Lactation Assistance Services

This video isn’t about breastfeeding — it’s about having a natural birth with twins and triplets. I just thought it was an amazing video. I’ll justify putting it up here because natural birth makes breastfeeding a whole lot easier. Enjoy:

I hadn’t realized what breastfeeding could do for me as a mother: a study found that “women who breastfeed for more than eight weeks are more relaxed, have a higher tolerance to monotony, and score higher on a socialization index” (from Hale and Hartman, Textbook of Human Lactation, p. 150).

GirlFeedsDoll (credit to MamaKnowsBreast.com)

A friend is expecting her first baby. She’s just started taking a breastfeeding class. She reported that she’s learning a lot but she felt a little silly pretending to breastfeed a doll.

My 8-year-old daughter is happy to pretend to mother her dolls. She nurses her doll — along with rocking, changing, and dressing him. After she and I watched a babywearing video, she spent hours figuring out how to wear her baby doll in different carriers. She sits in on La Leche League meetings. I’m guessing that if she ever does have her own babies that breastfeeding will feel pretty natural to her.

I think learning to mother a breastfed baby must be a little like learning a language: it’s easier and more natural when you’re a child.

I love Diane Wiessinger’s thoughts about breastfeeding. I always see things in a new way after I read what she has to say.

Today I was reminded of Diane’s motherhood-magnet analogy as I talked with a very tired mother that was hoping her little breastfed baby would sleep through the night. Diane pointed out that if you hold magnets either far apart or touching, it’s easy — there is no tension. If you hold them very close but not touching, they’re always trying to move somewhere else (try this with a couple magnets yourself!).

Mothering a breastfed baby with attachment parenting is like letting magnets touch: when mothers stay close to their babies, hold them, and co-sleep they have an easy time responding to their babies’ cues and breastfeeding goes smoothly. Mothering a bottlefed baby with our culture’s rules is like keeping magnets far apart: formula-feeding works fine when babies sleep in the other room and eat on schedule. Trying to breastfeed while mothering with our culture’s rules is like holding magnets close without touching: there is constant tension and frustration. Lots of breastfeeding problems happen when mothers expect their babies to eat on a schedule and sleep through the night.

Breastfeeding mothers can be caught in the middle. Their babies are trying tell them when they need to eat and for how long. Their families, friends, doctors, co-workers, and the media are giving them a list of rules for what their babies “should” be needing. These mother’s lives are under tension a lot of the time — a sad thing since mothering a little baby is plenty of work even without having to juggle conflicting expectations…

We usually hear that breastfeeding is good because it is good for individual mothers and babies: bonding, good nutrition, good health. But breastfeeding is good for our environment too: no packaging, no transportation, no waste. The Australian Breastfeeding Association has some great posters that celebrate the way breastfeeding protects our environment. I wish I had a place to display these (a disadvantage doing home visits instead of having an office…). My favorite is the one with the cute baby feet: “Breastfeeding leaves no footprint.” What’s your favorite?

There are so many aspects of breastfeeding that we just don’t see in our society until we’re nursing our own children. And even then, we really only see ourselves and our own babies. It’s generally not socially acceptable to look at other women’s breasts or to carefully watch other women’s babies latching on. So if we’re wondering if we’re normal we don’t have anything for comparison.

The website 007b.com (double 0 seven breasts — you’ll have to read their explanation on the site for the title) works on normalizing breasts and breastfeeding. You can look at pictures of a lot of different breasts that have successfully breastfed babies.

In Madison women have the right to breastfeed their babies in public:

“No person shall interfere with a mother breastfeeding her child or expressing breastmilk within any public accommodation where the mother would otherwise be authorized to be.” (Dane County (34.015) and Madison City (23.37) Ordinances)

Some practical tips and the right attitude makes it easier, though. Check this out:

Snow has been the big news story in Madison this winter. My son told me that in January it snowed on 23 out of the 31 days of the month. Since I remember it raining on at least one or two days, that means that it was cloudy and precipitating pretty much the entire month. It has only gotten worse in February. This means that even those of us that aren’t at risk for feeling down might be getting a bit blue.New parents — especially new mothers — are so vulnerable to feeling depressed. Whatever the cause (hormones or no sleep or the constant needs of a newborn or the difficulty getting out of the house or…) the reality is that it is easy to end up in a really dark emotional place. One of my friends moved to Maine and had a new baby in another year of record snowfall. She called me a lot that winter but it wasn’t until years later that I realized that she was calling to hang on to sanity.

