Monday, April 17, 2006

Making time: Reinventing quality time for mothers and infants


By Victoria Petitt

Life with a newborn baby is far from easy, and many women struggle with the transition into motherhood. The demands of modern life have exacerbated this already difficult transition, and most new mothers report feeling overburdened by an unmanageable number of expectations and responsibilities. Meanwhile, the embedded cultural mythology of "the Supermom" leaves little margin for error or fatigue. The primary source of stress identified by new mothers is the sudden loss of personal time to attend to their own needs. With the needs of their babies, and their own, often appearing mutually exclusive, those of a mother often yield to those of her child. My thesis exploration has been about finding a compassionate solution to the needs of both mother and infant, since, as we as a society are quickly learning, the health of a mother is inseparable from that of her baby.

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