Babies Are Not Pizzas by Rebecca Dekker

Author:Rebecca Dekker [Dekker, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781732549647
Publisher: Evidence Based Birth
Published: 2019-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

WOKE

THANKFULLY, AS SOON AS Susie was born, I felt amazing. The migraines lifted and, like last time, I felt a surge of energy. With the pain gone, I was able to become a better mom to Clara and Henry again. They were so adorable, always asking to cuddle with Susie. I was excited and feeling incredibly lucky that I would get 12 weeks paid leave at home with my three little ones—something that was unheard of among most of my family and friends (most of whom went back to work at 4 to 6 weeks postpartum).

I was feeling so inspired that I published a big blog article before I went back to work, called “Evidence on Vitamin K for Newborns.” Surprisingly, the article was so controversial that the website kept crashing due to the traffic demand on the servers. Dan and I had to scramble to find a new web host that could handle the traffic, and it was a week before our website was back online.

I went back to work at the end of March, mulling over the public’s reaction to the Vitamin K article. I hadn’t thought an article about a vitamin would be a big deal. But, apparently, there was a lot of misinformation out there on the Internet, and people had been misled into believing myths about Vitamin K being harmful (it isn’t). I’d also discovered that part of the controversy was related to the fact that some people thought I should only write about the evidence for avoiding interventions. They were upset that I’d written that evidence clearly supports the use of Vitamin K—an intervention—for newborns!

One midwife from another country was so angry with me that she figured out where I worked, called my university, got an administrative assistant on the phone, and yelled at her about how I was a horrible person and a “tyrant.” She was mad that there wasn’t a comments section on my website—that makes me a tyrant?

But, as Dan reminded me, people needed to learn that I wasn’t out there to promote any one type of birth. I was, as he said, “on the side of the evidence.” In the end, this position—being on the side of the evidence—solidified my following. A lot of my readers were relieved I didn’t have a secret agenda, that I really was just there to serve them by democratizing the evidence and making it available to everyone. And so, my audience grew.

As Susie’s first year progressed, Dan and I continued to experience difficulties with childcare. We had to hire a new nanny (our fifth) at the end of my maternity leave in March, and when August rolled around, she quit. With the beginning of the academic year looming over me, I gritted my teeth, sat down at my desk at home, and posted another nanny ad. As usual, I got responses right away and began the screening process. One candidate in particular stood out to me. She wanted to leave daycare work to spend more time with families.

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