The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

"They said you can't breastfeed a baby with Down Syndrome"

Welcome to the July Carnival of Breastfeeding!  This month's theme is breastfeeding babies with special needs.  You can find more great posts on this theme at the bottom of this one.

For my contribution I'm reposting a guest post from Rachael (written a few years ago), on nursing her baby with Down Syndrome.

"My daughter Aileena was born with Down Syndrome.  We didn't know that she had it until after she was born, but even before that I knew that I wanted to breastfeed.  To me there is no choice.  I read books and took classes to prepare. 

When she was born they told me that since she has Down Syndrome she wouldn't be able to breastfeed, because Down Syndrome babies typically have low muscle tone.

But by that time she had already been at the breast a couple times, and the lactation consultant said she did great.  That night she started breathing funny so the nurse had a doctor look at her.  They told us that while they were examining her she turned blue so she had to be put on oxygen and put in the NICU.  So, we began the pumping road.  One of the things that really frustrated me was the fact that even though I was pumping they still added formula to my colostrum, because it wasn't enough "volume."  Anyone who knows anything about breastfeeding knows that babies are born with enough to sustain them until the mother's milk comes in.  I was mad because we had to use a bottle, but she was getting my milk and that was something.

Aileena was in the NICU for a week and they bottle fed her the whole time.  When she was almost ready to leave and they let the lactation consultant help me put her to the breast.  She didn't know what was going on by that point.  We tried a nipple shield and she cried and was confused, and I felt rejected.  We just kept trying and finally after about a week of that she took just me and rejects the plastic - ha! 

Well, that wasn't the end of it.  When she was 3 1/2 months old she had open heart surgery, and was on 3 medicines 3 times per day.  I had to feed her with the SNS (supplemental nursing system) with added formula because she got so tired when she ate because of her heart.  She wasn't getting enough and wasn't gaining weight. So her cardiologist wanted to increase her calories without having to increase her intake. That was a pain, but worth it and fairly simple to use - just a pain, because it was like bottle feeding - too much work!

She still doesn't feed perfectly and makes sounds, but she is definitely eating and gaining weight and is doing great even by normal standards,

I feel that she deserves the best I can give her, especially because she is different.  There have been so many benefits found with breastfeeding, and it is even more important for a child with Downs.  They need that extra boost for immunity and brain function, among other things.

I think the most important thing to remember about breastfeeding a child who has special needs is that, no matter how it's getting into them, they are getting your milk.  I had such a hard time with that, because even though she was getting my milk she wasn't at the breast and I wanted that closeness.  I guess that was selfish of me in a way, because the most important thing was that she get my milk whether it had to be put in a tube down her nose or by bottle.  Some babies with Downs have to be tube fed through their stomach, but it still gets there.

I do have to say that my husband has been there for me the whole time and without his support it would never have worked.  He was there when we had to sit in the car for an hour for her to eat every three hours before her surgery and he was there when I thought I couldn't do it anymore.  You really need a good support system to push you and be there for you."

Don't miss these other great posts from contributing blogs:

• Chronicles of  Nursing Mom:  Breastfeeding is the only way
• A Place to Write Things - Breastfeeding My Daughter, Who Just Happens to Have Cerebral Palsy
• Navagating: No one told me I couldn't
• Our Little Acorn: Eight Times a Day
• Blacktating:  In a World of Uncertainty, Boobs are a Certain
  
  

Join our next breastfeeding carnival: Breastfeeding a baby with special needs

Did you nurse a baby with special needs?  What was your experience like?  What were you told about breastfeeding your baby?  What challenges did you overcome?

For our July carnival of breastfeeding our theme will be breastfeeding babies with special needs.

Submissions are due by July 11th and the Carnival will be on July 18th. We're using Google Docs to collect submissions, so please fill out this form in order to submit your post.

As always, we're looking for posts that are:

- Well-written and grammatically correct
- Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival subject
- Submitted by blogs that pertain to subjects of interest to our readers (breastfeeding, parenting, etc.)

