All About Babies

First, I needed to write about this before publishing this month’s newsletter, I was truly surprised to find it had been just about a year since my last post. By reading the title you might think about how breastfeeding helps moms shed the baby weight.  Although this is one of the reasons many moms like breastfeeding it is not the focus of this post.

I have been asking this question for the last few weeks, I posted it on my South Jersey Baby’s Facebook page, I posted in one of the Lactation newsgroups I belong to, all I found out is that others think it is a good question too.  As a Lactation Consultant I am looking for ways to get more moms to hire me but even more I am questioning why those who do don’t make full use of my services.  When I give a client a care plan I always tell them, this is what I am recommending you do for the next few days and then we should follow up and make a new plan based on what happens.  If I call and reach them this may happen but more often then not I try and reach them and they don’t get back to me, rarely do they call to follow up.  I hear from moms months later that they were pleased with my services, I hear from doctors and others that their clients I have seen are pleased, so I don’t think I have done anything in most cases to make them not want to follow through, it’s just that it is hard to get across the concept of I work.

Although no one has been able to offer me great ideas to fix this problem (some colleagues said they build multiple visits into their initial charge – something I don’t think will work financially or geographically where I am).  I think I have come up with an analogy that explains what my colleagues and I are experiencing.

I thought about women and weight loss and have been able to draw several parallels.  When a woman wants to lose weight, she knows the basics – cut calories and burn calories with more activity/exercise.   Then she will develop a plan, she may read some books or web sites and find a diet and/or exercise program she thinks will work for her.  This is how many moms get started with breastfeeding, they know it is the best choice for their baby and the most natural.  They may take a class and/or do some reading during their pregnancy on how to make it work.  Then they deliver their baby.

In the hospital mom may see a Lactation Consultant in the hospital, this is like the mom who goes to her general practitioner at the beginning of her weight loss program to find out if her body is healthy.  Her doctor may give her a few pointers based on his expertise or experience but not a long term plan.  Hospital lactation consultants have a very limited time to spend with mothers, most likely problems that may develop like poor weight gain for the infant are yet to be evident, so then the mom goes home and then tries to make things work.  If they are not working she will start to go through resources; read up, talk to her doctor, talk to a breastfeeding counselor, talk to her friends – any and all of these may be helpful or not but usually will only give her a piece of the answers she needs.  She will often jump from idea to idea and try to figure out what is working and what isn’t.  If the problem is minor this and some time might be all that she needs, just like the women who only needs to lose a few pounds and keep eating more healthily.

The breastfeeding mom who has a real problem then may hire a lactation consultant.  Just as the woman who hasn’t been able to lose weight on her own may join a diet program or a gym or both.  The lactation consultant comes, evaluates the situation and makes recommendations.  This is where I get back to my original question, if the consultants recommendations are working or not in a few days that will become obvious.  If things are improving the plan will still probably need to be revised, the number of pumpings changed, the amount of supplement decreased, etc.  If they are not working other things may need to be tried based on what the mother reports about the results of her efforts, a different pump, a referral to her doctor for some health screening or any number of  other things.  If the mom found the suggestions were working but keeps doing exactly the same things progress might slow or stop, just like the dieter who hits a wall and the weight loss slows or stops.  They both need to modify their plans and take the next steps.  This is where I am at a lose to help moms to understand.  I know sometimes with weight loss it takes years of women trying different things until they find the right solutions for them, some never do and either give up or battle off and on the rest of their lives.  It’s just with breastfeeding, the time frame isn’t so long.  If they don’t get the solutions, they will soon give up and rarely resume breastfeeding, maybe trying again with later children or they will never have the best experience and tell others that they tried but were not successful.

The last correlation is we know that continuing support can be the answer for both groups.  Once they have found the breastfeeding answers that work or the right diet and exercise program for themselves;  follow up with their lactation consultant or support groups can keep them focused and doing well, whether it’s La Leche League or Weight Watchers they can find reinforcement and the satisfaction of supporting others.

