The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

Guest post: Rachel on pumping while traveling for work.

Today I'm happy to share a story and some great advice from Rachel on breastfeeding and pumping when on a business trip.

I wasn't exactly thrilled about leaving 6 month old Matthew behind to go to a conference for work.  I tried everything I could to bring him with me, but in the end it just didn't work out that way.  My husband couldn't take off work as he had just started a new job.  Neither of our parents or my aunt could go either.  I didn't trust the hotel daycare and knew I would have long days.  I knew I had to go to the conference (it was definitely something my career would benefit from), so I decided to bring my trusty pump with me.

I calculated how many days I would be gone and the number of bottles he would need during that time.  I thought I would be safe with 150 ounces.  This seemed like an impossible task since I only had six weeks' advance notice of the trip.  However, I pumped in the morning after he nursed, and before bed at night.  I also added an extra pumping session during the day at work.  At first I wasn't able to get that much, but eventually I got the full 150 ounces that I needed for the trip.  If I wasn't able to nurse him while away, I felt really good that I would be able to provide him with my breastmilk.

Right out the gate (or should I say just when I got to the airline gate), things began to go wrong.  I forgot to pack my flanges and had to have Matt (my husband) make an emergency trip back to airport to deliver them to me.  They'd been sitting clean on the counter, and didn't make it into my 'last minute list.'  Once that hurdle was overcome, I was cleared for takeoff.

I had planned to pump during my layover and made arrangements for this by bringing the battery-powered attachment to the pump along with me.  However, when I got everything set up and switched the pump on...nothing.  The battery feature of my pump wasn't working, and I didn't think to pack the manual attachment.  I started to try to hand express, but wasn't incredibly successful at it.  Matt had told me a few days before that I should figure this out, but I had never tried it.  I was very frustrated, but made a conscious decision not to let it stress me out, thinking that this would make the situation worse.  My breasts were very full by the time we made it to the hotel, but once there I was able to pump and everything went well.

I was able to break away from the conference to pump regularly, and followed Matthew's schedule as much as I possibly could.  I stored the milk in a refrigerator provided by the hotel.  Coming back to the room to pump actually provided me with several breaks during the day which I might not normally have taken.

Also, I took the opportunity to talk to others about pumping while away.  I felt like I could educate others on nursing - after all, I am the product of a family that doesn't nurse their babies; the way I learned about nursing was from the example of my friends an others I met in later years.  I actually ended up meeting a lot of other nursing moms (or former nursing moms) who had been there, done that, and it was terrific.

I went to the conference really nervous about what would happen to Matthew while I was gone.  I was scared my supply would dry up, scared he wouldn't latch back on, and worried that he would get completely off his sleep schedule.  It turns out that all my fears were in vain - Matt got that much closer to Matthew and did a fabulous job caring for him, he actually learned to sleep better while I was gone, and had no issues with his latch.  I learned a lot at the conference, got some sleep, and all in all had a good time.  Did I miss my family?  YES!  But I survived it, and you can, too.  Check out my tips below for surviving a business trip without your little one as a nursing mom.

Tips for Traveling Without your Little One:

1. Always have a backup option for pumping.  Bring your manual as well as electric pump.  And double check that you have all the parts before you go.  In a pinch, Target carries some replacement parts for Medela pumps.
2. Contact the TSA and ask them about regulations and their suggestions for traveling with breastmilk (see their guidelines).  When I called they were helpful and I didn't have to wait on the line at all.  Ironically, I was traveling the week before they announced their newer, more lenient, standards.  if you educate yourself about the regulations in advance, you'll feel more confident at the airport.  Also, you may want to bring a copy of TSA regulations along in your carry-on bag for security guards who aren't familiar with their policies.
3. Arrange to have a refrigerator in your room in advance with the hotel.  At the least, they should let you store the milk in the refrigerator or freezer at their restaurant.
4. Pack a cooler for the return trip, or plan to buy one there.  If you're going to carry in the milk on board, you can get a soft-sided collapsible cooler for packing with your bag.  If you're planning to check the milk, get a hard plastic cooler and some packing tape.  Don't forget to pack ice packs, or get ice before you pack it!
5. Try to stick to your baby's eating schedule when you pump as much as possible (but don't let that stop you from getting a good night's sleep if you can!).  I mapped out the conference itinerary in advance, and scheduled the times I could get away to the room to pump and take a break.
6. Calculate how many days you will be gone, and compare this with how long you can store your milk in a refrigerator.
7. Bring a sleep-aid for the first night.  I didn't fall asleep for hours my first night away from Baby Matthew.
8. Relax and trust your instincts.  If something goes other than as planned, trust that you will intuit the right solution for you!

