How to make the Big Parenting Decisions when the Pressure is On

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Preparing for Parenting

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If you are like most new parents you pour your energy into the pregnancy. You write a birth plan. You have assembled a team of wonderful providers. The baby comes, and now… what? Does that sound familiar?

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Worse yet, doctors come at you in the first hours after baby is born with a list of things they want you to do. They position it in dramatic terms, and you don’t feel qualified to say “No.” So what do you do?

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The first step is to stay out of that defensive position. Be proactive. My intake form asks the same questions to every pregnant patient in my office. I want them to think about the big picture items, so I find out if any of their birth providers have talked with them about:

• Breastfeeding
• Circumcision
• Vaccination
• Co-Sleeping
• Baby wearing
• Car Seat Installation

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I like to open conversation doors. As a physician, I don’t dictate what someone should or shouldn’t do. I ask my patients to make decisions based on their values and share with them the places that have informed my reference points. Below are a few of them.

• Let Nature be your Guide
• Value Autonomy, even your child’s
• The Innate Intelligence in your baby put all those cells together, it must know what it’s doing
• Don’t Leash the Puppy

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Resources

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• Check out this podcast, Happy Births, Happy Babies: Hosted by Dr. Jay Warren
  
• Read these Ina May Gaskin Quotes
  
• Read One Conscious Path In Parenting by Dr. Jeanne Ohm
  
• The Circumcision Decision, the article that shifted my mind on the topic