Breastfeeding
| There are many reasons, both for mom and for baby, to breastfeed. Breastfeeding, however, can be tricky to master. Get breastfeeding tips, breastfeeding advice, learn how to get a good start to breastfeeding, find out about increasing breast milk, and more. Breastfeeding editor: Jodi Cleghorn |  |
Sometimes the best advice we ever get is not immediately recognisable as “advice.” Sometimes the best information we’re given does not come from books or TV or from people we immediately think of as “experts”. Sometimes the wisdom which keeps us solid during the moments of despair are those freely shared by those who love and know us best. I realise now when I think of a simple story once shared with me by an old friend and how the wisdom in it became the bedrock of my early breastfeeding experience.
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) remains the leading cause of death in the first year of life in the developed world. Around 50 babies in every 100,000 die each year in the US from SIDS. The risk of death from SIDS is greatest between the ages of one month and four months though babies as young as one week and old as two years have died from SIDS. New research from Germany may provide parents with an additional tool in the fight to protect babies from unexpected sleep related death.
This is the second part of my diary entry from June 2007 and focuses on our last feed and the emotional fall out for us all when breastfeeding ended.
When Dylan stopped feeding during the day around four months of age I had no idea how to deal with it. I didn’t even know if it had an ‘official’ name so I called it as I saw it. My son was striking! Following are seven simple tips for coping with a breastfeeding strike, based on my own personal experience.
I had never heard of a breastfeeding strike until I had come out the other end of mine. Most women have never heard of one and thinking their baby is trying to wean give up breastfeeding.
It started off as a bit of a joke, when Rick Flores called his wife Melanie’s breastfeeding buddies on Facebook “The Boobs.” From that one comment the next wave of lactivism on Facebook was born.
Last night my assumptions about bottle feeding were tested and I am grateful they were.
We were invited to dinner with friend we had not seen in a long time. Knowing our friend had a caesarean back in January I was curious to see if she was breastfeeding, knowing that major abdominal surgery adds an additional challenge to women when establishing breastfeeding.
I’ll never forget the joke which dominated my thinking about natural birth control for many years, “Q: What do you call people who use natural birth control? A: Mum and Dad.” There is a definite assumption that any form of birth control which cannot be purchased from a chemist or supplied by a doctor is inherently unreliable. Women are suspicious and doubtful of the reliability of their bodies in providing accurate information to chart their fertility before falling pregnant, so it is no wonder the myth that breastfeeding is not a successful or guaranteed method of contraception is so pervasive.
Read more: The Effectiveness of LAM and Eco-Breastfeeding as Contraceptives
Increasing numbers of mothers are choosing to adopt natural forms of birth control to support their decisions to breastfeed, as use of chemical contraceptives, including the mini pill, is to be avoided while breastfeeding. This leaves women like me, searching for other options when they choose to breastfeed in accordance with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standards recommending exclusive breastfeeding for the first six month then continued breastfeeding to at least 30 months.
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