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Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:00:17 -0400 |
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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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