I am coming out of lurkdom because the discussion of  cues and demand
made me want to share  something with you.
I think the best way to help moms to understand the baby's feeding cues
is to let the baby show her.

For those of you who haven't heard me kvetch lately, I am the only LC (
part time) in a hospital that has 900  births a month.  The only way I
have figured out to reach as many moms as possible ( there is fictional
Rooming In....maybe 6 rooms if at all), is to do a group session  with
about 25-30 moms who come with their babies to the wonderful
breastfeeding  room which the hospital  built for me.  It  reminds me of
the old days when my living room was the venue for LLL meetings!
First  I help the moms get all the babies who are awake  latched on and
then do a 45 minute discussion giving all the important points of
breastfeeding.  (BTW, if anyone has a better suggestion how to work in
such conditions, I would be happy to learn.)

 I use babies to demonstrate everything!  Luckily here in Israel I don't
need a signed permission form to handle someone's baby.  I always have
a baby in my arms during the session, the best part of my job!!! And
everyone wants her baby to be the demo baby.   I ask the moms to tell me
how they know the baby is hungry and the most common reply is  " when
they cry, "  to which I answer that there are other signs before that
and I ask the baby in my arms to show us.  These moms are Hebrew
speaking, and the lecture is in Hebrew, but I can only speak to babies
in English so I say to the baby " ok, please smack your lips, or please
put your fist in your mouth, etc..."  and of course they do it exactly
when I ask, which just further shows the mom that breastfed babies are
so smart!!

Like one mom said: " Babies  speak sign language and we have to learn to
identify the signs! And crying means that we have missed them."  I asked
everyone to try to think of the signs that older kids or husbands give
when they are hungry, before they say something.....that started a great
discussion.  I got in trouble for the babies being returned to the
nursery late.  They were all so happy in their mothers' arms.  Oh well,
maybe one day  I will fix that also.  I keep telling the nursery  nurses
that one day the space which is now the nursery will  be a nice lounge
for the staff, because all the babies will  be with their mothers.  You
can't imagine the looks I get!

Anyway, I think you all are great and can't wait to meet everyone at the
conference in Arizona.   Can we have a live Lactnet session one day? I
would love to put names to faces.

Happy Easter and Pesach to everyone from very warm and summery Tel Aviv.

Esther Grunis, IBCLC
Lis Maternity Hospital
Tel Aviv, Israel
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