Strollerderby : bottle

They Say: Blame Hospitals for Breastfeeding Failures

JeanneSager — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:31:00 GMT

Reading this study, I couldn't help but feel a little vindicated. I've always felt like a big fat failure at breastfeeding - despite all my best efforts, I didn't make it very long. And I put a lot of that blame on the misinformation swirling around the maternity ward where I gave birth to my daughter.

Guess what?

A new study says hospitals are largely to blame for the failure of breastfeeding moms in America. And that includes hospitals where attempts are being made to encourage breastfeeding.

The study by the Boston University School of Public Health looked at data on some fifteen hundred women in the nation who had recently given birth. At least seventy percent of first-time moms said they wanted to breastfeed exclusively. Good news, right? Except by the time the babies were a week old, only HALF of the women were exclusively breastfeeding.

Guilty as charged.

Which is why even this article about the study made me angry. One of the chief problems I've found with many maternity wards (not all, but many) is the lack of breastfeeding education for members of the staff. And the same misinformation peddled in hospitals that hurts breastfeeding rates is being pushed out in articles like this one: ie. "some new mothers really are too exhausted to breast feed right away, or they can't produce enough breast milk for their baby's nutritional needs."

No. No. No. No.

I heard this in the hospital after my daughter was born, and I bought it hook, line and sinker. It's one of the main reasons I exhausted myself in the first two weeks of my daughter's life, attempting to breastfeed every two hours, attempting to pump every other hour to increase my milk production because the nurses at the hospital had me convinced I wasn't producing enough. Yes, that meant I was up every hour on the hour for two solid weeks - I was literally tethered to the breast pump.

The problem? Most women DON'T produce milk in the first few days of their child's life. We produce colostrum, the incredibly rich and incredibly thin liquid that's a sort of pre-milk. And that's all the baby needs. As breastfeeding expert Laura Keegan said in a recent piece I wrote about the most common hurdles for new moms right here on Babble, "If you are pumping, be aware that pumping small amounts is not an indicator of a low milk supply."

Colustrum is in every breastfeeding book out there, so why don't nurses working on maternity wards know about it? Although I don't agree that formula is poison, I will say that convincing a mother she isn't making enough . . . so she needs to supplement . . . is poisoning her mind. Her body CAN'T make more, and she's being told she's a failure. Yet, her body is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.

What else is wrong with the above statment? The idea that moms are too exhausted immediately following birth to breastfeed. Yes, we're tired. But after that first feed, so is the baby. In fact, while nurses at my hospital practically tanned the hides of my husband and myself for not waking our daughter every two hours to eat, newborn babies are exhausted too. They just went through the same labor Mom went through. And so sleeping for a few hours is one hundred percent normal. Babies will not starve if they suckle only a few times at the very beginning. And Mom, by the way, may be exhausted. I was. But I've yet to see a mother who isn't on drugs from a C-section or already showing severe signs of postpartum depression who isn't itching to get her hands on that baby in the first twenty-four hours.

So sticking a bottle in the baby's mouth to let his mother sleep is wrong; she should have the chance to make that decision. But so is harping on a breastfeeding mother every few moments - pushing her to breastfeed now, when the baby is sleeping and she could be getting the sleep she missed when you woke her in the middle of the night for a feeding.

There is a movement that's gaining speed in American hospitals, sponsored by UNICEF, that can make all the difference. Baby Friendly Hospitals require all staff - be it the nurses, the doctors, whoever - have up-to-date breastfeeding education. They make lactation consultants available to every mother and allow babies to room-in with their mothers, so she can determine when the baby's hungry and when she wants to attempt feedings.

It takes effort to become Baby Friendly, but if breast is best is ever going to really take hold, misinformation has to stop at the beginning - the place where the baby is born. When you're losing the mothers (like me) who walk in the door with the very best of intentions, the women who already know breast is best and WANT to make it work, you have to step back and realize the machine is broken. It's time to fix it.

Images: BabyFriendlyUSA

UPDATE: Bye Bye BPA: WHICH Bottles Will Go Bisphenol Free

They Say: Early Pacifier Use Can Undermine Breastfeeding

Also on Babble:

Your Breastfeeding Timeline

A Guy's Take on Why Breastfeeding Isn't That Great (and why it is great) -- Part II

Cole Gamble — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:00:00 GMT

We’ve covered some of the drawbacks and false benefits of breastfeeding, now here is the good stuff:

1) Breast Milk Has Antibodies. A breastfed baby is less susceptible to illnesses thanks to the good stuff found in breast milk.

2) You Save Money. No formula or bottles to buy.

3) Makes Mommy Feel Attached. Studies may have found that breast feeding has no particular psychological benefits for children, but it can’t hurt a mother’s bond with her child.

4) Breast Feeding Promotes Jaw Strength. And I don’t mean yours after gritting your teeth at 3 am because you’re up with the baby and your significant other is sleeping soundly. I mean the baby has to work his little jaw harder to get that precious milk, exercises it until he’s got a super jaw. And who doesn’t a toddler that looks like Jay Leno and can chew through steel?

5) Breast Milk Might Make Your Kid Smarter. The evidence on this one isn’t conclusive, but one study found a link between breast feed children and slight increases in I.Q. However, there is a fairly strong argument that the relationship between breast milk and I.Q. is correlation and not causation. The breast milk itself may have nothing to do with grey matter, but mothers (and couples even) who breast feed are more inclined to be attentive and nurturing toward their children generally. So the magic milk may not be the solution, but once again, it couldn’t hurt.