So I still have no answer to my question but maybe I have a better understanding of how woman deal with problem solving.  So for now I guess I’ll just go back to working on my diet and exercise plan for this year and keep encouraging my clients to keep in touch.

If you have ideas for me I would love to hear them, the best way to have me hear them is to email me or post them on one of my Facebook pages.  I get so much spam in the comments of this blog I don’t always get to read the real ones.

For most of  History women gave birth and breastfeed their babies with the support of  other women.  Often these women were just family, neighbors or friends.  Some communities had midwives who had shared knowledge passed down from generations.   This worked well for women having normal, uncomplicated births and healthy babies.  Women who had complications or babies born prematurely or with health problems often could not be helped.  Then medicine changed and found ways to save lives of mothers and babies in more and more difficult situations.  Modern medicine also allowed women who would never have been able to get pregnant, give birth or have a healthy baby to do so.  Babies born earlier and earlier or with more serious complications were helped to survive.

Many thought if these medical advances can help mothers and babies in life-threatening situations, we can use them to make improvements that will benefit all new mothers.  The balance started tipping.  Procedures that were saved for emergencies were being tried routinely to help make birth “more comfortable”, quicker, more convenient.  Babies were feed experimental mixtures to nourish them and make feeding “easier” for mothers and more scientific.  Now here we are in 2010.  More and more women are missing the opportunity to have a safe, normal, natural birth.  C-section rates continue to soar, more and more babies start life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  Even as science proves again and again the benefits of babies getting nothing but their mothers milk for the first six months of life, women are having more and more difficulty achieving this goal.

What can we do to change the tide.  How can each woman have the best chance of a normal healthy birth and an easy breastfeeding experience?  The answers lie with education and going back to our great-grandmothers model of surrounding ourselves with a community of knowledgeable, experienced women.  We need to read, we need to talk to others, we need to take well researched proven classes, we need to open a dialogue with those who will assist us with our births and child care.  We need to make sure our goals are in agreement, that we are open to options that may be out of the “norm”, that we choose wisely those who we may need to question or lean on throughout our pregnancy, birth and mothering.

I am shocked the number of women I talk to today who choose a health care provider when they get pregnant or maybe before, sticking with the gyn who had been performing their routine care and just leave everything up to that person or team.  Many women never take a childbirth class and if they do it is often the one their delivery hospital runs, never researching the difference in the types of classes available and how they can aid in improving their chances of a natural birth.  I am also astounded by the number of women who make a choice on how they are going to feed their baby based on little knowledge but gut feeling or what someone told them.  Then even those who understand that breastfeeding is the ideal feeding method often figure some one at the hospital will show them what to do when they have their baby.

If you are pregnant talk to other women about how they prepared for their birth and their baby?  Did it turn out the way they expected or did they wind up with unwanted interventions and giving up on breastfeeding?  How about the women who succeeded in having a natural birth and a great breastfeeding experience?  Was it just luck?  Preparation? Those they were surrounded by?  Ask these questions, find the common threads, make your plans accordingly.  As women we remember the births of our children and their early years vividly for the rest of our lives.  Choose the experience you want and make it happen just like you have made other goals in your life happen.  Take classes, make choices in those who will assist you, read, exercise, eat well and assert what is important to you.  You will be glad you did and then, you can help other women too.

I haven’t blogged in a while but as we deal with these tough economic times I am constantly angered by those whose financial situation is made worse by well meaning advisors.  Weekly I encounter  those who have been told by friends, family and especially health care professionals that the solution to their breastfeeding problem is “just give formula”.   This is the wrong answer in so many ways;  health, emotional, parenting, etc. but those are topics for another day.  What most of these “helpers” don’t recognize is the economic cost to the family, especially the large number of young families who are struggling with minimal/marginal/or no incomes.

The cheapest infant formulas cost a family between $1000-$1500 a year.  This doesn’t include the specialized hypo-allergenic formulas that more and more babies need as generations of formula feeding damage take hold.  This also doesn’t include the cost of bottles, sterilization,  more doctors visits and medications, rehospitalizations, lost days of work caring for a sick baby, and so on.