If your post is selected for inclusion, you will be asked on the day of the carnival to edit your post to link back to each of the other participants in the carnival. Examples of past carnivals can be found here.

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Seven reasons why breastfeeding is usually easier the second time around

Welcome to this month's Carnival of Breastfeeding!  Please check out the posts on our topic at the bottom of this post.

I don't see many moms these days for breastfeeding help, and I don't really want to see more now that I'm home with my daughter. 

But if there is one group of moms I'd love to help more, it's mothers who had a rough time breastfeeding their first babies and are now expecting their second.  It's so gratifying to help moms have a much better experience after a difficult first go round.  I think it's also very healing when it goes better.

I've seen enough moms through their first and second, and even third babies to know that - in general - it gets much easier after the first.  So, as reassurance to those of you who are expecting, I thought I'd share some reasons why that is often the case:

1)  You know a lot, and you're broken in.  You know that breastfeeding (any kind of infant feeding, actually) takes a whole lot of time.  You don't have the expectation that you'll study for the bar or clean out your garage with all of the "free time" you'll have (those are not made up examples - they're things moms have told me they thought they'd do!).  You know how the whole system works, and that counts for a lot.

2)  You may have had an easier birth and recovery.  On average (and of course you may not match the average), labor is shorter with second babies, and this may mean less difficulty getting breastfeeding off to a good start.

3)  You have more milk.  In general mothers have more milk with a second baby, likely in part because they have developed more glandular tissue over the course of multiple pregnancies and even during the intervening mentural cycles, and in part because they're much more likely to get off to a smooth start with breastfeeding.  It's still a 'use it or lose it' proposition, so you can't feed infrequently and expect to have lots of milk, but you usually have more raw material to work with.  In some cases this means oversupply, but that's an easier problem to deal with than not having enough.

4)  You know that pain = 'seek help immediately.'  You know that breastfeeding can and should feel comfortable.  Especially if you've needed and received good help in the past, you're far more likely to know where to get help and to not hesitate to use it if you're having latch difficulty. 

5)  You're street smart.  By that I mean that you've paid your dues with your first and you are determined to make it work better this time around.  Maybe you had a tongue tied baby and you make sure to get things lined up to deal with that if your second baby has one.  Maybe you bought a bad pump the first time and you do your reseach and get a great one this time.  Or maybe you have your baby at a hospital with better breastfeeding policies.  You're also less likely to be swayed when a case of formula lands on your doorstep.

6)  You've figured out how to navigate the cultural and family issues.  You've figured out how to nurse in public confidently, you've resolved not to care what your mother-in-law thinks, and you've made the case to your co-workers that if they get to take smoking breaks you should be able to take pumping breaks.

7)  Finally, you're just more mellow.  You can more easily settle into your 'new normal,' instead of fearing and fighting it.

Of course, there are some ways in which it can be harder the second time around: you have less attention to devote to breastfeeding because you have another one to take care of and maybe you might remember the 'reward' phase of breastfeeding and forget that you start from square one in terms of latch with each baby.  In some unhappy cases you get an easy nurser with your first and a tough second baby, which is usually a huge shock.

But, on average - in general - most of the time, it's easier the second time around!

Check out these other posts on this month's theme (updated throughout the day):

• Ambular Logic: Breastfeeding the second time around
• Blacktating:  Second time's the charm
• Reporter 2 Mother:  Lessons Learned
• The Good Enough Mummy:  The second time around
• Dou-la-la:  Once more with feeling
• Three Girl Pile Up: Totally Different and Completely the Same
• Treasured Belle: Tandem Nursing
• Christine's Contemplations: Nursing Styles Between Siblings
• TouchstoneZ: Once More With Feeling

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Join the June carnival: First babies, second babies, and more!

Ever find yourself marveling at how two (or more) babies can have vastly different nursing styles?  Did you have different experiences the second time around because of different circumstances, or what you learned the first time around?  And you twin moms - I know you see big differences even between identical twins! 

