<<  with home births I would say it is
 fairly uncommon for these babies to lose much if any weight after birth,. I
 have never been sure whether this is due to fewer interventions; pit, IV
 fluids etc. or to the fact that mom and baby are never separated. Of course
 weight checks aren't as frequent. >>

Well, I don't know. It is not only the homebirth itself that is doing it. I
guess that in your environment homebirths are surrounded with very bf
friendly practices. And then added with the fewer interventions I indeed
believe it could cause less weigth loss.

however, here in the Netherlands we have a lot of home births. 30-40% of
all deliveries happen at home. Here it is not a radical cpoice, but a
normal option. Midwives and doulas are like normal HCP's. So, they are not
extremely bf friendly, but as bf friendly as most HCP's (that is , not very
bf friendly). In fact they are a resource of lots of bf failures, esp the
doulas. (well they are not really doulas, but maternity nurses. They come
over the house for 8 day postpartum to do checkups of the mother and the
baby and do the household and care of the other children).

It is very common here too that children loose weigth. In fact, the big
problem here is that the children are not fed frequently enough. We are
happy when the baby is fed 7 times a day during the first week.

I recently mentioned nipple shields. A common pattern is the following:
mother gets sore nipples at first or second day pp, maternity nurse gives
nipple shields, that 'work fine'. She is also recommended to nurse not
longer than 10 minutes. The mother continues to use the nipple shields.
After the maternity nurse leaves (at 8 days pp), the mother gets a mastitis
(at approx 10 days pp).  After the mastitis is resolved the milk supply is
very very low. Child is almost dehydrated.... sometimes even hospitalized.
This is the moment many mothers wean.

Annelies Bon         http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/abon/bfbronnen.html
breastfeeding counsellor of the Dutch bf org "Borstvoeding Natuurlijk"
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