Skinship

How to increase your milk supply?

A couple of my friends just became moms and they keep calling me for advice about breastfeeding. Well, I am not a lactation consultant, but after breastfeeding for almost two years I can give some useful advice. Here is one of my old posts and the points below are especially meant for new breastfeeding mothers.

Every breastfeeding mom knows them…the ups and downs in milk supply. In the first few months of my »breastfeeding career« there were days when milk was leaking and I had to use breast pads. There were days when the supply just met the demand. And there were also days when my breast was soft and felt completely empty. The first ones can be annoying but at least you are sure you have enough milk. The second ones are those that you don't even remember. But the last ones are those you will never forget…

What helped us through those low-supply days:

- Drink plenty of fluids. Put glasses with water or tea all around your home (especially on the places where you usually breastfeed). Also don't forget to drink during the night.

- Make a cup of herbal tea for breastfeeding mothers. Use the one in tea bags with no added sugar.

- Use some Weleda (or similar) oil for breasts and massage them. I use it every evening as it helps preventing tenderness. In couple of hours my brests are surprisingly full. I still don't know what's the magic behind it :-)

- Increase the frequency of feeding. On those days I try to put him on my breast every one or two hours. I often wear him in a sling so he can nurse as much as he wants.

- Try to increase skinship. Sleeping naked together is probably the best way to increase skin to skin contact. Baby massage and babywearing can also help.

- Relax. You probably worked too much the day before. Take some time and nap with your baby. A hot bath can also help.

- Put the pacifier out of your baby's mouth. If you are using a pacifier try not to use it on those days. Use your breast instead. It will signal your breasts that they need to produce more milk.

- Don't get stressed. Those days usually pass as quickly as the come. If you follow the advice your milk supply should increase in one or two days.

- Avoid negative advice. Don't get into those »Are you having enough milk?« discussions. They will probably try to convince you to give your baby some formula. But than your breasts will get the wrong message. Stay confident, and calm. If you need assistance surround yourself with positive and supportive people.

-  Call LLLI or contact your lactation consultatnt. If you have a question or just need to talk to someone knowledgable and experienced you should call La Leche League International. They have very kind and supportive consultants and support groups in most of the countries. For your local LLL contact their web page.

- Breastfeeding works on the principle of supply and demand. The more your baby sucks, the more milk you produce. But it doesn't happen in real time. It usually takes one to three days to reach the balance again. You have to be persistant.

I wish you to reach the balance soon. Good luck!

What are your experiences with breastfeeding? How do you increase milk supply? I will be happy to read you comments and ideas.

Early childhood caries

Recently I have been reading a lot about the causes of early childhood caries. Jun's upper teeth have the signs of early caries, which made me quite upset.  He hardly eats any sugar and we are trying to clean his teeth as much as possible. He is quite a challenge when it comes to cleaning teeth and we have tried virtually everything in the last 14months (his first tooth came out at 6 months) to clean it at least in the evening. But we are obviously not very successful.

 

In our dentist's opinion the reason for his caries is breastfeeding and according to her I should immediately stop breastfeeding. I was quite shocked to hear that and I did some more research to find some relevant studies on this topic. Here are the results of one study published in the Pediatrics journal.

 

The objective of this study by Iida et al. (2007) was to assess the potential association of breastfeeding and other factors with the risk for early childhood caries among young children in the  U.S. Based on more than 1500 children between 2 and 5 years of age the researchers investigated the association of breastfeeding and its duration, as well as other factors that previous research has found associated with early childhood caries. The results show that breastfeeding and its duration were not associated with the risk for early childhood caries. The data provide no evidence to suggest that reastfeeding or its duration are independent risk factors for early childhood caries, severe early childhood caries, or decayed and filled surfaces on primary teeth.

 

You can read the whole paper here.

 

Breastfeeding brings more night sleep

Recent Study by Therese Doan, Annelise Gardiner, Caryl Gay and Kathreen Lee reveals that breastfeeding brings more night sleep for parents. In their paper published in the Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing they explain that parents of infants who were breastfed slept an average 40 minutes more than parents of formula fed babies.

