Elmo: The MotherHood Interview

The monster relaxing at home with his extensive library. “Elmo tries to read a new letter everyday.”

TMH: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to our readers.

ELMO: Elmo likes readers!

TMH: And we love you! Elmo, are you a boy or a girl?

ELMO: Elmo is a monster.

TMH: Okay, I guess that was a very personal question. Is English your first language? You have a very unique way of speaking.

ELMO: Elmo was born on Sesame Street.

TMH: So your accent is.....

ELMO: ...part of Elmo’s charm!

TMH: To what do you owe your enormous popularity among American toddlers?

ELMO: Elmo loves babies! His crayon, too.

TMH: So, are you saying that your viewing audience merely responds to the positive emotions you’re putting out there?

ELMO: Huh?

TMH: ...Elmo’s viewers can “feel the Love”?

ELMO: Yes! Elmo loves his viewers! Now Elmo has a question for mommies...

TMH: ...oh, go right ahead!

ELMO: Did you ever imagine you would be replaced in your baby’s affection so soon, and by a furry, semi-literate puppet, with mass-market, commercial appeal, no less?

TMH: Um, thank you! That’s all the time we have.

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COMING SOON:

THE STATE OF BIRTH IN AMERICA

Featuring The MotherHood columnists Kim Collins, Helena Holgersson-Shorter, Maria Parlapiano and Gayle Lemke, doula, and owner of Shakti yoga studio in Mapelwood NJ.

The CDC has released the 2007 birth statistics and, as reported on her blog DoulaMomma, by Kim Collins (see March 21 entry) New Jersey bears the dubious distinction of having the highest rate in the country — AGAIN.

NJ's average is 38.3%; the 2007 national average is 31.8% (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_12.pdf).

Why are so many babies being 'born' via major abdominal surgery? Is it making birth safer for mothers or babies? And what does it say about contemporary attitudes towards women and their bodies?

Stay tuned this month for a discussion on the State of Birth in NJ and America.

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To read more about The MotherHood magazine, or order back issues, go to:
www.themotherhoodmagazine.com, or contact us at themotherhood@comcast.net.

THE ADOPTIONHOOD by Ellen Kahaner

ADOPTION FILM SERIES CONTINUES THIS SUNDAY, MARCH 29
3PM TO 5PM
South Orange Library
65 Scotland Rd
South Orange, NJ 07079
(973) 762-0230

When: Sunday, March 29 — 3pm to 5pm

What: Two more educational films from the "We Can Do Better" series: "Intentions Behind Adopting" and "The Multiracial Family"

Where: South Orange Library

* FREE and open to the public. Appropriate for teenagers and adults. Discussion and refreshments to be served between films.

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Twenty-five people gathered to watch "Adopted" and "Raising An Adopted Child," the first films of the Adoption Film Series at the South Orange Public Library a few weeks back. The discussion was intense, and a feeling of commonality and support emerged in the meeting.

The next two films will be shown this Sunday, March 29th , beginning at 3 PM at the South Orange Public Library. They are:

"Intentions Behind Adopting"

This 20-minute session includes interviews with adoptive parents and adoption psychologists and social workers about what drives people to adopt. Whether it's due to infertility, a calling from God, a desire to have a particular gender or race of child, or a combination of reasons, parents and experts encourage pre-adoptive individuals or couples to honestly assess their intentions so they can learn how to put the child's needs first.

"The Multiracial Family"

This 25-minute session asks adoptive parents to think about whether they really can, and should be, colorblind when it comes to their non-white, adopted child. Interviews with adoptees, parents and psychologists reveal the importance of addressing both race and culture with the child, acknowledging that racism and stereotypes still exist, believing children when they report instances of racial prejudice, and realizing that children often won't tell their parents about everything that happens at school.

A discussion and refreshments will follow the film showings.

