Ingrid said,
"Some time ago I read about a midwife who doesn't ask her clients whether
they have decided on a 'feeding' method and simply places the baby on the
mother's abdomen after birth.  Mother instincts are a powerful thing, if allowed to
kick in."

I have to agree with Ingrid as I was thinking about that while reading the
discussion about parents distancing themselves from their babies. The hospital I
work at is a small < 300 births a year community hospital.  The LC before me
had done the wonderful and sometimes arduous work of bringing it to Baby
Friendly [BF] Status in 1997. I was there for the assessment (and then she had
moved to another state).

There was one early moment after becoming BF that stands out to me that I
hold up as an example. When the OB at the birth saw that the baby was moving to
the breast she pointed out to the mother that her baby was trying to nurse. The
mother looked down and said that if that was what the baby wanted to do, then
she guessed she better breastfeed.  At this time mothers were routinely asked
during antepartum visits for a feeding choice and she had indicated formula
feeding. This was a seminal moment for the doctor as well.  Being newly Baby
Friendly brought her to the point where she was led in that moment to say
something out loud that she hadn't said before to a mother.

I think of all the opportunities missed for each child that is not placed
skin to skin soon after birth, and birth attendants who haven't honored that
moment by saying, "Look! Your baby wants to nurse."  And we now know this ability
to self-attach stays intact for months.


I find myself routinely using baby-led attachment when I visit in a room.
Especially if the nursing staff has told me the baby isn't opening wide or if the
mother has discomfort with the baby attached or has a baby struggling to
latch.  And I'm emphasizing this hard-wired ability of babies to self-attach with
the staff as well.


I do know there are those women who have decided "no baby at breast." And
have had mothers who've pumped for more than one baby and fed their milk. I knew
one mother who declared with her third baby she wasn't going to breastfeed
this one.  But once the baby was in her arms, she could not not give this one the
chance to have her milk. She'd breastfeed each one in the hospital, and
sometimes at home, but the majority of her feeding was done with her milk in a
bottle. She was never willing to explore why she did this.  That's what she
decided and that's what she did. She was at that time a novelty. Mothers choosing to
feed their milk via pumping are still rare at our place, but becoming more
common.  I *was* surprised to found out when doing a survey last year for BF
that virtually every mother who'd given birth that one month had a pump at home
in the first week after the birth. A few had used hand expression, but many
used the pump to relieve engorgement and were planning on using it for work or
when someone else watched the baby.

Mardrey Swenson


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