Three cheers to Libby Rosen, RN, BSN, IBCLC and loooooooong time LN
member, who has almost singlehandedly made Topeka, Kansas far and away
the most bf friendly little town in the entire United States.
Such a treat to see good words about her in print, long overdue. (now if
only they had written "breastfeeding" correctly...)
Katherine Shealy
CDC
Atlanta, GA USA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Topeka Capital-Journal (Kansas)
March 21 [sic], 2004, Sunday
HEADLINE: Champion of families
By SUSAN FAHLGREN ROTHSCHILD
Libby Averill Rosen has seen more than her share of births in the three
decades she has been a nurse in Topeka.
"My only regret in my career is that I didn't start a journal with each
birth that I've attended to know, but it's definitely over 2,000
births," said Rosen, 50.
But Rosen has spent far more time in her career with parents. Over the
years, she has calmed the fears of between 4,000 and 5,000 northeast
Kansas couples preparing for their child's birth and adjusting to the
instant demands of parenthood and breast-feeding.
Mention Rosen's name to a new mother --- or any woman who has given
birth in Topeka in the past 20 years --- and you're likely to hear her
sing Rosen's praises. "Oh, Libby?" one young breast-feeding mother cooed
recently. "She's wonderful."
"I started teaching childbirth classes 29 years ago," said Rosen, now
coordinator of Birthplace Support Services at Stormont-Vail Regional
Health Center in Topeka.
"I remember in one of my first classes there was a dad who said, 'Are
you old enough to know what you're talking about?' " Rosen recalled with
a laugh. "I did give birth a week before I started teaching my first
childbirth class."
She is the kind of instructor who taps into her audience and doesn't let
go.
When a group of young home-schoolers recently came to learn about
childbirth, she sat on the floor and got out her props: a skeletal
pelvis and a knitted uterus, complete with an infant, detachable
umbilical cord and stuffed afterbirth. After explaining the parts and
functions, she let the kids "be the doctor" and deliver the baby.
When an 8-year-old asked if the umbilical cord had any nerve endings,
Rosen didn't miss a beat. She assured him the cord cutting wouldn't hurt
the baby any more than fingernail cutting. Then she went on to describe
customs in other countries where the umbilical cord is saved to nail
above the home's front door or buried nearby so that when the child
grows up, "the child knows where to come back to."
"For the last 30 years, I've been helping people have babies, and it's
been the most fun job that you can ever imagine," Rosen told them. "I've
been really lucky. Now I've gotten to see people I've helped have
babies, and I get to help the baby who was born --- who is now 20 or 25
years old --- have a baby.
"It's kind of nice to see that next generation."
At least two of the home-schoolers' mothers pointed out that they, in
fact, had taken childbirth classes with Rosen when they were expecting
the children attending the class. One of the children's pictures as a
nursing infant even adorned the classroom at the breast-feeding clinic.
"I see (former childbirth class students) a lot out in the community,
and it means the world to me," Rosen said later. "You're with someone
during a very peak, important time in their lives. I respect that fact,
and I feel like it's been a privilege to be able to be included in their
experience of giving birth or transitioning to parenthood."
Rosen has built her career around families and training.
"When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher or a nurse," she
said. "Now I can do both. A big crux of our job is teaching."
Not only does she work with expectant parents and soon-to-be siblings,
but she also teaches other medical workers. She is an adjunct professor
with Baker University at Stormont-Vail and does clinical rotations in
obstetrics and infant care. She also lectures nursing students at
Washburn University.
She leads the breast-feeding clinic she helped start at Stormont, making
daily "rounds" as a lactation consultant with new mothers. She and a
team of other nurses and volunteers operate the clinic, where the mother
--- and father --- can come for help and encouragement with nursing,
pumping, baby weight gain or other newborn concerns.
Rosen also mentors other lactation consultants, several of them former
teenage mothers who attended her classes at Florence Crittenton or Hope
Street Academy, or met her at the breast-feeding clinic. Some have gone
on to become nurses while others have earned lactation certifications to
help other women with breast-feeding.
"That means so much to me," Rosen said. "I really enjoy having an
influence on the next generation of nurses."
Founder of the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support Group, she also has
worked on programs for breast-feeding mothers of babies with cleft
palates and screenings and home visitations for new parents. For several
years, she was part of the United Way's speaker's bureau, presenting
programs on women's health issues, childbirth, and breast-feeding and
cultural diversity.
...[sections removed to save space]...
"I worked at the Holistic Birth and Growth Center when it first opened,"
Rosen said. "When I came back to Stormont 20 years ago, I was determined
to try to bring some of the things we did at the birthing center into
the hospital setting."
Ideas that came with her and others to transform the hospital birth
experience included such things as "birthing rooms, having the baby stay
with the mother during recovery ... things that just didn't happen
before, which now are just so commonplace," Rosen said.
Where women once were strapped down and anesthetized during labor, Rosen
said she has seen the birthing experience evolve into a more
family-centered event. Not only are husbands or boyfriends in attendance
now but also mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends to coach
and support a pregnant woman through the process.
She has watched the "hospital delivery" change from a sterile
cap-and-gown environment to a more relaxed homestyle atmosphere with
music, massages, midwives, dulas and labor coaches, as well as
physicians and nurses and family members in attendance. Women no longer
are expected to be the passive patient but the active participant in
their child's birth.
"We've seen a lot of transitions," Rosen said. "The newest movement is
to be more supportive of breast-feeding and have the community recognize
how it really impacts the health of their baby and the importance of
providing human milk for human babies."
Sound like "everything old is new again"? A little, Rosen admits. But
for her, it's all about allowing women choices in childbirth and
child-rearing and supporting them in those choices.
"I've always believed in the motto, 'Freedom of choice, based on
knowledge of alternatives,' " she said. "I believe if a mom chooses to
bottle-feed, that is her choice. But she has to have the knowledge of
what breast-feeding would provide for her and provide for her baby so
that she can make an educated decision about that."
To that end, Rosen said she is pleased local obstetricians recently
agreed not to provide formula samples to new mothers in the hospital.
She said the physicians instead are encouraging their patients to nurse
to provide their infants with "nature's nutrition" and emphasizing the
benefits to the baby's immune system and lifelong health.
Rosen has changed with the times as well.
[I removed the last section of the article as it includes extensive
personal information that might not be great to have circulating on the
Internet. Contact me if you really need it.]
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