pregnancy
On Maternity Leave
On Thursday, January 8, 2009, one Rachida Dati, a French Cabinet Minister, returned to work after having taken a short break after giving birth to her child via Cesarean Section. This event made International headlines because of the length of her maternity leave: 4 days. She caused a public spectacle arriving to work, with her tightly bundled, newly minted daughter in her arms. Her reasoning behind the brevity of her leave: “to avoid the devastating image of a president of the Republic announcing a fundamental reform of the legal system without her being present.”.
4 days. What took her so long? Why not 3? 2? How far can this madness be pushed? Dati’s case is an isolated incident – mostly because of its public nature; but for me, it’s a highly telling one. And it begs the question: how long should maternity leave be? Under French law, Dati was entitled to the following: “Maternity leave commences six weeks before the expected date of the employee’s confinement (eight weeks if she already has two or more children), and ends ten weeks after the confinement (sixteen weeks from the third child onwards). It is extended in the event of a pathological condition or of multiple births, and is adjusted if the birth is premature. This leave is deemed, in principle, to be a period of effective employment. It constitutes a period during which protection against dismissal is specially increased, with the guaranteed right to return to the same job”. At best, Ms. Dati’s actions constituted a simple decline to the advantages offered her, and she bravely made her way back to work. At worst, she acted in a highly irresponsible manner.
Dati is a very successful, professional woman and public figure. She is the kind of person that sets the example for working moms. She makes me look terrible.
Terrible because my own infant son is 12 weeks old today. And 12 weeks seems to be the gold standard for what passes as maternity leave among my friends and colleagues. And even so, I don’t think this is enough time. Am I just lazy, then? Dragging my heels? Do I lack Dati’s courageousness? No, no and no.
For those readers that have not actually given birth themselves, here’s what happens: The Entire Gravitational Pull of Your Life is Shifted. The planets are forced out of alignment. I don’t know how else to say it. Your body has been put under tremendous physical stress, if not cut open, and you must heal. This takes rest and time and lots of help. There is a new little person on Earth who depends on you for every little thing, and who does not know day from night; who has no understanding of what used to be important to you, and cannot communicate in any other way than to cry. Sometimes loudly and for hours. At 3am. He does not understand explanations for things, or requests. You must change, and your priorities much change as well. And you will need a village just to be able to take care of both him and yourself in the most basic way.
In short, you have a new job. What this means for your old job depends on a highly personal set of circumstances. But in listening to the particular situations of a large group of women locally, it seems that they always try to make as large an accommodation as possible. Many of my friends are in the education field, and try to time their babies births for the onset of summer vacay, ensuring at least a 12 week leave that doesn’t have to depend on drawing from sick leave, “short-term disability” (shudder), or missing out on the natural progression of work related stuff. But they are the fortunate exception; many of the rest scale back their duties – in one example, a 6 week leave (as dictated by Family and Medical Leave Act), followed by a 3 month period of part time work. Some quit their jobs to return full time several years later.
But this new job that you have, this mommyhood? It doesn’t pay. During maternity leave itself, almost no one has paid leave – and there are no legal guidelines at all for this. If anyone among the group that I asked was paid, it was via accumulated sick or vacation time. So it’s a sticky situation for most. Almost no one can afford the full 12 weeks of unpaid leave, so in most cases, something’s gotta give. And I wish that somehow the maternity leave fairy might be able to descend on new moms and supply enough pay to alleviate the financial strain of being able to devote oneself to mommyhood, because it is something that ought to be valued very highly.
But Ms. Dati’s case seems to be backsliding on this notion; very publically placing value on the old job over the new one.
So, I’m sorry Ms. Dati, that I am not the superwoman you are. I cannot simply bundle up my newborn and sling him around so that I can avoid the embarrassment of being left out of something important at work. You see, my little one is taking his nap, after which he will need to be nursed and have his diaper changed. I only have this small window of time in which to write in my blog, and in order to carve out this chunk of time, I have to neglect other things, like the dishes and the laundry and maybe even a nap for myself since I was up with the baby a couple of times last night. And seeing how he has not given me his schedule, I do not know how long my chunk of time will last, so I’ll make this short: Take that baby home and tend to her, and then tend to yourself. Do not make a public show of how tough you are by returning to work so idiotically soon, because it leads the public to think that any longer is unnecessary. And it is. It so. very much. is.
