Chris says:
>around.  In those early hours (up to say 48 hours) we have the luxury of
>learning to "dance".  I just cry when I see people hitting the panic button
>so early and starting that downward spiral.  There IS a time for
>intervention,  but I'd have to see some serious data before I'd think it was
>at 6 hours.


This is my experience as well. The amount of intervention that goes on in
the first days depresses me a lot.  This is carried out by well-meaning
hospital midwives who want to help the mother breastfeed, but  do not
realise that less can be more...my heart sinks when I get a call from a
midwife who wants to know if I have any 'tips' or 'tricks' to help a
mother, 'because we've tried everything'. I know what that means. Mother
and baby are often feeling messed about, often having had the experience of
being man-handled...without anyone supporting the mother in doing the very,
very basics of skin-to-skin, getting to know the baby, co-bedding and
patience and cuddling (co-bathing would be difficult in hospital,
unfortunately).

I think the window of opportunity of getting bf going well should not have
a time limit on it - as we often say on this list,  mothers and babies are
individuals in individual situations. Some situations might need
intervention sooner than others.

I don't know what the data is, but here mothers would not use a pump in the
very early days  before milk has come in - there is a practical reason for
this. The amount of colostrum is so small you lose a lot of it in the
collecting vessel if you pump. Also, in the UK we do not have many pumps.
This is not necessarily a bad thing - I take it as a given that if a mother
can be empowered to enjoy bf without extra 'stuff', then  that's good.
However, gentle manual expression of colostrum has its place in some
situations.  Don't think anyone would think 6 hours was appropriate - give
things a chance to happen.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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