Staying with the day-to-day though, most families especially low-income families can certainly use an extra $1000 for a lot of other things.  Often the person telling them the “solution” is formula doesn’t consider the cost.  Even if they know the family is financially strapped, they may recommend WIC (Women Infants and Children) for the mother to get  formula and think that negates the financial issue.  Very few not directly involved know that WIC is a supplemental food program.  That means that families on the program will still spend 6-8 hundred dollars or more  in that first year buying formula beyond what the program provides.  WIC, which recently made major changes in their 30 year old food program, rewards breastfeeding mothers by providing additional nutritious foods for moms who continue to breastfeed up to one year.   Babies that are on WIC from 6-12 months who are not receiving  formula also get additional baby foods, again a savings to the family.  Breastfeeding moms on WIC not only do not have to spend the extra money on formula but they significantly lower their grocery bills and therefore have extra money for their families.  Instead of those moms on WIC who are not breastfeeding and spend  hundreds of dollars on formula in the first year, breastfeeding moms are receiving hundreds of dollars of additional benefits and improving the overall health of themselves, their babies and the overall financial well being of their family.  So whether a family is qualified for WIC or not breastfeeding is the economically beneficial way to feed a baby.

So what is the answer to those breastfeeding problems that promoted the formula suggestion in the first place?  Well the person giving advice could educate themselves more on breastfeeding or they can do what they do when asked many other health questions, refer to a specialist.  If an adult has a digestive issue that their family doctor can’t solve then they are sent to a gastroenterologist and if that doesn’t help to any other of a number of  specialists.  Breastfeeding specialists are Lactation Consultants, they can help with simple and/or more complex breastfeeding problems, they can help a mom start to breastfeed, restart breastfeeding, bring in a milk supply even if they hadn’t been breastfeeding, and refer to other health care specialist when there is a need.  WIC employees Lactation Consultants in most geographic areas so economics/lack of insurance coverage is not an excuse for telling moms that formula is the answer.  So if you are asked a breastfeeding question you can’t answer refer the mother to ILCA.org to find a lactation consultant.  If you are a health care provider or work with health care providers spread the word that formula is not only not a poor health option but a BAD economic one.

I am just back from a trip to the local Baby store.  I needed a few items for my business but every time I visit I have to look and see what Baby/Breastfeeding products they are selling now.  Some of these new things I had already heard of from clients or fellow Lactation Consultants but the scope amazed me.  Monitors will tell you how often you baby kicks in your uterus and let you listen to the babies heart beating.  After the baby is born you can buy monitors for their sleeping area to not only listen and see you baby but to know if they haven’t moved in 20 seconds.  There are gadgets to record your babies feedings, output, waking, sleeping and more.  These supposedly help you learn your babies patterns and needs.

When I was pregnant with our first child, I learned through La Leche League that the only thing a baby really needs is loving arms and warm milk right from our bodies.  All the rest is trimming.  Babies have survived with little more then this since the beginning of mankind.  Yes; clothing, car seats and a few more things may be essential for babies in our climate and society, but how much else can we really say we couldn’t do without if need be.

I have no problem with luxuries for those who can afford them and some extras that make parenthood a little more convenient but I feel all these gadgets are  promoting an atmosphere of fear around babies.  So many parents I see these days are so worried about their baby and their safety that they are forgetting to enjoy the Magical Days of being new parents and falling in love with their sweet little ones.  I’m sure that some of these gadgets have saved a few babies and their parents tout them to everyone who will listen but listening with our hearts has also saved many babies.

Mothers have an amazing sense of when their baby is sick or something is wrong with their child, even when the doctor or others are telling them they are wrong.  If  parents become to tuned in to the gadgets instead of their babies are we loosing this sense?   If we need timers to tell us about our babies needs are we loosing that most important interpersonal communication that teaches us not only to trust our selves and our babies but teaches our babies to trust us?  As we learn to read our babies body language and their sounds we grow in confidence in our new role as their parents and guides.

Hold your baby, talk to your baby, smile at your baby, smell your baby and you will learn to trust the miracle that each new life is.   Leave the car seat in the car,  simplify your life with the real necessities and a few special favorite baby things and enjoy the fleeting moments of babyhood.