Stop drinking that! A Thirsty Nation’s Dilemma
Several weeks ago, when I voiced my misgivings about what a pregnant woman with a voracious thirst should drink, it paved the way for much larger questions that touches all of our lives, preggo or no: “Wait, what ARE we drinking“? “What’s IN this can/glass/bottle/cup, anyway“?
In recent news there has been a spirited debate about whether the government should impose a penny-per-ounce tax on soda and other sugary beverages. The fact that it has garnered so much attention by the national media shows us how interwoven soda and its affordability is to our national fabric. And although I’m not prepared to weigh in on whether such a tax might promote a healthier lifestyle, I’m listening intently to the debate. And I’m aghast at what I’m learning simply by paying a little attention.
I’ll say this out front: I like a good glass of juice or lemonade, but otherwise I’m not a big fan of sweet drinks. My tea contains neither sugar nor honey, nor does my morning coffee contain sugar or cream. I’ve never been a soda person, though I’m no stranger to the occasional can. My choices in wine and alcoholic beverages are always dry. For me, it’s just a matter of what my taste buds prefer. So suffice to say that I do not have a personal stake in this debate.
Given where I’m coming from, I’d like to match up two opposing arguments that I’ve heard; exhibit A and exhibit B:
Exhibit A: Lobbyist for the soda industry appearance on MSNBC within the last few weeks (apologies for not being able to provide specific show/guest info) making the case that beverages account for only 5 Percent of daily caloric intake for the average American, and that the blame that such a tax implies is patently unfair, an argument similar to the one defended by Kevin Keane of the American Beverage Association in this Chron.com article.
Exhibit B: Eat This, Not That‘s documentation of the 20 worst drinks in America, including the “worst soda“, Sunkist; a 20 ounce bottle contains 320 calories and 84 grams of sugar, as much as 6 Breyers Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches. Additionally, Sunkist makes use of “the artificial colors yellow 6 and red 40—two chemicals that may be linked to behavioral and concentration problems in children”. WikiAnswers lists the ingredients in Sunkist as these: “Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, citric acid, sodium benzoate (preservative), food starch-modified, natural flavors, caffeine, glycerol ester of wood rosin, ascorbic acid (preservative), yellow 6, red 40″.
So, according to the argument posed in Exhibit A, if one measly 20oz bottle of Sunkist was all the caloric beverage that you drank for an entire day, your overall calorie intake could be extrapolated to 6400. Is this reasonable? Would even Kevin Keane agree that this is reasonable? And I wonder whether he would be willing to weigh in on the effect of the ingredients list: high fructose corn syrup, yellow 6, red 40; as well as what specific ingredient tends to hide behind the term “natural flavors” (hint: MSG). So, it seems to me that this “don’t pick on us because there are other, bigger fish to fry” is really just awfully sad. And although the proposed soda tax has been defeated on the several occasions thus far that it has shown up as proposed legislature in Maine, New York, and San Francisco, I hope that the movement gains momentum, and that in time, the American Beverage Association does have its fish fried. I’ll take a water with that.
In the meantime, if a 2000 calorie-per-day diet is the ideal for most of us, let’s really try, as a culture, to observe that 5% idea — really, it turns out not to be such a bad one — 5% of your calories from beverages: that’s 100 calories a day. Let’s just all pay a little closer attention to the labels and try to observe this. It’d be way more effective to our lifestyle than a tax, though our states would still be that much more cash-strapped.
If just 100 calories to drink a day sounds way too restrictive, note the following from TLC Cooking: “look at the calorie count of any soft drink. For example, a typical carbonated soft drink will have 200 calories in a 16-ounce serving. All of those calories come from sugar, and sugar contains 16 calories per teaspoon. By this measurement, a 16-ounce serving contains 12.5 teaspoons of sugar.So go down to the kitchen and get out a 16-ounce glass, a teaspoon and some sugar. Measure 12 teaspoons of sugar into the glass — it’s an amazing amount. Then multiply that by however many sodas you typically consume in a day”.
