Dear Friends:
    A woman came to see me last night for a milk blister and a clogged
section of her right breast. She brought her 6 week old son, and her husband.
They are from India. She has been massaging her son every night, the cultural
norm for her.  Her husband's parents live with them. The baby is always being
carried by someone. He sleeps with his parents. When they came to see me, he
was carried in his father's arms,  not in a plastic tray or container. It was
such a joy to see all of them, because all the things they are doing are
things that are evidence-based and culturally based wonderful things for
babies.
    She is worried that she is doing wrong things with her delightful baby
because her friends and his peers at work question and warn them about
breastfeeding and for co-sleeping.  She is anxious that her son will expect
to be carried all the time because he is being carried all the time, by
somebody in the household. These practices are the norm in India, and
aberrations here in the States, at least in the mainstream.
    He has nearly doubled his birth weight at 6 weeks. Nursing has always
been sore for her. He has a shallow latch. She has so much milk that he
thrives after 5 minutes of shallow suckling. She was worried that she didn't
have enough milk because he was "supposed to breastfeed 15 minutes on each
side and he always falls asleep after 5-10 minutes on one side."
    It has been delightful to work with them. She had a hard time believing
that she had enough milk, despite his glorious weight gain.
    I am thankful for this client and want to share this joy with a couple of
thousand of friends who will appreciate this family. It is such a treat to
meet them after working with hundreds of couples in childbirth classes that
wouldn't dream of co-sleeping, and might just breastfeed for a little while
if it is easy.
    And I also want to recommend another great book "The Vital Touch" by
Sharon Heller that takes a look at the importance of touch and how and why
infants (again in the mainstream) aren't touched enough in the USA. She
quotes someone as questioning the wisdom of pushing our babies away  because
they won't come back to us as adults.
    The author has integrated the work of James McKenna and Tiffany Field and
others into her book. I recommended it to this family, so that they could see
in print evidence that they are doing a fabulous job with their son.
    Warmly, Nikki Lee

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