Great Mama Nurture - yoga with pregnancy & post-natal yoga as a speciality

Great post from the milk Meg! ✨

People say is takes a village to raise a child... Good reminder that most mums are tired because we live in a way that is much more isolated than is best for families... a good read if you’re feeling a bit depleted from parenting without your ‘village’ to help 👬👩‍👩‍👦‍👦

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but attachment parenting in a detached society is exhausting.
No. It’s not your baby.
There is nothing wrong with them if they want to be held all the time.
No. It’s not you.
You’re not doing it wrong.
Your feelings of exhaustion and depletion and being touched out are normal- considering the weight you’re carrying. Those feelings, and the deep ache underneath them - are a reminder that you were never meant to do this alone.

Babies want to be held. And we want to hold them close. Exclusive/extended breastfeeding, cosleeping, babywearing- all of these are intuitive, ancestral practices that have kept our species alive throughout history. Attachment parenting is just parenting!!

But never before have we parented in such isolation. There were always other hands stirring the soup pot, other aunties, and sisters, and uncles and grandmas, and cousins, and neighbors helping with the daily tasks and child rearing. Other arms carrying the weight of raising humanity. Together.

And now, it’s just you. Alone in the kitchen, trying to stir the soup and bounce the baby and play with the toddler and keep an eye on the big kid and answer the phone and sweep up the mess and tackle the laundry and .....
No matter how magical your baby wrap is — it can’t take the place of a whole village.

So no, you’re not doing it wrong. You’re just trying to stay connected in a world set on tearing you apart.

But don’t give up mama. I know you’re tired and touched out, but you’re giving your baby exactly what she needs. And maybe one day, when she’s raising her own babies,there will be a village around her, helping her hold it all together.

Beautiful words and Pic by on Instagram

So very touching 🥰

Heartwarming: 5-week-old Hunter snoozing alongside his 104-year-old great-great-grandfather Charles 👶👴 ❤️

Credit: Hannah Temple / Shared from Some Good News

This is a really important documentary project on positive births... help if you can ! 💫

We especially need video footage if anyone would be so kind as to share.
We need permission from anyone featured in the video.
For more information about the project,
please visit
www.whenpushcomestoshove.co.uk

Thank you ladies
xx

This is a really lovely article by Naomi Stadlen, author of ‘what mothers do, especially when it looks like nothing’ I used to go to Naomi’s la leche league support groups for breastfeeding and she’s wonderful 💫

Softening into Motherhood | La Leche League International By Naomi Stadlen – Central London Group, UK   Once, each of us was a baby, as soft as those born to us. So the La Leche League phrase “Softening into motherhood” is a return to a way that we used to know well. Many of us didn’t know we had grown harder until our … Read More

I recommend home birth but wouldn’t advocate for birth without a midwife.. it’s interesting & sad that so many women have so little support & care from maternity services from the nhs that they have felt that free birth is the only choice... hopefully this will be a catalyst dor change in maternity services post pandemic! 💫

‘Women feel they have no option but to give birth alone’: the rise of freebirthing As Covid infections rose, hospital felt like an increasingly dangerous place to have a baby. But is labouring without midwives or doctors the answer?

https://www.positive.news/lifestyle/health/it-carried-me-through-the-charity-helping-vulnerable-women-through-childbirth/

The Glasgow charity helping vulnerable women through childbirth Launching before the pandemic, Amma Birth Companions had a difficult delivery itself, but Covid-19 has made its work even more vital

For some women breast feeding is just not an option and many women just need more help & support... important to know that babies are ingesting microplastics from bottle feeding 😢

Bottle-fed babies swallow millions of microplastics a day, study finds Exposure is far higher than previously thought and also affects plastic food containers

Really interesting ideas about what it is to love children! ✨“Adrienne Rich states that motherhood is a patriarchal institution. It shames mothers into a specific set of expectations that are impossible to attain. Mothers are judged for allowing their children to use devices, co-sleeping, engaging in paid work, not engaging in paid work, being fat, being thin, breastfeeding, using formula – the list goes on. I have seen what must be sacrificed – body, career, relationships – and how this is never enough for a culture that is always wagging its finger at you. I have witnessed the bravery it takes to be a mother in a patriarchal world, and I do not wish to cast myself in that net. It is the act of mothering, Rich defines, which is the potentially empowering experience”

I don't want children but being an aunt is the joy of my life | Lara Holmes I am deeply involved in my niece and nephew’s lives. It is an effortless love I was falsely told I was incapable of feeling

Yes! Too long coming but good news !

Maternity units told to allow partners and visitors so mothers are not left to give birth alone ‘This must happen now so that partners are able to attend maternity units for appointments and births,’ says NHS England’s letter