For our June carnival of breastfeeding our theme will be the differences in breastfeeding between siblings.

Submissions are due by June 6th and the Carnival will be on June 13th. We're using Google Docs to collect submissions, so please fill out this form in order to submit your post.

As always, we're looking for posts that are:

- Well-written and grammatically correct
- Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival subject
- Submitted by blogs that pertain to subjects of interest to our readers (breastfeeding, parenting, etc.)

If your post is selected for inclusion, you will be asked on the day of the carnival to edit your post to link back to each of the other participants in the carnival. Examples of past carnivals can be found here.

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Six misconceptions about 'extended' breastfeeding

Welcome to this month's Carnival of Breastfeeding!  This month the theme is extended breastfeeding, and you'll find a record number of posts on this theme at the bottom of this post.

In our culture extended breastfeeding is misunderstood in many ways.  I've been collecting these misconceptions about it in my head and thought I'd take this opportunity to address them here.

So, here six common misconceptions about extended breastfeeding:

1)  There is such a thing as extended breastfeeding.  Yes, I know that we chose this as the theme for this carnival (and several contributors objected to the term in their posts), but the concept of 'extended' breastfeeding implies that there is a standard length of breastfeeding and this is a lengthening beyond the normal.  But the length of breastfeeding - historically and around the world - varies significantly.  In much of the world 'extended breastfeeding' would be considered just regular old breastfeeding. 

2)  After a certain point, breastmilk loses its value.  One of the other contributors to this carnival put it best:  At a certain point does spinach lose its value?  I fairly regularly hear from moms who say that their doctor told them that breastmilk has less value after X number of months.  This simply isn't true.  Breastmilk continues to provide the optimum nutrition and immune protection to your child.  And the changes that do occur to its composition do so for a reason.  One of my favorite facts about breastmilk is that it increases in immune protection when babies are six months old.  Why?  Perhaps because the mother's body knows that the baby is starting solid foods and that this provides a route for pathogens to enter the baby's system.  And when your breasts sense that feeding frequency is declining, they increase the immune protection in the milk.  Nice system, huh?

3)  It's all about the milk.  Back before I had kids I worked with a woman who nursed her kids until they were three or four.  I had never heard of this, and asked increduously, "But are they getting any milk?"  She patiently explained to me that nursing at this age is really about connection and comfort than about milk.  This fact is lost on a lot of people, including those who say things like, "After a year, put it in a cup!" (Note to self: Stop reading comments on breastfeeding stories when they appear on non-parenting blogs.)

4)  Nursing a toddler is the same as nursing a newborn.  Want to hear a new mother swear a blue streak?  Mention that the WHO recommends two years of breastfeeding.  She'll probably assume that this means that at two years she'd be nursing 12 times a day.  But typically older toddlers nurse a lot less frequently - often just at nap and bedtimes.  Yes, some do nurse more, but the assumption that breastfeeding looks the same at 3 years as at 3 weeks is generally a misonception.   

5)  It's sexual.  So, if it's not all about feeding, then it's some kind of creepy sexual perversion, right?  This view is a consequence of our culture's nearly complete sexualization of breasts.  In cultures where this is not the case no one would conceive of breastfeeding a toddler being a sexual act.  It's this sexualized view that leads people to say "When she can ask for it, it's time to stop."  Of course, as one of the other contributors to this month's carnival aptly pointed out, babies can ask for the breast from the day they're born! 

6)  It's abnormal.  Certainly, historically and currently around the world nursing for three, four, or more years is quite normal.  But what about here in the U.S. now?  It's actually pretty hard to say, since no one tracks breastfeeding duration past a year.  And because it's so stigmatized (see #1-5), much of it is closeted.  So while you may rarely see it in public, there may be more mothers than you think who are continuing to nurse into toddlerhood and beyond.  

