I am an over-sharer. There. I said it. I love Facebook (or I did before they made all the recent changes), those “getting to know you” quizzes and emailing my friends and family the minutiae of my life. I just do. When people ask me “How are you?”, I normally tell them, warts and all, and I have a reputation of telling it how it is. I like that about myself but I am sure that’s annoying to some people sometimes (all the time?). I like to write, and I have a lot to say, so you’d think I’d be able to keep this blog updated on a fairly regular basis. I have so little time these days, though. I thought once I weaned the babies, I’d be so much freer! I had all these plans to write stories and make videos about nursing, wanted to be a La Leche League Leader, a Lactation Educator, a breastfeeding peer. Sigh. My babies are not babies any more. They’re 9 and 6. In school, doing well, with lots of IQ points from their combined 9 years of nursing. Anytime they don’t catch the cold that’s going around, I pat myself on the back. When they do catch it, I tell myself it must be a particular ferocious brand of virus, no amount of breastfeeding could have prevented. Breastfeeding moms, you know what I am saying, right?
So I have to give props to my friend Jen who not only proudly breastfeeds, babywears, cloth diapers AND works outside the home, but made this fabulous song about breastfeeding and sung it, on camera WHILE nursing baby Micah. Jen is a talented singer AND songwriter apparently. I thought this would be a lovely thing to share with young siblings in preparation for a new member of the family who will be nursing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Such a shame that more of this kind of video isn’t made available to in the mainstream.
So in the spirit of over-sharing, here’s Jen, singing about her superpower…making milk.
Don’t you love his cute little nursing sounds? I had to ask her if she was nursing because LOOK HOW DISCREET! LOVE IT!
You might have guessed by now I am a huge breastfeeding advocate. Even though my children have been weaned for a couple of years now, almost everyone who knows me knows that breastfeeding is my “thing” and will forward articles and blogs of interest to me constantly.
Someone recently recommended a great documentary to me called “
Babies”. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you check it out. It’s an interesting commentary on the ways we raise babies in different cultures and it documents four babies from the USA, Namibia, Mongolia and Japan. I found it fascinating in its comparisons, especially with regard to breastfeeding. I was really struck by one scene depicting two African mothers sitting in the dirt, topless, their babies naked save for a small loin cloth. Both of them nursed at will, the breasts being freely available, and the mothers showed absolutely no discomfort with the nursing or of the cameras recording it. They were completely free of inhibitions. There were no diapers; one of the babies actually had a bowel movement, and the mama just held the baby up, let her do her work and then wiped the remainder on her leg! It was very enlightening indeed.
Apparently, Mongolian babies are routinely left alone in their “Yurts”, and in one scene a child was tied by rope to the bed stand while mom presumably worked in the nearby field. The younger of the two Mongolian babies was constantly harassed by his (unsupervised) older brother and I found myself very upset by it, vowing never to go there and wishing that these “ignorant people” were more educated. How dangerous to leave such young children unattended, I haughtily judged!
It just goes to show you how we “westernized” people can be so arrogant in our thinking that only we have the right way. I largely parented my babies by instinct and almost prided myself on not “falling for” the mainstream (US version) way of parenting, ignoring well meaning advice on baby wearing, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, weaning and diapering. I am fiercely outspoken about parenting issues and sometimes get into arguments with dear friends about how things should be done. I have learned to be more careful recently, although a recent Facebook debate about spanking got me self-righteously riled up for a few hours (me? riled up? It can’t be!), and I had to remind myself once again that most parents are only doing what they think is right and parent from ideals that resonate with them. I try very hard to present only the facts and background of why I feel as I do, rather than judge or attack people for not doing it my way. But in my early years of parenting, I was extreme in my advocacy for breastfeeding, and strongly felt that breastfeeding only “failed” because of a lack of either effort, commitment or education on the part of the mother. I just couldn’t understand why someone would choose not to breastfeed. Why? Of course, as I became more open-minded myself to other parenting “choices”, and discovered that my parenting instincts were similar to those of other people, I realized that just as I am influenced by the myriad choices, articles, blogs and conversations I have with other mamas, so are others. Why is “my way” the only right way?
