Mothering. The Work Before Us.
& Why It Needs to Be Valued
This is a rant. A summary of my deeply held beliefs and my frustration over how our popular culture consistently f%^&s things up in the name of short-sighted progress.
This is my call to action—to care more, stand firm in your strength, pay attention, and take action.
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (8th edition) makes one thing mind-blowingly crystal clear: “When breastfeeding stops, your baby misses out on those essential immunities you provide… Your baby not only lives on your milk, [your baby] shares your immune system. By the time you know you’re sick, you’ve started passing not only the illness but your immunities on to your baby. To stop nursing now would be to deprive [your baby] of the best of your immune system when [your baby] needs it most. The reverse is truly remarkable. If your baby picks up an illness that you haven’t been exposed to, [your baby] passes those germs to you through nursing, and within the breast itself you begin making antibodies and passing them back.” (p. 382) Breastfeeding can help boost your baby’s immune system in ways nothing else can.
The connection shared between mother and child during that time is absolutely unique.
It’s not just about the breast milk. It’s also about the latch. The way the baby attaches, the way the mother and baby come together, is a crucial developmental process. That latch helps develop the baby’s jaw, palate, teeth, will, and effort strategy. It's a muscle-building, neurodevelopmental process that sets the stage for the baby’s physical and emotional growth. Bottle feeding is a substitute, to be used when no other option is available.
Then there's the skin-to-skin connection. It’s not just about feeding—it’s about nurturing on a deep, biological level. When a baby is placed on the mother’s chest immediately after birth, the warmth of their skin against hers is more than just soothing—it is a profound biological event that serves as the first of many critical steps in a lifelong process of bonding and growth.
This closeness isn’t just a fleeting moment. It’s the foundation of a deep emotional and physical connection that is integral to the baby's development. When a baby lies against their mother’s skin, heartbeats sync, and breathing rhythms align. The baby feels the pulse of her heart, the steady rise and fall of her chest, and her familiar voice. This physical connection calms the baby, regulates their body temperature, and stabilizes their heart rate. Their bodies communicate in a language beyond words—a non-verbal exchange of comfort, safety, and trust. These moments are vital in regulating the baby’s nervous system and beginning to build a foundation of emotional security.
But it’s not just about physical regulation—this skin-to-skin contact helps the baby feel seen, acknowledged, and cared for in a way that goes beyond feeding. It allows the baby to experience the mother’s scent, the feeling of her skin, and the warmth of her embrace. All these elements make the world feel safe, comforting, and stable. For the mother, this is often when she first feels the overwhelming love and connection with her newborn. It’s a natural, instinctual response—the love hormone, oxytocin, floods her body, helping to strengthen this bond.
That bond is more than emotional—it impacts the baby’s neurological development, their ability to regulate stress, and even their future social and emotional health. The act of holding and being held creates neural pathways in the baby’s brain that lay the groundwork for future relationships, attachment styles, and emotional health.
No amount of medical technology, no matter how well-intentioned, can replicate what the birthmother and baby can naturally share in those first days, weeks, and months. Artificial interventions and separation of mother and baby after birth disrupt this primal connection.
When we understand the value, importance, and relevance of these processes, then we can evaluate where we are in navigating our options.
Pitocin, for example, might assist in inducing labor, but it cannot stimulate the same hormonal environment as natural labor. Natural oxytocin, released during contractions and as the baby is born, sets the stage for this deep bonding. Synthetic Pitocin doesn’t foster the same rhythmic, emotional exchange.1
Oxytocin is often called the "love hormone" because of its key roles in childbirth, bonding, and breastfeeding, but its functions go far beyond that. It helps with uterine contractions during labor, promotes the bonding between mother and baby, and facilitates milk ejection during breastfeeding.
Pitocin, a synthetic form of oxytocin, is commonly used in modern childbirth to induce or augment labor, but its use can be a double-edged sword. While it can help speed up labor or manage complications, it might disrupt the body’s natural oxytocin release, potentially affecting the physiological and emotional aspects of childbirth and early motherhood. The overuse of synthetic oxytocin can interfere with the body’s natural processes, especially if used in a manner that doesn't align with the body’s timing and cues. It can reduce the body's sensitivity to oxytocin or alter the release patterns, possibly making the mother less responsive to the emotional bonding and nurturing effects that come with natural oxytocin production. Studies suggest that long-term exposure to synthetic oxytocin influences emotional regulation, social bonding, and even the likelihood of postpartum depression.
