Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy

by Angela Garbes

In his 1894 book The Care and Feeding of Children, Dr. Luther Emmett Holt advised against relying on women’s wisdom and experience, warning that “instinct and maternal love are too often assumed to be a sufficient guide for a mother.”2 His words paved the way for physicians to set the rules mothers would be expected to follow.

We are all born from female bodies, and so we have all experienced birth firsthand. We were all female once, too. All humans will grow female parts unless, around the tenth week of pregnancy, hormones called androgens direct a fetus to develop testes and a penis. Female is our origin sex.

Fetal health became more of a concern than maternal health.

a couple of drinks a week in the first trimester, up to one a day in the second and third; three to four eight-ounce cups of coffee a day throughout pregnancy—are much less restrictive.

Pregnancy is our first lesson in this surrender and submission. Eventually, our experiences—with pregnancy loss, labor, birth, and motherhood—will reinforce to us that there is little we actually control.

The placenta does not, technically, belong to the mother. Our bodies may create it, but it is part of the developing child, which means it is also made up of 50 percent genetic material from the father.

The reactions to pregnancy loss are as diverse as the women who experience them—essentially infinite.

“Women were made for birth and life and death,” she added. “In the moment of miscarriage, birth and life and death come through us.”

As humans parted evolutionary ways with our primate cousins over millennia, our pelvises got smaller while our heads got bigger.

Newer research suggests that the onset of labor is the result of a metabolic stalemate between mother and baby, a struggle of supply and demand. At some point, the large and rapidly developing fetus maxes out the nutritional and energetic supply of its mother. Rather than starve, the baby decides to make a run for it, opting to have its needs met outside the womb. This reasoning, called the energetics of gestation and growth hypothesis, is one that scientists are now exploring further.

This supports increasing evidence that labor is initiated not by anything a mother does but by the fetus, which releases hormones that act upon the placenta and, in turn, the uterus.

A full-term placenta holds about six ounces of a fetus’s blood, which is about half of a newborn’s blood volume. The infant needs that blood to be in its body when it makes its way to the outside. So how does it get into the baby’s body in time for it to be born? The mighty uterus and its contractions, which squeeze the placenta, force blood through the umbilical vein and into the fetus.

a baby’s journey down the birth canal serves as its intimate introduction to its mother’s vaginal microbiome, the distinct combination of bacteria that go on to help the growing human deal with infection, train its immune system, and help it process food.

Research also suggests that babies born via C-section, who are more likely to experience health issues including asthma and allergies, might be at greater risk because they lack the same bacterial exposure as their vaginally born counterparts.

“Humans are built to have babies, so every type of human has babies,” said Simon Ellis, a Seattle-based certified nurse midwife and the coauthor of one of the only research papers to date about trans and gender variant people who have given birth. “I always knew in my heart that trans people had to have babies, because people have babies.”

“Published data indicate that one of the most effective tools to improve labor and delivery outcomes is the continuous presence of support personnel, such as a doula,”

Perhaps it is not specifically a doula that every pregnant woman needs access to, but simply someone who is willing to take it upon herself to care for her.

“Why can’t we guarantee that a woman always feels well cared for?”

To produce breast milk, mothers melt their own body fat. Are you with me? We dissolve parts of ourselves, starting with gluteal-femoral fat, a.k.a. our butts and thighs, and turn it into food for our babies.

All these changes happen in preparation for lactation, which is essentially the transmutation of blood into milk. Prolactin, a hormone produced by the pituitary gland in the brain, compels alveoli cells to draw sugars, proteins, and fat from a mother’s blood so that these macronutrients can be used as the building blocks of breast milk.

the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) all recommend that babies be exclusively breast-fed for a minimum of six months.2

It contains all the vitamins and nutrients a baby needs in her first six months of life; and it contains germ- and disease-fighting substances that help protect a baby from illness.4 Oh, and also: The nutritional and immunological components of breast milk change every day, according to the specific, individual needs of a baby.

one report estimates that the monetary value of the time spent breast-feeding during the first six months adds up to $14,250.5

Colostrum, the thick golden liquid that first comes out of a woman’s breasts after giving birth (or sometimes weeks before, as many freaked-out moms-to-be will tell you) is engineered to be low in fat but high in carbohydrates and protein, making it quickly and easily digestible to newborns in urgent need of its contents.

