The past three weeks I’ve been staying with my daughter, her husband, and her two children in Brooklyn, NYC, and this afternoon I fly out to Ireland, where I’m participating in a retreat in the south-west led by Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, and artist Joan Hanley, who are married. The retreat is in an ancient windswept castle on the rugged south-west Irish coastline. (Well, the ancient windswept castle has been restored but it’s still an ancient castle!)

 

I thought I’d tell you what I’ve been up to work-wise – around the edges of spending lots of precious time with my daughter and grandchildren.

 

I’ve now reviewed the registration pages for the three NDC courses which I’ll be recommencing in July 2023: the NDC Masterclasses (Breastfeeding; and Unsettled Infant Behaviour + Perinatal Mental Health), NDC Accreditation, and Maintenance of NDC Accreditation. These three updated courses have been attributed with CPD points through RACGP and ACM, ACRRM pending. So in the next couple of weeks we’ll be able to start taking registrations. You would be welcome to email tom@pameladouglas.com.au if you have queries. Tom’s been working hard and we are an ultra-small team but he’ll respond as soon as possible. Otherwise we’ll also email out the links in a newsletter.

 

I’m just finishing up delivering parent education materials to Professor Sophie Havighurst, who with her team has created Tuning into Kids and Tuning into Toddlers. I’ve admired Sophie’s work for many years and have seen her programs as a natural fit with what I’ve been trying to do in the first year of life. I’d had Sophie teach into two of the conferences that Cath and I had organised with Possums & Co. This latest project, in collaboration with a group of researchers and The University of Melbourne, will bring a range of parent materials online. Hopefully I’ll have most of that in her hands before I leave for the retreat today.

 

I’m also consistently putting time into developing updated parent programs for the new website at drpam.baby (which will also be at drpam.au in time). My breastfeeding work, a final development of this crucial NDC domain, is maybe two-thirds finished but has been put on hold until the middle of this year, as I find my feet, and then that will come online too.

 

Last week I delivered an hour-long recording called Rethinking Lactation-related Breast Inflammation (which continues to develop up the NDC breastfeeding domain around this topic) to Spanish lactation consultants.

 

And I submitted two responses to reviewers, one for a paper I’ve written which analyses the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine’s Clinical Protocol #36, again from the perspective of the NDC mechanobiological models of both breast inflammation and nipple pain; the other concerning the Possums Sleep Program and the NDC Contextual Model of Infant Sleep.

 

I and my (very small) team are developing up social media posts and we plan to get underway with social media shortly, too.

 

I thought I’d share with you some videos that Emma and Tom think are hilarious, about an adventure on the roller-coaster called The Cyclone at Coney Island, which is not so far away from here in Brooklyn. I do believe I was set up! The short Italian cook running around in the background is my grandson.

 

I don’t recommend that you ride on The Cyclone. It rattles with old timber planks and loose bolts, and I spent the whole ride – which took about an hour I believe? – holding on with white knuckles and aching toes (because I had to hold on with my toes, too) praying that I wouldn’t fly out or otherwise end life prematurely on a rollercoaster ride, since I feel I still have a lot to give. My daughter laughed and screamed merrily by my side. Apparently all I could do was mutter over and over: no, no, no, as I tried to breathe. My current spiritual practice is letting go in trust in the face of huge and unexpected life events, living with authenticity, living with integrity, accepting that a lot is out of my control in life, doing my best to live a life of meaning and to find an abundance of joy in the present moment. I found I was unable to extend this spiritual practice to The Cyclone.

 

Pam

 

Brooklyn 21 April 2023