Breastfeeding Superstars!

Happy World Breastfeeding Week! Today I am pleased to share with you a short video created by Isabelle Zaugg, an MFA candidate in the film school at American University. The video is dedicated to breastfeeding superstars, moms who have overcome challenges in order to successfully breastfeed.
(If you're an email or RSS subscriber, you may have to click over to the post to see the embedded video below).



BF Superstars from Isabelle Zaugg on Vimeo.

Who are your breastfeeding superstars, or were you a mom who had to overcome some challenges to make breastfeeding work?

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Miki House Clothing (and a giveaway!)

Head over to my review page to enter to win a $20 gift card to Bloomingdale's and learn more about Japanese children's clothing line Miki House.

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In A World of Uncertainty, Boobs Are Certain

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

This month I'm pleased to share a post written by Theresia, on nursing her daughter who has Cerebral Palsy.


For many women, birth is a long, slow process. It may be painful. You may move and be moved in ways you never knew possible. For most in the end you are blessed with a perfect, healthy baby.


For me, birth was a medical emergency. A blur.

“Fetal distress.”

“Decels.”

“Sign here.”

I did not give birth to my daughter, my daughter was delivered. 1:23am, 9/23/09; 36 weeks, 5 pounds 8oz, 18inches.
My husband asks me, “Why is she blue?”
The anesthesiologist asks me, “Would you like a sedative?”

“Hell yes.”

It is hours later. The transport team has come to take my daughter away to a hospital with a NICU. A nurse has come with a breastpump. This is not how it was meant to be.

Over the next few days, decisions are made. Over the phone my daughter’s doctors explain things to me that I never wanted to understand, that I can barely understand through the fog of painkillers, sedatives, and magnesium sulfate. Facing months of my baby in the hospital, I tell my nurse, the one who taught me how to use the pump, the one who talked to me about breastfeeding her own daughter, that I didn't care anymore.

“I don't want to pump. Let them give her formula. It doesn't matter.”
I cry. My nurse, a complete stranger, holds me, leans me back on the bed and reminds me: Only I can do this for my baby, who needs it more than most. She holds the flanges to my breasts for me, to pump my milk “just this one last time”. I do it myself next time.

After just five days things are starting to look up for my baby: no more cooling treatment, no more ventilation, no more sedation. By fourteen days old my daughter is home. By three weeks old I have stopped pumping, and she is breastfeeding. Everyone is surprised; everyone is impressed. She's perfect now.

Just kidding! I feel like life is laughing at me when I have to dig my pump out again, to calorie-fortify her breastmilk during the day. I relish her nighttime feedings and hate the bottles I mix and feed her. Our first diagnosis: GERD, age four months.
Two months later and I am able to put the pump away again. Thank God for the antacids that let her eat happily and gain weight, however slowly. But now we get a new “challenge”! She is not meeting her milestones, she's floppy, her eyes cross. Then come therapists, counselors, caseworkers. Doctors, doctors, doctors. Every poke, every prod, we nurse through it all. It gets mixed reviews from medical staff, but in a world of uncertainty boobs are certain.

My hardest times are those when I can't nurse her. She undergoes three procedures (one surgical, two diagnostic) when we can't nurse beforehand and my breasts ache with milk as I hold my crying, hungry baby in my arms. We endure one hospitalization when she is intubated and sedated and I can't even hold her. I can't make it better; I can only accept it or wait for it to be over.

“Nuh nuh” is always the first thing she wants in the morning; it's always the first thing she wants when she's waking up. It's always the first thing she wants in the hospital. I spend hours holding and nursing, watching endless episodes of Law & Order, and eating "complimentary" hospital meals that show up later on insurance invoices.
As we reach her first birthday she's functioning on a seven or eight month old level, I still have people who ask me, “Isn't she a little old for that?” I grin and bear it.

In twenty-one months we've nursed through therapies, illnesses, hospitalizations, surgical recovery, and more recently bumps, bruises, and tantrums. We've nursed through three blood draws, six diagnoses, and one divorce. I cried as I nursed her the first night she used her walker, and also the first night she walked on her own. Two July Fourths in a row I've watched her fall asleep at the breast as fireworks go off in the black sky above us. After much work and therapy, now she walks and jabbers and signs for “eat eat eat milk milk milk”. These days it's sometimes my greatest pleasure and sometimes (for the 1000th time today, with a wonky latch from a new tooth, and a recent penchant for twiddling) my greatest dread.

