Dear Magda,

I agree with your premise, but I live in the South Central USA where women
are very quick to give up breastfeeding if it does not work quickly and
easily.  They have no idea breastfeeding will do more than nourish the baby,
and all that "bonding business" is just words to them.  They ALL plan to bond
with their babies, whatever that means, and bonding just a little more
through breastfeeding doesn't seem very significant in relation to "is my
baby getting enough?".  And if feeding the baby with this milk that they have
learned is better,  is not being accomplished within their self imposed
deadlines of X days or sometimes X hours they will turn to what they KNOW
will work . . . . . the bottle.  Everything in their existence and past
history has taught them that bottle feeding works.  The babies and children
that they have seen growing up bottle fed are fine and happy.  No child has
died that they know of, from being formula fed.  Now they are beginning to
hear from all their prenatal reading, classes and maybe from their doctor
that breastfeeding is better.  What is the big deal?

I find that it takes time, usually a few months, to get a mother in our
society to the point that she SEES and FEELS all the benefits and that
breastfeeding can actually "soothe the soul" (just like that ol' time rock
'n' roll----small joke here) and for her to understand what all this extra
"bonding stuff" is really about.  None of the bottle feeding mothers, or
mothers who attempted to breastfeed and switched to the bottle would EVER
admit to us or themselves that they are less bonded to their babies than if
they had breastfed. They don't get it!

Therefore:  I use my very accurate $1300 scale daily, do tests weights with
all my consultations to assure moms,  first of all, that the baby is being
well nourished.



Winnie you are right.  I have also had babies do lots of audible gulping and
it turned out to be their own saliva.  We have to confirm when our
observations are accurate, and I've been IBCLC since 1986.  One of the things
we have to learn is no amount of observation can tell us all we need to know.

  If I don't calm the fears of these women, who usually can't imagine that
they can totally nourish their baby from their own body, breastfeeding won't
continue long enough for them to begin to relax, enjoy breastfeeding, and
learn that there are benefits greater than  they could ever have imagined.

We are struggling to change culture here.

Then I offer for moms to come weigh their babies any time, and they often do,
even when breastfeeding is going well.  They do so to calm the fears of the
relatives and friends who can't imagine that breastfeeding is actually
working.  Every mother in my area knows dozens of horror stories about
breastfeeding.  I bet there isn't a mother in Virginia, who hasn't heard of
others with severe pain, cracked bleeding nipples, and starving babies.  They
know the truth................... breastfeeding is horribly painful,
exceedingly difficult, exhausting, and more often than not,  fails!  Now they
have heard it doesn't have to be that way. They are trying to believe it.
They are giving breastfeeding a chance, sometimes a very limited chance.
BUT if everyone else is right and these high minded, pie in the sky,
impractical professionals are wrong,  they know they can fall back on the
tried and true, bottlefeeding and their precious baby will be just fine.

I (said with emphasis) know how great breastfeeding is.  If I was younger and
the circumstances were right, I'd have another baby of my own right now, just
to experience the wonderful high I got from breastfeeding my 3.  But instead,
I help other mothers and use every method, skill, bit of knowledge, and
device that I can to get them to breastfeed 1 day longer.  Every day that I
can get them to keep on breastfeeding is getting them closer to that day that
they might begin to see how great breastfeeding is for even MOM.    I
remember hearing from LLL "the baby needs time to weave his magic" on the
mother.  She needs to fall in love with the baby and breastfeeding.  Love
takes time.  I feel like 90% of what I do is buying time for things to go
right, so that the mom begins to reap the benefits emotionally in addition to
the physical benefits.  Uptight, sleep deprived mothers who hurt everywhere,
their breasts, bottom, tummy, do not know these things unless it is in their
upbringing.  Agan...........we are fighting against the tide of culture and
society.

I use scales for much the same reasons that I will willing teach how to get a
baby to take a bottle (see Lactnet archives).  I do it to preserve
breastfeeding that would otherwise not take place.

Jane Bradshaw RN, BSN, IBCLC
LLLL for 21 years

>
>  Date:    Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:14:02 -0000
>  From:    Magda Sachs <[log in to unmask]>
>  Subject: weighing babies
>
>  I guess, having started this particular thread with my snippet from Davies
>  in ADC, I will step in again.  As part of my research thesis (so please
>  don't rip me off on this one, chaps) i have looked at the literature on
>  breastfeeding and analysed it through the lens of Van Esterik's notion of
>  (breast)feeding as either fitting into a product model or a process model.
>
>  From qualitative evidence (for example the paper in December JHL) even
women
>  who breastfeed "successfully" (in terms of initiation, milk transfer, yadda
>  yadda) divide into two groups -- I would say we could characterise these
two
>  groups as those women who breastfeed for the baby and see it as a part of
>  their life that they give to the baby's well-being, essentially.  The
others
>  may start out with similar ideas, but discover that breastfeeding is
>  fulfilling for them on some deeper level.  These are the ones who may then
>  go on to 'attachment parenting', long term breastfeeding, etc. (This is all
>  in the western context).  Of course, saying 'two groups' is artificial,
>  there is a continuum.
>
>  Weighing the baby concentrates attention on the product of breastmilk.  It
>  reinforces the place of breastfeeding in a health paradigm.  It would be
>  interesting to see if different interventions in style, frequency, meaning
>  attached to, weighing as an intervention study would have different
outcomes
>  in terms of steering women into placement along the 'breastfeeding is
>  process/breastmilk is product' continuum.
>

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