Check out these posts on the topic of extended breastfeeding:

Mama Alvina of Ahava & Amara Life Foundation: Breastfeeding Journey Continues

Elita @ Blacktating: The Last Time That Never Was

Diana Cassar-Uhl, IBCLC: Old enough to ask for it

Karianna @ Caffeinated Catholic Mama: A Song for Mama’s Milk

Judy @ Mommy News Blog: My Favorite Moments

Tamara Reese @ Please Send Parenting Books:  Nursing past infancy

Jenny @ Chronicles of a Nursing Mom: The Highs and Lows of Nursing a Toddler

Christina @ MFOM: Natural-Term Breastfeeding

Rebekah @ Momma’s Angel: My Sleep Breakthrough

Suzi @ Attachedattheboob: Why I love nursing a toddler

Claire @ The Adventures of Lactating Girl: My Hopes for Tandem Nursing

Elisa @ blissfulE: counter cultural: extended breastfeeding

Momma Jorje: Extended Breastfeeding, So Far!

Stephanie Precourt @ Adventures in Babywearing: “Continued Breastfeeding”: straight from the mouths of babes

The Accidental Natural Mama: Nurse on, Mama

Sarah @ Reproductive Rites: Gratitude for extended breastfeeding

Nikki @ On Becoming Mommy: The Little Things

Dr. Sarah @ Good Enough Mum: Breastfeeding for longer than a year: myths, facts and what the research really shows

Amy @ WIC City: (Extended) Breastfeeding as Mothering

The Artsy Mama: Why Nurse a Toddler?

Christina @ The Milk Mama: The best thing about breastfeeding

TopHot @ the bee in your bonnet: From the Mouths of Babes

Beth @ Bethstedman.com: Extended Breastfeeding: To Wean Or Not To Wean

Callista @ Callista’s Ramblings:  Pressure To Stop Breastfeeding

Amanda @ Postilius: Nursing My Toddler Keeps My Baby Close

Sheryl @ Little Snowflakes: Tandem Nursing- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Zoie @ Touchstone Z: Breastfeeding Flavors

Lauren @ Hobo Mama: Same old, same old: Extended breastfeeding

Jona @ Breastfeedingtwins: Breastfeeding older twins

Motherlove Herbal Company: Five reasons to love nursing a toddler

Authentic Parenting:  Extended breastfeeding?

Join the April Carnival of Breastfeeding: Extended breastfeeding

For the April Carnival of Breastfeeding we're looking for posts on the topic of extended breastfeeding. 

Did you nurse into toddlerhood?  What did you enjoy about it?  What was challenging? 

Submissions are due by April 11th  and the Carnival will be on April 18th. We're using Google Docs to collect submissions, so please fill out this spreadsheet in order to submit your post.

As always, we're looking for posts that are:

- Well-written and grammatically correct
- Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival subject
- Submitted by blogs that pertain to subjects of interest to our readers (breastfeeding, parenting, etc.)

If your post is selected for inclusion, you will be asked on the day of the carnival to edit your post to link back to each of the other participants in the carnival. Examples of past carnivals can be found here.

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Breastfeeding and race: Why we need more diversity among lactation consultants

Welcome to the March Carnival of Breastfeeding!  You can find links to more posts on the topic of breastfeeding and race at the bottom of this one.

A few years ago I attended a lactation consultant conference in San Diego.  It was a great event, and I learned a lot.

But something about it has been bugging me ever since.

If I had taken a snapshot of the women attending that conference, and then I took another picture of a group representative of new mothers, you'd note something right away.  By and large in the U.S., lactation consultants are white,* and about half of the moms are of color.

I think that this picture should change, and here's why:

The country has changed.  It's time to catch up.  Back in 1985 when the IBCLC credential was created, lactation consultants worked primarily with white mothers.  But in 2008 only about half of the babies born in the U.S. were white.  25% were Hispanic/Latino, 15% were African American, and 6% were Asian.  Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S., and in two of the biggest states - California and Texas - over 50% of babies born are Latino.

