The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

Motherwear model Vida talks about her breastfeeding experience.

A few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting Vida, her son, and her husband at the photo shoot for Motherwear's winter catalog.  She agreed to share her breastfeeding story here.

What has your breastfeeding experience been like?

Great!  I can't imagine it any other way.

What's your favorite thing about nursing? 

My favorite thing about breastfeeding is the health benefits.  My baby is so healthy and big and I love knowing that I am giving him custom-made milk for exactly what he needs.  I also love that the baby weight is coming off faster because of breastfeeding.

How do you make breastfeeding work given your work schedule?

I am lucky that I can stay home with him while he is so young, so I don't have to plan around a work schedule yet.  But if I need to go take a yoga class or if I have to go somewhere for a couple of hours I pump a couple of bottles and refrigerate them, and my husband warms them up in a sterile bottle when he needs them.  I keep them in the refrigerator for 3-5 days.  This is great - to have a little freedom while still giving your baby what they need.

Where have you gotten support and help with breastfeeding?

My husband and I attended a breastfeeding class while I was pregnant.  There, a board certified lactation consultant taught us all of the medical benefits of breastfeeding, and proper latch-on positions.  Then after I gave birth another lactation consultant came to my hospital room to see how I was doing.  This was really helpful because it was with my baby so she told me exactly what I could do.  Then a few days later at home, my nipples were extremely sore and I was so engorged because my milk supply came in.

So I called a "warm line" at my hospital and a lactation consultant called me back to answer my questions.  She coached me over the phone on how to get my baby latched on properly and my nipple soreness went away immediately!  I also bought La Leche League's book The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.  I needed some advice in the beginning.

Is there any advice you could give other nursing moms based on your experience?

Those first few weeks are a learning experience for you and your baby.  You both have to learn what to do.  It has been 12 weeks with me and I feel like I've been doing it all my life.  I am working on public breastfeeding now under a blanket for privacy.  It's tricky but we are getting used to it.  I also recommend co-sleeping with your baby because you sleep so much better and nursing laying down is the best and easiest way to get them back to sleep.  There is nothing sweeter than waking up next to your baby!

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What would you want in a mothers' room?

Recently I was contacted by a business owner looking for some advice about what to put in some planned mothers' rooms in his retail stores.

The stores (for now the name will remain anonymous) are located in the Southwest and West, and the owner would really like to make them more breastfeeding-friendly.  Though the rooms will be available to any mother, he's thinking of them first as rooms for nursing moms.  He writes, "I'm excited about the opportunity to educate mothers about the beneficial aspects of breastfeeding - for both mom and baby, and the opportunity to inform mothers about their legal rights, or lack thereof, of nursing in public."

In our exchange I've expressed my opinion that it's very important that mothers' rights to breastfeed in any part of the store not be compromised by the availability of these rooms.  Of course, it's likely that the law in these states protects mothers' rights to nurse anywhere in the store. I explored this "convenience vs. quarantine" concept a bit in a post a few months ago.  These rooms can't turn into the only place a mother can nurse, and the store staff can't try to usher breastfeeding mothers into the mothers' rooms. 

Below is a poll (may have to wait for it to load) for you to express your opinion about the contents of a mothers' room.  You can vote for more than one item - just keep returning to the poll and clicking.  Feel free to leave comments in the comments section below as well.

Formula industry wins the bronze "Falsie" award.

The International Formula Council has won the dubious distinction of the bronze "Falsie" award from the Center for Media and Democracy.

The industry earned this award for establishing two websites, Moms Feeding Freedom and Baby Feeding Choice, which are intended to look like grassroots sites.  Instead, they are aimed at protecting their ability to advertise formula on maternity wards, a practice opposed by groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control.  I wrote about these sites back in June when they first went up.

The Center states, in making the award:

There's no question that the formula industry, represented by the International Formula Council (IFC), deserves the Bronze Falsie. The September / October issue of Mothering Magazine reported on "stealth" websites that "appear to be grassroots advocacy sites, but are actually mouthpieces for the formula industry." They include momsfeedingfreedom.com an IFC website that opposes restrictions on formula marketing in hospitals as attacks on "women's access to information to make a legitimate choice."

For portraying accurate health information as alarmism and intrusive marketing campaigns as "freedom" -- not to mention helping to keep U.S. breastfeeding rates well below those of European countries -- this Falsie's for you, IFC!

The article also mentions the Washington Post article which highlighted the formula companies successful efforts to both squash a controversial media campaign and bury an important U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study showing the benefits of breastfeeding.  Though not mentioned in the Falsies competition, the companies have also run promotions to enlist health care professionals in the task of selling formula.