I interviewed Dr. Amanda Baden, Professor at Montclair State Univ., who is a transracial adoptee herself, and often speaks and writes on the subject of transracially adopted children. Here is an excerpt:

ELLEN: How did you get involved with "Adopted", the movie? What was your response to the movie?

PROFESSOR BADEN: Nancy Kim Parsons (the producer) of the film contacted me due to my involvement in the adoption community--my research and practice.

My response to the film is that it is really amazing. I am proud to have been interviewed for it and to have consulted on various aspects of the film. I think the filmmakers showed the complexity associated with transracial and international adoption in new and compelling ways and they have offers an important voice to the adoption community.

ELLEN: When Jen, featured in the movie, was growing up, twenty-five years ago, it was all about assimilation by the adoptee into the culture of the adoptive family. Now, the pendulum has swung the other way, and many international adoptive families strive to incorporate their children's birth cultures into their family life. Is there a potential down side of what we're doing today? What do you think "We Can Do Better" would look like twenty-five years from now?

PROFESSOR BADEN: I don't think there are simple solutions or formulae for "fixing" the dilemmas that are associated with TRA. I think we need to reflect kids birth cultures in their lives in some ways but we have to remember that it's not a simple issue where we can just fix with the right dose of culture. Transracial adoptees are coping with racial issues as well and with internalized racism as well and these issues are often overlooked.



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DON'T MISS THE LAST TWO FILMS IN THE SERIES:
Sunday 4/5/09 IDENTITY FOR THE TRANSRACIAL ADOPTEE and TOUGH QUESTIONS

All screenings take place 3-5pm at the South Orange Library, 65 Scotland Road, South Orange, NJ, 00779 (973) 762-0230.

* FREE and open to the public. Appropriate for teenagers and adults. Discussion and refreshments to be served between films.

* * * * * * *

To read more about The MotherHood magazine, or order back issues, go to:
www.themotherhoodmagazine.com, or contact us at themotherhood@comcast.net.

EXTREME BULLSH@#T

MARIA PARLAPIANO responds to our post about home-birthing and mid-wife Cara Mulhallan (posted below):

Do people really believe that having their baby in a hospital guarantees the baby won't die??

In the US about 7-8 babies out of a thousand die every year in hospital births, despite being surrounded with the latest, best medical technology.

Midwife-assisted home birth is a lot closer to our biological norm than an OB-directed birth in a strange place. So the comparisons need to be made that way.

Is home birth safer?

The real question is whether hospital births are safe enough to risk all that tampering with normal.

Maria Parlapiano is the owner of Postpartum Place, formerly the Lactation Resource Center, in Chatham, NJ, an invaluable center for new and nursing mothers for support, equipment and information. Go to www.everythingmom.com, OR call her TOLL FREE, twenty-fours hours, seven days a week, at 1-800-801-MILK.



TO: Letter to the Editor, NY Magazine
RE: "Extreme Birth" by Andrew Goldman
NY Magazine 3/30/09
http://nymag.com/news/features/55500/

"Extreme Birth"?

Giving birth naturally is now 'extreme'? So, should we start labeling medically unassisted (non Viagra induced) ejaculations "extreme jerk-offs"?

Mr. Goldman, it’s clear you entered into this piece with a deeply conditioned, cultural bias that prevented you from properly completing your job as a journalist — but you’re in good company. Even The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) allows standards of practice to be dictated by economics and fear of litigation, rather than evidence-based medicine.

I wish you had presented a truer picture of the real choice(s) available to US women in childbirth, rather than a poorly disguised warning to women who might think outside the box, so to speak.

You might have thought to ask Dr. Moritz about his personal history of infant mortality and morbidity when he observed that, “Muhlhahn should go easy on herself; if a clinician hasn’t lost a baby, she just hasn’t done enough births.” Or, you could have simply reported the number of infant deaths for the average obstetrician practicing in the US:

“...the typical obstetrician performing 140 deliveries a year could encounter nearly two dozen women with a miscarriage and one to two with stillbirth or infant death.” [University of Michigan Health System survey, June 2008.]