For further reading, see also New England Journal of Medicine’s “Ounces of Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages”, and the New York Times’s “Health Official Willing to go to the Mat Over Obesity and Sugared Sodas”
A Thirsty Preggo’s Dilemma
This pregnancy has imparted on me a deep, deep thirst. I seem to be thirsty at all times, regardless of the amount of liquid that I have had to drink. And I’m not a sipper, I’m a gulper. I understand that this is common in pregnancy; I was surely thirsty during my first, but not, as I recall, quite this thirsty.
And this leads me to a dilemma. What do I drink? Water would seem to be the obvious choice, particularly as I’m drinking so much liquid. But my choices among water options are troubling:
Tap water: As countryfolk, we have well water. And we live in the land of industrial agriculture. Bad choice.
Bottled water: Last pregnancy, I bought bottled water by the case, but felt really bad about all of that plastic waste. Even though we were recycling, it’s just a shame to add that much more plastic onto the pile. And besides, I couldn’t really be assured that the liquid in the bottles was any better or worse, contaminant-wise, than my tap water. Non-optimal choice.
Water Cooler: This seemed to be a decent solution to the plastic waste problem of bottled water. Move up to the 5 gallon system, reuseable bottles, cool, fresh water. Okay, I still don’t really know about its quality. But it’s heavenly for chugging. The hitch: The bottle is stamped with a #7: polycarbonate plastic. Contains BPA, an endocrine disruptor, which can leach into the water I’m drinking. Ugh. Non-optimal choice.
Cans of sparkling water: Over ice, heavenly. But having stayed abreast of the BPA story for some time, it has finally come to light that aluminum cans are also lined with a type of plastic coating which contains BPA. Bad choice.
What’s left? Water in glass bottles. Heavy, hard-to-find. But if anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears!
Diapers: Cloth or Disposable?
When I was expecting the Little One, I dreaded this question. For me, it was like the “paper or plastic” question that you feel like you never really have all of the information necessary to make an informed decision (and if you’ve ever felt the same about the ‘paper or plastic?’ question, RUN, don’t walk, to this helpful breakdown). But with ‘Cloth or Disposable?’, I felt even more lost; for one thing, I wasn’t even a mom yet, so hadn’t even honed my diaper changing skills. I didn’t know how much and to what extent diapers would consume my future life, so had no real clue of what information was necessary to make this choice.
As a sustainability-friendly person, my instinct was that ‘cloth’ was the right answer. Much in the same way that many sustainability-friendly folks believe that ‘paper’ is the corresponding right answer among bagging issues. But I soon found, upon the Little One’s birth, that the choice here becomes a far more personal one than which type bag to use. Here is how I found the path to my favorite pick:
My initial response to the dreaded question was that I intended to try cloth, but begin with disposables; I figured the learning curve of caring for a newborn would be great enough without the added stress of trying to manage a new cloth diapering system. Turns out that Whew! I had that right! So, after a little homework on the various options in disposables, I added Seventh Generation diapers to my baby registry. They were hard to find; only one shop offered them locally at the time. The best bet was to buy them online. I’d been happy with both the products and philosophy of the Seventh Generation line, so I was looking forward to giving the diapers a shot. Although they are, like most disposables, essentially a plastic-based product, no chlorine is used in their manufacture, which is helpful in a few ways: Less processing required in manufacture means less carbon footprint; lack of chlorine makes diapers friendly to sensitive baby skin; no chlorine to leach into the groundwater after the diapers are disposed of.
The Little One finally showed up in October, and I was ready with my pick for disposable diapers. My life became a diaper-changing marathon. Any supply of diapers that I had armed myself with disappeared almost immediately. No matter how many new packs I bought, it seemed I was always almost out of them. Having chosen a brand that was difficult to find was not an optimal plan for the time. I ended up supplementing with plenty of Pampers Swaddlers and Luvs, just because they were the ones I could buy at the nearest grocery store. I’m glad that that happened, though, because it learned me something important: The Little One’s bum consistently got rashy when I used any other brand than Seventh Gen.
