presentation to the natural childbirth preparation class at the Madison Birth Center. This is the second time I've given the presentation. It's so much fun. Here's how it starts:
What is babywearing? Babywearing is the practice of carrying your baby by attaching it to your person by means of some type of soft carrier. Babywearing in found in human cultures around the globe, and, for all anyone knows, it could go back to the beginning of our species.
It’s
widely held that the first human invention was the club – a weapon. I
prefer the view that the first human invention was a vessel. One used
to carry seeds and roots and other foraged foods home in, or to carry a
baby – like the womb, another vessel where a child is kept safe and
protected by its mother until it’s finally outgrown.I got that idea, the idea of the vessel versus the club as the first human invention, from a nonfiction book by Ursula K. LeGuin that I read in Los Angeles in 1990 or 1991. That notion has stuck with me ever since. Makes sense.
There was a couple and their newborn baby checking out of one of the birthing rooms. Peter was the dad's name. Now I can't recall the name of the mother or the newborn. They had been at the previous sling presentation and remembered me. Peter invited me into the birth room, where the baby had been born underwater just that morning. It was special to be there.