Dear Friends:

I was teaching last week in Lewiston, Maine. (One of Maine's famous culinary
treats is lobster, and I had the best lobster of my life there: sweet,
succulent and oh so good!) There is a section in the course about the impact
of birth practices on breastfeeding.

There are researchers (Sosa and Klaus are the first 2 that come to mind)
that observed that mothering the mother during labor changes her mothering
and breastfeeding. Sosa noticed a correlation between the contact given to
the mother and what she did with her newborn. Mothers that were talked to
and touched did more touching and talking to their babies than did the
mothers that got standard care in labor.

Suddenly the light bulb lit up in my mind. If mothering the mother in labor
helps her to mother her baby, then the mother that is plugged into an array
of machines in labor (IV, monitors, pulse oximeters, cardiac
monitors....standard in some facilities when epidurals are used) will do
those things with her baby.  If contact and encouragement are taken by the
laboring woman and transferred to her baby, then looking at the other side
(lack of contact and watching TV in labor) will also be transferred.

6 dyads were in my last infant massage class. The mothers were all talking
about the cute things their babies did; none of the mothers were even in the
room with their babies when the cute things were observed. They were all
watching their babies on video monitors. (And only 1 out of 6 was
exclusively breastfeeding.)

When mothers are disconnected from a fundamental life process (like labor
and birth), then one can understand how a toddler would be given a breakfast
of candy.

What are we doing to ourselves?

warmly,

Nikki Lee RN, BSN, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI
craniosacral therapy practitioner
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com
www.myspace.com/adonicalee

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