Better outcomes.  Evidence suggests that women of color have better birth outcomes when attended to by midwives of color.  Could it be any different with breastfeeding support?  The well documented effectiveness of peer counselors is in no small part due to the fact that they are of the same background of the moms they support.

Closing the gap.  The biggest issue in breastfeeding, in my opinion, is the glaring disparity in breastfeeding rates among different races.  All eyes of leaders in this field should be on the prize of closing those gaps, especially because the women who are least likely to breastfeed are also the most likely to be at risk for health problems alleviated by breastfeeding.  How better to work toward that goal than with representation from a diverse group of women, and what is being missed without their participation?

Culture and language matters.  Just imagine for a moment that you've moved to another country.  You don't speak much of the language there, and the culture is equally foreign.  A lactation consultant comes into the room and knows nothing about where you're from or how people do things in the U.S.  She doesn't speak a word of your language.  And she wants to talk about, and perhaps touch, a part of your body that you consider pretty personal.  Are you going to learn much about breastfeeding from this interaction?

Yes, of course women of any background can learn ways of communicating across cultures.  But while there are many lactation consultants and nurses who make valiant efforts to do so, I've also seen nurses who seem to think that the way to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English is to just talk LOUDER. 

There is one program in California which is actually accomplishing some great change in this area.  The University of California, San Diego lactation consultant training program has created what amounts to a career ladder for WIC breastfeeding peer counselors to become IBCLCs.  I trained through this program, and my cohort of students was wonderfully diverse.  I bumped into a few current students while in California in December, and they too were women of color.

But this isn't enough.  Other fields, like nurse midwives and doulas, have made diversity a priority, creating initiatives to increase the number of women of color in their ranks.  There is even federal legislation which would, among other things, create an initiative to diversify the maternity care workforce.

Why not us, too?

* While I couldn't find any data on the race of IBCLCs, I know that this is not my imagination.  Kathi Barber, founder of the African American Breastfeeding Alliance reported that at a recent national lactation conference, out of 1000 participants, there were only nine black attendees, and of these just four were lactation consultants.

Check out these great posts on our theme of breastfeeding and race:

• Diary of a First Child:  Breastfeeding and Race in South Africa
• Motherhood Actually:  Breastfeeding and the Cambodian American community
• Slient, but Leading:  Breastfeeding in Ghana

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Participate in the March Carnival of Breastfeeding: Race and breastfeeding

For March's Carnival of Breastfeeding we're looking for posts on the topic of race and breastfeeding. 

We're particularly interested in posts from women of color on how race impacted their breastfeeding experience.  Here are some topic ideas:

• If your community is particulary supportive - or not supportive - of breastfeeding, how did that impact your decision to breastfeed?
• Do you think that your race had any influence on the kind of breastfeeding care you got from your providers, or on the support you got from your family or in the community?
• Are there traditions in your community that are different from the mainstream experience?
• Do you think that current images of breastfeeding represent you?
• Are there any well known women of color who have been role models for you in your breastfeeding experience?
• Do you have observations about why mothers in your community are more likely or less likely to breastfeed?

Submissions are due by March 7 and the Carnival will be on March 14th. We're using Google Docs to collect submissions, so please fill out this spreadsheet in order to submit your post.

As always, we're looking for posts that are:

- Well-written and grammatically correct
- Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival subject
- Submitted by blogs that pertain to subjects of interest to our readers (breastfeeding, parenting, etc.)

If your post is selected for inclusion, you will be asked on the day of the carnival to edit your post to link back to each of the other participants in the carnival. Examples of past carnivals can be found here.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  Subscribe to email updates and RSS feeds.  Subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes.

 

A gift I never expected

Welcome to the December Carnival of Breastfeeding!  This month's theme is the gifts of breastfeeding.  You'll find more posts on this topic at the bottom of this one.

When I was pregnant with my first baby I knew that I would breastfeed, but I'm not sure that I knew why.

If pressed, I might have been able to come up with some reasons having to do with health and nutrition, but I really think that my motivation was related to the vague idea that this was what I was supposed to do.  All my friends did it, and it seemed pretty normal.

