1. Because it all starts in your mum’s belly. If you can get a great start there, mum has a positive birth experience and you can be born gently, both of you can start out on your adventure tgether in tip top form.
2. Because an optimal start, physically, emotionally and spiritually will pay life-long dividends.
3. Because a mother supported to nurture and feed her child as she feels she needs to will have a deep fulfilment from parenting and her child will be ‘securely attached’.
4. Because ‘securely attached’ babies and children tend to be well-balanced, independent, successful adults.
5. Because sane, well-balanced adults tend to make great parents.
6 And great parents change the world!
To all those great parents reading this: Great Parents don’t operate in isolation. We need each other. Mums need mums. We need a village of friends and neighbours around us. Doulas are those friends and neighbours who aren’t too busy or too far away to come round and share a cup of tea and proffer a hankie and a shoulder.
As the ‘global village’ seems to get smaller and smaller, for many of us, our friends and family seems to be getting further and further away, causing undue suffering and isolation for new mothers.
So No. 7? It takes a village to birth and raise a child.
And here’s a recent addition to the evidence around attachment parenting:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100921163709.htm
