How can you be a green role model to the little ones? Angela McKinney speaks on green motherhood and what it’s like to be a Doula.
“Each weekday morning, you’ll find me slipping my two-year-old son into his bike trailer, buckling him in and hitting the road for a full hour-long cycle from home to daycare and on to work. People always ask me why I don’t buy a car and make my life easier. But every morning as I pedal along, I remind myself that I am doing something more valuable than a simple daily commute. I am modeling the values I believe in to my child. It makes me feel good to know that although I live and work the “normal” Canadian life of a city apartment and two-income family, there are small ways I can teach my son what I believe truly matters.
I’m a doula. The word Doula is Greek meaning “female helper”. Today, doulas all over the world support and educate pregnant women through labour, delivery and their new lives as parents. I hold hands while women push their babies into the world. I cheerlead them through their first breastfeed. Sometimes I just sit and listen to them tell their story of becoming a mother. Time and time again I am moved by the courage we women have to take on change, to rise to a challenge. We mothers literally hold a future in our hands and I have yet to meet a woman who is not concerned about just what that future holds for their new wee creature. Will there be a world for their children to grow up in? Will the planet allow us to live through one more generation? Will our children forgive us for wreaking havoc on the earth? What about peak oil and resource wars?
No one can imagine the world twenty years from now. It’s hard to imagine even a few years down the road. But I believe we mothers can take small steps to help make the world a great place for our children.
Every mother is different. We are busy and tired and sometimes feel helpless in face of the problems of the world. But we all have one thing in common. We want our children to survive. So everyday, I get on my bike, say a prayer, and try to show my son the beauty of our world through conscious action. It only takes small steps to make a big difference.”
Angela’s Tips
1. Consider a homebirth. Studies show homebirth is as safe for normal pregnancies as a hospital birth. Mothers are more likely to receive some kind of intervention method like an epidural or caesarean in a hospital environment. Hospitals consume immense amounts of energy for not only heat, light and water but also monitoring equipment, laundry services and food preparation. Medications are synthetically produced in traditional industrial manufacturing processes. Staying at home, when appropriate, helps reduce the energy and chemical burden and allows mothers more control over their own birth process.
2. Try breastfeeding. Avoid the processing, packaging, and shipping of formula and the plastic bottles needed to deliver it to baby. Breastfeeding is learned behaviour; sometimes the support and guidance of a doula or lactation consultant helps to get things off to a good start.
3. Think about using cloth diapers and hanging them to dry rather than putting them through the dryer cycle. If cloth diapers aren’t right for you, try to use chlorine-free, biodegradable disposable diapers.
4. When possible, clothe baby in organic, local fabrics. Avoid synthetic, petroleum byproduct materials as well as the toxic anti-flammable coatings they are often sprayed with.
5. Opt for organic, natural baby products instead of commercial shampoos, soaps, diaper creams and toothpastes. Babies don’t need soap or shampoo. Water works wonders for first baths.
6. Try to shop locally for seasonal, organic produce and prepare your own baby and toddler foods. Put spoonfuls in an ice-cube tray so you can easily pop out a portion and reheat it.
7. Consider buying a second-hand bike trailer or seat and get moving. Reducing your car use reduces your carbon emissions and helps you stay healthy, too.
8. When your baby turns into a toddler, plant something. Pot an herb in the kitchen window or grow beans out of a recycled milk container turned plant pot. Let your child experience and remember the magic of nature as it brings new life into the world.
Angela McKinney is a birth and postpartum doula working in Vancouver, Canada. She is passionate about working with new parents as they travel through the transformative experience of becoming a new family. Her company, Doula Divine, provides complete pre-natal, birth and postpartum services to families of all shapes and sizes. Angela is also blessed to be a mother and a wife. She can be reached at douladivine (at) telus dot net.
For more information on doulas, please visit www.dona.org.
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