ParentMap Baby 2017

The Early Years

’cause parenting is a trip!

Baby

STAY-AT-HOME DADS

Supporting that developing sense of self 11

An increasing number of dads are staying home full-time — what that means for families 5

SINGLE MOMS

3 moms share their stories of striking out on their own, by choice and by chance 8

GENTLE C-SECTION

More parents want a cesarean that feels more like birth, less like surgery 14

parentmap.com/baby • 2017

what a personality!

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editor’s note

contents

Expecting

F

ull disclosure: I don’t have a baby.

But if I did, I’d want something like this issue.

I imagine a pregnant me will crave information (and also watermelon, judging by my mom’s pregnancy with me). I’ll need stories like “As easy as A, B, C-section” (p. 14) that spell out my options when it comes to getting the health care both my baby and I deserve.

I’ll want to read about inspiring parents like those in our article about single moms (“Single by choice, single by chance,” p. 8) and stay-at-home dads (“The rise of the stayat-home dad,” p. 5). I’ll also want quotes like “Things may not always work out as planned, but with perseverance, one can always survive.” That seems wise enough to stitch on a baby blanket right now.

But more than anything, Pregnant

ParentMap Baby 2017

Me will want to feel less alone. I’ll want to know that whatever I’m feeling, whenever I’m feeling it, another woman has been there, done that and got the thriving baby to show for it.

So whether you’re reading this in the doctor’s office before your next appointment or in the restroom at work as you pump breast milk, welcome.

We hope you enjoy our Baby as you get to know your own.

Oh, and as for who that cutie is to the left — that’s yours truly. Not to brag but I won a $50 Safeway gift certificate with that photo, a prize my parents promptly spent in what I can only imagine was a newborn-themed version of “Supermarket Sweep.”

Babies: You give them life. They get you gift cards.

— Elisabeth Kramer, associate editor

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’cause parenting is a trip!

Baby 2017

4

ParentMap.com The fun doesn’t stop in print! More online

5

The rise of the stay-at-home dad What this trend means for families

8

Single by choice, single by chance 3 moms talk adoption, IVF

11

Born this way Shy or hyper, anxious or adventurous — how to support your child’s personality

14

As easy as A, B, C-section Parents seek a C-section that feels more like birth, less like surgery

15

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ParentMap Baby 2017 • 3

navigate great stuff daily!

Naming your new arrival

Nanny cams: Legal or not?

You might install one with the best of intentions (“I just want to see what’s happening during the day!”) but is using a nanny cam legal? What you need to know before you record: parentmap.com/nanny-cams

Is giving a baby the mother’s surname still a controversy in 2017? That’s the question we ask in this article. One new trend: parents combining their last names to give their offspring something brand-new. parentmap.com/last-name

The parenting decision no one talks about Six out of 10 women who undergo abortions have a child or children at the time of their abortion, according to reproductive health research organization Guttmacher Institute. We talked to three moms who’ve been there.

Their stories: parentmap.com/abortion

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Surviving miscarriage After five miscarriages, this local doula offers her experience and advice. “Not everything ‘happens for a reason.’ Or maybe it does. I don’t really know. My point is that this is the WORST thing to say to someone going through a miscarriage.” parentmap.com/miscarriage pinterest.com/ParentMap

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stay-at-home dad

The rise of the stay-at-home dad

Why more fathers are staying home to look after the kids and what that means for families

By Rebecca Hill

W

ill Culp is the ringmaster of his own circus. During the week, his two daughters and one son are up at 6 a.m. sharp. The girls get ready for school; his son goes to preschool four times a week. So, who stays home with the kids? In 2009, Culp and his wife decided it would be Dad — and they haven’t looked back.

Since 1989, the number of American dads who stay at home with their kids has nearly doubled, according to the Pew Research Center.

The number is even higher for dads who say the main reason they’re staying home is to take care of their family. That number is up to 21 percent; just 5 percent of surveyed fathers said the same in 1989.

parentmap.com/baby

The number of stay-at-home dads hit a peak — 2.2 million — in 2010, partly because of the recession of 2007–2009. More than 6 million jobs were lost by men during the recession, compared to 2.7 million lost by women, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The difference is typically attributed to the fact that professions hit harder by the recession, such as manufacturing and construction, have higher concentrations of male employees. More men out of work meant more men at home; in 2014, 23 percent of dads said they were at home primarily because they couldn’t find a job, according to Pew.

