Sharon says, in response to Nikki: 'So, Nikki, do you think that oxytocin
spray should never be used? What if a mother cannot get to an emotional
state where her MER will work? Perhaps some moms need a little help in the
beginning and once things are working, they can relax and their own oxytocin
can take over. I started doing this many years ago and did see some real
successes with the short term use of spray which led to moms happily nursing
their babies. To me it doesn't really matter precisely why something isn't
working - if  a mom is ready to give up, the task is to find a solution that
saves the breastfeeding relationship and then work on the underlying issues.
Does that make sense?'

 

Personally, I think it is absolutely *crucial* to understand why something
isn't working, because that, to me, seems the only way to prevent it from
happening again in either this mother or another one. If we have a birthing
culture in which there is little respect for and confidence in the female
ability to birth a child, and everyone interferes and messes with that
birth. it shouldn't be so hard to understand why the mother is stressed.
(And of course. add to that the messing with physiology and endocrine
oxytocin release by giving Pitocin.!) We can solve *the symptoms* of
mother's issues by administering a drug, so that we (as a society) do not
have to be confronted with how disrupted the system is. OR we get to the
bottom of it and solve *the problem* by restoring physiological birthing
practices, so that mother feels the safety and security Nikki speaks about
to let her endocrine oxytocin flow between her and her baby. Just the other
day, I was working with a colleague who has turned it into a habit to let
mothers tell their birth stories to their babies, as the first step in every
consultation that is planned because of breastfeeding difficulties. Her
experience is that most problems disappear almost instantly, that mother and
baby feel secure and respected and honoured, that baby listens attentively
to mother and responds with understanding by latching well, and that thus
the communication between them starts to flow, together with the milk.

Also, I think that this is about much more than saving the breastfeeding
relationship. With this approach, both mother's and baby's inner working
model, to speak with Bowlby, is positively reinforced, so that they can
develop their interpersonal relationship, their self-confidence, their
relationship to their loved ones and to their social environment. I think it
partly depends on whether we view breastfeeding as a means or as a goal, as
practical process or as a signal of what goes on underneath. In the
societies many of us live in, this can be considered a controversial matter,
because this is not about measurable results, about quick fixes (although
respect can have the effect of fixing quickly) or about efficiency, but
about two souls meeting and connecting (again), about love, about energy
flowing between two human beings. Maybe we DO have to address the underlying
issues first, before we can 'save' the breastfeeding relationship, but not
from the neocortical, but from the limbic or even reptilian brain, at a much
more intuitive level than we are used to.?

 

Best,

 

Marianne Vanderveen-Kolkena IBCLC, BSc,

Netherlands


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