The Know-It-Alls

Isn't is just so much fun when you post something like this on Facebook: 

And then you get the know-it-all friend(s) who decide to tell you just how dangerous co-sleeping is, how breastfeeding doesn't always work out (didn't for her, after all!), how cloth diapering is just a fad and just as bad as disposables....oh, and don't be crushed if you end up with a c-section, even though you're planning a natural (home, did she miss that?) birth. Because, you know, "things happen". After all, it did to her.

Then another friend jumps in and says that she agrees with most, but that co-sleeping is absolutely positively dangerous, because it increases the risk of SIDS. Because, she read that one article. And the AAP recommends against bed sharing. And March of Dimes says, "Co-sleeping may..."

Ah. Yes. The non-researchers. We all know at least one. That friend who either doesn't do any actual research at all, and goes off of online articles or what a friend/family member/neighbor told them. Or, they say that you can't trust research because you can find studies that say anything you want them to.

MmHmm. It's funny that when we follow the way of life of the generations before we had hospitals for birth, or this idea that babies need to learn independence and sleep in their own room....things are generally safer and healthier!

Natural birth outside of a hospital? Fewer complications, fewer injuries, and lower cesarean rates.

Breastfeeding? Healthier baby, stronger immune system, more attached bond.

Co-Sleeping? Lower rates of SIDS (when done correctly), ease with breastfeeding at night, and a more secure attachment.

No shit! It's amazing!

Our culture is so backwards. Our culture belittles and dismisses women who have a grasp on biological parenting, even though they're doing things in ways that science and history have shown to be best for babies and families. Home birth and even simply natural birth is considered extreme and dangerous. Co-sleeping is considered "enabling behavior", spoiling, and dangerous. Extended (aka, full-term) nursing is considered perverted, instead of normal.  If you wear your baby in a sling instead of keeping them in the damn bucket seat all the time, you're considered a hippy freak who is spoiling her kid. If you cloth diaper because you'd like to save money, save waste, and not expose baby to the chemicals in disposables, you're paranoid and ridiculous.

And the sad part is, us paranoid hippy freaks don't just get crap from other moms. We get crap from the media, from doctors, from nurses, from family members...hell, sometimes from the stranger that happens upon us during one of our hippy freak rituals.

If only our culture valued natural, biologically modeled parenting.