She was afraid to say just how hopeless she was feeling at the time and I was too busy with my own 3 little ones to catch her subtle signals over the phone. Fortunately conversation, a loving spouse, and a supportive church community were enough to her through that winter.

If breastfeeding is going well then it helps mothers feel calm and protects babies from the negative effects of their mother’s depression. There are lots of good ways to treat depression that are compatible with breastfeeding: exercise, supportive friends, cognitive therapy, omega-3 fatty acid supplements, light boxes, and many antidepressant medications. Check out Kathleen Kendall-Tackett and Nancy Mohrbacher’s website, breastfeedingmadesimple.com, for more information.

A lot of us get through the blues by talking with other people. Sometimes it really helps just to hear that another mother is struggling in the same ways we are. Research has shown that women may respond to stress by taking care of our children and reaching out to our friends (see the article at Postpartum Support International). In Madison we are so lucky to have a lot of mother-to-mother support groups (lots of places to find friends that understand!): La Leche League, Happy Bambino (Beyond the Blues, age specific, breastfeeding), hospital mother-baby, and the Madison Birth Center.

There’s no getting around it — birth affects breastfeeding. If you want to know more about birth in the United States you can check out a new documentary film from executive producer Rikki Lake and director Abbey Epstein, The Business of Being Born. Here are the details:

WHEN: First Showing - 29 February 2008 at 6pm
Second Showing - 2 March 2008, afternoon
(time to be confirmed)
WHERE: The Majestic Theater, on King Street, 1 block
off the Capitol Square
WHO: The film will be followed by a panel and audience
discussion. The panel will include an obstetrician/cultural anthropologist, a family practice physician, 3 certified nurse midwives, and 1 certified professional midwife, all representing local positions/practices in hospital, birth center, and home birth.
The audience - YOU - will be the “other panel.” In the spirit of midwifery, we will promote active audience engagement and dialogue, particularly as regards consumer issues and experiences.
Tickets will be widely available at suggested donation only - $5/advance and $10/day of show. Happy Bambino and the Madison Birth Center both have information about getting advance tickets.

The screenings are sponsored by Community Nurse Midwives, Happy Bambino, Madison Birth Center, WI Guild of Midwives, and WI American College of Nurse Midwives. (Thanks to Hannah Bernard - Donals All Four Trimesters Doula Service for sharing this information with me.)

I’m planning to go. Hope to see you there! - Adria

I recently saw an analogy comparing formula with wheelchairs. Wheelchairs are fantastic if you can’t walk. When my oldest son was a toddler, he thought the rows of wheelchairs at the hospital entrance were the coolest thing ever. But no one would suggest that wheelchairs are just as good as walking or that everyone should use them or even that we should all have one around “just in case”. No one would ever suggest that a wheel chair should be the first thing to try if walking didn’t come easily right away. Similarly, sometimes formula can be a great resource for helping babies that can’t get enough milk from their mothers. But giving a baby formula is not the same as breastfeeding and will never be a complete substitute for mother’s milk. It is not just as good as mother’s milk, or something that everyone should use, or even have around “just in case”.

If your baby isn’t thriving when you feed him the normal way that babies eat — your own milk at your breast — then lactation consultants are here to help you try to get there. If your baby isn’t growing well, then first of all he needs as much of your milk as possible. If he needs still more to eat, then the best supplement is milk from other mothers. The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine recommends pasteurized human donor milk. You can learn more about using or donating milk from the Mother’s Milk Association of Wisconsin.

I realize that donor milk just isn’t a feasible option for everyone that needs to supplement right now (cost and access are still a problem). If you need to supplement with formula it can be hard to find information about formula that isn’t advertising from the people that are selling formula. A good place to start would be a local (ok, Milwaukee — so almost local) pediatrician’s website, Dr. Jenny Thomas. If you want to read more about issues surrounding the additives DHA and ARA, check out Marsha Walker’s new report. The World Health Organization has a publication (available on-line) with guidelines for safe preparation of powdered formula.

Finally, this is a hard topic because it has become associated with whether or not a mother is a “good” mother. I’d like to use the wheelchair analogy one more time. Using a wheelchair is not about being “good” or “bad”. It’s about using the tools you need to get along. I think when mothers have good breastfeeding information and support (family, friends, health care, and workplace) that formula can move out of the “good” or “bad” categories and into its true place as the safest substitute we have when there isn’t enough mother’s milk available.