Wonder if the editors of Working Mother Magazine will take note.  They recently teamed with Abbot/Ross Pharmaceuticals to promote babyfeedingchoice.org as part of a seminar on "Advocating for Better Working Family Policy."  Thanks to Cate at The Milk Memos for pointing this one out.  Of all of the policy changes which would benefit working families, Working Mother wants us to rally to protect the formula industry's right to advertise on maternity wards? 

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Meetup in the Bay Area over the holidays?

I'll be in the San Francisco Bay Area over the holidays and was recently emailing with reader Maureen about getting together for some coffee. 

If anyone else in the South Bay area is interested in joining us just shoot me an email and we'll figure it out.  I'd love to meet you!

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A few things not on my holiday list.

Here are a few breastfeeding items I'm not planning on purchasing this year.  All well intentioned, I believe, but not for me.

First, to the right is a "scientific nursing top," which is intended to develop babies' brains with several black images on the front.  Might as well get started on multi-tasking in infancy, right?  My fantasy is that every woman who orders one of these will instead receive a copy of this book.

To the left, in the tradition of the pet rock, comes the pet breast.  Gotta love Japanese inventions.  These are called Funwari Milk Chans, and they are little plush stuffed breasts, available as dolls and in a smaller key chain version.  They each have different personalities and faces, and one of them even has a piercing.  They live in Milk Village where they speak Milk Language, and... I don't think I can finish this paragraph.

And, as my son would say, the "bestest of ever" breastfeeding item I don't plan to buy is the breast scarf shown to the left, sold through an Etsy shop.  Thanks to reader Amanda for pointing this one out.  Here's the funny part: I just showed this picture to my husband, who said "Ooooh! Our friend Zoe would love that!" and proceeded to buy it.  So this very scarf is now on its way to our house.  No, I will not be modeling it for you.

If you're looking for breastfeeding items I would buy, see these posts on gifts for the nursing mom, books on breastfeeding, and nursing gifts to bring to a baby shower.

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Watch this one now in case it disappears.

Some of you may have heard that You Tube recently removed several breastfeeding videos for "terms of use violations."  Two of them were Sesame Street videos I posted on this blog (here and here), another showed the 'breast crawl,' and one was a montage (reposted and up for now) posted by the League of Maternal Justice.

It's not clear why the videos were removed.  Jen at The Lactivist has suggested that it could be due to the unauthorized use of copyrighted material (a violation of their terms of use).  She notes that You Tube has been cracking down on this more recently.  It is interesting, though, that hundreds of other Sesame Street videos remain on You Tube.  Is You Tube going the way of Facebook and My Space, or is this a question of copyright?

So, while this issue is rolling around be sure to check out this clip.  Its days may be numbered.  Another interesting note:  It looks like this segment was redone later and the breastfeeding clip was replaced with a bottle feeding one.  Would someone please wake me when it's 1974?

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Tongue ties and breastfeeding: Danielle's story

One of my pet breastfeeding issues is "tongue tie."  Tongue tie is the common term for a tongue which is anchored tightly to the floor of the mouth by a membrane called the sub-lingual frenulum.

How is this a breastfeeding issue?  Well, roughly 2 to 5% of newborns are "tongue tied," and in some cases the frenulum is tight enough to cause significant breastfeeding problems.  When a baby nurses, the tongue has to extend, and stay extended, past the lower gum line through sucking and swallowing.  When the tongue is restricted by a tight frenulum, a baby may not be able to hold this position.  This often results in excruciating pain for the mother as the tongue abrades the face of the nipple or compresses it against the upper palate.  Sometimes this tongue restriction interferes with a baby's ability to latch at all, and tongue ties can also cause speech difficulties later in life.

Doctors used to clip babies' frenula as a standard newborn procedure, but this practice died out when bottle feeding became the norm (tongue tie usually doesn't impact bottle feeding).  Today, for a mother who wants to get a frenulum clipped, it can be hard to find a doctor who will do it. 

To illustrate how a tongue tie can impact breastfeeding, I'm going to share several stories about tongue ties and breastfeeding, starting with the one below.  I'm pleased to be able to share a story written by Danielle from California.  Her baby girl, showing off her beautiful tongue, is above!

