Good morning list mates.
 
Jeanette writes:
 
"When will those who see mothers in the early postpartum period learn  that 
at this sensitive time, how we phrase things gets "imprinted" in these  
moms?  "Watch Your Language" does not only mean watching how we "sell"  
breastfeeding - but also how we protect the mother's emotional and psychological  
strength as she develops a new skill through the tempest of hormones and  
exhaustion faced during their first few weeks of motherhood."
 
Very good points made. Two things came to mind while reading this. One is  
that I often hear nurses and even a LC say "that baby is just so oral,  
wants to suck all the time, just wants a fast flow and her milk isn't in yet."  
Of course this information is processed negatively by the mother and she 
begins  to doubt her abilities to nurse and make enough milk, and thinks that 
there is  something wrong with her anatomy or that the baby is demanding and 
is  abnormally oral. Try as I can, I cannot get across to certain staff that 
if the  baby is not satisfied, and mother's nipples are getting beat up, 
then  he probably is not getting enough because of shallow latching/poor  
positioning/breast edema. Educating staff as to why there is not supposed to be  
a "fast" flow at the beginning seems not to make much of a  difference. 
Pacifiers are encouraged and frequently given out early, and  then the slippery 
slope downhill begins.
 
The other thought that came to me is: Why do women seem to be so much  more 
fragile emotionally and psychologically after birth these days? I do  
believe they are. But aren't the "tempest of hormones and exhaustion" a  normal 
part of women's adjustment to motherhood, and something we all faced  after 
giving birth? Maybe our birthing circles of days long past  (39-28 years ago 
in my case) were made up of women who could complain to  one another without 
feeling shame or feeling abnormal--it was just so normal to  feel this way, 
and share it with our friends. I'm not sure that the modern  woman feels 
that this is a normal part of becoming a mother.
 
I sometimes wonder if the pain-killing drugs a woman receives routinely to  
help them through the very medicalized births of today, somehow blunt her 
own  natural coping abilities. And when she is trying to establish successful 
 breastfeeding, and the littlest wrinkle or kink or bump in the road  
occurs, she has nothing in her system to help her stay calm and work  through it. 
 
Perhaps if we focused more on helping women to identify what they feel the  
problem is, and help them to come up with a solution, instead of us  
"fixing" the problem and getting the baby latched, we then might empower  women to 
use the tools that they already  have. Hopefully, they will be able to 
access the positive and strong  natures that are there under the surface. I try 
to remind mothers that nurses  and LCs may be able to "get a baby latched," 
but the mother and baby still have  to learn how to work together and how 
important it is that mother begin to  understand what the baby is trying to 
communicate to her. Best learned, of  course, by spending lots of time with 
your baby from the get-go, which would be  a huge paradigm shift where I work.
 
Of course, there is never a "one size fits all" solution to anything,  
especially in any particular breastfeeding experience. And maybe there are  just 
some mothers who really do not want to nurse, but feel that they should due 
 to the pressure of others; these mothers may resist our efforts to  help 
them to understand that there is a reason behind the baby's behavior. When  a 
mother understands the possible reason(s), she has a wealth of information 
to  help her come up with the actions which will lead to breastfeeding  
success.
 
Mary-Jane Sackett, RN, IBCLC
Pittsfield, MA
The Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts

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