Joy's mention of this - the way new babies can crawl up mum's tummy and on
to her chest and eventually latch themselves on - prompted me to post on
this.

I have just this week attended the two-day conference of the UNICEF Baby
Friendly Initiataive in the UK - lots of interesting stuff and nice people
(of course - the breastfeeding support world is made up of nice people!).
One of the items included the now famous video of the Swedish mum and baby,
immediately post-birth, where the baby  takes about 65 or 70 mins to
effectively latch himself on.

This is usually seen as a wonderful example of babies managing all by
themselves and proof of the powerful urge of breastfeeding. But it is
rather more than that - unfortunately.

One of my NCT colleagues, Mary Smale, and I agreed that it looked like the
mother had been told not to do anything, and to stay as still as possible
throughout this time. This was in fact confirmed by a question to the
speaker, Ann-Marie Widstrom, who made the video. Yes, she said, the mother
had been told to stay lying down and not to move. Ann-Marie is clearly a
warm and effective advocate of bf and her work is valuable.  But the video
is unnerving because in seeking not to intervene with the start of bf and
crucially, to tell the *mother*  not to intervene is in fact *an
intervention in itself* which might be as powerful as anything else which
interferes with the start of bf.

Bf is a relationship between two people. It's not one passive person (the
mother) lying back while the active person (the baby) gets on with the busy
business of feeding. When you watch the video you long to help the baby
find the breast and the nipple. The baby makes little noises and 'calling
sounds' and movements, which (I would guess) most mothers would respond to
instinctively by moving the baby to a position that enables easy and
comfortable latching.  Most mothers might sit up, or move into a
comfortable position themselves.. It's a two-way thing - mother and baby
working together. It is unphysiological to tell a mother to stay still (in
fact, the mother 'cheats' all the time in the video - ever so slightly
moving herself and the baby from time to time, which actually does help the
baby).

The video actually shows what happens to a baby in extreme circumstances -
those being the circumstances in which his poor mummy has been banned from
responding to his cues for the breast.

It is not, surely, an ideal start to bf. I do hope it won't gain currency
as being the 'best' way, or we'll have another situation where research
gets mangled in the application (I'm thinking the Fisher and Woolridge
stuff on finishing the first breast first becoming 'only ever feed from one
side').

Anyone else seen this and had the same thoughts?

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK