The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

Which foods can boost your milk supply?

I was recently reading a great handout by Lisa Marasco on galactagogues (foods, herbs, and medications that increase milk supply), and thought I'd share some of the information on foods. 

I interviewed Lisa on hormonal causes of low milk supply when her book, The Breastfeeding Mother's Guide to Making More Milk, co-authored with Diana West, came out.  I also read Mother Food, which has great information on increasing milk supply using foods and herbs.

Before working to increase your milk supply, you need to first determine if it's actually in need of a boost.  There are many things that can make you think that it's low when it's not.  If it's truly a concern, galatctagogues shouldn't be your first step.  Feeding frequently and effectively, ensuring that the latch is good, breast compression, pumping after feedings, and skin to skin are at the top of the list.  A trained breastfeeding suppport person can help with all that.  Herbs and prescription medications would be the next things to explore with your health care provider.

So, which foods were listed on the handout as increasing milk supply?

• High fiber foods such as oats, usually eaten as oatmeal (the old fashioned kind, not instant), barley, brown rice, and beans
• Calcium-rich foods such as sesame, almonds, and dark green leafy vegetables
• Fruits such as apricots, dates, figs, and cooked green papaya
• Soups made from Torbangun or Mulunggay leaves

Last year I wrote about making lactation cookies, which contains oats, as well as brewer's yeast, another traditional galactagogue.  Whether or not they help with milk supply, there's really good!

Have any of you found that any of these foods helped your milk supply?

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The winning nursing story.

Here's the winning entry for Motherwear's recent nursing story/tip contest, submitted by Ginger Carney:

When I was nursing my first child, Caroline, I had an encounter with my young nephew, just 3 years old at the time. I had sat down to relax and breastfeed her when my nephew wandered over to me and looked curiously at his little cousin at the breast. Since I don't believe he had ever seen a baby nursing (he was not breastfed), he asked "WHAT is she doing??!!" Quietly and matter-of-factly I said, "She's eating."Immediately his eyes became wide with surprise as he replied loudly, "She eats PEOPLE??!!"  

You can read other great stories and tips.  I'll pull together my favorites into a post soon.

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Motherwear model Sabrina on her nursing experience.

Today I'm happy to share a guest post by Sabrina, Motherwear model for the Summer line.  She's shown in these pictures with her daughter Alexia, 8 months.

What has your breastfeeding experience been like?

Breastfeeding has been a great experience for me, as I feel that not only am I providing for my little one, but it gives her extra sense of security.  I think it gives us a close bonding experience you can't get from feeding from a bottle.  I enjoy feeding my baby skin to skin.  It relaxes her, especially during bedtime. 

Breastfeeding in public was very challenging at first.  I was terribly shy and awkward.  However, after a few times I became super confident.  I realized that no one notices you breastfeeding if you don't make a fuss out of it.  I always use my wrap for privacy reasons, plus I notice that it helps my baby stay more focused.  

What is your favorite thing about nursing?

That I don't have to get up through the middle of the night to make up a bottle.  I just place my baby in a lying down position and nurse her.  Most of the time I fall asleep before she finishes.  It's a beautiful experience waking up to see your baby snuggled up next to you.  I also must add that nursing helped me to get my figure back real quick.  Every time I nursed I felt the pulling sensation in my belly.  That was a great incentive to keep going.

How do you make breastfeeding work given your work schedule?

I'm currently unemployed but when I'm booked for last minute photoshoots I have pumped milk stored for the carer.  In case I ever have to be away from my darling for more the 4-6 hours I carry my breast pump and a cooler bag.

Where have you gotten support and help with breastfeeding?

I attended breastfeeding classes, Lamaze class, and had a consultation with a lactation expert at Coney Island hospital.  I received great support, and I also had a book given to me by a friend for reference.

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

Never ever give up breastfeeding in the early stages.  If you feel that your baby is not getting enough milk count the amount of wet diapers s/he goes through.

One of my biggest worries while I was pregnant was little breast milk supply.  Hot showers or heat packs placed on the breasts encouraged let down before feeding.  Also don't get lazy with the pump.  Use it when your baby misses a feeding during the night.  Even pump right after feeding if you're still full. This will keep up the supply as your baby grows and feeds less often.

I occasionally take Indian herbal tablets called Fenugreek to encourage good milk supply, with my doctor's permission.  Nursing clothes, bras and wraps are a must especially when nursing in public.  It makes life easier, believe me.

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Guest post: Marsha Walker on "a new low in formula marketing."