Since I didn't really anticipate anything in particular from breastfeeding, nearly everything about it felt like a gift.  The cozy feeling, the interaction with my baby at feedings, the feeling of accomplishment, the healthy baby/child (not a single infection in seven years!).  Even pumping at work seemed like a gift because I knew that my son would get the best I could offer him.

But the biggest surprise of all was the gift of a new profession. 

I remember sitting in my nursing chair one day, reading the feeding chapter of Our Babies, Ourselves, and getting that rare, pit of the stomach feeling that the world was about to change for me.  Right around the section on immunoglobulins coating the baby's instestinal tract I was hooked.  I knew that I had to pursue this interest somehow.

At the time I was working in a completely different field, doing education policy work for a state legislature.  I did know that I was going to make a change of some kind, but I had no idea in which direction I was headed.

Fast forward a few years, and instead of sitting in front of a computer I'm sitting in front of two breasts and a baby.  And I couldn't be happier about that.

Breastfeeding my daughter, seven years after that epiphanic monent, has made me appreciate the gifts of feeding all over again.  I'm grateful for every smile before a feeding, every sausage link roll on my baby's arms, every nursing-nap.  And I'm also grateful to be part of a profession that helps other moms experience these gifts, too.

Check out these posts on this month's theme (updated throughout the day):

Momma's Angel: The 12 gifts of breastfeeding
Breastfeeding Moms Unite: The gift that keeps on giving
Motherhood Actually: The gift of life: breastfeeding during a time of war
Massachusetts Friends of Midwives: The intangible gifts of breastfeeding
Blacktating:  The gift of confidence
The Milk Mama;  My baby's gift to the Milk Mama

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An unbroken chain

Welcome to November's Carnival of Breastfeeding!  This month's theme is family breastfeeding history.  Check out the bottom of this posts for links to other posts on this topic. 

The picture to the left is of me and my mother, circa 1970.  In it I'm a few months old.  It's the only picture I have of her nursing me (another reason why I'm trying to take more pictures this time).

I love this picture because, while it looks like a simple domestic scene, its subject is really outside the mainstream for the time. 

The early seventies were the low point for breastfeeding in the U.S., with only about one in four mothers ever putting their babies to breast.  So this was a very unusual sight in those days.

My mother tells me that her pediatrician was supportive of breastfeeding (though he did instruct her to start me on solids at 6 weeks), and his support was certainly one factor in her decision to breastfeed.  But from what I can gather it was her friend Phyllis who was the key factor in the feeding equation.  My mother once told me, "Phyllis was doing it, so I did it, too."  She has also told me about how she'd meet other moms in the park and they would all nurse under their ponchos.

When I was looking at the research on Latinas in breastfeeding for this presentation, one fact kept leaping off the page:  the influence of peers makes a huge difference in feeding decisions.  It certainly seems like it did in my mother's case.  It also probably didn't hurt that her mother (my maternal grandmother), who immigrated from Japan in 1911, had twelve children and breastfed all of them. 

On my father's side, my Jewish paternal grandmother, who has a great memory still at 95, tells me that she breastfed her children.  She says, "It wasn't at all the thing to do back then, but I did it.  That was just my way."

I think it's safe to assume that all of the generations that came before these breastfed, so it all adds up to an unbroken chain of breastfeeding on both sides of my family, and I think that's something to be thankful for.

Check out these posts by other bloggers on this month's theme (updated throughout the day):

• Christine's Contemplations: Carnival of Breastfeeding- My Family History of Nursing
• Mommy News Blog: My Family History of Breastfeeding
• Breastfeeding Twins: Beer & Bottles (and other motherly advice)
• Blacktating: Three Generations of Breastfeeding
• Attached at the Nip: How Women in My Family Feed Babies
• Lactation Narration: Only the Hippies Were Breastfeeding
• Dr. Sarah: Breastfeeding, Circa 1950s

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