“I think that this jewelry is also a little bit symbolic of this injustice.”
“Most women don’t have jobs like that,” Wolf said. Jacqueline Wolf, a professor of the history of medicine at Ohio University and the author of a 2001 book on the decline of breastfeeding in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, noted that, for the most part, the mothers who are able to breastfeed during those early months are those with paid maternity leave or flexible work schedules. However, for many mothers, that is untenable because of work the United States is one of the few countries with no national paid maternity leave.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization both recommend that infants be breastfed for the first six months of their lives. A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semiprecious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form. “For me, looking into getting jewelry made out of breast milk, it was a way to kind of hang on to the memory and the legacy of the child that I wasn’t able to nurse, because that was milk that they would have been able to have if they had survived,” Zuick said. Group of precious and semiprecious stonesboth uncut and facetedincluding ( clockwise from top left) diamond, uncut synthetic sapphire, ruby, uncut emerald, and amethyst crystal cluster.
Gems meaning software#
Rebecca Zuick, 31, a software development student in San Antonio, purchased a ring with a stone made from her breast milk in February 2017, both as a way to celebrate the end of breastfeeding her son, Asher, and to cope with the stillbirth she experienced in July 2015. “Jewelry is already really sentimental,” Castillo said, but in the case of jewelry made from breast milk, “it is literally holding a memory.” She experimented with her own breast milk for months, eventually landing on a method that involves dehydrating the solution to make a powder, then mixing the powder with resin to make a stone. “A lot of it comes from that, almost like a desire to continue, but either they can’t or they decided it’s time to stop.”Ĭastillo started her line in March after seeing similar products on Instagram. “A lot of my orders come from clients that are either suffering through a hard time or they’re weaning and not ready yet,” said Castillo, 25, who lives in Tucson, Arizona. Sarah Castillo, owner of Keepsakes by Grace, said her clients often purchase pieces from her after they have experienced difficulty nursing. “Often when they wean, it’s a little sad, because it was such a special moment.” “For many people, breastfeeding is an extremely special and important time in their lives,” Rosenfeld said.