The Hill of Love Is Different From the Hill of Marriage: Re-Reading Mariama Ba’s Scarlet Song

The task of this paper is to discover the wisdom behind this Wolof proverb: “When one abandons one’s own hill, the next hill which one climbs will crumble”. This paper has shown that the hill is the environment, race, cultural precepts, maternal bond, and values of the characters themselves that inhibit intercultural marriage. The theoretical framework used in this article is mainly deconstructionist theory, nonetheless eclectic approach is accommodated because of the interpretation of the concept hill. The interpretations of what constitutes a hill affected some characters negatively so that they did not achieve their goals fully. Other characters did not allow cultural pull and family ties to overwhelm them. Cultural precepts like the formidable power wielded by mother in-laws, maternal bond, mother’s culinary art, polygamy overwhelmed the protagonist to insanity. This paper recommends that mothers in-law should relax their maternal hold on their sons when they are married. The men who are not emotionally strong to withstand cultural pull should marry their own kinswomen.

Interventions among Pregnant Women in the Field of Music Therapy: A Systematic Review

Objective To investigate in the literature the studies on the benefits of music therapy interventions among pregnant women in the prenatal, delivery and postpartum periods. Data Sources The search for articles was carried out in the following electronic databases: VHL, LILACS, SciELO, Portal CAPES, PsycINFO, ERIC, PubMed/Medline, and journals specialized in this field: Revista Brasileira de Musicoterapia (“Brazilian Journal of Music Therapy”) and Voices. Study Selection Descriptors in Portuguese (musicoterapia, gravidez, gestantes, revisão), English (music therapy, pregnancy, pregnant women, review) and Spanish (musicoterapia, embarazo, mujeres embarazadas, revisión) were used. The search was delimited between January 2009 and June 2019. The process of selection and evaluation of the articles was performed through peer review. Data Collection The following data were extracted: article title, year of publication, journal, author(s), database, country and date of collection, purpose of the study, sample size, type of care, intervention, instruments used, results, and conclusion. The data were organized in chronological order based on the year of publication of the study. Summary of the Data In total, 146 articles were identified, and only 23 studies were included in this systematic review. The articles found indicate among their results relaxation, decreased levels of anxiety, psychosocial stress and depression, decreased pain, increase in the maternal bond, improvement in the quality of sleep, control of the fetal heart rate and maternal blood pressure, and decreased intake of drugs in the postoperative period. Conclusion Music therapy during the prenatal, delivery and postpartum periods can provide benefits to pregnant women and newborns, thus justifying its importance in this field.

Troubled and Traumatized Self: A Psychoanalytical Study of Toni Morrison’s Beloved

An attempt has been made in the present paper to study and analyse the troubled and traumatized self of Sethe in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. A psychoanalytic thinker says “trauma places the relation between external reality and psychic reality in focus. A person’s personal experiences are represented in one’s own psyche and gets personalised. The internal world of wishes, conflicts and deficits, resulting from trauma, is negotiated in human interaction”. Here, Sethe felt affected both by physical and emotional trauma caused by the institution of slavery.The institution of slavery not only repressed the maternal bond betweenSethe and her children but alsoher own individualization and the development of her consciousness as a normal human being. Here, an attempt has also been made to explore how much she was affected by the repression of the memories of the trauma she had endured in her life and how much she was victimized and traumatized that she felt unable to nurture her own child Beloved. Under the oppressive conditions of slavery she found herself unable to form a maternal bond between herself and her beloved daughter. Morrison also tried to restore the historical record of the atrocities on the blacks during the period of slavery and give voice to the collective memory of Afro-Americans by depicting the trauma faced by Sethe

Induction of Lactation After Adoption in a Muslim Mother With History of Breast Cancer: A Case Study

Introduction With the prevalence of infertility increasing worldwide, many are seeking adoption to fulfill the need to start or expand their family. However, one of the challenges mothers face is the lack of the early maternal bond with the adopted infant, which typically starts during pregnancy, and then continues after birth, while providing care and nourishment to the infant. Breastfeeding is proven to strengthen the maternal–infant bond and provides numerous benefits to the dyad. Reports of induced lactation in non-biological mothers are uncommon, they are even more uncommon to find in women with a history of breast cancer. Main issue The induction of lactation in a Muslim adoptive mother who had a history of breast cancer. Management Pharmacologic methods, which included galactagogues Domperidone and fenugreek, in addition to non-pharmacologic methods that included breast stimulation by using a breast pump. The participant was able to provide her own milk for her adopted infant. Conclusion When provided with proper support, an adopting mother with a history of breast radiation was able to breastfeed. The participant’s need to provide her own expressed milk was met; although, she was counseled on the possibility that her milk production will most likely not be sufficient to entirely meet the infant’s needs. Determination and support definitely have a role in cases where the influence of past treatment on human milk production is not known.