Back to Part I: Breastfeeding Negatives

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7 Classic Kid's TV Shows Clearly Conceived on (Bad) Acid

12 Pregnancy Myths

My Daughter Wants A Penis

**The Sh*t List: 10 Bizarre (or Terrific?) Potty Gadgets**

The 26 Most Disturbing Kids Movies Ever

5 Reasons Breast Feeding Isn't That Great (and 5 Reasons Why It Is) Part 1

Cole Gamble — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:00:00 GMT

I know a guy commenting on breastfeeding is just asking for trouble. Raising ire be damned, I think it’s a personal choice for a woman to breast feed and no one should be bullied into it, especially if said woman may not have the choice. My wife was such a person, a woman ostracized for her inability to breastfeed. Even our government put out a commercial featuring a pregnant woman thrown from a mechanical bull, equating that action to not breastfeeding. There’s an unnecessary hysteria surrounding the practice. Does it have benefits? Yes, but if you believed what you read you’d have the impression the world is made up of two types of people: those vehemently against BF’n and those who think not breastfeeding is tantamount to child abuse. I’d like to think people are not so extreme (though I have met my share of boob Nazis). So in the spirit of unity, here are the top reasons not to breastfeed and the top 5 why you should.

The Cons:

1) Mastitis. An inflammation of the mammary gland occurring in lactating mothers. Nipple can get infected and turn into an abscess that must be surgically removed. Although this can occur in non-breastfeeding women, it’s more likely in breast feeders.

2) The Psychological Benefits are False. The conventional wisdom was breastfeeding led to a more focused, less hyperactive child adept at forming peer relations. However, an exhaustive study recently proved these assumptions wrong. Experts and laymen presumed that the constant physical closeness involved with breastfeeding would do all kinds of psychological wonders. Nope.

3) B-Milk in the Bottle is Just as Good. Some women can’t get their kids to latch. Some women simply don’t like the feeling of breast feeding. No problem, just pump a bit of that magic elixir and give it to junior via bottle. Not only is there no shame in it, but now that we know the physical act of breast feeding comes with no special benefits, the bottle is more acceptable than ever.

4) Where’s the D? This news is hot off the presses: there is insufficient vitamin D in breast milk. A lack of vitamin D can lead to rickets. So, if you breast feed, your kid will become a pirate.

5) You Should Never Do Anything Just Because of Peer Pressure. Like I said above, breast feeding is a choice. If you want to get a little breast milk to your kid but can’t or don’t want the suckling, that’s your business. And if you don’t want to do it at all, you are not abusing your child.

Continue for Part II: Breastfeeding Benefits

More by this Author:

7 Classic Kid's TV Shows Clearly Conceived on (Bad) Acid

12 Pregnancy Myths

**The Sh*t List: 10 Bizarre (or Terrific?) Potty Gadgets**

The 26 Most Disturbing Kids Movies Ever

Man Performs C-Section on Deer Hit by Car

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:50:00 GMT

No good deed goes unpunished—particularly when baby animals and bureaucracy are involved. A 67-year-old Canadian man is under investigation for saving a baby deer’s life, something that conservation officers believe should have been left to them.

Hank Van-Til was driving home one day when he saw a truck hit a deer, sending it into a ditch. Van-Til pulled over and discovered that the doe was pregnant. An animal lover who has worked with cows all his life, Van-Til used a knife to perform a Caesarean section on the dying deer. Once the baby had been safely delivered, Van-Til milked the mother and fed the baby deer with his hands. Then he brought the deer home, named him Dickie, and nursed him out of a bottle filled with maple syrup, Carnation milk, and hot water.

A few days later, Department of Natural Resources officers seized the deer and told Van-Til that he could face criminal charges for bringing home an orphaned animal without a permit. While this is a sensible law, designed to prevent harmful human meddling in the animal world, it seems wrong to apply it to Van-Til, whose particular meddling resulted in nothing but good. Perhaps the best solution would have been to grant Van-Til a permit to care for the four-day-old deer, who can not be safely returned to the wild.

Van-Til has taken the loss of Dickie hard. “I don’t know what happened to that deer, or what’s going to happen to it and I don’t trust the [conservation] rangers,” he said, adding, “I did my part and I’m really sad about it. It hurts.”

Photo: naturalhorsetrim.com

Scientology Parenting: Are Tom and Katie Feeding Suri Poison?

Cole Gamble — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:04:00 GMT

The good folks at Defamer have paid much attention to how many bottles famous Scientology mothers are giving their kids. Leah Remini has confessed to still bottle feeding her three-year-old and Suri here looks like she has no intention of stopping the “ba-ba.” Critics have called a lot of supposedly regular parenting practices of Scientology into question (“silent birth” anyone?). Now there is speculation as to what is in that bottle two-year-old Suri clutches so dearly. And that magic liquid might be toxic to kids… If you read into Scientology practices, and Defamer has, you’ll find Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard advocated feeding babies and children a homemade formula comprised of barley water, homogenized milk, and oodles of sugar-heavy honey. Funny thing is, honey can be toxic to young children. Furthermore, other Scientology moms and dads say Hubbard’s formula made their children thin, colicky and destroyed their teeth. Here’s the best part: Hubbard claims he discovered this formula when he time traveled back to ancient Rome. Well you know what they say: when in Rome…go bat-shit crazy.

Photo: defamer