I don't want to flood the list with my posts, but these are other topics
I've saved up, having finally caught up on messages from over the holiday
weekend.

One breast/feeding

It's great to hear the problems associated with too much foremilk discussed,
because I found that no one around here really understood it.  I had a baby
that wanted to feed only at one breast, and kept cutting back the time on
the first breast to encourage her to use the second, with classic symptoms:
never satisfied, overfull tummy that caused massive spitting up of all that
foremilk, gas, green stools.  After we worked out what was causing the
problem, I let her manage the breastfeeding--she got to stop whenever she
wanted to, and when she was hungry again, I offered the other breast.  It
wasn't until she was much older that she began wanting both breasts at a
feeding (around 8 months, I think).

Conferences

Part of my job is to run conferences, some of them out of town, and when I
have a BF baby or toddler, I take them with me.  I have never asked the
chairmen (all male) of the meeting if it was OK, but I did inform them what
I was planning.  I have hired baby sitters on site to care for my child in
the hotel, and I have also taken members of my family with me to baby sit.
Two of my experiences I found very interesting, and wanted to share them
with you.  I generally work through the hotel sales staff (who book the
conferences) to get a list of possible baby sitters, as well as through
local churches.

In Fairbanks, Alaska, when I asked the sales person at the hotel for a list
of sitters, she said no one had ever asked that before!  But she still knew
several working mothers of small children who could give me referrals.

At another conference, most of the attendees didn't even know I had a 7
month old with me until I brought her to the banquet, were she entertained
everyone mightily (many of the younger men missed their babies at home).
After the banquet an Indian gentleman asked me why I didn't just give her a
bottle and leave her at home.  I began very seriously to list the benefits
of BF and attachment, but he interrupted me to tell me that he had been
teasing, that in India it was a different culture, and all children were
breastfed for as long as possible.  In fact, he could remember going to his
aunts to feed when his mother was busy feeding younger siblings.  This was
announced in a hotel lobby to a large number of people at this conference on
mining engineering.  I enjoyed the looks of shock on many of the men's
faces, and consider that the two of us did a good job of educating the
uninitiated into BF that evening.

Yeast - I personally have been battling recurring yeast infections since my
daughter was given an antibiotic for a throat infection in December.  I
provided my MD with copies of the pertinent pages of Lawrence, and got him
to revise his planned treatment after the first round didn't work.  But
aren't you suspicious of the practice of giving antibiotics to all mothers
postpartum as a preventative measure?  With all of the information available
now about the problems associated with overprescription of antibiotics, I
would have thought that this practice would be disappearing.

Margaret K.K. Radcliffe               [log in to unmask]
Dept. of Mining & Minerals Engr.
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA