A while ago, a woman preparing to be a mother asked me which book would be the most important to start reading about this adventure that is pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and motherhood. Without hesitation, I thought about this. "The baby is a mammal" by Michel Odent and I wanted to explain to our readers, and to our readers, the reasons for my choice.
Of course, for me, it sums up perfectly and from the safety of an expert, the basic information about this process that we urgently need to know before we start looking for that child.
And I urgently say consciously of what the word implies. Before having a child I think we really need to be informed, trained and prepared for what will happen. To freely choose the type of delivery, the foster care, the follow-up, breastfeeding or artificial, we will have to know what we are deciding.
Bringing a child into the world is the most important decision we are going to make in life and what we do can depend on your health and happiness. No more no less. Knowing what biological, physiological, hormonal and emotional birth entails, we can better face decisions and deliver our trust to professionals who make us feel they deserve it and show it to us.
In "The baby is a mammal“, This renowned gynecologist with an enormous experience in childbirth without intervention, a true pioneer in his time, speaks of love. Love, yes, that exalted emotion is born with the child and causes it to be born, because love, in addition to an emotion, is a biological process that triggers oxytocin and is always accompanied by it.
Today we know that the hormone oxytocin triggers psychological and physical responses associated with love and intervenes, in women, in orgasm, lactation and childbirth.
The baby, as a mammal, has needs that are indisputably linked to this condition, both at birth and in rearing. And respecting these natural needs should be the basis of the medical and social actions surrounding their arrival in the world.
Being born in gloom, without interruptions or unnecessary interventions, with silence and without haste, is, in the opinion of Odent, an essential condition for childbirth to evolve normally and avoid most complications.
Respecting, also, the need to be in their habitat, which is the mother's body, and be fed from the first moment by her, is another circumstance that only in critical cases should suffer interference.
Well, as the title of the work says, "The baby is a mammal." And that is why I consider this book an indispensable reading before pregnancy, to know what will happen to us and our son.
