PLATYPUS POST, Number 17, August 2006, World Breastfeeding Week IssuePLATYPUS POST, Number 17, August 2006, World Breastfeeding Week IssueA regular publication of Platypus Media, an independent publisher of books for families, teachers and parenting professionals.
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
DIA'S DIARY: It takes a village to describe Human Birth
I received an email recently from Kitty Ernst, one of our favorite customers and a faculty member at the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing in Hyden, KY. She happened to be sitting with a copy of both the first and second editions of my book, If My Mom Were a Platypus: Mammal Babies and Their Mothers. She was comparing the Human birth page in each book and noticed that the tag line, the entire text and the illustration was different between the two editions. She asked us to explain how those changes had come about.
In the first edition of the book, I look at the way 13 mammals in the wild are born and are raised. Then we learn about the 14th mammal - the Human. As I wrote it, being an educated woman who knew a lot about breastfeeding, but not a lot about birth, I began with, But my mom is a human… and I was born in a hospital ... with a dozen people there. The text, in the child's voice, then goes on to talk about how my mom pushed me out and my umbilical cord was cut before I was put on my mom to breastfeed. The illustration shows a man, woman and baby in a clinical room with two medical professionals in the background.
The revisions to the page all started in 2003 when I was fortunate enough to meet Stacey Gregg, a Doula, childbirth educator and National Organization for Women (NOW) Childbirth Activist in New Jersey. I was in a television studio to discuss one of my earlier books, Milk, Money and Madness: The Culture and Politics of Breastfeeding on "New Directions for Women," a show hosted by Mavra Stark.
Stacey informed me that she loved the Platypus book, but had serious reservations about the Human page. She explained that I had more details about the births of the other 13 mammals than I did about the Human and felt it was a missed opportunity to educate. She let me know that she didn't feel it was appropriate to place the scene in a hospital, that normal birth should be depicted in a home or birth center. And she told me that the picture simply had to go.
Stacey is a smart woman and she made her points well. I told her that I wanted to make some changes to the next edition (like adding metric measurements) and let her know that when the book did go back to press, I would change the page to better describe and reflect normal birth-but that she would have to help me.
We met again in 2004 at the Midwifery Today conference in Philadelphia. We sat down and, word by word, drafted a better version of the page. We replaced the tag line to read, But my mom is a human... and I was born in a birthing center! And we reworked the text to describe much more about the actual birth process. We doubled the text length describing the birth and brought in words like contractions and womb (which we then added to the glossary). We put in more details about pushing and about the baby using her lungs to breathe after the birth.
In the meantime, I asked the book's illustrator, Andrew Barthelmes, to do a new drawing for us. Conveniently, his wife, Barbara, had just delivered their first child and he was more than happy to capture that beautiful scene. He drew his family in the birthing room they used cradling new baby, Julia. We took away the clinical-ness of the setting and included one medical professional instead of two. Andrew was delighted with his new picture - as were we.
That would be the end of the story… except there is more. Shoshana Hayman, a La Leche League leader and childbirth educator near Tel Aviv, asked us if she could translate the book into Hebrew. Shoshana is the founder of Life Center, the leader in Israel in promoting attachment parenting through the books they publish and workshops they give. But, surprise… surprise, she wanted changes to the Human page.
Shoshana explained it was important for her to better differentiate between animal and man; that man has a soul and that he has free choice and the ability to reason. She asked if she could change the text to include that humans are born with the ability to think and speak and with free will, and that we can think about what happens in our life and learn about our surroundings. The Hebrew version, includes the sentence, "Thought and speech, together with my own free will, give me the ability to make decisions and be kind to my family, my community and my world." I plan to include these changes in the third edition of the book. But there is more...
Elizabeth Allemann, a physician, acupuncturist and La Leche League Leader in Missouri, recently told me that she is still not satisfied with the tag line. She feels that the people who are present at the birth are more significant than the location of the event. She asked us to consider changing the tag line to, But my mom is a human... and I was born into two loving hands! This is a beautiful change, indeed. We can place the birth in a birthing center in the text, but emphasize the relationships in the opening.
Many people think that books are finished products that sit on shelves. For us, books are like our children. We give birth to them, we nurture them, we share them with the world and we help direct their growth. And through our children, our growth continues. The Platypus book is no exception. I not only had a chance to share my passion about breastfeeding, but I have learned much about normal birth in the process.
I am touched that so many people want to help guide and focus my baby. And I am honored to make changes so that it grows and matures into something that we can all be proud of. Please let us know if you see things in our books that could be improved. It is only because people like Stacey, Shoshana and Elizabeth let us know what is on their minds that we can grow and shape our children.
And Kitty, thanks for asking!
This article is one of many articles available at http://platypusmedia.com/educate_handouts.shtml. Platypus Media is happy to offer you these materials to use in your newsletters, to distribute at your next event or health fair, or to simply educate the public. Just pick the ones you want and download them.
BACK TO SCHOOL SAVINGS AT PLATYPUS MEDIA
*Now until September 30th... Back to School Sale... No Limits... No Small Print*
____________________________________________________________
BUY $50 or more of Platypus Media titles, receive a 15% discount!
ADD either 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Science or If My Mom Were A Platypus, to your $50+ order, receive a 25% discount!
ADD BOTH 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Science or If My Mom Were A Platypus, to your $50+ order, receive a 35% discount!
Call, mail, or fax your order TODAY and mention the code BACK in your order description!
*Expires September 30, 2006*
NEW FROM PLATYPUS MEDIA: The Benefits of Bedsharing
Platypus Media is very excited to announce that it has just become the exclusive US North American distributor of Mark-It Television's VHS/DVD program, The Benefits of Bedsharing.