So it came to be that my friend Jen, who recently had a baby boy (who she proudly wears, cloth diapers and breastfeeds, I might add!), sent me
this great article about the breastfeeding culture in Mongolia. Wow, I thought, another point of view of parenting in Mongolia! I couldn’t wait to read it.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia - Creative Commons license
I was very surprised to read that breastmilk is revered in Mongolia! It’s touted as the cure all and responsible for all the great wrestlers that Mongolia apparently produces. Even adults drink it from new mums who are engorged! Adults? What? Gross! Haven’t they heard of disease? (There I go again, making a judgment.) But, ask any Mongolian and they will all admit that they LIKE the taste of breastmilk! Astounding, right!? Not really, when you consider, right here on this blog, I have called it the
“Nectar of Mommy”. How many of you have tasted the milk? How many would freely admit that you like it? I don’t know that I would taste it from the breast of another mom though. That’d be taking a bit too far. My own milk, OK, but any other just wouldn’t be something I could do, especially directly “from the tap” as it were. But then I am a bit of a germ phobe. Would you?
There are laugh out loud funny moments in the article – especially in the section entitled “The Lazy Mum’s Secret Weapon” where the mum writing the article (a western lady who lived in Mongolia for 3 years) shares a moment of breast flapping with a Mongolian mother and grandmother in an attempt to distract their boys from fighting:
Not to be outdone, I adopted the same strategy. There we were, two mothers flapping our breasts like competing strippers trying to entice a client. If the grandparents were around, they’d get in on the act. The poor kids wouldn’t know where to look—the reassuring fullness of their own mothers’ breasts, granny’s withered pancake boasting its long experience, or the strange mound of flesh granddad was squeezing up in breast envy. Try as I might, I can’t picture a similar scene at a La Leche League meeting.
Haha, neither can I!
On a more serious note, though, in Mongolia, according to this article, women breastfeed their babies freely, publicly and in every social situation, strangers bending down to kiss a nursling on the cheek in the street, so celebrated is the act of breastfeeding. She reports of one woman leaving a bottle of pumped milk in the workplace refrigerator and coming back to find it half empty – pilfered by colleagues!! Breastfeeding is so acceptable, nay celebrated, as to have completely changed the author’s perspective on nursing -she nursed her son until he was 4, saying:
From the time Calum was four months old until he was three years old, wherever I went, I heard the same thing over and over again: “Breastfeeding is the best thing for your baby, the best thing for you.” The constant approval made me feel that I was doing something important that mattered to everyone—exactly the kind of public applause every new mother needs.
If only things were like that here. So many times, when breastfeeding my babies, and especially when I was tandem nursing, it was something that I felt shy about. I was always concerned that a nipple would show, that more of my breast would be on display than was appropriate, that I would have to cite my state’s laws if someone complained or approached me. I was always on guard for a fight. How refreshing it would have been to have had perfect strangers give me the thumbs up, and tell ME those things. One can only wish. For now, I leave you with this thought. What influenced your decision to breastfeed and for how long? For me, it just felt right, and it saved me time, sleep and the convenience factor alone was enough for this lazy mom to say “Let’s do it”!
I wanted to share
this great article and video about latching in the first days. I wish I’d seen this during my first few days of nursing – it would’ve prevented a whole lotta discomfort! Hoping it will help someone else
I am appalled at the number of news reports lately of how many nursing women have been thrown out or asked to move while breastfeeding their little ones in a public place. Many states now have laws protecting nursing moms from indecency laws, Arizona being one of them. Take
this story for example. Mom was in a cafe and was told she was “disgusting” for feeding her child and then trash from the table was thrown into her car. Disgusting?! OMG. There was
another story last year about a woman who was in a World Market/Cost Plus in California and told to “cover up…and have some respect” even though mom says she was showing no more flesh than if she was wearing a tank top. Indeed I was once asked to feed my son with a towel over his head at the local YMCA, even though there were several other bikini clad women there who were showing WAY more flesh than I was – or could if I had wanted to. Baby’s head covers most of the breast in most situations and the nipple doesn’t show because it’s in the baby’s mouth! Ludicrous that we are still so hung up on breasts as sexual objects that we don’t seem to be able to get past it as a country.
