It seems that October is a very serious month.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Please support breast cancer research and awareness, but not by giving money to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  The Susan G. Komen Foundation is closely affiliated financially with Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions.  This is not only a moral issue, but a health issue.  Abortion, along with other lifestyle choices fervently supported by Planned Parenthood, is a significant risk factor for breast cancer!  (This is well-known among the health community, by the way.)  So…reduce your chances of breast cancer: have babies (um, please be married first, though) and breastfeed them.  Seriously, that is one of the best ways, if not the best way, to reduce your risk of breast cancer.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.  I really hate that name.  It makes it sound like an unborn baby is not a baby at all.  Since an important aim of this “occasion” is to point out that miscarrying is losing a baby, I find this especially absurd.  If you have lost a baby, please know that you are not alone.  If you have not (or even if you have), please be aware that you almost certainly know someone who has.  Can you do something to let them know that you recognize their loss?  Send a card, plant a flower, etc.?  Especially if the anniversary of their loss, or a date associated with it (such as the due date of a baby that was never born) happens to fall in October.  We mamas do not forget these babies, short and inconspicuous as their lives may be.  They’re still our babies.

If you know someone who has recently lost a baby, recognize that it is a baby she lost.  She is grieving, as she would for any other child.  The loss is not inconsequential; don’t downplay it.  That is the most loving thing you can do for her – to recognize that she has lost a child, and respond accordingly.  Give her time to grieve.  Try to gauge whether she needs space or company.  If you’re not sure, ask her.  Be willing to talk about it, but don’t force her to talk about it.  And don’t make any references to it’s being “the Lord’s will,” unless you are very sure that she will find that comforting.  (Even for someone who recognizes/believes that to be true, it is not always a comforting thing to hear!)

Finally (well, I think “finally”; there may be other things going on this month that I don’t know about, and there are certainly other, less significant things, like Pasta Month.), October is Fair Trade Month.  This is a bit lower on the “significance” scale than breast cancer or the loss of a child, but it bears some significance, nevertheless.  Fair trade deals with the sale of products, particularly those produced primarily in so-called “developing countries,” in a socially and environmentally responsible manner.  Fair trade products (such as fair trade coffee, vanilla, chocolate, etc.) are certified to have been grown/produced using environmentally responsible methods (organic, sustainable, etc.) and to provide a fair profit to the producer.  This is important for international economics and – perhaps more significantly in the long-term – to protect the environment and the food supply.  For more information, visit Transfair USA.