To translate, that would be 1 or 2 deaths in 140 births or 1.07 to 1.42%, versus Ms. Muhlhahn’s 1 in 700 deaths, or .14% — less than one-quarter percent.

You might have included in your article the US’s abysmal national birth statistics, reporting that we rank 29th in the world in infant mortality, tied with Poland and Slovakia. This despite the fact that nearly 97% of American women give birth in a hospital setting.

You could have highlighted the fact that although the US caesarean delivery rate rose 4 percent in 2005, to a record high of 30.2 percent of all births, the;

“...U.S. infant mortality rate was 6.86 infant deaths per 1,000 live births [in 2005], not significantly different than the rate of 6.89 in 2000.”

That's right. Thousands of more c-section deliveries in five years’ time, but no positive change in infant mortality rates for the same period.

You might have reported, as the March of Dimes recently has, with alarm, on the rising number of infants being induced pre-term by caesarean section, and that pre-maturity, in itself, is a significant risk factor for infant death [The March of Dimes 2008 Petition for Preemies].

Instead, you anoint Ms. Muhlhahn as the “high-priestess of home-births” — a catchy headline for sure — and another indication of our culture’s predilection to deify anyone with medical training (for better or worse).

What is extreme about Cara’s methods? Her ability to successfully deliver, again and again, truly informed consent to birthing women and better-than-national-average outcomes for babies and mothers. It is a testament to both her solid skills as a clinician, as well as her deep commitment to preserving a woman’s civil right to give birth as naturally, as safely, and as humanely as possible.


Lisa Duggan, Publisher
The MotherHood Magazine
www.themotherhoodblog.com
www.themotherhoodmagazine.com



*All data obtained from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, unless otherwise noted.

READ CARA'S MEMOIR AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF. "LABOR OF LOVE" NOW AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES AND ONLINE.

TAKE YOUR MEDICINE By Dr. Donald Cotler, M.D., FAAP

Dr. Donald N. Cotler M.D., FAAP, is a columnist for The MotherHood Magazine who practices fatherhood and unclehood in Maplewood, and pediatrics in Millburn. He can be reached for comment at themotherhood@comcast.net.

Here, Dr. Cotler offers his response to our blog-post, "Raging Non-Conformists," 2/28/09.

It would be easy, but unfair, to criticize a father who finds fault with nearly everyone involved in raising his child, including his “son’s mother,” who “bought the doctors’ lines” and “gave up” on trying to protect the child from doctors and teachers who meant him harm. It gets easier still when we read that this father didn’t have the time or the emotional strength to participate, so he “went along” with decisions he knew were wrong.

It is appropriate that the first response to this post is from someone who knows the family well, and was able to give some context to the personal side of the discussion. (I also appreciated the slightly snarky parody of misplaced nostalgia for a time that never was. The poster thinks he remembers a time when life was better for “the recalcitrant ones, the strange and weird kids, and the troublemakers.")

It would be equally easy and unfair to use this post as a takeoff point for rants against the collective misdeeds of professionals whose careers are devoted to children and families. I do not know this family either socially or medically, but I have had patients with similar medication histories, and their experiences can provide context for ongoing discussion. My remarks specifically exclude immoral or incompetent “pillpushing” doctors, untrained or uncaring educators, and manifestly unfit parents, although all of these certainly exist. (To what extent they exist will, I suspect, be discussed by other posters.)

Most importantly, parents of such children are desperate for help.

Their day-to-day life is often unbearably difficult, but their fear for their child’s future is awful to listen to. (“How can he have a career, a family? How will he ever take care of himself?”) Parents blame each other; they blame themselves. Patients like this (as well as those with non-psychiatric neurodegenerative disease, chronic pain syndromes, and other illnesses) interface with the weakest parts of our less than optimal medical system. The science of their problems is in its infancy, so today’s medicine cannot give them a diagnosis, let alone a well-grounded treatment plan.