After reading the report of this study in the Mothering Magazine I did a simple pool among my friends and we agreed that in general breastfed babies do eat more often during the night than formula fed babies, but breastfeeding mothers (who are also co-sleeping) do not need to fully awake for nursing. I just pull a shirt and roll on the side...and fall back asleep while the little one has his snack or is calming down after a bad dream.

And every new mother knows how precious are those 40 minutes :-)

Photos of babies breastfeeding- on the web

While breastfeeding in public is very common and widely accepted in most European countries, this is obviously not the case in the US. Most of you have probably read about women not being allowed to breastfeed on aircrafts, at airports and other public places. These events opened a wide discussion about breastfeeding in public. The Mothering magazine published an extensive article "Lactation and the law" in their summer edition and several bloggers including Jennifer @ La Lactivist were writing about breastfeeding in public.

Yesterday, the discussion got a new dimension when Techcrunch published a story about how "Facebook  has taken down pictures of users breast feeding, and has even gone as far as banning users completely on the basis that the pictures constitute “obscene content.”

As social networking sites (including several that are only designed for parents) are emerging at an incredible pace the issue of whether breastfeeding act constitutes an obscene content will definitely need to be resolved.

To make the whole thing even more complicated, the social networking sites are not limited to a single country and national laws and usually they have users from all over the world. The attitude toward breastfeeding in public and publishing breastfeeding photos varies increadibly between countries and I wonder who is than to set the rules on the web?

What I am thinking when reading about such events is what is wrong with our society? Did we really lose all the contact with the nature. Did we forget how all the generations "before the formula" grew up? Did we lose all common sense about what is obscene? We don't mind watching naked women and men appearing in the media promoting all kinds of products, but we obviously do mind watching babies eat.

Digg (vote) the story here.

Skinship groups

Dear readers,

I would like to invite you to join us at Mother's click. I've created two goups for parents who believe in attachment parenting, want to share their ideas, ask for advice or just have a chat with similarly minded parents.

First group is called Skinship and can be found here. It is open for all English speaking readers who share passion for connected and respectful parenting, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing, cloth diapers or elimination communication and much more.

Since many of Skinship readers come from Slovenia and feel more comfortable communicating in Slovenian I've created a Slovene group called "Moja Mami". You can join us at MojaMami web page.

To join any of the groups you have to register here. You can also upload your picture. The web platform used at Mother's click enables us to use several services from posting notes, activities, managing group calendar, posting photos, posting reviews, and much more.

I wish you a great fun using the service and hope to meet you online soon.

Anja

Cross-nursing or wet-nursing

Did you ever consider breastfeeding a child who is not yours? The practice is called cross-nursing or wet-nursing and is as old as our society. Formula milk has only been available since the early 1900s. Before then wet-nursing was the only way a baby could survive if the mother was ill or absent. In only three generations this old practice has become socially unacceptable. Most people wouldn’t mind getting the breast milk from the milk bank but at the same time they usually couldn’t imagine to let another women breastfeed their baby. Why is wet-nursing such tabu?

Here is a great article from the Guardian entitled “Not your mother’s milk”.

I like how the author concludes the article: “I wonder if our attitudes towards the "freakishness" of wet-nursing betray what we really think about breastfeeding itself. We still don't completely accept it as what it is - natural, normal, instinctive.”

 
There is also quite extensive research being carried ob by Rhonda Shaw, a sociologist at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. In a study entitled The Virtues of Cross-Nursing - and the Yuk Factor she is researching contemporary cross-nursing practices. She came up with some interesting results…more about them in my next posts.

Nursing is more than breastfeeding

Take couple o minutes to read this beautiful article by dr. Linda Folden Palmer. She explains why there is a lot more to breastfeeding than nutrition and immunity.