Recently, thanks to a reader, I learned that a formula company was titling one of its webpages "the breast milk formula." 

I passed this along to Marsha Walker, Executive Director of the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy, and she in turn launched a campaign to get the company to change this slogan.  Below, Marsha discusses formula marketing in the U.S., and how you can work to challenge marketing that undermines breastfeeding.

Many of you have seen the recent webpage title appearing on a Mead Johnson website, which stated: ”The Breastmilk Formula-Enfamil.” Word of this hit many of the major breastfeeding listservs and a call by the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy (NABA) to report this deceptive advertising to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) resulted in many complaints being sent to the agency responsible for monitoring false and misleading advertising. Several days later Mead Johnson removed the title tab and replaced it with “Enfamil Lipil-Lipil.”  Infant formula marketing rages almost unchecked, other than formula manufacturers suing each other or reporting unfavorable ads to the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division for a ruling.

Formula companies spend millions of dollars in marketing efforts each year, resulting in a can of powdered formula costing $25 for approximately 25 cents worth of ingredients. The duty of a formula company is to its shareholders not to help breastfeeding mothers. US corporate law obligates that management of publicly held companies act primarily in the economic interest of the shareholders not put community interest above corporate interest. Companies work the system to make it easier to transact business and avoid criticism by:

Lobbying

• companies lobby Congress for favorable laws and befriend federal officials
• companies send public relations experts to government agencies for favorable regulations
• companies buy access and influence by contributing to political campaigns

Enticing the experts/disarming the critics

• academic experts are hired as consultants, spokespersons, and advisors and are funded to engage in research. This helps remove the threat that leaders in the field will speak against the product or company, but taints their objectivity
• companies routinely provide funds to researchers, universities, and professional associations. These funds support conferences, projects, publications, internet sites, and meetings. Formula companies do not give away money as a benevolent charity, but in the long term interests of increasing profits. Companies need respectability to buttress their political power and avoid regulatory attention
• manipulating the data is easier if the research is funded by the company that produces the product. Some studies on the addition of the long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids DHA/ARA into infant formula have a 20%-33% loss of the sample population because mothers switch their baby to a non-study formula. There is no explanation for the high attrition rates. Therefore, no side effects are reported to the public. Meta-analyses regarding the addition of DHA/ARA to infant formula shows that these formulas confer no advantage to the infants consuming them, even though the products cost as much as 15%-33% more than standard formulas
• inservices provided to physicians and nurses by formula salesmen in hospitals are carefully orchestrated to present data from company funded studies that show the benefits of the product while distorting the risk
• companies encourage adversarial relationships between health professionals. Potential areas of disagreement are exploited to “divide and conquer,” even at the highest levels of government and within the World Health Organization
• members of government advisory committees frequently have industry affiliations

Corporate Public Relations/Masters of Spin

• industry front groups are used to appear to the public as independent supporters of the formula agenda
• new public relations opportunities are seized upon immediately, such as pressuring UNICEF to accept donations of baby formula to feed infants of HIV positive mothers in Africa
• a technique called “crisis management” was activated when the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative was introduced into the US in 1991. An expert work group was formed and funded by the Department of Health and Human Services without industry representation. One company met secretly with the conveners of the work group and threatened to engage in direct to consumer marketing of infant formula if they lost their access to market formula through hospitals. It also engaged in a slick marketing campaign to hospitals claiming the BFHI was punitive in nature.

Giving Gifts

The giving and receiving of gifts is a complex relationship with the expectation on the part of the giver that the recipient will engage in a reciprocal behavior. One nurse manager stated that all of the food and gifts were accepted as perks for the nurses to help retain them as employees! These gifts are not free. The mothers who purchase formula buy the trinkets, food, educational offerings, and lavish entertainment accepted by so many health care professionals. Formula salesmen have unlimited access to maternity units in many hospitals, violating the vendor policy of the institution. This constant, “helpful” presence allows the salesman to be perceived as a member of the health care team who in some instances actually determines what infants are fed in the hospital nursery. The purchasing of loyalty is a prime goal of the formula industry.

Voluntary Codes

The International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (the Code) is an important tool and the foundation for ethical practice, but it is voluntary on the part of industry. The Code was created in 1981 by the World Health Organization and UNICEF as an international guideline for manufacturers to follow. It aimed to curb the unethical marketing practices that were resulting in the illness and death of thousands of infants each year. The Code has not been legislated in the US which allows egregious marketing practices to continue unabated. Companies fear regulation above all else.