Job wanted: Dad Such was the case for Culp, who lives in

Mahomet, Illinois. When he lost his job in 2008, he became a stay-at-home dad to avoid child-care expenses, a common motivation for families. According to the EPI, child care for two kids can cost anywhere from 19.3 percent to 28.1 percent of a family’s budget. For some families, it just makes more sense to have one parent remain at home to care for the kids.

Finances were a motivating factor in Seattle stay-at-home dad Scott Steinhorst’s decision, too. Previously, Steinhorst had worked as an Amazon software engineer; in 2004, he decided to take a break from what he describes as an “excessively intense work schedule” to be a stayat-home parent.

“My wife and I have always been grateful >> ParentMap Baby 2017 • 5

stay-at-home dad The rise of the stay-at-home dad continued from page 5 that we could make such a decision,” says Steinhorst.

For other families, the decision of “who stays home” comes down to who makes more money.

Eric Springer of Champaign, Illinois, stayed home from 2007 to 2016; his wife, a nurse anesthetist, earned more than he did as a high school teacher.

At first, Springer stayed home to tend to the couple’s newborn son. Later, he continued to do so as he finished graduate school and after the birth of the couple’s second child in 2010. Springer has since gone back to full-time work as a computer programmer and computer science instructor. The change, he said, wasn’t an easy one.

“Before returning to work full-time, I had a very flexible work schedule,” Springer says. “It was somewhat of a challenge for our family when I decided to return to work full-time.”

Not as easy as it seems Stay-at-home dads often find themselves dealing with various misconceptions about their choice to stay home. In fact, employer-provided family and work programs often implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) target only women, making it tougher for men to become the primary at-home caregiver, according to a 2015 report by the Boston College Center for Work and Family (BCCWF).

Sometimes, though, the hardest part of staying at home is getting others to be on board

6 • ParentMap Baby 2017

with your choice, says Culp. While many friends and family understand his decision, Culp says it’s not universally accepted and he often sticks out.

He’s often the only dad in the room at events like story time at the local library, for example.

“I was doing all the same things that stay-athome moms were doing, and it did make a few of them uncomfortable,” he says. Not that the awkwardness stopped him from embracing the role. “I am a very engaging person and I am not going to shrink back and hide,” he says. To help educate people about his life as a stay-at-home dad, Culp began writing a parenting column in his local newspaper; those columns eventually led to a book, Better Off Dad: Parenting Morsels from a Stay-at-Home Daddio.

For Springer, the isolation of staying at home was the hardest part. “I remember how important it was to stay connected with other at-home dads,” Springer says. “It was so easy to feel isolated at times.” Since Springer didn’t know any other local stay-at-home dads, he started making phone calls to friends and family. He talked to dads on the playground and at the library. Eventually, he formed a stay-at-home dads’ group that, when Springer was a member, met several times a week for playdates and for a monthly “Dads’ Night Out.” Springer also joined the National At-Home Dad Network (NAHDN, athomedad.org). The organization, founded in 2003 by three stayat-home dads, provides support, education and advocacy for fathers who are the primary caregivers of their children. For Springer, NAHDN gave him a chance to meet other dads in similar situations.

“I attended six conventions in the eight years that I was an at-home dad,” Springer says. “To this day, I still have friends whom I met at the convention.”

Culp is also a part of NAHDN, serving as an at-large board member. What he likes most about NAHDN is the ability to use the annual convention, HomeDadCon, and workshops as “professional development” opportunities. Dads go to sharpen their parenting skills and to educate themselves about parenting trends, says Culp.

resources Stay at home, stay connected City Dads Group (citydadsgroup.com) This national organization connects stay-at-home dads living in the same city through meetups and boot camps.

Daddit (reddit.com/user/Dadditt) This dad-focused subreddit has more than 34,000 subscribers.

Dad 2.0 Summit (dad2summit.com) This annual conference brings together dads to discuss “the commercial power of dads online” and the mainstream perception of fatherhood.

