this information and also um reaching parents, again, especially parents who are maybe not looking for the information.
• 1:00:55
  Angela: Yeah, definitely.
• 1:00:56
  Angela: So for new moms who feel overwhelmed by this conflicting advice out there, what are some gentle ways that she can trust her instincts to comfort her baby without feeling judged?
• 1:01:09
  Mary: Yeah, that's a that's a tough one.
• 1:01:11
  Mary: I think like the the most important thing is to find and surround yourself with people who are supportive voices.
• 1:01:21
  Mary: So, like, for example, if social media is becoming way too much and sending you too much conflicting information and making you really anxious, and like maybe delete Instagram and Facebook off your phone for a couple of months while you're still like potentially really delicate in that early postpartum phase and while you're still coming into this new identity, you know, maybe give yourself a break from that until you're more settled into that identity and more confident in it.
• 1:01:49
  Mary: And trying to find, you know, like-minded caregivers to befriend, which is so hard.
• 1:01:57
  Mary: It's so hard to make friends like in the modern era in general, and then even more so to find people that you feel connected with.
• 1:02:06
  Mary: But um, a lot of communities have programming and resources out there for um new parents or new moms.
• 1:02:15
  Mary: So, like I started going to a bumps and babies group that was run by our local sort of health organization.
• 1:02:27
  Mary: And I think there are similar bumps and like lactation groups that are run by WIC, etc.
• 1:02:34
  Mary: And that was really important for me.
• 1:02:36
  Mary: I made one of my closest parenting friends who like is really aligned with me at that bump bumps and babies group.
• 1:02:43
  Mary: If you're, you know, local to one of my meetups, come to come to one of our monthly meetups and you might make some some parenting friends, and that can be really helpful.
• 1:02:55
  Mary: And it can be especially hard to navigate with family members who disagree with your choices.
• 1:03:01
  Mary: So I guess just reminding yourself as often as you can that it's okay if you do things differently than your own parents or your own grandparents.
• 1:03:12
  Mary: Um things are, you know, culturally and in the research, the literature, things are changing all the time.
• 1:03:20
  Mary: And we have to maybe give a little bit of grace for our own parents and grandparents for the previous generations who didn't have access to the information we have.
• 1:03:31
  Mary: But that doesn't mean we have to listen to them.
• 1:03:34
  Mary: And that can be really hard to remind yourself, but just you know, remember that that things change and people parent differently all of the time.
• 1:03:44
  Mary: And you just have to believe that if this is what you feel is right, it's right.
• 1:03:51
  Mary: And if you are building a really beautiful relationship with your baby, then there's really nothing else to worry about.
• 1:04:02
  Angela: Yeah, yeah, that's such a good point.
• 1:04:04
  Angela: Uh so as a final question, if you were to give some pieces of advice to a new mom or even someone who's expecting, what's some of the biggest things that you'd want to share?
• 1:04:17
  Mary: I mean, from a baby wearing perspective, the biggest thing I would share is that your everything you see on the internet is not necessarily the right thing to do, in that not like that baby carrier you keep getting ads for isn't necessarily going to be the right fit for you.
• 1:04:38
  Mary: Everything is super individualized.
• 1:04:40
  Mary: And if you get a carrier on your registry and you hate it, that doesn't mean that baby wearing isn't right for you or for your baby.
• 1:04:48
  Mary: It just means you might need to try something else and you might need some support doing it.
• 1:04:52
  Mary: And like I said, that support is out there, and I'm happy to connect people, whether or not they live in Maine, to that support.
• 1:04:59
  Mary: And then I guess just like more general advice.
• 1:05:04
  Mary: Really just like you're doing a good job.
• 1:05:09
  Mary: It's so hard to remember that, but you are, you're doing a good job.
• 1:05:13
  Mary: And there's there are very few things that are going to have like a long-standing detrimental impact to your infant.
• 1:05:21
  Mary: And I know everything feels really dire in the beginning, but it's not, and we're all going to make mistakes, and there are going to be snags along the way.