From the time we are become pregnant we are bombarded with comments and advice.  First people comment on how we are carry – low, high, boy, girl, everyone has their own opinion, they all mean little – just something to say to notice the pregnancy.  Then we have our babies and there is more – ” you’re feeding to often” , “you’re not feeding enough”, “let him cry”, “don’t let them cry… “.  People are still saying things, most just to say them, some because of their bias or beliefs, a few because they read good materials based on evidence and research.   The best advice for new parents is Listen to your Heart.

For most of humankind’s history there were no books, no videos, no Internet – parents just did what they watched others do and listened to their hearts and their babies.  Granted some things that were done in the past were not good, there were superstitions and beliefs that meant death for babies that were not physically or otherwise perfect, babies killed because they were the wrong gender or born to the wrong person in the wrong circumstance.  Now we have almost the opposite – babies are born to women who could never conceive on their own, babies with all kinds of physical challenges are saved by medical technology, pregnancy by single mothers that is not only accepted it is becoming more and more the norm, but I digress.

So although women have carried and slept with their babies in almost 24 hour contact through the first year of their life for most of human history, now we ask people “should I sleep with my baby” or “can I spoil my baby if I hold them to much”.  We get answers about sleeping with our babies being dangerous and moms needing their freedom from their babies to do other things.  Many of these questions are asked of ” supposed parenting  professionals”  like our pediatricians.  I have sat in meetings with mothers where one after another new moms said “my pediatrician said to nurse the baby every two hours for 10 minutes on each side”, the next says “my pediatrician said to nurse only every hours and do 20 minutes on each side”, the next has her advice which is different still.  Do any of these moms ask their pediatricians to site research?   Do any of these moms ask their pediatricians how they can give the same advice to themselves and their next door neighbor whose baby is bigger and nurses quicker.  My favorite frustrating thing that I’ve heard over and over again that pediatricians tell mothers is, “if you nurse your baby to sleep they will never learn to fall asleep on their own”.  Now just picture the 4 year old child sitting up all night in bed because he has never learned how to fall asleep!  Sleeping is a biological function, we don’t have to learn how to do it.  Again, where is the research.

There are great sources of information for parenting out there, there are just as many bad ones.  Again,  trust your heart.  Don’t take advice from anyone who offers you strict rules – babies and children don’t follow them any more then adults.  When someone tells you how long your baby should nurse and how often, ask them if you can tell them exactly when they should eat every day and how long it should take – then ask your baby what is right for them.

A last thought on why professionals, neighbors and friends offer Rules for Parenting.  When we have our babies our heart tells us to hold them and keep them close.  Research tells us the same thing  -  when babies are kept skin to skin with their mothers they feed well and often, they wake for feedings and mothers rest better (check out this if you haven’t http://www.kangaroomothercare.com/).  But from the moment our babies are born, or often before we start the interference – medications during birth, surgical births, seperating the baby and them mom for a check list of procedures, wrapping the baby up and taking them to the nursery in the hospital.  Now we need rules because our bodies are confused, our babies are drugged and deprived of the sensory stimuli that tell them what to do to sustain their life so rules are given to make sure the baby is fed, make sure the mother gets some rest, etc., etc.  How to we improve this situation?  We first  educate ourselves.  Learn what is natural, normal and well researched and then work to achieve it, even if things are not the perfect we want try for the closest we can make them.  Stick up for your rights and your baby’s rights – work for a natural birth, keep your baby with you and skin to skin as much as possible and Listen to Your Heart for the best answers.