When mothers and babies are separated for long periods, the lack of skin-to-skin time can have real, measurable impacts on both parties. For the mother, it can delay or even hinder the production of milk, particularly the early, nutrient-rich colostrum. For the baby, it can create additional stress, slow their ability to latch and breastfeed properly, and delay their ability to regulate their own body systems.
This skin-to-skin bond is about nurturing, not just a way to deliver milk, but a way to foster the baby's well-being, support their emotional growth, and provide the mother with the foundation she needs to begin her journey of nurturing.
It is nature’s perfect design, far beyond any intervention or medical procedure—a profound, unquantifiable exchange that should be protected at all costs. When the medical world disregards this in favor of technical interventions, it not only disrupts a crucial process but undermines something deeply human—something that cannot be measured, but must be felt.
Motherhood is not a set of tasks to be checked off and delegated, mere minutes after birth. As with every life event, it can be the wheels falling off a car—the moment when everything you thought was steady and secure is suddenly chaotic, and you’re left trying to figure out how to put it all back together. It can be overwhelming, process that evolves over days, weeks, and months, before and after birth. The emotional and physical demands can be all-consuming, especially for the mother, as she navigates a transition in body, mind, and spirit. The moment you think you have it under control, something shifts, and you have to adjust again. It’s an unpredictable journey, but one that shapes you in ways that can’t be measured or planned for.
This connection—the bond between mother and child—is an evolved design. It’s a carefully crafted system that has persisted over millennia, ensuring the survival and thriving of the species. It’s a journey that requires inner development—something that can easily be overshadowed by the weight of expectations and needs placed on mothers in today’s world.
Hospitals Today Are Not Designed For Healing
A dear friend of mine just spent a week in the NICU, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a specialized department for premature or critically ill newborns, where babies receive intensive care to meet their unique health needs.
Why was she there? Because her babies have what appears to be a genetic predisposition to severe jaundice.
But here’s the kicker: the hospital staff wouldn’t allow her to directly breastfeed her newborn baby until FIVE days after their arrival.
Why does this make me angry?
Knowing the countless ways that medical interventions sabotage the birthing and parenting process, I’m highly skeptical about this post-birth treatment policy. (More about this in the days to come)
Breastfeeding is an exclusive mother and child exchange that connects body to body, spirit to spirit, and connects the immeasurable and powerful.
To separate a mother from her newborn—whether out of fear, convenience, or preference, even under the guise of protecting the child’s health—is often an abuse of power. It strips us of our autonomy, reducing us to mere subjects, pawns for production, to increase profits. It’s a display of human arrogance, a surrender to fallible authority, corporate interests, and the abdication of our own responsibility. And in this, we must reflect on our cosmic karma—the way we’re collectively shaping a world where deep, sacred connections are diminished for convenience and control.
Profits that don’t nurture and develop our humanity, but instead strip us of our heart and soul, reducing us to mindless, frenetic, need-driven, robotic consumers.
It reveals how our culture often abandons the laboring mother—the one who has produced, carried, and held it all together for everyone else. And when her body is exhausted, just as the process of parenting is beginning, we default to fear. Fear that takes the place of trust, fear that makes decisions without considering the wisdom of the variations in a human body.
“If you don’t follow our orders, your baby might DIE. And we can’t allow that.”
In this moment, we are asked to relinquish our own authority, to reinforce someone else’s sense of institutional superiority, and to defer to another’s declaration that they alone have all the answers. It is a refusal to look deeper, to seek an integrated, holistic approach to human health that acknowledges the spirit-filled exchange of creation.
This is not about triggering guilt or shame in anyone—it is a call to awaken those of us who are now aware, to speak out, to vocalize our support for what it truly means to bring a healthy, vibrant human being into this world with full respect for the sacredness of the journey.
We can interact with the fullness of ownership over our lives, our choices, and our effects. We can learn as we go. We can modify and self-correct. We can transform ourselves and create real change.
Because it’s not all easy and controllable. And hospitals today, with their cafeteria menus of processed, cheap crap and rules against bringing in your own food … they ain’t it. Not yet.
“Real change will take place when individuals transform themselves guided by the values that lie at the core of all human ethical systems, scientific findings, and common sense.” - Dalai Lama