Fatherly.com (fatherly.com) Launched in April 2015 by Simon Isaacs, this website answers that most important question of “What do I do with my kids all day?” with a specific focus on dads.

Going back to work As with stay-at-home moms, many a stay-athome dad returns to work later in life. But it’s not without consequences. A study by the BCCWF showed that men who took time off to care for family members had significantly lower longterm earnings; other studies have shown that they were not only treated as lesser workers but “lesser men.”

While mothers often face similar challenges upon returning to full-time work, Brad Harrington, Ph.D., executive director of BCCWF, says dads may actually have it worse.

“Many women fear that spending years at home with children will make relaunching their careers difficult,” he says. “This problem is even parentmap.com/baby

more acute for men.” One 2013 study by the University of Toronto found that if fathers are involved or take time off to care for their families, they can be subject to “informal and formal professional sanctions,” such as a type of “not man enough” harassment.

For stay-at-home dads who are considering a return to work, the key is to go about it very intentionally, says Culp. “I have laid the groundwork for the last couple of years,” says Culp, who is in law school and clerks part-time at a law firm. A parent who decides to go back to work needs to stay on top of any training, take continuing education and watch for changes in their specific career, Culp adds. “You can’t just duck in and out of the workforce,” he says.

Whatever a family’s situation, the issue of child care and work/life balance must be viewed as a necessity with which every family has to deal. “Staying at home with my children has always been a privilege,” says Springer. “I built strong relationships with them because of the time that I spent with them during the day. There were many defining moments.” And for most parents, that’s all it takes to make any sacrifice worthwhile. ■

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ParentMap Baby 2017 • 7

single moms

Single by choice, single by chance 3 moms share their stories of striking out on their own

By Sara Lindberg

W

e all know the “k-i-s-s-i-n-g song” from our childhoods: “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage.” But as any adult knows, life doesn’t always happen in such a precise order.

At least 35 percent of American children live with an unmarried parent, according to the Kids Count Data Center. The majority of those parents are mothers.

Many of those mothers decided to push the baby carriage on their own rather than wait around for a partner. Their stories are as vastly different as their reasons for deciding to be a single parent.

Some choose building a career before considering a family.

Others separated from their partners after an unplanned pregnancy. All are part of a growing movement of single women going it alone. You might hear them referred to as “choice moms” (single women who proactively decide to become a mom through adoption or conception) or “single by chance” (single women who have an unplanned pregnancy).

Mikki Morrissette, founder of the Choice Moms organization (choicemoms.org) and author of Choosing Single Motherhood: The Thinking Woman’s Guide, says choice moms are women who have usually reached their mid-30s or early 40s. They’re typically financially independent and haven’t found the right partner or have left a partner who doesn’t want children. According to The New York Times, these mothers comprise the only group of unmarried women for whom birthrate has increased in recent years.

“This choice isn’t the right one for everyone, so women have to carefully consider their ability to juggle responsibilities, handle stress, analyze their financial situation and build a network,” Morrissette explains. That said, in her work with 8 • ParentMap Baby 2017

choice moms, she’s found the regret she hears most often is “I wish I would have started sooner.”

Morrissette has two “choice kids” of her own.

“For many of us, our lives slow down after we have children,” she says. “Our lives become less stressful than they were in our workaholic days.”

For women who become single by chance, the choice is not always a deliberate one. Nearly half of all pregnancies between 2006 and 2008 were unintended; about half of those end in a live

Mona Swanson and her son

birth, according to national nonprofit research organization Child Trends (childtrends.org).

Whatever the situation, being a parent alone doesn’t mean being lonely. “While you may be having a child alone, without a partner, you never have to be alone,” says single mom Jennifer Brantley of Bremerton.

She recommends support groups where single moms can share ideas, garner support and connect with other women in similar situations. There are also online groups for single moms, including groups on Meetup (meetup.com), Parents Without Partners (parentswithoutpartners.org),

Single Moms Support Group (single-moms. supportgroups.com), Single Mothers by Choice (singlemothersbychoice.org), and Single Mothers (singlemothers.us).