• 1:05:30
  Mary: And you and your baby can still have a really good, strong, healthy relationship.
• 1:05:36
  Mary: You know, don't take everything to heart.
• 1:05:39
  Mary: I remember the first time my little got a diaper rash, I sobbed in in the bathroom for my husband.
• 1:05:47
  Mary: Was like, you need to like go relax, go take a bath or something.
• 1:05:51
  Mary: It like diaper rash is totally normal, and that doesn't mean you're a monumental failure as a parent.
• 1:05:56
  Mary: So um it's hard to internalize that, but Just keep telling yourself, even if you don't believe it yet, like I'm doing a good job.
• 1:06:05
  Angela: Yeah, it's it's so important.
• 1:06:07
  Angela: What is your contact information if anybody wants to get a hold of you or reach out about baby wearing things?
• 1:06:14
  Mary: Yeah, totally.
• 1:06:14
  Mary: So um I have a website.
• 1:06:16
  Mary: It is mainly babywearing.com.
• 1:06:21
  Mary: Maybe.babywearing.com, mainly.babywearing.com.
• 1:06:25
  Mary: Yeah, um, I should I should anyway, here we are.
• 1:06:32
  Mary: Um I have a Facebook and an Instagram and an email.
• 1:06:35
  Mary: They're all linked on the website.
• 1:06:37
  Mary: I respond to DMs really regularly.
• 1:06:39
  Mary: I respond to my email slightly less regularly, but pretty regularly.
• 1:06:44
  Mary: And, you know, I post about our meetups on on all of those spaces.
• 1:06:49
  Mary: And yeah, hopefully I'm easy to get in contact with.
• 1:06:54
  Mary: We also have a Facebook group that's a private Facebook group.
• 1:06:57
  Mary: And that's a place to get free fit checks, even if you don't live anywhere near me.
• 1:07:01
  Mary: So that's a place to join too.
• 1:07:03
  Angela: What's the name of that group?
• 1:07:05
  Mary: Um, mainly baby wearing and chatter.
• 1:07:08
  Angela: Okay, cool.
• 1:07:12
  Mary: Okay, great.
• 1:07:12
  Angela: Awesome.
• 1:07:13
  Angela: Well, thank you so much, Mary, for taking the time to chat with me and share your story and all of this great information about baby wearing.
• 1:07:20
  Angela: It has been such a pleasure chatting with you.
• 1:07:23
  Mary: Thank you.
• 1:07:23
  Mary: Yeah, I really appreciate you asking me to join today, and I'm glad that we got to connect.
• 1:07:34
  Kate Sutherland: Follow the walk of the wild ones into the woods and the darkness.
• 1:07:39
  Kate Sutherland: Rebirth the ways of the ancient ones whose tracks were washed away in blood.
• 1:07:44
  Kate Sutherland: It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we've been fed.
• 1:07:49
  Kate Sutherland: Take up the feed, expire of cleansing, change to light the path of stead.
• 1:07:54
  Kate Sutherland: Follow the walk of the wild ones into the woods and the darkness.
• 1:08:00
  Kate Sutherland: Rebirth the ways of the ancient ones, whose tracks were washed away in blood.
• 1:08:05
  Kate Sutherland: It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we've been fed.
• 1:08:10
  Kate Sutherland: Take up the feet, expire cleansing, change to light the path dead.
• 1:08:16
  Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be our light and you'll be mine.
• 1:08:21
  Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.
• 1:08:26
  Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be our light and you'll be mine.
• 1:08:31
  Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.
• 1:08:37
  Kate Sutherland: Follow the walk of the wild ones into the woods and the darkness.
• 1:08:42
  Kate Sutherland: Rebirth the ways of the ancient ones, whose tracks were washed away in blood.
• 1:08:47
  Kate Sutherland: It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we fed.
• 1:08:53
  Kate Sutherland: Take up the Phoenix, fire cleansing, change to light the path instead.
• 1:08:58
  Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be your light and you'll be mine.
• 1:09:03
  Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.
• 1:09:09
  Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be your light and you'll be mine.
• 1:09:14
  Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.