I am curious about what your experiences are/were when you nurse(d) in public. Did/do you receive any positive feedback? Have you ever been asked to move? Did/do you hear the inevitable stories from other moms “I could never breastfeed in public because…”? Post below and share your experiences!
Whether you are a breastfeeding mom or not, I am sure you have heard countless times “I couldn’t breastfeed because…” and a host of different reasons why a particular mom had a hard time with her breastfeeding relationship. Just because breastfeeding is natural doesn’t mean that it comes easy and some moms have particularly challenging situations that can make breastfeeding almost impossible. In many cases, a person knowledgeable about breastfeeding to guide you through those first tricky weeks is all that’s really needed for a committed mom to get on the right track, but in situations where mother and baby have special challenges, a more targeted approach is necessary. Here are a few of those situations.
Insufficient Glandular Tissue (IGT) Insufficient Glandular Tissue is a very rare condition (occurs in less than 1% of cases) in which there is not enough breast tissue to produce sufficient milk and nutrition for the nursing baby. Contrary to popular belief, breast SIZE itself is not an indicator of Insufficient Glandular Tissue, or milk supply, but there are certain physical characteristics that have been noted in a a recent study. Often, though not always, these moms have widely spaced, or markedly unsymmetrical breasts, and the areolae are sometimes disproportionately large or bulbous. It’s important to get evaluated by a certified lactation consultant if your milk never “comes in” despite frequent nursing and skin to skin bodily contact so that a remedy can be suggested and implemented. Supplementation with an SNS (supplemental nursing system) is a fantastic way to continue nursing and stimulate low supply, and there are many many other methods by which supplementation can occur that help both mother and baby get what they need. Here’s a
link to a more technical article on this condition.
Adoption
Many, many moms have successfully begun lactation and have been able to feed their adoptive child almost completely without supplementation which makes for a fantastic way to bond with your baby. It takes quite a bit of commitment in the beginning with LOTS of skin to skin contact, but it can be done, again, with the use of a
Supplemental Nursing System or Lact-Aid. Both are basically a bottle that is filled with formula which has tiny tubes that are then taped with medical tape to the breast and baby then learns to suckle at the breast which stimulates a hormonal response from the adoptive mom, thus eventually producing milk of her own. There is a lot of great information about nursing for the adoptive mom
here.
Breast Surgery (either implants or reduction)
Breastfeeding after surgery to either reduce or enhance the breasts can be a tricky situation and is going to depend very much on both the surgeon and
the method used for surgery. The best thing you can do if you fall into this category is to educate yourself on the type of surgery you had, and what, if any particular challenges you might expect after giving birth. Some moms are happily surprised to find out that their milk comes in fine and that they do not have to do anything special to increase their supply to meet the demands of the nursling. Others may need to supplement in the beginning or try methods to stimulate their supply such as:
Ingesting a
galactagogue such as oatmeal, fenugreek, blessed thistle, domperidone and many more
Skin to skin contact
Nursing on demand
Use of a SNS or Lact-Aid
Breast compression
Pumping between feedings
Improved latch
Here’s a
beautiful article about someone who went on to successfully nurse two babies after a reduction surgery.
Tongue Tie A baby with tongue tie is going to have a hard time getting the suction and latch required to nurse fully and to satisfaction and it’s going to require some commitment from mom to continue a nursing relationship without being evaluated by a medical professional and having quick in-office surgery to correct it. If your baby is fussy at the breast or you hear a lot of popping noises when he nurses, it’s time to get him evaluated for this correctable condition. Often they’ll go back to nursing the same day as the surgery and never look back. Others will need supplementation in the interim, while your milk supply is built back up.