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Guest post: Holley on connecting through breastfeeding at the time of her son's surgery.

Today I'm honored to share Holley's account of her son Kian's heart surgery, and how breastfeeding brought her closer to him during an extremely stressful time.

If you saw our son Kian you'd never know he has a heart defect.  He looks like any well-fed, happy baby.  However, when he was barely twelve weeks old, he was scheduled for a valvuloplasty to address the stenosis which had developed in his heart.

On the morning of Kian's procedure, I climbed out of bed at 2:00 am, unable to sleep.  I retrieved Kian a few minutes later to feed him.  We needed to finish by 3:30 am, and unlike the quick snack style of his older sister, breastfeeding Kian is like a pleasant marathon.  As if on cue, Kian was done by 3:20 and asleep in my arms. 

Once at the hospital, Kian woke up, ravenous and confused as to why Mommy was not feeding him.  By the time we carried him to the catheterization lab, he was screaming.  A nurse dryly commented, "There's nothing wrong with his lungs."  My husband and I were ushered out of the lab as Kian, hysterical, was given a gas mask.

We found the waiting area, our minds focused on the lab a few doors away.  An employee approached and asked if we needed anything.  I said, "No."  My husband said, "Yes, you do," and nodded at the large black bag at my side.  I stammered, "Our baby is breastfed and I really need to pump because it's been hours since I fed him."  She smiled and placed me in an exam room.  I assembled the tubes, horns, and bags and started pumping.  That simple act was the first thing in several hours that gave me the feeling of doing something for my son.  Completely powerless and overwhelmed by the lab with its banks of machines, I sat quietly in an empty room and felt connected to my son.  I felt useful again.

Kian came through the procedure beautifully.  It was hours before I was allowed to nurse him again, so I pumped a few more times in his hospital room, with Kian only a few feet away.  First, he had to drink Pedialyte.  If he could tolerate that, we could breastfeed.  Kian made  a face when he tasted the Pedialyte.  I joked that we was only used to "the good stuff."  The doctor asked, "What's the 'good stuff?'"  When I explained that Kian is exclusively breastfed, she cheered.

I fed him for the first time around 5:00 pm.  Wires were attached to sensors all over his torso, and a pulse ox monitor was attached to his big toe, but he was in my arms feeding enthusiastically again.  It was awkward, but I was thrilled to be snuggling and feeding him for the first time since the early morning.

Around 8:30 pm, Kian finally rewarded us with an enormous smile after breastfeeding.  My husband and I could have jumped to the stars with joy.

After that, Kian wanted to feed and cuddle frequently.  I was awake every hour that night but I felt wonderful.  For our daughter, I read extensively about breastfeeding.  Nothing prepared me for feeding while negotiating the various wires attached to Kian.  While I fed him, I watched his heart rate and pulse ox levels on a monitor.  At one point I even reattached the pulse ox monitor when it fell off.  I sang songs and told stories while breastfeeding.

I've always enjoyed breastfeeding not only for the benefits to my children, but because I appreciated its coziness.  For the twenty nine hours we were in the hospital, breastfeeding and pumping helped ground me when I was most frightened and connected me to my child in a way I never expected.

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Motherwear's fall line is here!

I know that I've been writing this blog for almost a year because I've now written about every season in the last year - winter, spring, summer, and now fall.

And I have to say that this season is my favorite so far.  I'm showing some of my picks from the fall catalog in this post, but there are certainly more. 