This experience with my daughter has changed me in a way I'm not sure anything else could have. Breastfeeding is an integral part of how we relate to each other. I used to joke that I breastfed “like it's my job” and now it is-- I'm a WIC breastfeeding peer counselor. I am the ear I never had, listening to moms who are going through where I've already been. I have a special place in my heart for NICU moms and moms of disabled kids. I always tell people about my daughter's disabilities, and about our struggles and successes with breastfeeding. It’s important and it’s part of me. She is part of me.
In some ways the two of us are very different from other mothers and their children. She works much harder than most other children to do the same things they do. I have a lot more doctors' numbers in my little black book, and doctors appointments in my day planner. Sometimes doctors mistake her for the sum of her diagnoses. Sometimes I feel more like her social worker than her mom. Sometimes people notice out loud how she’s “different” and other times people say I’m overstating her problems, and both make me sad. But when we are breastfeeding, none of those things matter. We are no different from anyone else. We are the same as every nursing pair, everywhere.

Theresia is the mother of Virginia ("Ginny"), a bright, outgoing toddler with cerebral palsy. They live in Maryland with Ginny's great-grandfather, three cats, and a dog. Ginny likes music, splashing in the pool, and playing “clean up”. Theresia works as a breastfeeding counselor for her local WIC clinic.

Don't miss these other wonderful posts from this month's contributors.

Marla @ A Place to Write Things: Breastfeeding My Daughter, Who Just Happens to Have Cerebral Palsy

Jenny @ Chronicles of A Nursing Mom: Breastfeeding is the Only Way

Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: "They said you can't breastfeed a baby with Down Syndrome"

Kelley @ Navagating: No one told me I couldn't
Kadiera @ Our Little Acorn: Eight Times A Day

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Who Cares About the WHO Code?

I just read a blog post that ruined my day. The venerable Nancy Mohrbacher, co-author of the popular Breastfeeding Made Simple: 7 Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers and IBCLC at Ameda Breastfeeding Products has left her day job there after nearly 9 years. Why? Because Ameda's parent company, Evenflo, has decided it will no longer comply with the WHO Code. According to Nancy, who was instrumental in helping Evenflo become Code compliant after they bought Ameda in 2008, she received word of Evenflo's intentions to once again begin marketing their bottles last Monday and has resigned from her job.

So now Ameda Breastfeeding Products is in the same boat as Lansinoh, a company that is Code compliant (Ameda doesn't even make products covered by the Code) but is a subsidiary of a Code violator (in Lansinoh's case, the parent company is Pigeon). With Medela openly stating that they do not and will not honor the Code, is there any breastfeeding product company left that will? Because as I am sitting here at my computer, I can't think of one.

Edit: Ugghh, how could I forget Hygeia?! But seriously, one company that takes this seriously? ONE? Please tell me there are more!



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July Carnival of Breastfeeding: Breastfeeding the Special Needs Baby

The theme for our next Carnival of Breastfeeding will be "Breastfeeding the Special Needs Baby." Was your baby born with any issues that made breastfeeding difficult?  How did you prepare for breastfeeding your special needs baby and what was your experience like? Did you face any special challenges, and if so, how did you overcome them? We would like to hear about your experiences as moms of special needs babies. Please send your submissions via Google spreadsheet by July 11th. The Carnival will be on July18th. As usual, we'll be 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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June Carnival of Breastfeeding: Second Time's The Charm

A good friend just gave birth to her second baby last week, an adorable little girl. About 24 hours after the birth I got a text message saying that the baby had latched on beautifully after birth but not really since. She ended her message with, "I'd forgotten how tricky this can be in the beginning!"

Well, I haven't forgotten, and it makes me nervous. Like a lot of women, I struggled in the early weeks with some typical problems like bad latch, sore nipples and a baby who gained slowly because of it. Nothing that couldn't be overcome, but it was touch and go there for a minute, with my pediatrician ordering me in for what seemed like constant weight checks and finally telling me, "If he doesn't start gaining more we're going to have to talk about giving him formula. But I give you a lot of credit because most people would've given up by now."