Breastfeeding advocates mainly focus on the importance its nutritive and immune support roles but breastfeeding is designed to be much more than just providing food. "It is a time for nursing, a time for comfort and nurturing. This is a time for studying and memorizing each other’s faces, for speaking or singing to your baby and developing her trust and nonverbal communication."

The article is based on several scientific studies but what gives it the real value is the human warmth and understanding of the most basic baby’s needs for nourishment and comfort. And responding to those needs can give you and your baby a wonderful beginning.

“In your arms or snuggled alongside you, your baby is nurtured by the snuggly warmth of your body and comforted by your familiar scent (pheromones). He hears the beat of your heart and the sound of your voice. His neurons and hormones program him to desire and flourish in this environment — a means of ensuring his protection, survival and optimal development.”

Continue reading the article here!

More great articles by dr. Linda Folden Palmer and presentation of her book “Baby Matters: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Caring for Your Baby” can be found on her web page.

The article also stresses an important point that I often miss in breastfeeding literature; nursing, cuddling and skinship are not only for breastfeeding babies. Bottlefeeding children can also enjoy this truly peaceful time with their mothers!

Mothering Magazine

I've finally got it...a subscription to the Mothering magazine. The Magazine recently celebrated it's 30th anniversary and for all those years it has been an amazing source of information on natural family living for (expectant) parents. They advocate breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing, cloth diapers and other natural parenting choices. But what is best about Mothering is that they do not pose guilt on those who (from whichever reason) chose alternatives. They believe in informed parenting decisions that incorporate specific family situation. They provide parents with all necessary information, offer advice and gentle guidance through the challenging path of parenting.

You can watch a video about Mothering here:

I especially like the section called Quiet Place by Peggy O'Mara which can also be read on line. On their web page you can also join their community where you can discuss with similarly minded parents.

I really recommend this magazine to all parents who practice attachment parenting as well as those who feel in their heart that "mainstream" parenting is not the right thing but need more information before converting from conventional parenting practices to more natural approaches.

Reading list

I've just added my reading list at Amazon.com. You can find it on the right side bar of the blog. By clicking on it you can access the list of the books that I recommend to pregnant women and parents. I hope you will find them useful. I am also adding book reviews to the blog. You can access them by clicking on "Books" under the "Categories".

As you probably noticed there is a countless number of books on pregnancy, birth and babies available on the market. They are often written by authors, who are not necessarily specialised in parenting and developmental psychology. There are many baby trainers out there giving detachment advice like "Get him on a schedule", "Don'ty carry her in a sling so much", "You shouldn't breastfeed for more than 10 min", "He should sleep through the night at 4 months" or "You should let her cry until she falls a sleep" and other quick-fix solutions. Such advice can lead to a short-term success but we should be aware of the long-term consequences of our parenting style. With the advances in neuro science, brain scans and developmental psychology we shouldn't be ignorant anymore. As parents we have a responsibility to educate ourselves. However, we should be careful when choosing our literature and other sources.

In my reading list you will mostly find books by reknown authors that support the principles of attachment parenting, build on the latest research in neuroscience and positive psychology. Most of the books are based on years of scientific research. Sometimes I will also recommend some books that are not necessarily related to baby issues, but might be valueable for parents as well.

I will be very happy to read about books that you liked. You can reccomend them to other readers by posting "Comments". I look forward to read about your favourite books :-)

How can we make informed decisions?

Recently I have received a booklet on how to introduce solid foods. It is called "Prehrana dojenčka" and every mother in Slovenia is given this book from pediatritician or nurse. It's nothing wrong with that...except that the book was published by Droga Kolinska, large food-processing company and the importer and distributes of Milupa.

In that book, which is full of advertisments for Milupa and other baby processed food, they suggest that you start weaning your baby from your breast at 6. months!!!!

They also describe colics as exclusively a digestive problem, eventhough it was scientifically proven that there was no difference in digestive system (using ultra sound) of babies with and without colics.

This made me think...How can parents make informed decisions when the information they get from (trusted and reputated) pediatricians and other doctors is biased by the economic interests?