Morrissette stresses the importance of proactively building up such a support network, which can assist with everything from transportation to babysitting.

“Anyone considering choice motherhood must be able to connect to new people in her community,” says Morrissette. Such a woman, she notes, needs a strong community where she can “find male role models, give herself predictable and emergency breaks from parenting, take advantage of the help of her inner circle [and] create meaningful rituals with others outside of the home.”

As any mom, whatever her situation, can attest, it really does take a village. “Reaching out for support will help you PHOTO COURTESY maintain your sanity when OF MONA things get tough,” Brantley says.

SWANSON “It took me a while to accept that I didn’t have to do it by myself and that accepting help did not make me less of a person.”

In the spirit of finding that village, we spoke with three mothers. Two identify as choice moms, while the third is single by chance. They offer their stories of navigating motherhood.

Meeting the moms MONA SWANSON Bremerton; 39; adopted son from Russia Why I chose adoption: “I was a bit of the cliché: a woman in her late 30s, working too much, not in a relationship [and] listening to the biological clock ticking. It’s not that I wanted to go it alone, but I decided that I could go it alone.” parentmap.com/baby

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNE ENSMINGER

Anne Ensminger and her daughter

Advantages of being a choice mom: “The choices were all my own. I was the one who decided that adoption was the right path for me, and that journey was filled with my own considerations in mind.”

Struggles of being a choice mom: “The emotional roller coaster of adoption was [also] all my own. I didn’t have a spouse to work through those emotions, and although friends and family were supportive and curious, the depth of the emotion and the complexity of the adoption process became exhausting to explain time after time.”

ANNE ENSMINGER Seattle; began in vitro fertilization (IVF) at 42 Why I chose IVF: “I was in my early 40s and still single when I realized that the traditional method of having a family wasn’t necessarily going to happen in the linear way I thought it would.

So I started exploring the idea of having a child on my own. It was something that felt right for me because I had wanted to be a mom my whole life. I was really scared to tell my family, but they couldn’t have been more supportive. I remember telling my mom and dad that I was thinking about either having a child on my own or adopting, and my dad’s response was something like, ‘We’ve been hoping you would do something like this.’” >>

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Single by choice, single by chance continued from page 9 Advantages of being a choice mom: “You don’t have to consult with anyone else on how you want to raise your child or compromise on what parenting methods you want to use.”

Struggles of being a choice mom: “On the other hand, you don’t have anyone to bounce things off of or problem-solve with when it comes to questions or concerns about your child. At times it can be a lonely journey, but I’ve never once regretted my decision to become a mom. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

JENNIFER BRANTLEY

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Bremerton; became unexpectedly pregnant at 22 Why I’m a single-by-chance mom: “I remember being newly pregnant by my boyfriend, and driving home from college and thinking, ‘I’m going to be a single mom… It’s just a matter of time.’ That time came when my daughter was a little over a year old, and I made the choice to leave an abusive situation to raise her on my own.”

Advantages of being a single-by-chance mom: “I get to enjoy her all the time; our bond is so strong. Because of her, I have learned what it truly means to love someone unconditionally.”

Struggles of being a single-by-chance mom: “Financial tops the list. Instead of two people joining the efforts, there is only one. Emotional and physical health is probably next. I also feel a lot of pain for my daughter as I work hard to combat her father’s absence so that she will grow up knowing that she has value.”

What do you hope your daughter learns from you as a mom?

“Through observation and our many conversations, I hope she will learn how to cope with life. I always try to teach her that life will be full of challenges in different forms, and many times they will be unexpected. Things may not always work out as planned, but with perseverance, one can always survive.” ■ Sara Lindberg is a wife, mother, writer and secondary school counselor.

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born this way

Born this way How to best support your child’s unique personality

By Laura S. Kastner

“W

ork with your child’s temperament, not against it” — how many times have you heard that? What this sage advice means is that you should seek to understand your child’s inborn personality, accept its genetically based limitations and cultivate its associated unique assets. The biological nature of temperament renders children blameless for certain unsavory tendencies, whether little Joey exhibits moody reclusiveness or a daredevil streak. But as parents, we want to make the most of our kids’ personality strengths and minimize the potential harm of what could be weaknesses.

