A mother's ability to heal

I read this article today. http://babywhys.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/mothers-last-skin-to-skin-... I encourage, beg, plead, demand that you read it too.

This article moved me more than anything I have read in a long time. I was so choked up I could barely speak. This article speaks so deeply to what I am most passionate about. It is a wonderful story of a mother's love and fear. More importantly, it is a powerful tale of a woman mothering instinctively. The miracles of modern medicine have done so much to prolong life, increase quality of life, and save people from illness and death. However, it has also stripped women of the confidence and knowledge they need to trust themselves and their bodies. It has turned the most primal and natural processes into medical procedures. It has encouraged women to turn to doctors instead of themselves or their own mothers and friends when they have questions. And so much of what they are being told is wrong and driven by the financial interests of doctors and other industries making money off them.

That is why this story is so refreshing. Here, a woman, facing the most tragic moment of her life, when the doctors have stepped back and are not discouraging her, follows the instincts from within, and ends up saving her baby's life. No grand interventions saved her. The cure was simple, mother. It is terrifying to think, what if? What if you don't do what the doctors say and something goes wrong? I haven't been able to totally cancel out this fear, even in myself. But I do try to continuously encourage mothers to listen to their instincts. If someone is telling you to do something other than what your instincts tell you, listen to yourself. You have a connection to your baby, physical for a very long time, and then, I think, through emotions and energy for the rest of your life. You know far more than you give yourself credit for.

The other part of this story that moves me so much is that it is solid proof of the two things. 1) The power of touch to babies, 2) the absolute NEED for babies to have touch. Studies have proven this, but we (in the US especially) are so concerned with spoiling our children that we put them at arm's length, or further. This mother's touch healed her child, brought her back from the brink of death. That is powerful, more so than any modern medicine. If touch can be this good for a sick baby, why wouldn't it be just as good for a healthy baby? Why wouldn't it be just as good for a 6 month old? This is why breastfeeding is so important, why attachment parenting is so powerful. Babies need to touch, to be touched, to be held. Our bodies were designed to meet their needs even outside the womb. We provide their nourishment, can keep them warm, can regulate their breathing and heart rate. Just because they are born to the world, doesn't mean that they are any less dependent on their mother to love, provide, and care for them at every moment and for every single need.