Although I am reading Lactnet for a long time, I didn't react until now,
because it is not so easy reacting in englisch. But now I want to jump on
the discussion. So I want to introduce myself. My name is Elien Rouw. I am a
medical doctor, working in mother and child health care. I am Dutch, but I
live in Germany (near the Black Forrest). Since almost 20 years I am
involved in breastfeeding support, first for the Dutch Organisation
Borstvoeding Natuurlijk, and now for the German AFS (Arbeitsgemeinschaft
freier Stillgruppen). I have a small private practice for mother/child
health care and I am teaching medical health workers in hospitals on
breastfeeding (for instance hospitals, who want to become baby-friendly).
The advantage of moving from one country to another is, that you can see how
different cultural behaviour influences our practices. I have observed, that
the parents here in South-Germany actually are much more afraid, their
children are catching a cold, as Dutch parents are. They themselves walk
around in t-shirts, but their children wear woolen mittens and woolen hats
(even in their homes) and are in clothes which can be used in a winterstorm,
so they won't be cold. But in this way they cannot regulate their
temperature. Most of the time this is not a problem, but I also see some
children, wo are definitely too warm. When they are too warm, they don't
come to breastfeed regularly, they sleep at the breast, they don't latch on
properly and they loose the nipple constantly. In this way breastfeeding
problems can arise and the children don't gain weight. I even had children
with fever, only because they had far too much clothes! When I talk to the
parents in the first visit, I mostly tell them about the clothing of their
child: not too cold of course, but certainly not too warm! (Too much heat
can also contribute to SIDS!!)
Elien Rouw, MD, Bühl, Germany
***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
