Monday, March 31, 2014

My Elimination Communication Journal and Natural Infant Hygiene Experience

What is Natural Infant Hygiene? 

When I first started researching natural birth, the safety of vaccines and anything else related to parenting I started to see Natural Infant Hygiene or Elimination Communication all over the place. You see, I'm a first time mom so everything is new and needs to be researched!

I asked, what is this "elimination communication" thing? Is it just another hippie parenting technique? What I found out is that Natural Infant Hygiene and Elimination Communication are the same thing, and that there are actually many terms for it. It isn't exclusively a "hippie" parenting technique (not that there is anything wrong with those attachment parenting styles, it is just not as main stream in the U.S. currently so many people don't understand what it is.) In fact, it is a practice used by most of the world and has been for a very long time.

Natural Infant Hygiene is basically the idea that babies are born with the ability to communicate when they need to urinate and defecate. It is already assumed that babies can tell when they are hungry, tired, hot, cold, or any other sort of uncomfortable, so why wouldn't they be born with the ability to feel when they need to eliminate?

As it turns out, they are. But, through the use of diapers our society trains babies to ignore the urge and to lose the muscle control to hold their urine and bowels. Then, after years of "conveniently" subjecting babies to diaper rash, sitting in their own waste, wearing uncomfortably huge pieces of plastic or cloth between their legs it is time to try to train them back in to being able to decide when they eliminate waste.

At first I was skeptical because I grew up thinking that people can't even control those muscles until they are older, that's why people wait to potty train. The more I learned about it the more I realized that does not make any logical sense at all.

The purpose of this blog is to test out this Natural Infant Hygiene theory and to share information and tips about elimination communication. I will be writing in a journal type manner. I am starting this blog before my first baby is even born so you will be able to follow me through the experience every step of the way and see how well it actually works. Thanks for joining me on this exciting adventure!