Down Syndrome and other disabilities I have known several moms who have
successfully nursed babies with disabilities, it just requires the help of a good lactation consultant familiar with your baby’s condition. Don’t assume that just because your baby lacks muscle tone or has a cleft palate that they will be unable to nurse; a special needs baby needs mother’s milk more than any other baby. Be sure that you have the support from family members and medical staff and choose your support circle wisely. There is also a lot of great support at
La Leche League, and you can find a local lactation consultant
here.
Preemie
Thank you to Jacoplane for this image, license for which can be found here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Above all of the nursing population, preemies are the ones, in my opinion, who benefit the most from mother’s milk. Their tiny bodies and immune systems are ill equipped to deal with anything other than what nature has provided and this can put tremendous stress on a new mommy. It’s extremely important for the mother of a preemie to begin pumping as soon as possible to give baby that crucial colostrum that comes in the first few days after birth, and which gives the new baby vital antibodies and nutrients that they wouldn’t otherwise receive. Preemie babies are often unable to nurse directly, often for weeks, and keeping up your supply is often exhausting and can seem impossible. Ideally the new mom will want to use a hospital grade pump and pump as often as every two hours if feasible. This will help to stimulate the milk supply and enable mom to provide all the nutrition the preemie baby needs in that critical post partum period. Additionally, supplementation should be avoided when possible, and all feeding, if not done by medical means should be given by syringe, finger feeder or another “non-sucking” type of supplementer, NOT a bottle which will often cause marked nipple confusion and make it MUCH more difficult for the baby to nurse directly when the time comes. Again, a lactation consultant can be a gold mine of information on this topic so be sure to take full advantage of any lactation consultants on staff at the hospital.
If you are interested in seeing a baby nurse using a Supplemental Nursing System or Lact-Aid, here’s
a short YouTube video that shows it. I love that swallowing sound!
I am sure there are many other special circumstances that I have not covered here, but it’s a start. I’d love to hear your stories of overcoming nursing challenges – please leave a comment below and share your victory with other nursing moms who might be struggling.
For something that’s so natural and good for our babies, breastfeeding sure gets a lot of press these days. I am always curious about what celebrities have to say about breastfeeding and for the most part it’s positive but sometimes they promote just plain bad information.
As you may know, the First Lady has recently been promoting healthy eating for families and appears frequently on the Disney channel and other media outlets to talk about portion control, healthy foods and ways to incorporate more exercise into our families lives. Bravo, I say, and
she has also recently been promoting breastfeeding, as a way to prevent childhood obesity. President Obama has also passed new legislation giving nursing mothers workplace accommodations for pumping and tax breaks for breast pumps and other nursing supplies. She has also done a lot of work promoting breastfeeding in the African American community where on average only 60% of babies ever get any breastmilk. All good stuff.
Another celebrity who has recently been promoting breastfeeding is Bethenny Frankel who has been an outspoken advocate of the joys of breastfeeding and speaks in
this article about the awkwardness many mothers feel about nursing in public which is a common reason moms cite for choosing not to nurse their babies. Indeed, she received a lot of flak about her recent appearance on the Rachel Ray show (which you can see
here) in which she advocated basically hiding in a corner, something with which I heartily disagree, but there is a balance between “flopping out your boobs” and discreetly nursing your child without fanfare, which I think most of us lean toward anyway. As much as I advocate for breastfeeding, I too had a lot of trepidation about nursing in public, particularly as my nurslings got older and even more so when I was tandem nursing. I have to say though, that I only had one negative comment about nursing during my entire 7 year nursing relationship with my kids and I think most people are very encouraging (or at the very least, tolerant) of breastfeeding in public. Some things I found that helped were:
1) Wear nursing clothing when you know you will be out and needing to nurse – nursing clothing covers almost the entire breast and does not require you to put something over your baby’s head, which neither of my children tolerated.
2) Use a nursing bra which unhooks at the top. This makes the breast easily accessible and removes the awkwardness of having to hitch your bra above the breast which is both uncomfortable for you and reveals more flesh.