I particularly like the dresses this season - current but not too trendy.  Many of the nursing tops have a longer look and the cross wrap style which I like for nursing ease.  I really like several of the new pajama sets, and the baby clothes are ridiculously cute. 

There are a number of new items made with bamboo, a soft and sustainable fiber which uses far less resources than cotton.  Motherwear is now making its popular sleep bra in bamboo, too. 

Beyond the clothes and other products, I hope you'll notice two things about the images in this season's catalog:

First, some of the babies shown are not infants anymore.  These models are nursing toddlers, and that's no accident; Motherwear wants to show beautiful, positive images of nursing toddlers.  I've written about how nursing gets increasingly 'closeted' as babies get older, and I'm really happy to be associated with a company that wants to bring it out in the open.

Second, more and more of the images in Motherwear's catalogs show mothers nursing in public.  If you look carefully you'll see that these models weren't alone when the pictures were taken.  Again, this is intentional.  It's Motherwear's way of affirming our right to breastfeed anytime, anywhere. 

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BPA in baby bottles - New federal report finds some risk.

For some time I've been unsure what to say about an issue that until recently seemed a little obscure:  Bisphenol-A in baby bottles.

I first started hearing about this concern a few years ago, but it would come up infrequently.  The information was a little hard to sort through, with environmental groups, the plastics industry, and the FDA saying conflicting things.   

But now the issue has gone decidedly mainstream, and a report issued today raises enough concern to make me recommend that parents consider this issue when choosing bottles.

Here's the issue:  Bisphenol-A (or BPA) is a component of polycarbonate plastics used in many products, including almost all baby bottles, cans, and sunglasses.  BPA was developed as a synthetic form of estrogen, and laboratory studies have linked it to impaired hormonal function, cancer, developmental toxicity, learning problems, hyperactivity, and insulin functioning. 

The concern is that BPA can leach from a baby bottle into breastmilk/formula, causing some of the above health problems.  There has been fierce debate over whether this is the case, with environmental groups on one side, the plastics industry on the other, and the FDA stating that BPA does not pose a health concern.

Recently a federal panel of scientists convened to study the issue, and their report was issued today.  The Boston Globe reported today:

The scientists ranked their concerns about BPA, concluding they had "some concern" about neurological and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants, and children, but "minimal" or "negligible" concern about reproductive effects. The findings put the panel roughly in the middle of the debate between the chemical industry, which has long said there is no evidence of danger to humans, and environmental activists and scientists who say it is probably harming people.

No study has looked for effects in people exposed to the plastic products, which have contained BPA for 50 years.

For fetuses, pregnant women, infants, and children, the panel reported there was "some concern that exposure to bisphenol A causes neural and behavioral effects." In studies of newborn animals, low doses of BPA cause structural changes in the brain that trigger learning deficits and hyperactivity.

You can read the panel's full report here.  This issue certainly isn't over yet.  Expect to see more news, and surely some conflicting information in the months to come. 

So, what do you do?  If you're concerned about this, you may want to buy bottles that are BPA-free.  For breastfed babies I still think it's important to look for a bottle with a wide-based nipple, like those on the Avent (which we used), Dr. Brown's, and Platex Nurser.  But all of those brands contain BPA.  So I'd look into a brand called Born Free, which does not contain BPA.  Born Free also has a line of glass bottles.  Evenflo also makes glass bottles, though the nipple is not a shape I would recommend for breastfed babies.  Medela collection bottles are also BPA free, so I don't think that there is a concern about pumping milk into them or using them for storage, but the nipple that attaches to them also lacks a wide-base, so it's not my favorite for feeding.  Any thoughts from you?

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Off to San Diego.

I'm leaving early Wednesday morning for the conference of the International Lactation Consultants Association (ILCA) in San Diego.  The theme of this year's ILCA conference is 'Controversies in Lactation.' 

If any of you reading are going to be there, feel free to email me and maybe we can connect!  I'm excited to see some people I know from my lactation consultant training. 

