>
>Date:    Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:02:08 -0400
>From:    Norma Ritter <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Article title needs Wiessingerizing
>
>Morgan wrote:
> >Who had no intervention whatsoever, and had a breastfeeding baby before 
>the
>umbilical was cut - even as a morbidly obese geriatic prima gravida who was
>induced at 38 weeks due to pre-eclampsia, and had an epidural to boot!  At
>43 years old... had I listened to the literature (which I hadn't read at 
>the
>time ) I would have known that everything was against me.  Luckily, my baby
>knew what to do.  Literally, as I now know to call what happened as a Baby
>Led Latching... a phrase I've only recently learned.  Still nursing my now
>26 month old...<
>
>YES!
>I am absolutely convinced that breastfeeding, like sex, is 90% in the 
>brain.

>Norma

It never occurred to me to do anything other than breastfeed.  It confused 
me when the question was asked in ante-natal classes, about what I'd 
'chosen'?  It then shocked me, that others in the room responded that they 
had 'chosen' artificial feed.  My headspace said "baby = breastfeeding".  
Which is somewhat strange as I came from an incredibly resistant working 
class Scottish background with the worst breast feeding rates in the entire 
UK for several decades!

My background culture stated that only low class, 'slack' and common women 
breastfed.  Decent women did not indulge in such unsavoury, or extreme, 
practises.  But then, I've never been very good at being told what to do. 
;-)

>Sure, there can be problems, but more often than not, it is the
>mother's confidence in her own ability to nurse that is the deciding
>factor.

And also works in the opposite direction.  I have seen women with no 
physical reason for problems, and with much support, crumple and die as they 
try to force milk from their protesting bodies.  They are too conflicted 
emotionally, and their body sense will not allow them to 'go with the flow'. 
   They then set up a cycle of failure for themselves which is terribly 
difficult to either break, or witness.

It happened recently to a close personal friend, who withdrew so totally 
from all support that she took her newborn daughter home (excellent 
delivery, no pain relief, no trauma) and when she fussed at the breast the 
next day, gave her a bottle of water as she was convinced the baby was 
dehydrating.  She did this without reference to anyone else, even the 
midwife.  The subsequent problems over breastfeeding drove her into such a 
deep depression that she almost rejected the baby utterly.  Or should that 
be... the problems with her attaching to the baby, drove her so deeply into 
depression....

She'd gone into the labour fully armed with all the literature, had visited 
with a local La Leche League group, had intensive daily visits from the 
hospital lactation services, and plenty of people to call for aid.  She 
never picked up the phone to anyone, and actually lied about how the 
breastfeeding was establishing when asked.  Whatever was going on in her 
mind, prevented her from asking, never mind taking, aid.

And, of course, the internalised feelings of blame and failure just made it 
all worse.  Her head space just could not accomodate breastfeeding - for 
what ever reason - and the battle was played out on her body, and her milk.

>Convincing mothers that breastfeeding is normal newborn behaviour is
>one of our most important roles. Convincing others wouldn't hurt
>either!

Exactly.  When we see and hear others around us learning a new skill well, 
we expect we can pick it up too, even if it takes a little work.  If we see 
and hear of problems and failure, we expect to have problems, and to fail.  
Few children would ever learn to ride a bike, if they did not have other 
children whizzing past them all the time to prove it could be done!  And 
that it is fun, and worth the skinned knees. :-)

To return it to the orginal point, non-intervention is vital.  Due to the 
hospital's issues with my having oral pethidine from my GP at the end of the 
pregnancy (SPD), I was persuaded into something called 'transitional care' 
at the end of the labour.  As I couldn't walk from the epidural, I went 
never thinking I was going into a seperate 'ward' for preemies transitioning 
back into the main ward.  (With my strapping 9lbs 2oz, 38 week, baby.)  I 
had agreed to a 24 hour stay for observation.

Hours and hours later, as my husband went home, and I was on my own with my 
little boy, who had fed mightily all day, he started to cry from the heat in 
the ward.  I'd already been 'told off' for keeping him skin-to-skin too 
long, and found I could no longer hold him as he was over heating.  Neither 
could I walk him up and down and sing and soothe him, as it was against 
health and safety for me to carry the baby at all.

A nursery assistant appeared to tell me off for opening a window as I was 
making the room cold (!) and was clearly a 'do-er'.  She suggested she take 
the baby off me to the Nursery so I could get some sleep.  I asked if she 
was mad, that I'd hand my baby over to a stranger, to go into a room with 
strangers, when I could go home and he'd be held in loving arms whilst I 
slept.  She flounced out.  A few hours later, I struggled to the loo, to 
find a midwife helping to SNS tube feed the actual preemie in the other bed. 
  When she saw me, she told me she'd be in to tube feed my baby in about 30 
minutes.  I told her she was doing no such thing and she argued with me that 
if I was in transitional care, she needed to check on feeding (there had 
been two shift changes by then).

So, at 3am on a freezing January morning, we left the hospital, to fall into 
the loving arms of Dad.  The significant thing about this, is that I asked 
to go home at 1am, and the midwife who was intent on the tube feeding, told 
me I 'couldn't' as it was too cold outside.  Now, there are advantages to 
being in your 40s and giving birth - and one of them was knowing to call for 
the Senior Midwife and let all hell break loose about my request to leave 
the ward being denied.  It took till 3 to get the paperwork in order...

The point to this (sorry if I go on too much) is that when you are a new 
Mum, finding the strength to resist other people's interventions on you and 
your newborn... is somewhat problematic.  As a bolshy, intelligent and 
articulate woman in her 40s, I could take the flack, and refuse the 'do-ing' 
help.  I shudder to think how our nursing relationship would have gone, if 
he'd been taken to the Nursery, or, worse of all, we'd both been put through 
a tube feeding after almost 24 hours of successful natural and normal 
suckling.

Morgan Gallagher
Online Lactaneer
Nursing 26 month old

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