"When my daughter was born I noticed her heart-shaped tongue immediately.  The pediatrician at the hospital said that some babies with heart-shaped tongues have tongue-tie, but that since our baby could stick her tongue out past her lips, that this was not the case.  Naturally, being a new mother, I was quick to accept his prognosis that nothing was wrong with my brand new perfect little baby.  While still in the hospital, a lactation consultant visited our room, and within the first few seconds of examining her, announced that my daughter would have to have her tongue-tie "clipped."  Because the pediatrician had already told us that this was not an issue, and because of the abrasiveness of this particular lactation consultant, I dismissed her assessment as uninformed.

The first two weeks of breastfeeding were an enormous challenge.  My daughter had difficulty latching on, sometimes trying ten or more times before getting a successful latch, only to pop off again.  She sputtered, coughed, and screamed in frustration through many feedings.  My nipples became extremely sore, and I, too, cried my way through feedings, both from the pain of her latch as well as feeling so sad that she was having such a difficult time.  I also had an oversupply, which contributed to her difficulty latching on and my engorgement pain, but did allow the milk to practically pour into her mouth.  I began to dread each feeding, and felt as if we would never be able to nurse anywhere but at home, since it was such an ordeal.

At her one-week appointment, she had gained back the weight she had lost after birth, plus some.  The pediatrician was thrilled, and when I described my troubles with breastfeeding, he expressed sympathy, but said that because of the weight gain, clearly we were succeeding, and it would just take time for me to get used to it.  He reiterated his feelings that if indeed she did have a slight tongue-tie, it wasn't severe enough to warrant any action, and he suggested that I try other nursing positions.  Several of my friends had warned me that breastfeeding was difficult, and so I really believe that the pain and frustration were par for the course for the first couple of weeks.  Especially since I had several people watch me feed her, and all had assured me that the positioning and latch (when it finally occurred) were correct.

Finally, after there had been little improvement after two weeks, I contacted another lactation consultant.  She was convinced immediately that our problems were due to the tongue-tie, but was able to provide my husband and me with much more information about what tongue-tie was, and about the procedure to correct it.  We were still hesitant, and it was only after talking to another lactation consultant as well as doing quite a bit of research (and after reading one article in particular from the American Academy of Pediatrics that seemed to describe our situation perfectly) that we decided to take her to an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor.

How breastmilk can train your baby to eat her vegetables.

About a year ago I wrote about my favorite benefit of breastfeeding:  how breastfed babies get a taste of the foods in the mother's diet, and perhaps as a result are less likely to resist these foods when they're older. 

At the time we were eating our way through the San Francisco Bay Area, and I was reflecting on how well my son can tolerate spicy foods - foods which I ate through my pregnancy and breastfeeding.  Now, I know that this doesn't necessarily work for every baby, but I do think it's remarkable how breastfeeding can affect a child's food preferences.

A study released last week in Pediatrics confirms that breastfeeding affects "food acceptance," though only if the mother eats the food regularly.  As reported in the press:

“Flavours from the mother’s diet are transmitted through amniotic fluid and mother’s milk. A baby learns to like a food’s taste when the mother eats that food on a regular basis,” said Julie Mennella, of Monell Chemical Senses Center, a research institute in Philadelphia, who did the study.

The technique can work for a variety of vegetables. In one experiment Mennella gave carrot juice to a group of pregnant women and to a separate group of breast-feeding women. Their babies were subsequently keener on carrots than those born to women who had not been given carrot juice.

[Another study] involved feeding green beans to women with older babies who were being breast-fed but also eating solids.  Initially the babies rejected the vegetables but after their mothers began eating beans, the children acquired a taste for them too.

“Babies are born with a dislike for bitter tastes,” said Mennella. “If mothers want their babies to learn to like to eat vegetables, especially green vegetables, they need to provide them with opportunities to taste these foods.”

Sound familiar - or unfamiliar - to any of you?

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The first Motherwear Podcast - An interview with Cate Colburn-Smith, co-author of The Milk Memos

Here it is - the first Motherwear Podcast! 

I had the pleasure of interviewing Cate Colburn-Smith, co-author of The Milk Memos for this recording.  You can also read my review of this book, and here's a picture of us when we met in San Diego this summer.  I have to say that I'm feeling pretty proud for just having figured out how to make one of these things and get it up on the site!

You can listen to it right now with the player below, or download it and listen with another player, or download it at our iTunes store.

Milk Memos podcast

Cate was kind enough to give me ten of her breastmilk storage magnets (pictured at left) to give away.  To win one, leave me some feedback about the podcast in the comment section by the end of the day on December 5th.  I'll pick ten names at random from among the comments.  Be sure to leave a "real" email address so I can contact you.  International addresses are fine.

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