Breast feeding article

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Great article on breast feeding.

My wife breast feed our kids. We never heard of this before. :eek: Thankfully my wife’s breast feeding went pretty smoothly. Some soreness of course. But no bleeding like the article mentions.

Breast feeding knowledge was something passed down from one mother to another. A lot of basic information was lost during that long period (1945-1985) when so many mothers didn’t breast feed. Now, we need lactation consultant’s to teach what others used to learn from their own mothers and grandmothers.

I’m glad we’re getting back to feeding our kids the natural way.

2

I breastfed my kid and my mum breastfed me and my two sibs (1960’s). She was bloody useless in passing on info :smiley: Any queries were met with “that was so long ago I can’t remember”

3

I’d heard that green frothy thing meant too much foremilk before, although I don’t remember where I read it - online somewhere though.

I was really committed to breastfeeding, but had lots of problems when my milk came in - hugely engorged and she couldn’t latch on. And while my Mum was with me and had breastfed 3 babies, even she couldn’t work out a fix. Without the help of my lactation consultant (recommending a certain brand of nipple shields and a couple of different holds), I wouldn’t still be nursing 14 months later. Totally recommend seeking one out.

Other resources I found helpful were Kellymom.com and Dr Jack Newman for very detailed videos etc showing correct latching technique.

4

We (OK,my wife actually) fed our two exclusively for the first 9 months and of course there were lots of trials and tribulations along the way. The thing that really helped was having the benefit of non-judgemental, practical, real-world advice and not being fed (ha ha) an exclusively rosy picture.

an example, people who say “it shouldn’t hurt” are wrong. Because hey…it might hurt at first. Nipples vary in delicacy and sensitivity and all babies are not the same. So prepare yourself for that possibility and by the way, here are some techniques to try that may minimise that for you.
To give blanket statements just means that anxiety is increased, no-one needs that.

As has already been said, we need better, real world advice and assistance out there. Unfortunately with the decline in breastfeeding comes a restricted access to such help. That is something to tackled.

5

It has always rather puzzled me that every other mammalian species seems to do just fine at nursing their young without reading books, watching videos, using special equipment, having lactation consultants, or even relying on lore passed down from mother to daughter. Why do so many modern humans seem to have such problems with it? (Of course as a man, I’m not going to understand anyway. :()

6

Well, most other mammals don’t have dentists either, but as long as we have them, I’m happy to avail myself of professional dental care and products like toothbrushes and floss. It doesn’t have much impact on the survival of our species as a whole, but my personal experience is more pleasant.

7

It’s partly because we’re a communicating, technological species, and so genes that code for lactation difficulties aren’t going to get you tossed out of the gene pool, and partly that other mammals do have problems nursing - we are just less likely to hear about it unless we are involved with animal husbandry. Litters of rats perish every day, but you’re not likely to hear anyone agonize about it unless you happen to know someone who’s really into rats. You probably know more people who’ve reproduced themselves.

8

Three things: One, you’re making an assumption that other mammalian species don’t have trouble breastfeeding. I don’t know whether or not that’s the case. “Seems” =/= “does”. Surely you wouldn’t notice a litter of fox kits with green frothy stools because Mama Fox had too much foremilk, or a single deer dying of starvation from a poor latch when its twin did fine, unless you were studying the animals closely.

Second: no other animal has these ridiculous breasts we do. They’re stupid, and they often cause issues no other animal has to deal with, physically speaking. They’re round and squishy, which means a baby can latch on to the wrong part. Some of us have ridiculously large ones, which can be difficult or impossible for a tiny mouth to get enough in their mouth to effectively pump out. (I know, the “big nipple” problem is rarely a real problem, but let me tell ya - three lactation consultants in a row who say, “OH! Oh, my…” :eek: when you take your bra off and scars from the too small fit of the very largest pumping cones made by any manufacturer have convinced me that I, at least, have bizarrely big nipples!)

Finally, and I’m hesitant in posting this one, because it’s a landmine of “blame the victim”, but for humans, at least, a whole lot of breastfeeding success is in the head. You need to be relaxed, calm, and feel fairly confident in yourself before let-down will happen. It’s a headgame, and I don’t know whether or not animals experience the same self doubts, self shame and anxiety that some breastfeeding mothers do. It’s a horrible viscous cycle, when things aren’t going well and really the very best advice (after checking latch) is “relax!” which makes you more tense, so then things don’t go well…

Watching a mother cat feeding her newborn kittens, she’s pretty damn chill. And that goes a long, long way into getting the milk out.

9

Hmm. Tell that to the dog I helped treat for mastitis a couple weeks ago. Her puppies weren’t getting milk out of two her her teats - they were getting pus. One of the abscesses burst while I was administering a hot compress. I collected 60mls of infected fluid. (the other one had already burst before her people took her to the ER) Gross, and happens to people, too. Very painful, and wouldn’t even wish it on someone I hated. Momma dog was grateful for the hydromorphone we gave her before treatment!

Lots of baby animals die in the wild because momma had mammary trouble. Survival of the fittest and all that.

10

It’s definately true that breastfeeding does not always come easily, despite being the most natural thing in the world.

When my son was born, we had a hell of a time with latch on…it was like trying to get a grip, with a tiny little mouth, on a watermelon.

He would get frustrated very quickly and start crying, which certainly didn’t facillitate achieving latch-on, and we spent a few very unhappy nights.

I had a manual pump, but couldn’t seem to get it to work, and my midwife loaned me an electric breast pump, which I could actually get quantities of milk out with.
The situation wasn’t ideal…he’d wake up hungry and get frustrated and I’d go pump enough to feed him while his dad tried to comfort him, but at least we were able to keep the process going/the milk flowing until we figured it out.