In addition, these kinds of patients require time-intensive care, which our current system is bad at delivering. These families are apt to have a bad relationship with the system as a whole, stuck in a destructive cycle of mutual mistrust, poor communication, and bad outcomes. But even the most disaffected families usually identify one or more special caregivers, and there are many families that recognize that their doctors, therapists and teachers are also desperate. The professionals, like parents, have a responsibility to help, but no adequate tools.

I meet with parents and patients like this on a regular basis. Sometimes they are doing OK; often not. A typical interval history might sound like this: “He’s in another new private school; this may be our last option. We’re fighting the school district now to get them to pay for it. He was doing well for a while, even mainstreamed for part of the day, but we were trying a change in his meds because of some side effects, and the one-to-one aide he really liked was out for a few days, and we don’t know exactly what happened, but it was his last chance at the other school. Our neurologist referred us to another neurologist who has experience with kids like this. He has an idea about a treatment plan based on some new research. It still means using drugs off-label, and it seems like mainly intuition, but he explains his thinking to us, and we have to do something.”

I have been around long enough to see some of these kids grow up. It is moving to have a parent tell me “he found his niche. He’s happy at what he is doing, and he seems good at it.”

But it doesn’t always go that way.

COMING UP NEXT:

DoulaMomma by Kim Collins

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To read more about The MotherHood magazine, or order back issues, go to:
www.themotherhoodmagazine.com, or contact us at themotherhood@comcast.net.

THE FIT PARENT by Tim Reynolds

Tim Reynolds writes the fitness column for The MotherHood Magazine. This column originally appeared in issue #2, 2008. A personal trainer for over ten years, Tim Reynolds has instructed clients from professional athletes to beginners in a variety of clubs throughout New York City. In 2006 he opened a one-on-one training studio, The Gym on Springfield, in Maplewood (thegymonspringfield.com). Do you have a fitness question? Email Tim at themotherhood@comcast.net.

THOSE OLD JEANS AREN’T GETTING ANY BIGGER!
A little bundle of joy has just entered your life and your life has changed forever . . . .for the better. Suddenly, you have another whole being to focus on and it’s the most fulfilling endeavor you’ve ever undertaken. You make sure the baby eats right and gets plenty of love, fresh air and stimulation. You’re getting the hang of this parenting thing.

Some days (ok, some fleeting moments) you feel like Super Mom! There should be a large “S” scripted across your stained shirt! Wait a minute, where did that stain come from? Not to mention that shirt isn’t fitting quite like it used to. You stop and look in the mirror and you realize you’ve been hit in the gut with Mommy Kryptonite! But what the hell —your priority is the baby now. You can’t do a great job of taking care of the baby and yourself, right? Wrong. (We’ll come back to that.)

First, a brief detour on how we got to this point. Why does your body look so different than it did before the baby? Even if you’re just a few pounds up from pre-pregnancy, your body doesn’t look remotely the same. The reasons are pretty obvious —most pregnant women have a hard time maintaining the proper levels of nutrition and exercise they need to maintain their muscular system. Medically speaking, that little miracle growing inside of you is essentially a parasite (no offense). It takes what it needs and, if it’s not coming from the food you’re eating, it’ll come from you, especially your muscles. By eating away at your muscles, the baby slows down your metabolism. So, after the baby is born, no matter what you eat, it seems to go straight to your thighs.

You have to eat, especially if you’re breastfeeding. It’s a “catch 22.” In addition, your lifestyle has changed dramatically. I hear a similar refrain from lots of new parents. “I used to pay attention to what I ate. Now I don’t even know what I ate for lunch today, much less dinner last night. I used to live in the city and I walked everywhere, but now I drive to the corner. I used to go to the gym, now I drive my kid to gymnastics. I used to be energized and now I’m exhausted from getting up at all hours. I used to be pretty hot, now....not so much.”