And it turns out that like any great dish of food, mother’s milk holds a variety of aromas, flavors, and textures.

In the 1970s, researchers at the University of Manitoba obtained samples of breast milk from lactating women and had them evaluated by a trained panel for taste, quality of sweetness, and texture. The researchers noted variations across samples in all categories, most notably the milk of a woman who had recently eaten spicy food, whose milk was described by tasters as being “hot” and “peppery.”

Based on her research, Julie Mennella of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia has suggested that these early breast-milk experiences help infants develop their own personal taste preferences, as well as increase their appreciation of the flavors they are first exposed to via mother’s milk.

Studies show that breast-feeding is good for a baby’s immunological health: breast-fed babies have lower instances of colds and viruses.7 And when they do get sick, breast-fed babies are often able to recover quickly because their mother’s body produces the specific antibodies needed to quell their infection.

According to Hinde, when a baby suckles at its mother’s breast, a vacuum is created. Within that vacuum, the infant’s saliva is sucked back into the mother’s nipple, where receptors in her mammary gland decipher it.8 This “baby spit backwash,” as she delightfully described it, contains signals, information about the baby’s immune system—including any infections it may be fighting.

If the mammary gland receptors detect the presence of pathogens, or germs, they compel the mother’s body to produce the corresponding antibodies to fight them. Those antibodies are then passed through breast milk and back into the baby’s body, where they target the infection.

mothers who are vegetarians in adulthood, but ate meat as teenagers, have stored fatty acids that are specific to animals. When they mobilize that fat to produce breast milk, their babies receive those nutrients.

“Breast-feeding is one of the key public-health interventions that we can actually do,”

embryonic stem cells,” said Hinde. “But breast milk could become a source of stem cells that can potentially be turned into any cell in the human body. There’s huge potential for regenerative medicine.” And while science is a very long way off from being able to engineer and grow replacement tissue for people with degenerative diseases, breast milk offers a viable option for future studies.

According to the CDC, 75 percent of American mothers start out breast-feeding, but after six months, only 13 percent of babies are exclusively breast-fed.13 Right now, we lack the societal, institutional, and cultural support structure to help mothers meet their breast-feeding goals.

According to a study conducted at the University of California–Davis, parenthood delivers a serious blow to the self-esteem of both women and men.2 The researchers found that, just before childbirth, hopeful parents of both sexes experienced a boost in their self-esteem. But in the years after childbirth, mothers and fathers experienced a decline in positive feelings about themselves.

Why don’t we talk openly about the fact that while there is much joy in becoming a parent, caring for a young child is also grueling, sometimes depressing work? That as we gain a new life, we also lose an old one?

How do we measure our own self-worth when our new self is barely recognizable? We cannot use the same values that applied to our lives before we were parents—being an ever-present friend or tireless worker, being stylish or the life of a party—when it is hard to sleep, find pants that fit, leave the house.

Caring for an infant is monotonous, constant, and physically demanding work. New parents should be regarded like endurance athletes or hard laborers. Your body acquires another layer of utility, albeit one besotted with emotion, and its willingness to do that is how we should regard ...

The effects of new parenthood on the relationship between partners have been studied by psychologists for decades—and the results have consistently shown that the quality of a couple’s relationship declines once a baby comes into the mix.

Researchers found that couples who didn’t discuss parenting chores and who is in charge of which task—“unexpressed and incongruent role expectations”—had more negative feelings about their relationships. In contrast, having similar beliefs about the need to share tasks—and being clear about who is responsible for what—helped couples maintain a happier relationship amid the chaotic banality of early parenthood.3

Preparing for childbirth without ever hearing about your levator ani muscle and pudendal nerve is like training for a marathon without hearing about your hamstrings or IT band.

“We should have routine physical therapy for the pelvic floor starting at six weeks post birth.

Microchimerism occurs in pregnancies that end in miscarriage or are terminated. Even if a pregnancy ends early, the cells of that fetus may live on.