What Can Be Done?

Learn to work the system.

• Report all unethical marketing practices to NABA (email).
• Report offending advertising to the Federal Trade Commission
• Ask all birthing hospitals to eliminate distribution of commercial discharge bags supplied by infant formula manufacturers. See www.banthebags.org
• Request that clinics, obstetrical, and pediatric offices refrain from distributing gifts from formula manufacturers
• Support organizations like NABA and Best for Babes. Best for Babes placed a full page ad in the June 2009 issue of Fit Pregnancy magazine to help mainstream breastfeeding and offset formula marketing efforts. NABA has 2 publications available on the extent of formula marketing in the US.

June Carnival of Breastfeeding - Get kicked off a bus for nursing in public? Here's how to respond.

Welcome to the June Carnival of Breastfeeding!  Be sure to check out the other bloggers' posts below.

I live in an area that is, in general, very supportive of nursing in public.  But an incident last week shows that even in such a community, there are times when it's critical to have the law - and the advocacy of other mothers - on your side.

Last week a mother in our community was asked to leave a public bus because she was nursing her child.  In response, our local chapter of Moms Rising (the political arm of another mothers' organization, Motherwoman), used a process we'd previously designed for these situations:

1) Sending a letter to the business (with the mother's permission) describing the incident, and requesting a meeting between the owner/supervisor, the woman whose civil rights were violated, and a lactation consultant and breastfeeding advocate.  At these meetings, the owner is educated about the breastfeeding rights law in Massachusetts, and is advised on how s/he can make their business a welcoming place for breastfeeding mothers.

2) Educating the mother about her rights and how to file a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

3) Following up with the business and the mother as nehttp://www.hobomama.com/2009/06/easy-discreet-way-to-breastfeed-toddler.html eded.

In this case, the mother was asked to leave the bus just as a mothers group run by Motherwoman was getting out, so there was a group mothers who immediately mobilized to call the bus agency.  The Moms Rising coordinator waited with the mother until the bus came back around on its loop, and they engaged the bus driver in a discussion about the incident.  Moms Rising will be requesting that each bus post a 'breastfeeding welcome here' sticker.

Want to know how it turned out?  Watch the video below.

Check out these other bloggers' posts on nursing in public (updated throughout the day):

• Lucy and Ethel Have a Baby: Nursing in Public - Boobs out and Proud
• PhD in Parenting:  Would you, could you, nurse in public?
• Dirty Diaper Laundry:  Breastfeeding in Public - Talents - I Haz It
• Kim Through the Looking Glass: Here, at the Restaurant?
• Grudgemom: Nursing in a room full of people you know
• Mum Unplugged: Awww, is he sleeping?
• Massachusetts Friends of Midwives: Nursing in Public - Chinatown, the Subway, the Vatican, and more
• Mother Mary's Soapbox: Breastfeeding Oriana
• Tiny Grass: Nursing in Public as an Immigrant
• Mommy News and Views: Breastfeeding in Public
• Breastfeeding 1-2-3: To Cover or Not to Cover
• Stork Stories:  Little Old Men...and Nursing in Public
• Chronicles of a Nursing Mom: Why worry about NIP?
• Warm Hearts Happy Family: Breastfeeding and the Summertime
• Blacktating:  Thank you for Nursing in Public
• Mama Knows Breast: Products that can Help you Nurse in Public
• Baby Ready:  A Wee NIP in the Park
• Tales of Life with a Girl on the Go:  Planes, Trains, and Automobiles - We've breastfed in them all
• Breastfeeding Moms Unite: Nursing in Public - A Fresh Perspective on Nurse-ins
• Never a Dull Moment:  Breastfeeding Hats? Yes! Nursing Covers? Uh...not so much
• Breastfeeding Mums: Nursing in Public - What's a Breastfeeding Mother to do?
• Hobo Mama: Easy, Discreet way to Nurse a Toddler in Public

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Pumping through chemotherapy - an update

I'm sure that many of you remember Jenn Michelle, who wrote a guest post about pumping through chemotherapy in order to resume nursing once her cancer treatment was through.

The picture to the left, of Jenn Michelle and her daughter nursing at the zoo, tells part of the story of what happened.  Jenn Michelle pumped as long as she could through her treatment (read the original post to learn what she did with the milk), eventually finding that her production decreased significantly.  She stopped pumping, but when her treatment ended, her daughter went back right back to nursing. 