I talk to so many people who say “I tried breastfeeding but…”.  We know that the rates of mothers who are breastfeeding in the first days their babies life are going up, but that the rates of babies breastfeeding at six months or a year are not.  Every time there is an article on the Internet about breastfeeding there are comments from moms who say “I couldn’t” or “it didn’t work for me”, some site long struggles with lots of help and intervention but most talk about how in the early weeks the baby wasn’t happy, the baby wasn’t gaining enough weight, their health care professional told them to stop, etc.  I know breastfeeding can be more difficult for some mothers and babies then others, believe me I’ve known mothers who have struggled to maintain breastfeeding through all kinds of difficulties; babies with cleft palettes, heart defects (who burn incredible amounts of calories), persistent nipple pain from yeast or other causes, etc.  but for most breastfeeding couples breastfeeding becomes easy after the first few weeks.  We know that long term breastfeeding is easier then bottle feeding, especially during the night, when traveling, in emergency situations and in many other ways.  We know that most moms requiring a little extra help in those early weeks have problems that can be fixed in an hour or two with a good IBCLC (Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant) and some phone follow up.

So again I ask why do parents give up so quickly?

We know that breastfeeding has enormous health protections for both mother and baby and that many of these are life long; reduced cancer risks, reduced obesity, reduced diabetes, just to name a few. When we start an exercise program or new diet to improve our health we know that it can be challenging at first but usually we stick with it because we are looking for long term benefits.  We don’t start a diet thinking by next week I will be 50 pounds lighter or by next month I will be at a lower risk for diabetes.  We don’t usually quit exercising on the second day because our muscles are sore when our goal is to be able to do a 5K race in 3 months.  Sure, sometimes we do give up but usually we start again, find another diet or a different exercise program.  Often we get help: Weight Watchers, a personal trainer, a gym, an exercise buddy…  It may take us years to reach the weight or the fitness level we desire but again, we know the goal is a healthier lifetime.  Yet, with our babies we often meet one stumbling block and our quest for giving our baby the best, healthiest nutrition and development is over.  It doesn’t have to be –  just like we try a new diet, we can try again, even if we stopped a week or even a month ago.  We can get that personal trainer (in this case an IBCLC) or that friend to support us (in this case La Leche League or a similar group), we can put aside the excuses and just do what we intended initially to give our baby the healthiest available nutrition and “medicine” and enjoy a long, healthy life with our children.

So my dear husband has been telling me I need to blog, maybe he’s tired of listening to me rant, or maybe he really thinks I have good things to say.  I’ll just believe the second.  But what really inspired me to start was two posts I read elsewhere on the Web this weekend.  The first was your standard whining about “Breastfeeding Nazis”. First anyone who uses the term Nazi lightly shouldn’t be published.  The title Nazi should never be used for referring to anything that is not a horrific crime against humanity, something I don’t think anyone should claim a breastfeeding advocate to be no matter how overly enthusiastic they might be.  They may be annoying but they do not want to commit mass murder to hundred’s of thousands of people, even people who choose not to breastfeed.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest (no pun intended) the second post I read was a wonderful response to the first type of poster,  to quote ” Those who think that society has “gone too far” in supporting breastfeeding, that mothers who formula feed are demonized and breastfeeding mothers aren’t:” If you haven’t read this you should, it’s excellent  viv.id.au/blog/20090625.5497/gone-too-far/

What saddens me much more then how a mother chooses to feed her baby is the pressures society puts on all moms regardless of the choices they make.  Instead if we all worked together to look at the science and our history and find the choices that were the healthiest for our children and SUPPORT them we could fix many of societies ills instead of increase them by making parents feel bad.  We know that breastfeeding makes mothers and babies healthier.  We know that keeping mothers and babies together from birth helps them to bond.  We know that babies belong in arms for the majority of the first year of their lives.  History has proven this, science has proven this, the number of people with severe emotional and physcological problems today has proven this but instead of helping women to feel empowered to be the kind of great mothers that will raise great children we try and help them make excuses not to breastfeed, not be be with and hold their babies, not to listen to thier child’s cries and respond – “so they can have a life”,  “so they can have a career” …  Instead of letting moms find how wonderful it is to make great choices for their children and watch them thrive, we devalue what mothers do and make them feel like it is too great a sacrifice to hold their baby when they can be doing something productive like paid work or even cleaning thier house.  Let’s stop this before more children suffer and we as a society have to keep asking why youth are getting more violent, more promiscus, more troubled.  Let’s realize are babies need to be nurtured and help parents to do this in the healthiest ways.