Dear Friends:
There are 2 mothers at work that are breastfeeding with young (3-4 month old)
babies.
One mother has chosen to wean during the day, and breastfeeds when she is
with her baby. Pumping was too much for her with full time work (including long
meetings) and night school.
The other mother is pumping. As I am giving encouragement and suggestions to
her, I am learning about the stresses on an employed mother. Daycare
practices have an incredible impact on both infant feeding and maternal stress
levels. The daycare where her infant is now is over-feeding her baby, so that she is
running out of her milk to give. The providers response to her baby's
fussiness is to put a bottle in its mouth. She has to spend time and energy watching
what the daycare is doing, and having constant on-going discussions with the
staff. As this daycare is most convenient to her in terms of distance and
price, she is caught. Seems to me as though the staff does what they feel they must
do during the day, with no regard to the feeding relationship. I see this
poor mother under constant stress every day, and understand, yet again, how a
mother could be driven to using formula.
Women are still bearing the brunt of childraising, and breastfeeding/pumping
can be an additional stress on them. Sometimes the mother with the daycare
problems can bring her baby to work with her, and that is fun for everyone! Women
have always worked while raising their babies; keeping babies in everyone's
awareness changes the environment. In the US, babies are supposed to be seen
and not heard, and kept invisible, plugged and swaddled into silent packages. So
most of the population forgets about their needs. I believe that bringing
babies to work is a solution; we need to be treating our natural world with the
same compassion and nurturing that babies need. Reminding folks that babies do
exist, have needs, and can fit into a workplace easily is important.
I am reading a new breastfeeding book, the African-American Guide to
Breastfeeding and I am learning a lot. For one thing, many of the stories in the book
go into detail about sex, far more than European-American stories. That is
interesting. For another thing, the chapters on the history of Africans in the US
is giving me insight into why rates are so low for that segment of our
population.
Another good book is Hirkani's Daughters. I am copying chapters of it to give
to the nursing mothers that I work with.
warmly,
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI
_http://www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com/_
(http://www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com/)
www.myspace/AdonicaLee
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