Of course I'll be checking in while I'm gone, but for the next week I'm turning over the blog to some very capable guest bloggers.  I know you'll enjoy their contributions, which will range from traveling and pumping, to nursing a baby who undergoes heart surgery, to breastfeeding role models.

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Very, very wrong.

Way back in the mid-1990's I taught 4th grade for a few years.  I used to have my students write a persuasive letter as a writing assignment.  I'll never forget that one of my students started her letter with this sentence:  "You are very, very wrong."

That's is how I felt when when I read this excerpt from the August 7th edition of Parents Magazine:

The claim:  Breast milk is best for babies.

The truth:  Study after study has documented that breast milk can boost a baby's immune system and IQ and lower his risk for diabetes, obesity, even ADHD.  So it's no wonder that the AAP recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months after birth.  But not everyone is convinced that mother's milk is a panacea.  "Most benefits associated with breastfeeding probably have as much to do with the child's environment and the family's socioeconomic status," says Parents advisor Darshak Sanghavi, M.D., author of A Map of the Child:  A Pediatrician's Tour of the Body.  "They're not due to some magical substance in breast milk."

The bottom line:  Women who want to should certainly breastfeed, but don't feel guilty about it.

What I find shocking about this is that a doctor of Dr. Sanghavi's stature could fail to recognize that so many studies, which control for the factors he mentions, have concluded exactly the opposite. 

This is especially odd considering that just a few months ago the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a huge meta-analysis looking at over 9,000 studies, and selected those that controlled for confounders like family socioeconomic status and other factors related to the child's environment.  This analysis concluded that breastfeeding reduces the risk of these conditions by the following percentages:

• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS):  36%
• Type 1 Diabetes:  19-27%
• Type 2 Diabetes:  39%
• Leukemia (acute lymphocytic) :  19%
• Leukemia (acute myelogenous):  15%
• Asthma:  27%
• Gastrointestinal infections:  64%
• Lower respiratory tract diseases:  72%
• Atopic dermatitis:  42%
• Acute otitis media (middle ear infection):  50%

And breastfeeding reduces mothers' risk of these diseases by:

• Type 2 Diabetes:  4-12%
• Ovarian cancer:  21%
• Breast cancer:  28%

So, how could Parents, in good conscience, arrive at its conclusion?  After noting that study after study concludes the opposite, Parents sides with one doctor and reaches its 'bottom line' conclusion that breastfeeding is something you should do if you feel like it.  Kind of like choosing vanilla instead of chocolate.

This is a magazine which I'm sure tells you, without fear of provoking guilt or seeking "the truth" from an uninformed doctor, that you should floss your teeth, eat your vegetables, and fasten your seatbelt.  Why are they so afraid to tell parents to breastfeed?  Is it, perhaps, a question of their advertising revenue? 

I often meet women in breastfeeding classes who tell me that they really want to breastfeed because they want to try to protect their babies from health conditions they suffered from as children.  It's often ear infections or obesity.  Several times I've had women tell me that they were formula fed and that they had chronic ear infections, tubes inserted countless times, and that they eventually suffered hearing loss.  In addition to the 50% reduction in ear infection risk shown above, last year a study found that breastfeeding can protect against ear infections even when there is a genetic predisposition toward them.  Could the author of this article look one of these women in the eye and tell her that it doesn't matter whether she breastfeeds her baby or not?

Interestingly, I do agree with Dr. Sanghavi on one point.  There is nothing magical about breastmilk.  All of the pathogen-specific antibacterial and antiviral properties, all of the white blood cells, targeted immune properties, cancer killing features, the perfectly-tailored balance of nutrition and immune protection which changes constantly to meet the baby's needs, the properties that coat the baby's intestine to prevent pathogens from entering - all of that is actually normal.  It's not magic.  It's a carefully designed system which has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to give our babies the best possible nutrition and immunological protection.  It is a normal and exceptionally powerful way of protecting infant and maternal health. 

Some of you reading this may be pregnant and thinking about how you'll feed your baby.  For you, I offer this alternative to Parents Magazine and Dr. Sanghavi:

My real truth:  Breastfeeding is an important way of protecting your baby's health and your own.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong, very wrong.