The behaviours of a female blonde capuchin (Sapajus flavius) towards her dead infant

Here we describe the behaviour of a female blonde capuchin (Sapajus flavius) towards her dead infant and discuss possible explanations linked to the anecdotal event. We conducted our study in a fragment of Atlantic forest in Northeastern Brazil where we have been monitoring a blonde capuchin population, with over 163 individuals, since 2010. Our observations show that the behaviours of female blonde capuchins towards dead infant include corpse carrying, which may be related to maternal-bond strength and grief management. Two adult males cooperated with the vulnerable female by protecting her during group travelling even though offspring survival was no longer a possibility. The present study complements the current knowledge of thanatology in Neotropical primates.

The cow–calf relationship: from maternal responsiveness to the maternal bond and the possibilities for fostering

The relationship between the cow and calf develops over time after birth. The behavioural mechanisms underlying its development are important and comparisons with other species may increase our understanding. In nature the cow will separate herself from the herd to give birth and then the cow–calf relationship will develop with the ability to recognise each other. While twinning levels are low in cows, they do rear their twin calves. If the calf is lost at or after birth the cow can be responsive towards other calves and in specific circumstances the cow can develop a maternal bond with an alien calf, i.e. foster. In this Research Reflection a distinction is made between the development of, on the one hand, maternal responsiveness (the tendency of the cow to care for a calf which occurs before birth) and, on the other hand, the development of the maternal–filial bond or relationship which is reciprocal, occurs after birth and is characterised by the ability to discriminate the mother's own calf from alien calves. These processes can overlap and the relationship between cow and calf in this ‘hider’ species is more plastic than in some other mammals. For example, a cow might form an attachment with an alien calf before she gives birth. After the cow has given birth the loss of her own calf may result in the state of maternal responsiveness being maintained, such that developing a maternal bond with one or several appropriate alien calves is possible. Viable fostering techniques are possible. If a maternal relationship to the mother's own calf has developed then fostering will be more difficult. If the cow's relationship with her own calf is not exclusive, and she is in a state of maternal responsiveness then fostering of calves of an appropriate age and status can be achieved.

Breastfeeding for children of mothers who are infected with SARS-CoV-2: a systematic scoping review

The aim of the present study was to perform a systematically review the literature in order to clarify whether breastfeeding is safe for babies of mothers infected with coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2. The searches were carried out on MEDLINE (via PubMed), EMBASE and government statements and publications and manual search of reference lists on 5 July. The title, abstracts and full text were read in duplicate by two independent researchers to verify the eligibility criteria. From 2723 records, 17 citations were included. Eleven citations guide avoiding breastfeeding in cases of maternal infection confirmed by SARS-CoV-2. Fourteen citations did not present consensus on breastfeeding and twelve citations recommended to maintain breastfeeding. Conclusion : Through the evidence found so far, it is emphasized that the mother / child separation in the neonatal period is discouraged, as it harms the maternal bond, in addition to interfering considerably in breastfeeding. Therefore, the evidence found so far is extremely low in quality and does not present quantitative evidence in one way or another with regard to vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2, there is no way to recommend, avoid or even guarantee that there will be no infection, but it is recommended to continue breastfeeding.

Natal Longing and the Maternal Bond

This chapter explores the complex and dual figure of the mother in Aristotle’s work, focusing on the agency granted to the mother in Aristotle’s account of the active nature of loving in the ethics and its contrast to the limited causal efficacy granted the female in the development of the embryo in Generation of Animals. Defined both by the embodied act of embodying and by the conventions of the name—that is, understood both in the sense of one who has given birth and of one who is called mother, a position that could be occupied by someone other than the one giving birth—the mother tracks across human and animal worlds, across “biological” and symbolic concerns, and, in Aristotle, across ethico-political and zoological texts. What emerges from Aristotle’s comments about the maternal bond is a model of reflexive generativity, of a union between generator and generated, which resonates not only the with highest pinnacle of human friendship—the friend who is another self—but also the perpetual self-actualization of a mind that thinks itself.