Hi all, I have learned so much from Lactnet and I just have to share a story
about a mom who I had the opportunity to help over the last couple of weeks.
She is a first-time mom with a 6-month old baby boy.  Breastfeeding went
well from the start and she fell in love with it. This mom works in
publishing and had made arrangements with her employer to work at home after
the baby arrived.  The catch was that she, in turn, agreed to make an 8-day
trip to NYC to meet with publishers once the baby was 6 months old.  She
called our help line to buy a baby sling which I delivered to her home.  Her
baby was beautiful and I stayed on to chat for awhile.  As I was about to
leave, she blurted out her concerns about how she would handle the
separation, how her baby would handle, specifically wondering whether he
would latch on again after she returned.  She also had questions about
shipping milk from NYC back to Nebraska.

I stayed on and talked with her for a bit longer.  Then I e-mailed her some
information I had seen on Lactnet about shipping breastmilk in crushed
newspaper.  She thought that would work.  I called her again and I told her
to consider one option upon returning.  If her baby seemed reluctant to
latch, I suggested she try co-bathing.  We also talked about the logistics
of pumping in O'Hare during her long layover there.

Well, I called her a few days ago to see how things were going now that she
is back.  Her baby had seemed reluctant to latch back on at first, she tried
the co-bathing and it has been smooth sailing from there.  This is a 6-month
old baby whose longest previous separation had been a few hours.  They were
separated for 8 days and he successfully went back to the breast!  Hooray!
And this mom was determined to maintain her milk supply, so much so that she
plugged in her pump in an outlet on the concourse and proceeded to pump
there.  An airlines employee offered her one of the screens that they now
have in abundance for security searches and that gave her some privacy.  And
she reported the milk arrived back in Nebraska frozen with only the
newspaper as insulation.

The co-bathing and newspaper packaging are ideas I learned here and they
really helped this mom.  I was able to work with her and not make her feel
guilty for leaving her baby.  Her mother-in-law came to care for the baby
and I know that gave her peace of mind also.

Just a happy story for the holidays.  Thanks everyone for the things I can
learn here!

Sara Dodder Furr, breastfeeding advocate and volunteer
Lincoln, Nebraska USA

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