Hi, all, and a Happy New Year!

It's my belief that a lot of spitting up can be aleviated by encouraging mom
to let her baby have a "full meal" on one breast before changing to the
other breast. Baby gets more calories in less volume. I suspect that the old
prevailing "wisdom" of 10 minutes on the first breast, and then either equal
time or as long as baby wants on the second is still "prevailing" and these
overly full babies are just using spitting up as a relief valve. Works
pretty well, but can get a bit sloppy. It's my experience that the moms who
have this laundry problem, are also more likely to be leaking frequently as
well.

The thing that concerns me about this whole scenario is that for a lot of
moms, all this spitting up and the "laundry problems" can make the
difference between quitting and continuing. Some moms have a lot more vested
in the idea of breastfeeding--they would breastfeed through anything because
it is important enough to them (and their babies) to do so. However, we have
a whole group of moms who are "just giving breastfeeding a try" and are not
particularly surprised if things just don't work for them.

On the other hand, if those "give it a try" moms can make it to the point
where they really have a chance to experience the ease of breastfeeding and
get past the initial stages of moving towards a real equilibrium of baby's
needs vs mom's supply, then they may very well become strong allies.

By explaining the whole "finish the first breast first" approach to a mom,
another benefit is that this makes sense to moms, and is based on the notion
that mom and baby work together best when each reads the other's cues--not
when one is reading from a list of "rules" often borne out of a
bottle/formula-feeding mentality. We empower the mom to trust her body and
baby to do what they are designed to do.

Obviously, this approach won't solve every spitting-up problem, but it goes
a long way towards helping many of them.

Melissa Vickers, IBCLC
Huntingdon, Tennessee

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