In retrospect, I realize that not nursing him immediately after birth was a mistake (my midwife had encouraged it, but I was exhausted and he was content and it got put off for a few hours.) Newborns have a very strong urge/instinct to suckle, but it wanes very quickly if not engaged. I think by the time we got around to our first attempt, he was just sort of mildly interested, mouthing the breast but not really digging in, and that started the whole vicious cycle.

We ended up nursing until he was 4.

When his sister was born 7 years later, I thought, well, I’m an expert now…won’t have any problems! HA! She latched on immediately after birth, and did she latch on? Oh, hells yeah…like a Hoover! We had a good latch-on, but she was a voracious, STRONG sucker and within a few days, I was sore, cracked, blistered, and yes, bleeding a little.

I cried everytime I nursed her and had I not been so determined to breastfeed, I would have switched to formula so fast…

I was desperate, so I looked through the bag of goodies my midwife had left for me (soothing bath salts, pads, diaper cream, etc…) and found a little sample tube of this stuff called Lanisoh (yes, lanolin-based nipple ointment). I applied it and literally overnight, I was healed up and it was all downhill (in a good way) from there.

She and I nursed even longer than her brother and I did.

I won’t be having any more kids, so the lesson is too late for me, but it’s one I feel a responsibility to pass on to other new moms; never assume it will be easy, even if you’ve done it before! And if you feel strongly about doing it, don’t give up, it does get much better very quickly.

11

Plus, isn’t a big part of how we pass on information through our language/intelligence skills? I mean, we learn most things from our parents/relatives/fellow humans–why not breast feeding?

12

And it goes the other way, too. I have (perhaps unusually, though I’ve seen some like mine and feel sure it’s just a variation on the norm) SMALL nipples…not inverted, but tiny compared to many I’ve seen, and even erect, they are smaller than a pencil eraser.

Coupled with 38Cs that grow to 42Ds or so in the early days of breastfeeding(…when that milk comes in a few days after birth…both times, I felt as if I had 2 watermelons on my chest, both due to the size and how hard they were! DH was impressed, but naturally, lived under the threat of death should he actually TOUCH them, they were so sore :p) you can imagine the technical difficulties involved.

I’ve also witnessed not a few animals have difficulties nursing, from dogs to cats to horses to piglets, both on the part of the mother and the young. Babies that needed help to find and hold the teat, mares or bitches who fled their own young when they tried to nurse due to the pain of their sucking and/or mastitis, and don’t doubt that some significant number of animals nursing couples fail, resulting in the death of the offspring lacking human intervention.

13

I can’t imagine that green anything coming out of the body, especially the breasts, is good. It sounds like an infection. (Thinking out loud: though if it’s too much foremilk with all the sugar, that would certainly encourage a mastitis infection to go crazy. OWIE!)

I don’t have kids, and I’ve never gotten to breastfeed, though I would like to. The best advice I’ve ever come across, and I don’t even remember where I saw it, was that when a new mother and baby were having feeding problems, to bring in a mom with an older baby who was doing well with breastfeeding. Swap babies. New mom gets experienced baby to suckle on her, experience mom gets new baby to suckle on her.

A friend who breastfed all three of her children until they self-weaned (around 4-5 years old) said that she would spend time during nursing to just inhale the scent of her baby. She was convinced that the smell of her baby communicated something to her body (by pheromones? who knows?), and her body would adjust its milk production to the baby’s needs. The youngest baby was born premature, and the friend produced much more colostrum than she had with the other two. The first two were healthy at birth, but the middle one became extremely ill when he was about two with a type of anemia, and she produced almost entirely hindmilk. It’s anecdotal, but I would love to see something like that investigated.

14

No, no. The green frothy isn’t the milk, it’s the baby’s bowel movement. Caused by too much sugar for the young gut present in the foremilk.

Preemie milk is simply amazing. I mean, all breast milk is amazing, but preemie milk is *visibly *amazing. My milk, even though I was pumping exclusively, was all cream. I mean, ALL cream. It didn’t separate at all in the fridge. While I never tried it, I’m sure I could have whipped it. As she got bigger, after about 10 months (again, exclusively pumping) somehow still my body knew she was growing, and I started to get a bit of that yellowish thin milk, but still a far greater proportion of cream to milk than when I had a full term infant.

I’m not sure about the scent hypothesis, but mother’s milk *does *change when she’s chest to chest with her baby. Bacteria deposited by the baby on the skin, especially on the nipple and areola, but also just the chest, trigger the mother’s immune system, and she’ll begin producing antibodies to those bacteria, even though they don’t infect her intact skin. Think about that - the bacteria aren’t making *her *sick, but her body senses them and makes antibodies against them that appear in the breast milk. How cool is that?!

15

I’m addicted to Zooborns - a blog of zoo baby animals, and I’ll assure you that other mammalian species also have huge issues with it. There is a Orca being bottlefed in Spain right now because its mother couldn’t figure it out. (Pumping breastmilk from an Orca is discussed in the post).

The thing is that outside a zoo, when a mom and baby can’t figure it out, the baby dies and nature goes on without anyone knowing. When your neighbor can’t get her baby to latch, it becomes a topic of conversation for her and all her friends - complete strangers walk up to her to condemn her bottle feeding, and then she feels she owes them an explanation (she doesn’t).

16

That was the problem I had. One was pretty much flat, the other small and when I was looking at pictures of breastfeeding a bit ago I was surprised to see how BIG they looked in many of the pictures. No wonder we had trouble getting a latch. Then by the time the LLL was able to get me in (about a month after he was born) he wasn’t having any of it.