3) Use a sling. I successfully nursed in my sling until my kids were past 2 years old and it really helps them feel secure and hides pretty much everything – they would often fall asleep in noisy, crowded places when I’d nurse them in the sling.
4) Remove as much distraction as you can. It can be very embarrassing if your baby suddenly pops off the breast exposing your entire nipple and breast. Watch your baby closely for signs that he is done and you can then discreetly unlatch him and go about your day.
5) Latch baby on and then arrange your clothing to cover anything you don’t want exposed. You will see a lot more breast than other people can – practice in a mirror if you feel uncomfortable about it and you will see that what’s visible is probably less than you imagine.
5) Be proud! As I got more comfortable with nursing, I felt that I was showing the world what a great gift I was giving my babies and wanted people to know that it wasn’t shameful, wrong or immodest to feed my babies when they needed to eat. If I could find a quiet place like a dressing room or nursing lounge when we were out, I did, because it worked for us to have a quiet place where there were no distractions, but if I couldn’t, I nursed which my head up and smiling out at the world. It was a great feeling! I showed less flesh than I did at the swimming pool so there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
I also have to give a great shout out to Penelope Cruz who looked stunning at the Oscars, who is also an advocate of breastfeeding, and who proudly showed off her postpartum bosom with that great red dress. Talk about being proud!
And there’s also Salma Hayek, who even went so far as to nurse a malnourished infant when she was on a trip to Sierra Leone when her own baby was still nursing. It was a beautiful thing. Take a look. Fast Tube by Casper
I am curious to hear from nursing mothers and bottle feeding moms what your thoughts are on both the new campaign to encourage breastfeeding by Mrs. Obama, and also your experiences with nursing in public. Please leave a comment and I will be sure to respond.
A
recent research paper released in the UK based on old study data suggests that “exclusive” breastfeeding for the first six months should no longer be recommended. Let me first say that I happen to think this is a load of hooey. Technical term
According to
this (much better) report, 3 of the 4 principal researchers have connections to the baby food industry. Why am I not surprised? Let’s just say that there is only one group of people that stand to benefit if breastfeeding numbers drop and that is basically producers and sellers of baby food. So it’s no coincidence that a report telling new parents that you should introduce food too early was written by people who stand to profit by families taking that advice, is it?
Current WHO recommendations are based on many, many, more studies than this one scaremongering report, and they suggest that solid food should start around 6 months of age. Of course all babies are different and some will give signs of being ready sooner than 6 months *to the day*, but as a general guideline there has never been anything other than evidence to suggest that mothers’ milk provides everything your baby needs up to at least 6 months of age. There are also several reasons why delaying solids has proven beneficial –
kelly mom says it best – you can read some of those reasons
here.
As you may have by now gathered, I am a born cynic, and tend to question the validity of all research papers and statistics but I can’t help but wonder how many people read this report and suddenly feel like by delaying solids they are doing a great disservice to their child(ren). We have enough guilt as parents already, dontcha think?
Note: If you read the paper or editorials about it, you might come across the word “weaning” which means two different things in the US and the UK. In the UK weaning means to introduce solid foods, whereas here in the USA it means to stop nursing.
I follow a number of blogs on breastfeeding and was interested to read
this post by the
Analytical Armadillo about some of the challenges faced by parents who feed by bottle.
The gist of the article was that in general, babies who are fed by bottle (whether it contains breast milk or formula) are often encouraged/coerced into consuming the entire thing, leading to a late satiation message to the baby’s brain. As parents, we are always worried about our baby’s nutritional needs and I know even in the hospital after giving birth, I was told to keep a journal of how long my baby spent at each breast and the timing of each feed. It seems we are obsessed with getting more and more food into our babies and obviously, this is not always the appropriate course of action.
Many breastfeeding moms are told that they need to feed for a certain time on each side, to switch sides after a prescribed amount of time and to keep offering the breast at particular intervals, so I don’t think this is necessarily a bottle feeding exclusive issue. Suffice to say that if baby is sending a clear message of “I am done” and parents continue to stick the nipple of the bottle/breast into the baby’s mouth, it’s going to lead to that baby taking in more calories. I was surprised to read that babies fed by bottle take in on average a shocking 30,000 more calories per year than their exclusively breastfed counterparts. This in part, must explain why breastfed babies follow a
different growth pattern than formula fed babies.
