Hi Everybody:
   This is in response to some posts about integrating breastfeeding education
into childbirth education classes...more $.02 worth from one who teaches a
lot. The majority of women in childbirth classes have their brains full of
"How am I going to get through labor?" type thoughts. There isn't much room
for anything else. Whenever I have gotten to do postpartum evaluations, there
are always comments about people wishing I had spent more time on postpartum
topics. Yet the postpartum and other topics are not really as interesting to
the  late-in-her-term pregnant woman who is more concerned with how she is
feeling and wondering about labor, and doesn't have many brain cells to spare
after being at work all day and rushing dinner so as to be on time for class.
And she may be sleepy in the later part of class!
    So how does breastfeeding get into all this? I've  started showing an
excerpt from the Norwegian film "Breast is Best" that features a 28-week old
baby being held skin-to-skin and attempting to nurse while looking his
mother's face. The idea is to give women an idea of what their baby inside
looks like. For the occaisonal mother who does deliver prematurely, the seed
has been planted for her to realize her baby's needs and capabilities. I show
this excerpt the first night of a 6 or 8 week series. This section of the film
is very tender and moving and classes respond well to it. You can feel the
participants being amazed at how tiny and dear the baby is, and how amazing it
is when the baby tries to open its eyes while it is at the breast.
    Another way to get breastfeeding into childbirth classes is that nearly
every birth film used, and I use a lot, shows the mother nursing after the
birth as a matter of course. Another way is to use "Delivery Self-Attachment"
(the Righard film) which shows the baby crawling to the breast and self-
attaching. This film inspires people to think about unmedicated labor, for the
baby born to the mother who used demerol in her labor is so markedly out of it
compared with the baby who is the product of an unmedicated labor that many
fathers comment on the difference.
   Of course, a night devoted to infant feeding is part of all 6 or 8 class
series...and that is where some basic messages about breastfeeding can be
given...like how to get started, how to make enough milk, and how to get help
for questions and problems.(Thanks Linda Smith ) A way to teach by making
people laugh is to ask them about what it was like to start living
together...."everything was perfect, right? You never disagreed about
anything.....there was always total agreement on every subject....." The
instructor can go on in this vein until everybody is laughing, because the
idea is so absurd, that a man and woman could live together and never have any
difficulties. Then make the point.....that this is like breastfeeding, "you
and your baby love each other yet will have times that are less than perfect."
I am sure that people have lots of different ideas of how to get the point
across. It would be fun to hear how we all slide all these essential messages
into our classes.
     Warmly, Nikki (who just got home from starting another series in an
institution where mothers aren't allowed to get out of bed in labor and where
babies are given lots of formula for being hypoglycemic.....baby can't nurse
because the mother is on the ground floor in L&D while the baby is in the
nursery on the 3rd floor.AAARGH!)