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Motherhood Pre-Motherhood #5 - The Magic of Cuddles


Mother and Baby Embroidery by Buddy Summer

 The magic of cuddles- A mothers love
A mother's love is so underrated- so underrated. The love for a mum and the reverse, the love for a child, is so huge and so powerful. It’s explicit and hopefully experienced by all but just how much of an impact this unique love has isn’t mutually understood by all.
Recently I watched a video by WaterWipes called WaterWipes Pure Love about the natural power a mother has during skin to skin. Skin to skin is when Mamma and Baby rest together in a skin on skin cuddle; this can also be carried with Dad and Baby. This interaction isn’t for everyone for multiple individual reasons and I’ve learnt that each family is different.
Sometimes babies are born too early or their poorly and so they sleep in a monitored incubator, which is a bed with a little dome that keeps the germs of the outside world out. This can be used to help the newborns breathe better. 
The touching video demonstrates a scientific experiment taken place on newborn babies that are swaddled and resting with Mum compared to skin to skin with Mum and Baby. The result was that swaddled: the babies aren’t as calm as they would be when placed in direct contact with the mother. Being on Mum’s chest, skin to skin, regulated both Mum and Baby's temperature, their heart rates synchronised, Baby calmed down a lot quicker and biologies were balanced. So fundamentally, the warmth of a mother (physical and emotional) keeps the pair balanced, calm and complete. The contentedness of the duo was incredible to watch, they both seemed blissfully happy. This was a true mummy moment and demonstrated to me physical proof of a mothers love.
I will leave a link to the video here: WaterWipes Pure Love

...It's not just humans...

 Furthermore, the power of a mother's love can be represented in fiction, an example being Harry Potter. In the story, the love of Harry's mother Lily is ultimately what protects him.
If you are unaware of the story Harry Potter’s parents pass away when he is very young and this occurs when they are protecting him from an evil presence; Voldemort. Lily stays with baby Harry by his cot, pouring love into Harry through a magical charm which saves his life; she died to keep her son alive. In the magical world, when the person to make a sacrifice dies, the murderer can’t reach the proposed victim; the protection lives in their blood. Therefore throughout Harry’s life, he is protected with love even though his mother isn’t physically around. Lily is Harry’s safety. Voldemort doesn't possess love which is ultimately why he's defeated. 
The story gets very complicated beyond this point and to explain would be digressing.


This may be fiction but there is trueness to the story. In an interview with J.K Rowling (the author of Potter), she explains her work with founded charity Lumos. She goes on to explain that brain damage occurs when mother and child are separated and the child is put into an institution. Certain pathways in the brain are not formed and this affects the child as they grow up into an adult. Harry is very loved from an early age and she explains that because of this he is always protected. His brain develops in a way that Voldemort's brain hasn't because Voldemort grew up in an institution. 
Molly Weasley; another character from Harry Potter who is a mother to Ron (the pathos character with the main family that features). Not only does she care for her children and husband but she is a second mum to Harry, taking care of him, Hermione and all the characters she sees as good. J.K explains that Molly made a free choice to raise her family but she isn’t just a mum and wife, she can fight and protect the people she loves and who she loves is the good. 
The final movie is where we really see the depth of her love for the people she cares for when she destructs the evil witch Bellatrix who had just attempted to harm Molly's daughter. In this scene, there are two energies fighting: Molly's love and protection (as if from the womb) and Bellatrix's wicked tampered view of love as she sides with evil. Motherly protection wins. 
Simply looking at Molly you can see that she is maternal and her love for the people she cares about oozes through the screen/page.

Image Credit: We Heart It

 Narcissa Malfoy is another example of love from a mother. She’s on the bad side but good in many ways and saves Harry's life in his weakest moment. In a scene where it’s Narcissa’s job to pronounce Harry dead or alive, her instinct comes into play and she can tell he is in fact alive. Instead of killing him by revealing to Voldemort that Harry wasn’t killed in his first attempt, she takes the opportunity to discreetly ask about her son. In this moment she could have got her answer and killed him but sacrifices herself to save her son and Harry who she saw as a child-like her boy. It is a mother who saves Harry again.
Image Credit: Pottermore
This motherly love can come from women that aren’t mothers. A maternal instinct is something I've seen in so many women around me and I would say a good 40% of them don’t have children themselves. 
Professor McGonagall: a professor of magic at Hogwarts. She demonstrates love and protection of her students when she takes charge of the school during a battle against evil. McGonagall doesn't have children herself but feels a fierce protection towards the students she cares for.
Image Credit: HuffPost

 Katniss Everdeen- not a character from Harry Potter but the Hunger Games franchise. Katniss makes the ultimate sacrifice for her sister and takes her place to fight to the death. You could say she is the second mother of Prim and we see this from the very start of the first film then throughout. Even though Katniss isn’t a mother, she has the protector quality and maternal instinct we often see in mothers. Katniss protects the people she cares for with a fierce passion; Prim, Peeta, Gale, Rue. We watch as she risks her life time and time again for Peeta In the games and their messed up society. She has a strong sense of right and wrong and finds herself in a very difficult situation of unintentionally leading a rebellion. Katniss believes in the cause however in spite of this desperation for change in society she does whatever she can to save the people she loves; even if that means counteracting her well-routed ethics.

Image Credit: TeenVogue
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Maternal love is unique and powerful. There is truly no other love like the love from a maternal being. My research demonstrates to me that everybody- a mother or not- has a protective instinct and what a huge gift this is for the world we live in.
Maternal; protector, carer, place of safety, nurse, best friend. 

As ever, thank you very much for reading. This is a very special blog post and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing up my Ulrika thought.

All my love,

Buddy xx


Bibliography
  • WaterWipes (2016). Water wipes Pure Love. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7E_c3G3LPA [Accessed 4 Sep. 2019].
  • The Women Of Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling interview part 1. (2012). [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etNcsShL3F0 [Accessed 4 Sep. 2019].
  • Rowling, J. (2007). Harry Potter and the deathly hallows. London: Bloomsbury, p.All.
  • Collins, S. (2010). The Hunger Games Mockingjay. [New York]: Scholastic.
  • Vazzana, C. (2017). Katniss and Prim Everdeen. [image] Available at: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/katniss-prim-hunger-games-sister-portrait [Accessed 4 Sep. 2019].
  • Molly Weasley. (n.d.). [image] Available at: https://weheartit.com/entry/301360130 [Accessed 4 Sep. 2019].
  • HuffPost (n.d.). Professor McGonagall. [image] Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/grading-thaime-drawings_n_6418268 [Accessed 5 Sep. 2019].
  • Victor, J. (n.d.). The Potter Family. [image] Available at: https://www.abordodomar.com.br/2019/01/tudo-que-harry-potter-queria-era-uma.html [Accessed 5 Sep. 2019].
  • Pottermore (n.d.). Narcissa Malfoy. [image] Available at: https://www.pottermore.com/features/in-defence-of-narcissa-malfoy [Accessed 5 Sep. 2019].


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