For reference, here are the growth charts for breastfed babies.
I am interested to know about pumping moms’ experiences with this phenomenon and also what you did when you started your babies on solids. I know that I often encouraged both of my children (and indeed still do) to finish the serving I set out for them and after reading this article wonder how that is going to affect their eating patterns as they get older especially with the obesity epidemic taking storm in the US. It’s certainly a concern, but I don’t think it’s ONLY a concern for parents of bottle fed babies – it’s something all of us should be careful and aware of.
I am also really curious about what advice you were given regarding frequency and length of breastfeeding. For me, I had an extremely forceful letdown and ample milk supply so my babies were both able to chug down a feeding in less than 10 minutes. Both were at 97th percentile and above for both height and weight for their entire babyhoods and they are both still there in that region at ages 8 and 5. However, my daughter’s first pediatrician (who I quickly realized had little breastfeeding knowledge or education of his own) told me that I should be feeding for 10 minutes on EACH SIDE which was clearly just not an option for us, since she was absolutely done and full after 10 minutes total. I developed my own feeding pattern based on her needs and my extensive reading on the topic (esp
Dr. Sears Breastfeeding Book which I highly recommend) and never fed her on any sort of schedule, instead following her cues and my own instincts which worked for us.
On the other hand, there are babies who
Fail to Thrive (FTT) on breastfeeding due to particular challenges with milk supply, letdown and allergies, to mention a few, and in those cases, seeking the help of a qualified lactation consultant really is the best advice anyone can give you. When a baby doesn’t gain weight, most mothers will automatically blame themselves and immediately start bottle feeding their babies in an effort to get them to gain weight and this is certainly one way to accomplish that. However, there are many many other things you can do to help babies gain weight, and blaming yourself or your milk isn’t one of them.
One of the best things you can do is spend time with skin to skin contact. Spending a few days with your baby dressed only in a diaper and mom in pajama bottoms, snuggled on the couch or the bed helps stimulate milk supply and encourages your baby to nurse more often. If your baby falls asleep at the breast, you can tickle her feet to wake her up or lightly stroke her cheek to provoke the rooting reflex so that she will keep nursing. Pumping for a few minutes before a feed to extract the more watery foremilk is a another good way to increase milk supply as well as increasing the calorie content of the feed due to the thicker, richer hindmilk making its way into baby’s tummy first. Also, some babies are quite content to suck on anything that goes in their mouths, so if you are giving pacifiers or expressing milk so that someone else can feed baby, it’s best to remove ANY other item that they can suck on, and only provide the breast to satisfy that sucking need. Supplemental feeds should be given by cup or syringe. This will help with your milk production as well as that skin to skin contact.
Sleepy babies can be quite the challenge and Lactation Consultants really are extremely helpful, especially if you can find one you really connect to. Just make sure they are IBCLC qualified. La Leche league is also a very valuable (free) resource and they often provide a wealth of information, can check latch and give you moral support when you feel like giving up.
I appreciated the article because I think that it gives food for thought (pardon the pun!) and certainly made me think about how my actions affect what my children eat.
I’d love to hear your experiences. Drop me a line by commenting below and I’ll be sure to reply!
Oh how I wish I had written
this fabulous article on breastfeeding! It has some FANTASTIC references to many many helpful resources that I am SO glad she listed.
I heartily agree that proactive mothers-to-be have much increased chances of success at breastfeeding if they know even a little bit about breastfeeding, let alone the bounty of information this post presents. I mentioned before that a breastfeeding class is one of the most helpful things I did and I cannot stress this enough.
For something that’s so natural and good for our babies, breastfeeding sure gets a lot of press these days. I am always curious about what celebrities have to say about breastfeeding and for the most part it’s positive but sometimes they promote just plain bad information.
A
I follow a number of blogs on breastfeeding and was interested to read