Unfortunately, Jenn Michelle just learned that her cancer is back, and she'll need to resume treatment.  From a recent post: 

"i asked [my daughter] if she remembered having to stop nursing before. i sobbed and tried my best to reassure her that we will try so very hard to make it back to where we are now.

this is beyond horrifying. i can’t believe we have to go through this again. i can’t believe i have to force my baby girl to stop nursing again. the chemo, that’s nothing."

Jenn Michelle is collecting donations for her Stand Up To Cancer team, hoping to raise $1,500 by her 36th birthday on August 15th.  I donated, and hope you'll consider giving, too.

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A little research update.

New research about breastfeeding has been in the news quite a bit in the last few weeks.  Here's a sampling:

Breastfeeding leads to better academic achievement in high school and an increased likelihood of attending college

Women with multiple sclerosis who breastfed exclusively for at least two months appear less likely to experience a relapse within a year after their baby's birth

Women who breastfed were less likely when they were older to have developed high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease

Breastfeeding cuts women's risk of metabolic syndrome.

Mothers who drink an excessive amount of fructose-sweetened beverages (as high fructose corn syrup) during pregnancy or breastfeeding may be likelier to have children—at least sons—who are more prone to becoming overweight and developing type 2 diabetes

Hand expression and breast massage combined with breast pumping did a better job of stimulating milk production than breast pumping alone.

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If "bad" mothers are now "good," where does that leave breastfeeding?

Have you heard?  Bad parenting is the new good.

According to CNN, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, bad (meaning good?) moms admit to leaving their kids alone in the bathtub, spanking, yelling, and loving their spouses more than their kids.  It's a backlash against 'hyper parenting,' and some very class-bound (more on this in a post I've been meaning to write forever) notions of what's good for kids.  It can also be seen as a pressure release valve for parents feeling oppressed by the cult of the "perfect mother."     

My first reaction to this is to wonder why we have to keep having this debate about what a good (meaning bad?) mother is.  Apart from health and safety, how is it anyone else's business if you have a couple of beers, or let your dog mop the floor?  And the reality is, as Heather Cushman-Dowdee points out, so much more complicated and nuanced than it's typically portrayed.  It's also interesting to me that we still find this kind of confessional titillating.  Is it still really news that parenting is a mixed bag (containing lots of fluids)?

My next thought was to wonder what this means for breastfeeding.  Is it now good (meaning bad)? 

I guess that depends on whether or not you see it as ideology.  If you do, it might look like one more box to check on the 'good mom' (meaning bad mom?) to do list.  It's certainly a choice, but I tend to see it more in terms of biology - a logical extension of in utero nutrition that has evolved for specific nutritional, immunological, and emotional needs of our young.  In my mind, it's so normal that to attach it to a particular world view would be a little bit like calling cleaning up poop a lifestyle choice.  And you can only treat it as ideology if you ignore or discount the science, which is how The Case Against Breastfeeding got there. 

Because breastfeeding has had to battle back from the brink of extinction in this country, and in doing so has required justification along medical and political lines, it's seen as more of an ideological football than it really is.  I'm embarrassed to say that I used to think that breastfeeding was something that only left-leaning, anti-establishment moms did.  But the far broader appeal of breastfeeding was made clear to me the first time I searched Amazon for a Dr. Sears book and realized that he writes books on Christian parenting.  Wait a minute, I thought, they do it, too?  I had a lot to learn.

This is why I like Moms Rising and other organizations that shift the focus from judging each other to the real issues that parents face - often in common with families quite different from themselves - like sane family leave policies, health care for all, and fair pay.  Just think of what could be done with all those kilowatt hours we spend on angst and vitriol.

Even though the "good mom/bad mom" pendulum has been swinging back and forth for decades - periodically clocking moms in the head - I have hope that we'll see, sooner or later, that we're all in this together.

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Mad about milk.

I thought you might enjoy this old Mad About You clip.  The adult-tasting-breastmilk gag isn't that original (it's one we talked about in this podcast on breastfeeding in the movies), but I did think the use of that pump was pretty funny!

"The Breast Milk Formula?"

Speaking of deceptive marketing:

Reader Anna emailed me to point out that the formula company Enfamil is marketing one of their formulas as "The Breast Milk Formula" in the title of their one of their webpages.

This is the most blatant form of unethical marketing I've ever seen from a formula company, and unfortunately there are many examples to chose from.  And of course it's a clear violation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes.

It's this kind of advertising which leads to a near doubling in the number of people who say that formula is as good as breastmilk.

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