Besides the worry of whether or not my milk will take an extra day or two to come in again, or if it will take a few weeks to get our latch right, I wonder how I can possibly dedicate myself fully to a new baby when I still have a toddler to take care of? Miles is very excited about having a baby sister, but he's also been pretty adamant that she is not to be breastfed (he reassures me he will feed her milk in a bottle, and the proof that he watches entirely too much TV is in his insistence of making her baby food with a Baby Bullet). Miles has been my whole world for nearly four years, and while I know I will love the new baby with all my heart, how can I possibly care for her with the same amount of attachment that I did Miles? Miles is super active and talkative and is used to getting my full and undivided attention. When you've got two fussy kids, who gets mom first? How do you balance being as responsive as possible to your baby while still not making your little boy feel cast aside? And since this is going to be my last baby, I want to savor every moment with her and hold her non-stop. I know jealousy is inevitable but I want Miles to feel included and know that he is still my baby too.

I would love to hear your experiences of what it's been like breastfeeding and caring for a second baby. Am I worrying for nothing or did you find the early weeks and months to be as challenging as I am imagining them to be?


Check out these posts from the rest of this month's Carnival participants:


Ambular Logic: Breastfeeding the Second Time Around
Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: Seven Reasons Why Breastfeeding Is Usually Easier the Second Time Around
Takisha @ Reporter to Mother: Lessons Learned
Dr. Sarah @ Good Enough Mum: The Second Time Around
Barbara @ Three Girl Pile Up: Totally Different & Completely the Same
SBelle @ Treasured Bell: Tandem Nursing
Anne @ Dou-la-la: Once More With Feeling
Christine @ Christine's Contemplations: Nursing Styles Between Siblings
Zoie @ Touchstone Z: Once More With Feeling


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Michelle Obama & The "Choice" to Breastfeed

Michelle Obama is back in the news today after again bringing up supporting breastfeeding as part of her Let's Move! anti-obesity campaign. The first lady gave a speech at a Washington, D.C.-area child care center where she discussed five ways that childcare facilities can help reduce youth obesity and improve healthy eating habits. Of breastfeeding specifically she stated:

"And finally, supporting mothers who choose to breastfeed. Whether we do it in our workplaces or in our child care facilities, breastfeeding, as we have learned, is one of the ways to reduce the level of obesity in a child. The longer a mother can breastfeed, the better off a child will be on a whole range of health issues. And I know here at CentroNia that you all are working to make sure that mothers can bring their milk to their child on a daily basis. Those are the kind of things that workplaces -- that we all need to understand is an important part of a family's well being and a child's health."

You recall the controversy back in February, when Michelle Bachmann attacked the inititiave as Mrs. Obama trying to create a "nanny state" where women were forced to breastfeed. Of course this is ridiculous because no one can force you to breastfeed, but it only makes sense to educate and support women to be successful at breastfeeding. We have abandoned "breast is best," but of all of the options currently available, it is absolutely the best way to feed your baby.  Of course the reason why people don't like the "breast is best" slogan is because really, breastfeeding is the normal way to feed infants. It is the way babies are meant to be fed. Breastfeeding is a part of the pregnancy-birth continuum. You get pregnant, you give birth to the baby, the placenta is delivered, and your body makes milk.

So why all of this talk about choice? And why can't we just talk about breastfeeding, without singling the women out who do it as those who've made a decision to breastfeed? Isn't the real choice when (barring medical complications that make breastfeeding impossible) women bind their breasts and give the baby a bottle?

When the current Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin, released her Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding in January of this year with a live launch that was broadcast online, she also made sure to use the word "choice" over and over again. When the Obamas included a workplace pumping law into health care reform and when the IRS granted tax exempt status for breast pumps, it was so controversial that Mrs. Obama's communications chief released the statement, "Breastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman. We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it."

But is breastfeeding a personal choice? Isn't it just what mammals do after they've given birth? And for every woman reading this who is thinking, "I wasn't able to breastfeed because of ______" I totally understand that there will always be women who can't physically breastfeed. There will always be women with insufficient glandular tissue, or who have PCOS or had previous breast surgery, or need to take medications that aren't compatible with breastfeeding. But I don't believe that these women have chosen not to breastfeed, the decision was made for them because of forces outside of their control. I'm talking about a woman with fully functioning breasts who for whatever reason bottle feeds.

 If we keep talking about breastfeeding as a choice, does it make it more difficult for us to achieve the real societal support for nursing mothers? People are quick to say women don't deserve paid maternity leave, because after all they chose to get pregnant, no one forced them to. So why should there be accommodations for breastfeeding mothers who've "chosen" what many see as the more difficult path?

Is it just me or does it seem really strange to imply that breastfeeding is a choice?



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