After a couple of months when I finally felt like I was getting the hang of whole diapering thing, I began to branch out. As a stop between disposable and cloth, I tried G Diapers. This was essentially a 3-part system: Cloth outer diaper, biodegradable/flushable/disposable insert, and protective plastic liner. They were freakin adorable. I loved how they looked on him, and the fit and absorbency was generally right on. I liked that the insert was flushable, but as we have septic system out here, that option was just not for us. The use of the G diaper required a little more planning than the full disposables; there were two outer cloth diapers, which needed to have the plastic liner snapped in place, in order to place the disposable insert, in order for the diaper to go on baby. Fine to plan out for an afternoon diaper change; at 2 am, however, not so much.
And just to wade a little into full cloth, I picked up a Bum Genius set. Super cute, super soft. If I were a baby, this is what I would want wrapping my tush. Aesthetically, it’s like the infant equivalent to Charmin Ultra.
Here, however, was the dealbreaker for me and cloth, and even me and G diapers: the Little One is famous for his consistently huge, runny poops. Even at 2, that kid can fill a diaper. Full. “Man poops” is how is daycare teacher jokingly characterized them. He made an awful mess of the poor Bum Genius. The kind that never quite washed out, and left it discolored. The G diapers would get all three layers saturated, necessitating a frantic run to the washing machine on a regular basis. But the Seventh Gen held it. Sure there were blow-outs, but few and far between as compared to the alternatives.
And now, many more places carry Seventh Generation locally, making them a consistently attractive option. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I used anything else. The Little One is slowly turning his sights to the potty, but I’ve got Kid 2.0 on the way as well; if his/her claim to fame does not include “man poops”, I might be inclined to give cloth another try. Any input or advice is welcome!
Hair care during pregnancy
I blame the pregnancy message boards. At the outset of my first pregnancy, I was blissfully oblivious to the potential hazards of shampoo. Then, the posting was clicked: “Shampoo?“, then, the link followed: “Pregnancy Alert: Shampoo Ingredient Could Damage Developing Brain Cells“. It should have carried a warning: “Danger! Can of worms about to be opened“! Because what unfolded was a long lesson in the vile substances in personal care products that could, key word: could, have the potential of harm to a developing baby.
If you think about it, our skin is our largest organ, so concern about hazards during pregnancy should not stop with what we simply ingest. We do, like it or not, absorb many additional things through our skin, intentionally or no. Here’s the main thing to take away from the link above: shampoo often contains an ingredient called methylisothiazolinone, a substance that acts as an antimicrobial agent, to give the shampoo a long shelf life. Here’s the thing, though: methylisothiazolinone is a neurotoxic chemical. It really shouldn’t be used in shampoo at all. But it shows up in far more than just shampoo. The Household Products Database has it listed as an ingredient in a wide variety of products: house paint, shampoo, conditioner, hand soap, hair color…….See the list here.
In addition to the Household Products Database, coming to the rescue to help us sort through the maze of ingredients on our personal care products is the Cosmetics Database, who warn: “Major gaps in public health laws allow cosmetics companies to use almost any ingredient they choose in everything from sunscreen and mascara to deodorant and baby shampoo, with no restrictions and no requirement for safety testing. To help you navigate your store’s aisles, Environmental Working Group researchers have scoured thousands of ingredient labels to bring you our top recommendations for what not to buy — products with worrisome or downright dangerous ingredients that don’t belong in your shopping cart or on your skin”.
They do a commendable job of rating personal care products based on the safety of their ingredients. And it’s clearly not just methylisothiazolinone that is of concern here. The database also singles out Placenta, Lead, Fragrance, Animal Parts, Hydroquinone Skin Lightener, Nanoparticles, Phthalates, and Petroleum By-products as the ingredients causing the highest concern. Yes, these products really are in the personal care products we use every day without question.
But no despair necessary: being pregnant does not condemn one to a 9 month avoidance of personal care products. My picks for a low-chemical personal care routine, having already done the work of hashing through the Cosmetic Database’s findings and trying a wide range of the green-lighted products:
Shampoo: Burt’s Bees – widely available; does a good job with far fewer ingredients of concern.
Conditioner: Aubrey Organics – for my fine, dry, wavy hair, the Island Naturals conditioner can’t be beat.
