Stephanie,

Expanding on the replies of some previous posters, here are my 2 cents

The term ‘breastfeeding jaundice’ really is the answer to the question. There 
are 2 parts to that answer.  The first is, as a previous poster mentioned, the 
way we see things that happen with breastfeeding (like increase in jaundice) 
as more abnormal, and compare it to the ‘normalcy’ of bottle feeding.

The second part is that, we are encouraging and promoting breastfeeding, but 
we live in a bottle culture, and many of our moms, exacerbated by hospital 
practices (i.e. infant sleeping in a cot, the ‘need’ to bathe, weigh and measure 
baby within an hour, and the restrictions on cosleeping) are beginning down 
the breastfeeding path with a bottle feeding mentality.  That is, we want to 
breastfeed, but still want to breastfeed in a bottle way – every couple of 
hours, and baby sleeps nicely in between. It is still difficult to get around the 
bottle culture idea that a baby feeds for a set amount of time, then sleeps for 
many  hours.  I try to tell moms that babies feed 8-12+ times in 24hrs, but if 
you do the math on that, that means babies could be feeding almost 
constantly, and that is hard for us to cope with since we live in a culture 
which has stressed the normalcy of babies sleeping (in a separate location) for 
long periods between feedings.  This is compounded by hospital practices 
which don’t allow for mom to simply put baby between her bare breasts and 
leave him/her there for the next 24hrs.

So, the human baby, which should be breastfed frequently and held 
constantly, sort of like a baby kangaroo, is being fed and cared for in a bottle 
feeding way, fed every few hours, and put in a cot to sleep.  This results in 
less colostrum getting to the baby and stimulating the passage of meconium, 
which results in elevated bilirubin levels, which lead to the term ‘breastfeeding 
jaundice’ and cause people to see formula as the savior for the breastfed baby.

In reality, if we treated human babies like human babies, or even like kangaroo 
babies, and cared, fed and  nurtured them like the immobile, immature 
creatures they are – that is, they need to be held, they cannot ambulate over 
for their food, and they need to be fed frequently – then we would probably 
see the more normal and even healthy levels of jaundice that is normal for 
human babies.

So ‘breastfeeding jaundice’ is really ‘bottle culture’ jaundice in my humble 
opinion.  

Caesy Clubb, RN, IBCLC
West Linn, OR

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