My bottom line:  Get informed, and make heathly choices for your baby and yourself.  Know where to get help, and get support from your family and friends.  It's worth it.

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Join our next breastfeeding carnival: Learning to let go.

It feels like the beginning of the end of summer these days.  That got some of us breastfeeding bloggers thinking about the beginning of the school year, which then led us to think about what it's like to have someone else care for our babies.   

So, August's theme will be “Learning to Let Go.”  We’re seeking submissions on breastfeeding and letting other people care for your nursling, be it the baby’s father, relative, babysitter or day care provider.

As always, we're looking for:

• Posts that are well written and grammatically correct
• Posts that are thoughtful and on topic
• Posts from blogs that are on topics that are of interest to readers of breastfeeding blogs (parenting, breastfeeding, etc.)

Submissions are due by August 14th, and can be emailed to me.  You can see examples of past carnival posts under the category "Carnivals of Breastfeeding." 

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Lunch with The Lactivist.

Today, after nearly a year of emailing and chatting online, I met up with Jennifer from The Lactivist in person.

Jen was in Boston doing some of her "day job" work running a training on search engine marketing, and we had lunch downtown with her son Emmitt and friend Rachel.  I live in Western Massachusetts, and drove in so we could finally meet.

Without a doubt, the biggest and best surprise about running this blog has been the relationships I've formed with other bloggers and readers.  When this blog first began I felt a little isolated, and also maybe just a teensy bit threatened by the other breastfeeding blogs, like Jen's, Angela's, Andi's, and Sinead's.  They're really good.  But once we started talking with each other and organizing monthly carnivals it became very clear that we have a lot to gain by becoming 'colleagues.'  I've consulted with Jen about breastmilk banking, Andi about her book, Angela about blogging, and Sinead about real estate and movies, among other topics.  These women have become friends, and in truth I'm in better contact with them than friends I've known (and actually seen) for years.

Jen and I have traded a lot of information and support back and forth - typically lactation stuff from me and web-related stuff from her, but sometimes it's politics or kids or another topic.  She has a 'your success is my success' attitude, which is so refreshing.  And in spite of our political differences, we really see eye-to-eye on breastfeeding issues.

So, it was very fun to meet up today.  I'm hoping to that this is the beginning of a trend...

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Play "Little Jack Strikes Back" to fight agressive formula company marketing.

I really owe Sinead at Breastfeeding Mums for this one.  She posted about this new campaign in the U.K. sponsored by the National Childbirth Trust, Unicef, and Save the Children.

These organizations have teamed up to fight agressive formula company marketing with this campaign, which features baby Jack, "formula man," and Jack's mother.

There has been a lot in the news about the NYC public hospitals doing away with formula marketing diaper bags, including this Today show episode which missed the point big time.  Thanks to the International Breastfeeding Symbol Blog for pointing out how many commercials aired during that episode for products made by companies which also sell formula, like Nestle, Abbot Labs, and Wyeth.  To be clear, New York City is not banning formula, it's banning advertising of formula on maternity wards - a practice which has been shown to reduce exclusive breastfeeding rates.

It was pretty fun to watch this video and play the game.  Hope you enjoy it!

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Pictures from our local La Leche League walk.

Yesterday we went to the La Leche League walk in our area in celebration of World Breastfeeding Week.  It was a really nice event, with kids music, babywearing demos, prizes, and snacks.  It was also very hot, which shortened the distance we walked considerably - a good call in my opinion! 

Some of the kids were wearing great homemade t-shirts.  One said, "Beauty, Brains, Breastfed," and another said "I had na-nas for three years!" 

We walked throught the town farmer's market, and I could see people smiling when they understood who we were.

The Moms Rising table had letters for people to send to their representatives in support of legislation protecting nursing in public in our state.  People also bought our local breastfeeding coalition sticker with the breastfeeding symbol to post around town.

After the walk we (me, husband, son) headed to the Connecticut shore, where we visited the Mystic Acquarium, rode on the Essex Steam Train, and went to the beach.  It's been a busy weekend, and I'm off to bed soon!

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