Let’s get real, that GAP sweatshirt you wear every day is going to be pretty miserable come June. I know you think there isn’t enough time to do anything about it and you don’t want to shortchange that little bundle of joy. “The heck with me! I can suck it up, right?” But for how long? That’s the question, isn’t it —how can I justify taking time for myself? How can I do it and still dedicate myself to my baby the way I need to? I address these questions every day, for myself and my clients. These questions are not easy to answer, but I’ll try.

For starters, you are the center of your little world, your family. You are the “host” that supports the lives around you. If you don’t take care of the host, how’s that universe going to thrive? Taking care of the host does take time. And babies take a lot of time. Even if you have resolved to step up personal efforts, time is in painfully short supply. Maybe you figure, “If I’ve only got a few minutes of free time each day, give me another scoop of Chunky Monkey and let’s call it a day. What’s the point?” There are a lot of points, but here’s the basic one: 20 minutes of really taking care of yourself is a lot better than 20 minutes of sitting on the couch eating potato chips. Trust me, twenty minutes is plenty of time to make a difference in how you feel. You’ll oxygenate your red blood cells, improve your cognition and feed off the endorphin energy for the rest of the day. Not to mention, you’ll do something proactive for yourself and your once-size eight gluteus maximus.

OVERZEALOUS MUCH?
Now about that twenty minutes. Maybe you can give it more time, maybe an hour. If twenty minutes is good for me, an hour will be even better, right? Well, maybe eventually, way down the road, you’ll become an exercise junky and dedicate lots of time in your schedule to your body, but let’s start with a little realism. How much more is twenty minutes than what your body is currently used to? For many, it’s about twenty minutes more, so that’s already a whole lot of change to which to adapt. I’ve never seen anyone really get in shape faster by overdoing it. In fact, all I’ve seen is joint injuries or maybe a good solid case of the flu, but never drastically increased fitness. Remember this one simple rule:

one part change in regimen = ONE PART CHANGE IN BODY
and
five parts change in regimen = ONE PART CHANGE IN BODY

So, why use up all your valuable time, energy and bag of tricks, dietary and exercise-wise, to affect one part change? Make small changes and make them gradually, giving your body time to adapt and you’ll see plenty happen. “What’s the best way to get started?” is usually the next question. Well, maybe a trip down memory lane is the answer.

Still have those Tae Bo videos from the 90s? How about some Jane Fonda tapes from the 80s? If you still have a player for them, dig them out of that crate with your college yearbooks and get to work! What the hell, throw on those leg warmers! It’ll be fun! Got any friends you can drag into this with you? That’s a great strategy .....the days you feel like bagging it, maybe they won’t and vice versa. Maybe you never really got into exercise, haven’t ever really liked it?

I’d start by trying a few things that don’t sound totally repulsive. Swimming, perhaps, or walking with your workout buddy, who knows — maybe your partner has the answer. Or, you can always send those questions to me care of The MotherHood (themotherhood@comcast.net.) I’ll be happy to try to help you find that perfect fit, just like those pre-pregnancy jeans.

COMING THIS WEEK:

TAKE YOUR MEDICINE by Dr. Donald Cotler

DoulaMomma by Kim Collins

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To read more about The MotherHood magazine, or order back issues, go to:
www.themotherhoodmagazine.com, or contact us at themotherhood@comcast.net.

Momma At MOMA by Lisa Duggan

"Three Women at the Spring" by Pablo Picasso

Today, in a rare act of self-indulgence, I went to NYC for breakfast and some cult-cha with my friend, KK, an art director. Among the many treasures we found was this painting by Picasso, above. K snapped a forbidden iPhoto. "I'm pretty sure the one in the middle is on her cell phone," she joked, as we sauntered through MOMA's fifth-floor galleries.

Along with this classic we stumbled upon the exhibition of Batiste Madalena's hand-lettered movie posters from the '20's. Madalena was hired by George Eastman to design and hand-paint film posters for his theater in Rochester, NY — at the time the third-largest cinema in the U.S.

