Keri Russell chats with ePregnancy about River, motherhood, and her work with PKIDs

As a new mom to son River Russell Deary, now 8 months, Keri Russell had a lot of choices to make — to find out the sex of the baby or not, her birthing experience whether to vaccinate or not, and more. In October, the 31-year-old actress chose to become a spokeswoman for PKIDs‘  ‘Silence the Sounds of Pertussis’ campaign, and have herself and husband Shane Deary vaccinated with the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) booster to protect their son from whooping cough, which infants can catch from adults. Keri recently spoke to ePregnancy about pregnancy, motherhood, and her work with PKIDs.

On keeping the baby’s sex a delivery surprise:

We kept the sex a surprise.  We were convinced [the baby] was a girl, but so, so happy to have a boy.

On her birthing choices — Keri had a midwife-assisted hospital birth:

I absolutely loved having a midwife.  I just felt the attention was more personal and more … connected.  There is a great new documentary called ‘The Business of Being Born.’  It is amaaazing.  And it really discusses how natural child birth is and should be.  And what an amazing powerful gift it is to experience as women without all the intervention, when possible. 

Anyway, very inspiring film and it made sense to us.  And yes, we were in an actual hospital, which was nice as well.  Especially for our first, when you just have no idea of what is in store.

On motherhood challenges and triumphs:

It is truly overwhelming all of the new things you feel being a parent for the first time, not to mention trying to work at the same time. 

And I would say everyone kept telling me that those first 3 months were going to be hard but then you’d get over the hump and [now] I know what they meant.  Because right after that, the baby starts smiling and laughing and having more exchanges with you and its easier to read what’s going on with them. 

But yeah, those first smiles and laughs … they’re everything.

Source: ePregnancy

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The ‘Silence the Sounds of Pertussis’ campaign is sponsored by the nonprofit organization Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases (PKIDs).

Click the source link for more on Keri’s work with ‘Silence the Sounds of Pertussis,’ and her new work schedule (she and the family recently relocated to Los Angeles for a bit while she works on Bedtime Stories).

Comments

I’m so sick of this “birth is a natural thing” argument when what people should be saying is that “we believe birth is always a healthy thing”…which is obviously isn’t.
Birth is a dramatic, powerful, delicately-balanced occurrence which can bring with it a myriad of problems, large and small. Hence the centuries of women who died in childbirth. If a woman goes to the hospital with a broken leg and asks for all possible procedures to ease her pain and fix her wound, why should she be faulted if she wants as many options for her childbirth.
If a woman can have a child HEALTHILY–with just a midwife, breathing, and oils, that’s fine. But if a woman hasn’t a good chance of a healthy birth–she should have the right to choose if she wants meds or a cesarean…without being led to believe that she’s being suckered by the medical world.
My birth would have been “natural” but I was three weeks late, had to be induced, and then my mom bled out horribly–resulting in health problems she still has today.
So I honestly wish these celebs would stop propagating the idea that all women should aim for natural births when obviously many women’s bodies are not capable of it.

- Stef on February 19th, 2008

See, I’m the opposite. I like hearing about celeb moms that had natural births, because they seem few and far between, and they mirror my own experience closer, so I relate to them easier. That’s just me though.

I didn’t really get the feeling Keri was saying or insinuating that natural birth is for everyone though – obviously it isn’t, a lot of times for reasons out of your control.

- Pam on February 19th, 2008

I agree with Pam that she wasn’t insinuating everyone should have a natural birth. In fact she says “And what an amazing powerful gift it is to experience as women without all the intervention, when possible” When possible being the key word. I wanted to have a natural birth too but ended up having horrible back labor, an epidural and ended up with a csection-things i never imagined going in. I was dilated to 9cm but my daughter got stuck right at the end and i never ended up pushing…we waited hours and then had to do a csection for her safety and mine. You just never know what will happen when you go into the hospital. Never the less it is a powerful experience any way it happens.

- Laura on February 19th, 2008

I like keri, she seems level headed and nice.

- gabriella on February 20th, 2008