A shy, reactive child will be slow to warm to new situations, needs strong encouragement about participation in activities and thrives best in certain low-stress niches. His wellinformed parent will understand that he needs firm nudges to join social groups but will avoid overwhelming him with excessive expectations, especially in unfamiliar circumstances.

Meanwhile, the high-energy and thrill-seeking child will love activity, risk and stimulation.

Her savvy parent will accept the chaos that accompanies her personality and provide opportunities for her to explore her curiosity safely.

Basic aspects of temperament endure from the cradle to the grave but a parent’s nurturing is huge in shaping a child’s life for all that time in between. Think of it this way: The introverted child may become a famous professor or a hermit; the aggressive extrovert may become a successful entrepreneur or a con artist. Parent navigation plays a big (but not all-determining) role in deciding which way the wind blows.

Good and bad random events, a child’s neighborhood, school and family financial resources also play large roles.

Although there are many theories and systems of categorization, cross-cultural research shows that temperaments differ by the degrees to parentmap.com/baby

which an individual experiences and expresses fear, aggression and sociability as compared to another individual. While all sorts of genetic code contribute to these differences, our arousal system is the Grand Central Station that mediates our “nature.”

An ancient relic in our old emotional brains, our brain’s amygdalae (one in each hemisphere) evolved over millions of years to protect us from dangers and to help us survive. An amygdala detects and reacts to perceived threats; it triggers that famous “fight or flight” response. Fear allows us to detect and avoid danger, aggression empowers us to fight it and sociability gives us the capability of coping with it.

Threats can be real or imagined, lifethreatening or innocuous. The arousal system sets off a physiological “stress” alarm that determines whether your baby likes the rattle or screams bloody murder. It influences whether your preschooler runs happily into class or begs to stay home. It contributes to whether your teen joins a bunch of clubs or refuses to join any at all.

Obviously, these temperaments exist on a continuum, and the most challenged parents (and children) are dealing with the extremes of high and low arousal. The fearful, avoidant and

easily overwhelmed child with over-reactive amygdalae will dread the unfamiliar and perceive danger everywhere. The child with under-reactive amygdalae will be risk-prone and boldly seek excitement. The parent’s challenge is to nudge the avoidant child forward and pull the sensation-seeking child back, so both can explore the world safely and fully while learning how to self-regulate their hyper- and hypoarousal systems.

The low-reactive but high-energy child Of course, parents wish for “just the right amount” of reactivity and energy — appropriate fear for danger and risk, together with passion for school, extracurricular activities and future careerbuilding. We like the idea of “fire in the belly,” but not so much that little Janey runs off the rails with her plans to become the next Beyoncé by age 14, or so little that little Johnny only wants to play alone with his computer in the basement.

I once worked with a student who got into academic trouble because all he wanted was to do skateboard tricks for countless hours (until it was snowboarding season, that is). After the six-year college plan, he started a customized fitness center, >> ParentMap Baby 2017 • 11

born this way Born this way continued from page 11 which became a successful business venture.

The fact that no one would have guessed that this high-energy kid would end up a highly motivated entrepreneur at the age of 30 is a testament to the mystery of child development and to the dedication of parents who kept leveraging their support for keeping their kids on a responsibility track.

A parent’s first challenge with a high-energy and risk-taking kid is to accept that trying to tame “sensation-seeking” is like riding a bucking bronco.

Parents of children with “spirited,” “difficult” or ADHD temperaments are thrown for a loop when they dutifully restrain their kids’ impulses to kick up a storm and fly high. Vertigo should be expected.

When these high-zeal kids are young, they are likely to frequently end up in meltdowns when they get riled up with emotion. As teens, they still can, especially with the expected increase in moodiness, reactivity and risk-taking associated

with puberty. With the immaturity of the impulse control system and hormones at all-time highs, these bucking broncos can look like wild, wild horses when loose on the prairie (read: when unsupervised).

Parents will want to anticipate situations that are likely to trigger zeal gone amok. Any activity that jacks up high energy to a frenzy level is likely to be risky. Thus, parents of these kids are especially

advised to increase supervision and safety plans for big events (school field trips), fun outings (birthday parties, sleepovers) and special social occasions (prom and graduation).