Cosmetics: 100% Pure – amazing products. The tinted moisturizer, eye shadows, and blush all get big thumbs up.
Skin creams and shower gel: California Baby – I hate to say it……….as good as Kiehl’s. It’s true. The Calendula cream kicks Kiehl’s Abyssine cream’s butt, and it’s so much kinder to the wallet. And with far fewer ingredients of concern.
Nail Polish: Priti Polish – nail polish and remover is one of the leading offenders in chemical content. Priti, astoundingly enough, offers a great product without the harsh ingredients that throw out the red flags.
As far as hair color goes: Better to wait until after the first trimester, and thereafter, better to go to a stylist, who can apply the coloring so that it does not make contact with your scalp.
Morning Sickness: A Rant
I try to make healthy, balanced and sustainable food choices. That is always my goal in shopping and cooking and selecting restaurants. And one would think, wouldn’t one, that during pregnancy, this goal would only be that much more important? One would. Think.
But here is a sampling of a typical pre-pregnancy menu in this household: Pot Roast of locally raised beef and garden veggies, local greens salad with homemade bread. Or lamb chops with a balsamic reduction and local blue potato wedges with garden squash pie.
Now, during the worst phase of the first trimester: Pizza and cookies. Fast food hamburger and fries. Major-chain restaurant spaghetti and meatballs. Velveeta Shells and Cheese. Seriously, the best (healthy balanced and/or sustainable) that I can do for a satisfying meal is a loaded baked potato, fruit and a green salad, but preferably prepared by someone else. And then I’ll need a cupcake in a couple of hours, and another before bed.
The culprit here: morning sickness. The very mechanism that is designed to help me make safe food choices is the stick in my culinary spokes. Before I was ever pregnant, I envisioned morning sickness as passing waves of nausea, punctuated by some vomiting. The version that I’ve gotten, though, is the constant seasickness that has changed my entire relationship with food. I know that it is temporary, but I am appalled at my food choices lately.
I realize that the biological point of morning sickness and the weird cravings/aversions is also to help my body gain excess fat to store, as well as to keep a safe distance from potentially hazardous things like raw meat. But the things that I’m craving have their definite downsides: The processed food with the preservatives and additives and high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils and food coloring and…….ech……just making myself feel ill. I’m sure you get my point: When you rely on food that someone else has made for you, and that relationship is a distant one, you tend to ingest a lot of crap that is not beneficial to your own body, let alone a tiny vulnerable bean growing inside you.
When I first found out about my first pregnancy, I quickly ordered the book “Eating for Pregnancy” to make sure that my nutritional i’s would be dotted and t’s would be crossed. I never made a single recipe from the book, though – as soon as morning sickness kicked in, I couldn’t even look at a recipe, let alone shop productively in a grocery store. I lamented to my OB, who assured me that my former pre-pregnancy diet would be enough to sustain my body through the first trimester. “If you ate well before you were pregnant”, she said, “you’ll be fine”. I hope to heck she’s right.
Pregnancy: a new category at CIE
If I could choose one event in my life that, more than any other, furthered my awareness of product ingredients and how they affect the human body, it would have been my pregnancy in 2007. Most newly pregnant women are pummelled with the basic information on what to avoid during pregnancy, and in most cases, these things were no surprise: raw/undercooked meat, smoking, illicit drugs, unpasteurized cheese, cat litter……….but aside from the pamphlet list that you get from the doctor, there are actually very many more products and drugs and airborne things to know about; something that I learned slowly over the course of the nine months before the Little One’s birth.
Just this morning, MSNBC ran a bit about the rise in autism rates; it was 1 in 150 during my last pregnancy. Now, just 2 1/2 years later, it is 1 in 91. Although no one can or wants to say definitively what is causing this rise, I think most of the scientific community agrees that, in addition to the genetic factor, it is a result of multiple toxic exposure during pregnancy. Therefore, limiting such exposure when we are trying to conceive and when we are pregnant is the goal here. But how to go about doing that? That standard doctor’s list is a good place to start. I will do my best to continue it here in this category over the coming months; and I am now invested in the subject as well — we are expecting our next little bundle in May.
