Sorry guys:

Even though I am becoming more and more successful helping moms to help their babies 
to attach with less and less actual hands on help and I'm the quickest one to try to move 
as many supports as possible, I have to disagree that pillows are only useful for large 
breasted women being a pillow abusing 32 sometimes A and sometimes B cup 5 foot tall 
woman.  Yes, I learned how to carry babies on my back in Africa with the same cloth that 
I used to wear as a skirt, but I lost the talent 20 something years later when I had my 
son.  I used a Baby Bjorn and a backpack instead.  The stroller was merely a carry all for 
shopping in Manhattan where you would have to be insane or incredibly wealthy (and 
many are) to own a car. 

Too many academic courses interfered with all the visual observations of women in the 
over 30 countries I visited.  I drifted into the same sort of head ramming that was so 
unfortunately popular in my own culture.  The pillow was great until I graduated to 
sidelying on the cough, which I will now never tell another mother is safe given the stats 
on suffocation in a couch.  I now recommend yoga mats for falling asleep in front of your 
favorite reality TV show instead of a squishy couch.

For me it was the training wheels before I got the hang of it and I am unashamed that I 
used that tool until I got better at it.  Some women do benefit from them, just as a skilled 
lactation consultant can reduce the number of women who need the pillow to get them 
over the hump of relearning how to do something that they should have learned from 
many years of observation from the time they were young girls to the time they had to 
breastfeed.

The TYPE of pillow that works for those of us inept enough to need one is usually, but not 
always, different for women depending upon their anatomy.  I actually find that large 
breasted women have less trouble because they can move much quicker to the baby 
sitting on their lap if you train them out of the silly concept that they have to LIFT those 
breasts up in the air for their baby to be able to breastfeed from them.  When your 
breasts are very high and your newborn floppy necked baby is very low, it can be a trick 
before you develop your biceps muscles to get the baby up close enough without arm 
strain.

The BIGGEST trick I've learned that is missing from Rebecca Glover's video that helps all 
women is one I figured out from our group.  The women are sitting on the floor with a 
mat.  They almost always lean back and put their knees up.  The knees are the ultimate 
support, reclining takes away all need to apply pressure to the back and gives the baby 
far more of a change to lead the way.  If you look closely at Follow Me Mum the two 
mothers are actually RECLINED even though she says "Upright back and flat lap".  What 
was happening in my group is the moms would say the attachment felt great and then 
they'd go home and sit up in chairs.

Had someone taught me the knees up, reclined position, I would probably have dropped 
the pillow quickly, but I've only recently discovered it and no one talks about it.

Best, Susan

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