Working alone over a four-year period and against deadlines that required as many as eight new posters a week for each change of bill, Madalena created over 1,400 unique works before the end of his tenure, when the theater changed management.

1,400 unique works! I pictured his mother's fridge buckling from the weight.

The posters were beautiful; strong, simple lines made with tempera paint, pastel and Conté crayons on poster board. In one, advertising a Harold Lloyd film, Madalena used colored construction paper to create Lloyd's face. I turned to K and snickered, "Well, that era is over. Should we bother teaching children to draw anymore?"

Graphic designers both, K and I stood contemplating the origin of our craft and the fact that most of the work we make with computers is reliant on images someone else painstakingly created by hand.

I thought, too, about the copious amounts of artwork my almost-six-year-old produces on a weekly basis. The most recent, best work covers the fridge and one wall in our kitchen. There is another drawer-full in the dining room. Then, there are the two portfolio cases in the attic, from her early years. (Art is recession proof in our house.) I know I will fill boxes and boxes with it as the years go by. I save her work so that she might someday look back at the origins of her expressive language and, maybe, gain some insight into her adult self.

I can't imagine this treasured rite of passage, this primal, visceral mode of expression, being lost.

But the reality is our generation of electronically-trained designers replaced all the craftsmen that created advertisements, newspapers, magazines, billboards, posters, signs — every single thing in print — once made by hand. I can only imagine who, or what, will replace us.

And if the mouse replaces the crayon in the hands of future generations, what will mothers proudly stick to the fridge, or use to fill those boxes?

Museum of Modern Art, 53 West 53rd Street: Batiste Madalena: Hand-Painted Film Posters for the Eastman Theatre, 1924–1928 through April 6, 2009.

COMING MONDAY

THE FIT PARENT by Tim Reynolds

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To read more about The MotherHood magazine, or order back issues, go to:
www.themotherhoodmagazine.com, or contact us at themotherhood@comcast.net.

STAY-AT-HOME-PRESIDENT

by Lisa Duggan

A swing set has been installed on the south lawn of the White House, the choice of location presumably to allow the First Dad to peek at the girls while working. So, I'm just imagining one of the many, awkward, work-from-home moments that will invariably occur:

Pres. Obama (on the phone): "As I've said publicly, and will say again, we will extend our hand to any nation, including .....hey...HEY! GET DOWN! Get down right now! (Furiously knocking on window)....What? No, no, I wasn't talking to....DANGER!....(mouthing slowly to Sasha) that's D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S! .....I didn't mean to imply....click....hello? Hello?

Damn!

Nancy! Can you get Ahmadinejad back on the phone?!"

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To read more about The MotherHood magazine, or order back issues, go to:
www.themotherhoodmagazine.com, or contact us at themotherhood@comcast.net.

THE ADOPTIONHOOD by Ellen Kahaner

ADOPTION FILM SERIES
Begins Sunday, March 8
3PM TO 5PM
South Orange Library
65 Scotland Rd
South Orange, NJ 07079
(973) 762-0230

When: Sunday, March 8 — 3pm to 5:30pm

What: Two films: “Adopted” followed by “Parenting the Adopted Child”

Where: South Orange Library

Photo: The filmmakers at work.

ADOPTED is a documentary film directed by North Carolina-based filmmaker Barb Lee about the lives of two adoptive families: one, a family who adopted a child from Korea many years ago and the other, a family just setting out on the road to adoption from China. PARENTING THE ADOPTED CHILD is one of five accompanying educational segments entitled "We Can Do Better." See full film schedule below.

* FREE and open to the public. Appropriate for teenagers and adults. Discussion and refreshments to be served between films.

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This Sunday, March 8, there’s an opportunity for families without adopted children to stand in the shoes of their neighbors, friends and relatives who are adopted or who are parents with adopted children, and feel what it’s about.

Are you up for it?

It’s not easy stuff, but it will sensitize you to the complexities of building an identity as an adopted person. No, I’m not talking about attending the gazillionth iteration of “Annie” or reading the pokes at celebrity adoption in fan-mags, which perpetuate easy stereotypes about saving orphans.