My experience as a psychologist counseling kids with extreme temperaments is that they all benefit from especially skilled parents. All kids need their parents to praise good behaviors, ignore low-level messes, develop their talents and keep a sense of humor. But since high-energy kids kick up so much dust, parenting efforts need to be multiplied to manage conflicts and keep the lid on risk-taking while establishing outlets for high-energy fun and expression.

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< Degrees & Certificates The high-reactive, sensitive child Highly sensitive children react strongly and negatively to novelty and have trouble moving out of their comfort zones. They’re not necessarily low in energy, but they are low in tolerance for trying new things. New experiences trigger the false alarm system in their “fear and anxiety” centers. Children who are shy, anxious and avoidant will try to get out of doing anything that raises that distress level.

Highly sensitive kids need their parents to nudge them forward into the big social world, just as low-reactive/high-zeal kids need parents to pull them back. There is a catchy phrase in neuroscience for describing how people naturally seek their emotional comfort zones: “Individuals seek their optimal state of arousal.” High-energy kids rev themselves up to feel good, whereas shy and anxious children will avoid, avoid and avoid.

Anxiety and sadness squelch zeal and motivation. Parents need to encourage their children to be brave and push past their inclinations to minimize discomfort by avoidance. These kids can’t help it that they get triggered by their low threshold for fear and anxiety, but like the hyper kid who needs to learn self-control, the highly sensitive child needs to develop skills for coping with anxiety states and forging ahead.

Engineering new experiences for these children can jump-start the discovery of zeal when the initial anxiety or adversity abates. The challenge is finding settings that both offer tolerable anxiety and inspiring opportunities for growth.

So parents of high-reactive children need to be tenacious. They can give their children a deadline for choosing a sport or extracurricular activity, telling them that they get to choose “which” activity, but not “whether” they commit. If (or should I say “when”) the child refuses, the parent(s) should choose for the child. For shy or reluctant children, a more benign option will be a non-competitive context with adult support, like martial arts, African drumming or volunteering at a retirement home. They can always choose an alternative — but there needs to be some action!

Parents also need to be creative. In the same way that the parents of high-zeal kids might broker time with homework in exchange for social freedoms, parents of anxious and avoidant kids can allow solo time to be contingent on a certain amount of time spent with friends and activities outside the home.

A sensitive child’s reactive, fearful and cautious tendency usually continues in some form through childhood and adolescence. The good news is that parents who continue their nudging and expose their kids to incremental challenges may be happily surprised at the resulting growth spurt. ■ Laura S. Kastner, Ph.D., is the author of Getting to Calm, The Early Years: Cool-Headed Strategies for Raising Caring, Happy, and Independent Three- to Seven-Year-Olds. She is a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington. parentmap.com/baby

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babybumpexponw.com ParentMap Baby 2017 • 13

c-section

As easy as A, B, C-section The gentle cesarean birth delivers

Ashley Vos greets her newborn son, Eames, in January 2016

By Malia Jacobson

W

Reclaiming birth Each year, one-third of U.S. births — some 1.2 million — are via cesarean, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). So, it’s no surprise that many parents are asking for more personalized, less standardissue cesarean surgery; for something that feels 14 • ParentMap Baby 2017

more like a birth and less like an operation.

According to South Sound– area doula Michelle Rickard, these types of births — often known as “gentle” or more family-centric cesareans — are on the rise. The tide started turning a little more than five years ago — no coincidence, says Rickard, since C-section rates peaked in 2009. As more parents faced the prospect of a surgical birth, they began asking for more agency in their delivery and, Rickard says, doctors listened. “I definitely see providers being more sensitive to patients’ wishes, doing what they can to make it feel like a birth and not like a medical procedure,” she says.

This modern style of cesarean includes many aspects of a vaginal birth, with the baby placed immediately on the mother’s chest, breastfeeding taking place very soon after delivery and a quiet, serene atmosphere (or perhaps the sounds of the parents’ own personal birth playlist) in the operating room.

Other options include the ability to view the birth through a special clear drape, as Vos did; wrapping the infant in a special blanket from home instead of a hospital blanket; and delaying the cutting of the cord or bathing the newborn after birth.