This 12-minute program shows how bedsharing can help the whole family feel good and be better rested. Most breastfeeding mothers around the world sleep with their babies, yet modern beds are designed for adult comfort, not infant safety. When the baby is sleeping separately from the mother, Mother responds to her baby's needs in minutes; if they are bedsharing, she responds in seconds-thus there is less disruption to everyone's sleep. The Benefits of Bedsharing features a variety of mothers and fathers cosleeping at home, as well as in hospital environments. Examples of risky situations reinforce the importance of creating a safe bedsharing environment.
The Benefits of Bedsharing, produced in the UK, is available in both DVD and VHS format. The DVD includes the same program as the VHS plus full chapter navigation, slide show, and a still frame library which is excellent for parent trainers and child care professionals. The DVD retails for $125 and the DVD for $80. Please contact Platypus Media for reseller and bulk purchasing discounts.
This product is an exciting addition to the Platypus Media product line. It complements our upcoming book, "Sleeping With Your Baby: A Parent's Guide," written by internationally recognized mother-baby sleep expert, James J. McKenna. This book will be available in the fall. For more information, see http://platypusmedia.com/adult_sleep.shtml.
WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK (WBW) 2006
World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is August 1-7 and celebrates the signing of the Innocenti Declaration on the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding. It is celebrated in 120 countries on various dates. The theme for this year's celebration is "Code Watch: 25 Years of Protecting Breastfeeding." Platypus Media is participating as a silver sponsor, having donated prizes to be used during the celebration week. Find out more information about a week devoted to promoting breastfeeding while curbing aggressive infant marketing influences at http://www.lllusa.org/wbw/.
STATE OF THE WORLD'S MOTHERS
The Global Humanitarian Organization, Save the Children, has just released its annual report for 2006, State of the World's Mothers. The factors that helped countries score well on the report include; having skilled attendants at births, the education level of females in the country and access to and use of family planning methods. If you would like to check out the full report, please go to http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/SOWM_2006_final.pdf. Included in the report are a wide variety of facts supporting the general idea that mothers in less-developed countries will have a harder time birthing and raising a child than a mother in a developed country. A mother in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is 30 times as likely as a mother in an industrialized country to lose her newborn in the first month of life. Even among mothers in developing countries, there is a disparity among the infant death rate between the rich and the poor. An analysis of 50 developing countries found that babies born to mothers in the poorest fifth of a population were almost 30 percent more likely to die compared to those in the richest fifth.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
~ Abraham Lincoln
FUN AT HOME OR SCHOOL: Homemade Ice Cream
After hundreds of years, the best ice creams are still made with fairly simple ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, and maybe eggs. You can make ice cream using a 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of cream (which is higher in fat than milk), 1/4 cup of sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla or other flavoring. Stir the ingredients together in a bowl, then pour the mixture into a quart-size freezer ziplock bag. Stick this bag inside a gallon-size ziplock, half-filled with ice and rock salt - about 2 cups of ice and 1/2 cup of salt.
Salt lowers the freezing point of water, which causes the ice to melt at a lower temperature. The lower freezing point provides the temperature difference needed to transfer heat between the freezing ice cream ingredients and the melting ice. Rock salt doesn't lower the freezing point as much as table salt does (so it results in smoother ice cream, because it freezes more gradually), but for this activity you can try table salt. Use a thermometer to measure the temperature in the outer bag. Next, begin shaking the bag so that the ingredients are whipped together. What do you expect to happen to the cream mixture? After five minutes of shaking, let the bag sit for a few minutes. Now take the temperature inside the gallon bag again. Has it changed? What happens if you don't shake it?
When the ice cream is thick, get out a spoon and enjoy!
Ice cream is a colloid, an emulsion where two substances are just suspended within each other rather than being chemically bonded together. This is why many ice creams also have an emulsifier to prevent the fat molecules from separating from the rest of the ice cream (this makes the texture of the ice cream smoother). Ice cream also uses a stabilizer (like gelatin or guar gum) to help hold air into the ice cream, which gives it its light texture. To be officially called ice cream, the colloid has to be at least 10% milk fat and 6% non-fat milk solids (such as proteins).
This activity was reprinted with permission from Home Science Tools, www.homesciencetools.com.
CHILDREN'S BOOK COUNCIL SHOWCASE
If My Mom Were A Platypus will be featured in the Children's Book Council (CBC) Showcase for July and August. The CBC is a non-profit organization that strives to make books an integral part of the American educational system. For July and August the CBC Showcase features both illustrated and photographic nonfiction titles that help children have fun while learning about a wide variety of subjects. You can view this title, along with others at www.cbcbooks.org/cbcmagazine/showcase/.
BACK TO SCHOOL SAVINGS AT PLATYPUS MEDIA
*Now until September 30th... Back to School Sale... No Limits... No Small Print*
____________________________________________________________
BUY $50 or more of Platypus Media titles, receive a 15% discount!
ADD either 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Science or If My Mom Were A Platypus, to your $50+ order, receive a 25% discount!
ADD BOTH 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Science or If My Mom Were A Platypus, to your $50+ order, receive a 35% discount!
Call, mail, or fax your order TODAY and mention the code BACK in your order description!
*Expires September 30, 2006*
PLATYPUS MEDIA In The News, Online … And On The Road
Platypus Media's Look What I See! Where Can I Be? In the Neighborhood is featured in the July-August 2006 edition of Mothering Magazine. The article titled "We Like to Nurse" features books that "lovingly portray breastfeeding."
If My Mom Were A Platypus will be featured in the upcoming review Mammalia. Mammalia is a quarterly scientific journal, which publishes papers and notes on mammals in French and English. Included is a bibliography where new books are presented. Mammalia is sent around the world to mammalogists, universities and research institutes.
PLATYPUS MEDIA On The Road
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