This is a documentary about the lives of two adoptive families: one, a family who adopted a child from Korea many years ago and the other, a family just setting out on the road to adoption from China. Some of the issues raised — about the need to see beyond your own needs to the needs of your child — are relevant to any parent, and issues that mixed race families confront along with the stereotyping of minorities have a farther reach. But what is particular to adopted children is also different and the documentary “Adopted” really gets below the surface.

The filmmakers, anticipating that the audience for the film will have a lot of concerns and questions about how to do better, follow up the film with five half-hour segments, collectively entitled "We Can Do Better," that raise more questions than give answers. They include information from experts in the field of family therapy and adoption. So, on Sunday, “Adopted” will be shown and, after a brief discussion and refreshments, the first of these half hour segments, “Parenting the Adopted Child,” will be shown. The other segments will be shown on subsequent Sundays (full schedule below).

I remember Jami Thall, local parent and educator, describing a talk she gave about adoption to teachers. One of the teachers said adoption just wasn’t on her radar. Another teacher said that she had never once heard adoption mentioned in her teacher training. I remember Jami, herself, saying, it wasn’t on her radar either, until she became an adoptive parent. Perhaps it is the simple human inclination to not want to know too much about the struggles of someone else until it directly touches our life. Perhaps we want to live with our comfortable stereotype of others until an experience necessitates shaking up our pre-conceived notions.

“Adopted” challenges the received wisdom about adoption that we may have inadvertently picked up from the usual suspects - TV, film, news media – that influence how we perceive the adopted kid in our child’s class, the adopted kid we notice in our peripheral vision at the supermarket with her very different looking parents. What goes through our heads? What conclusions do we draw and how does that affect our attitudes and behavior toward the children?

Come to the film with an open mind, with a ‘leave my judgments at the door’ type of attitude and I think you’ll gain a lot of insight and the time spent will be well worth it.

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The remaining four segments of "We Can Do Better" will be shown in pairs:

Sunday 3/29/09 THE MULTI-RACIAL FAMILY and INTENTIONS IN ADOPTION

Sunday 4/5/09 IDENTITY FOR THE TRANSRACIAL ADOPTEE and TOUGH QUESTIONS

All screenings take place 3-5pm at the South Orange Library, 65 Scotland Road, South Orange, NJ, 07079 (973) 762-0230.

* FREE and open to the public. Appropriate for teenagers and adults. Discussion and refreshments to be served between films.

* * * * * * *

To read more about The MotherHood magazine, or order back issues, go to:
www.themotherhoodmagazine.com, or contact us at themotherhood@comcast.net.

BREASTFEEDING BOOTCAMP by Maria Parlapiano

ADDING TO OUR DISCUSSION ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATION, we asked BreastFeeding Bootcamp columnist Maria Parlapiano this question:

Q: Are antidepressants OK to take while pregnant or breastfeeding?

A good question, as more and more women are seeking help for depression.

Great care and concern must be taken when deciding to continue taking medications while pregnant or breastfeeding. Among other factors, the decision needs to take into account the known benefits of breastfeeding, specifically in regard to the development of the infant brain, and the known risks of formula feeding.

Open dialog between the mother, doctor, therapist, and lactation consultant is essential to formulating a plan. The medication choices during pregnancy are limited to the use of Prozac, which, oddly enough, is not considered the best choice for use after delivery.

The best choices for antidepressants after birth are Zoloft and Paxil. These drugs have been used with great success and, thus far, have shown minimal to no adverse effects to the breastfed infant.

Maria Parlapiano is the owner of Postpartum Place, formerly the Lactation Resource Center, in Chatham, NJ, an invaluable center for new and nursing mothers for support, equipment and information. Go to www.everythingmom.com, OR call her TOLL FREE, twenty-fours hours, seven days a week, at 1-800-801-MILK.