Space permitting, more hospitals are also allowing other family members, doulas and birth photographers into the OR, says Anna Panighetti, M.D., an OB-GYN with University of Washington (UW) Medicine. Panighetti delivers

BONNIE HUSSEY

hen Ashley Vos of Seattle gave birth to her second son, Eames, via cesarean section in January 2016, she was a seasoned C-section mom. She’d delivered son Arlo by cesarean four and a half years earlier. Both cesareans took place after she’d attempted vaginal birth and both resulted in healthy babies — and that, she says, is where the similarities end.

Vos’ first birth, in 2011, was a traditional cesarean; the baby was whisked away for routine exams right after being born. Vos says she had little input into the entire experience. She remembers little of the labor and didn’t get to hold Arlo for nearly an hour after she gave birth. That’s common in traditional cesareans, as the baby undergoes more routine exams and prodding following birth than with a vaginal delivery. The whole experience felt like a blur, Vos says.

By contrast, during Eames’ birth, the medical team draped a special clear curtain across her middle so Vos and her husband, Shea, could view their son’s first breaths and cries. After a quick check, Eames was placed on his mom’s chest, where he began breastfeeding right away, with Vos’ birth photographer clicking away the entire time.

Snuggling with newborn Eames in the operating room is “one of my most cherished memories,” says Vos. “It was special. It felt like a birth, and it felt like it was just my husband, my baby and me” — even though she was in a sterile operating room and Vos’ OB-GYN, Ali Lewis, M.D., was still stitching up her midsection while she nursed.

babies at Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, where Eames was born.

Boosting outcomes These options may make the birth more memorable and less medical, but it’s not just about feeling warm and fuzzy. These births are backed by science. Decades of research show the benefits of early skin-to-skin contact between mom and baby, including an easier start for breastfeeding and better temperature regulation for babies. Last December, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) began recommending a 30- to 60-second delay in umbilical cord clamping to encourage healthy circulation and lower rates of some complications in infants. And promising research published last year in Nature shows that swabbing the baby with bacteria from the mom’s birth canal can encourage the growth of a healthy internal microflora.

Perhaps most telling, complication rates for these gentle cesarean births are similar to or lower than those from traditional cesarean births per a 2014 study of 144 gentle cesarean births published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. parentmap.com/baby

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Although service varies from hospital to hospital, this type of birth is now becoming standard across the U.S., says Robert O. Atlas, M.D., chair of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

“Of course, the well-being of the baby is paramount, so if the baby has a non-reassuring heart rate or is premature, it may take longer to examine and stimulate the baby,” Atlas says. In other words, any urgent health needs must take priority over options like immediate skin-to- skin contact.

Bypassing traditional hospital procedures for cesarean birth — like handing the baby directly to parents instead of a scrubbed and sterile nurse, using blankets from home instead of sterile hospital swaddling or bringing an extra support person or two into the OR — may also slightly bump up infection risk, says Atlas. That’s why some hospitals may be slower to adopt these practices.

But for low-risk births, medical professionals recognize the benefits of these family-centered options, says Panighetti of UW Medicine. “As long as the baby is healthy and doesn’t need any special attention, we try in all cases to get baby immediately onto Mom’s chest because that improves breastfeeding outcomes.”

Standard as the procedure may be, don’t assume that you’ll undergo a gentle C if you end up in the operating room, says Rickard. She still recommends careful, intentional planning about the birth options most important to you. Get those thoughts on paper in the form of a written birth plan and make several copies. “You might discuss your wishes for a gentle cesarean birth with your doctor, but that doctor may not be on call when you deliver,” she says.

Ashley and Shea Vos are already making plans.

Although they’re undecided about having a third child, Vos has no doubt about how she’d give birth. She’d plan a scheduled gentle C-section in a heartbeat, she says.

“During the birth, everyone communicated well and really listened to us,” she says. “It was incredibly healing to have more control over the situation this time around.” ■ Malia Jacobson is an award-winning health and parenting journalist and mom of three who contributes regularly to more than 90 national and regional publications. parentmap.com/baby

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ParentMap Baby 2017 • 15

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