Suburban (in)Sanity

What is your "in lieu of flowers..."?

This past weekend I attended the services for a twelve year-old girl from our school who passed away after a month-long illness including extensive hospitalization. It was a terrifically sad event. My heart broke to pieces when I heard the news of her death. She's one of those kids at school that everyone knows.

My heart stitched back together a bit at seeing her sixth-grade (and other middle-school) classmates at her services, the way they supported one another, their somber vigil. They had decided ahead of time that it was important that they be there through the whole visitation. And now they are deep in the planning for a remembrance for their classmate, via the cause that meant so much to her - the Red Wolf Coalition.

In the announcements to the parents at our school as well as via the funeral home and obituary, this girl's passion for the cause of the red wolf was mentioned "in lieu of flowers." It would mean so much to her to know that her friends and family are choosing to honor her memory with donations to this organization.

My children knew this young woman from school, though neither were particularly close to her (2 and 5 years apart in school.) But in that way that seven year-olds have of breaking your heart with their laser-keen clarity and old-soul nature, my daughter's concerns in the days following the announcement of this death were centered on her own mortality.

With two close friends battling different kinds of cancer on each coast, and my daughter's existential crisis, I find myself thinking - what is my "in lieu of flowers" cause?

It turns out I didn't have to look far for the answer to my own question. This morning was my close friend's inaugural meeting as a La Leche League Leader, and I was able to proudly applaud her as she introduced herself to a room full of moms and babies who came for information and support about breastfeeding.

I had occasion to mention to the moms today that they can call or email any of us Leaders if they need help with something between our monthly meetings. "It's what we do." I said. And it is. Helping moms and babies helps heal the broken parts of my soul, the parts that still ache for this young woman's family, that feel the fear my daughter feels about her own life. The parts that aren't sure about anything but this one woman, this one baby, and helping them find their way through their own unique breastfeeding journey.

So there you have it. If I die suddenly and you're heartbroken and unsure of what to do - support causes like your local La Leche League group that helps new moms and babies. And throw some cash in the direction of your local library and animal shelter, too, while you're at it.

What's your "in lieu of flowers" cause? If you don't have one, I think you should adopt this young woman's cause, the Red Wolf Coalition. It's what she would have wanted you to do.

Oh, and if you feel compelled to send flowers for my family, make them peonies. 

Lots and lots of peonies.

Ding dong, that tooth is gone!

So way back in 2005, my precious little baby face-planted onto the coffee table and knocked her front tooth in.

Mercifully, I did not photograph the summer teeth (some 'er here, some 'er there...) It was frightening. And I have a tooth hangup. Teeth hangup. But here's a picture not long after the face-plant, in all of her 17 month old adorableness:

Here's what it looked like when the summer tooth was all loose and gnarly (she's been babying it for weeks and weeks and weeks, to the point where she doesn't sound different at all now that it's out.)

 

 

And THIS is what the little darling looks like today - only 5 years 4 months and 5 days after the face-plant incident (rounding up on hours and minutes and all...)

I can't tell you how relieved I was 5 years ago when the pediatric dentist told me that the tooth would probably be fine, after visiting her every 2 weeks for months after the accident incident [1]. The prescription? Toddler nursing. Breastfeeding promotes optimal mouth development and oral health, and after the face-plant all that Anastasia wanted to do was nurse to feel better. I'm sure that nursing so much helped her tooth re-establish itself as a (admittedly temporary) permanent part of her mouth. Yay breastfeeding! And yay for 6 year old first graders with lost teeth! And yay someone please ping me later this evening to make sure the Tooth Fairy makes her appearance, it's been quite some time since we've needed her here in our house!

 

[1] Accident implies negligence, and I was RIGHT THERE. Facing the other way. Which is exactly where I was when she broke her arm at 14 months old. And also when she shoved a lego up her nose at 22 months (though in that case I had been facing her, so I knew what went up there, ewww...) Yes, we did have a "frequent visitor" pass for the ER. [2]

[2] No we didn't. I'm just kidding. [3]

[3] But wouldn't that be cool? Like having a backstage pass for a concert or something. Might help the crazy adrenaline shakes you get when rushing your baby to the ER. That, or valium. Either one.

 

One sling to rule them all

Everything about this article fascinates me.

First, as a breastfeeding counselor, I find the idea that it was the invention of the sling that led to advancements that helped our species come into being PHENOMENAL. Yeah, that's right, it's the women who worked out the technical details so we could advance our butts off the savannah! We want and deserve Oprah and bon-bons.

Upright female hominins walking the savannah had a real problem: their babies couldn't cling to them the way a chimp baby could cling to its mother. Carrying an infant would have been the highest drain on energy for a hominin female - higher than lactation. So what did they do? I believe they figured out how to carry their newborns using a loop of animal tissue.

and

Once you have slings to carry babies, you have broken a glass ceiling - it doesn't matter whether the infant is helpless for a day, a month or a year. You can have ever more helpless young and that, as far as I can see, is how encephalisation took place in the genus Homo. We used technology to turn ourselves into kangaroos.

Using technology to turn ourselves into kangaroos - awesome visual.

(Picture of my fantastic friend Renee back when our babies who turn nine soon were...well, babies!)

I carried my babies in slings, did you? Did you make use of other technologies to help make your life as a momma easier?

But the article keeps going on with its awesomeness - it didn't just stop there. He goes on to tell us how our brains are smaller these days and we're outsourcing our intelligence. As a science fiction writer, this is the stuff that makes me squeal with girly excitement:

Evidence shows that over the last 30,000 years there has been an overall decrease in brain size and the trend seems to be continuing. That's because we can outsource our intelligence. I don't need to remember as much as a Neanderthal because I have a computer.

And because it's just a cool article, he sums up by talking about space travel:

I look back 4 million years and see our emergence and our evolution and then I look forward 4 million years because those are the timescales I'm used to. And in the long run, humans will go extinct if we can't get off this planet. The only way out, ultimately, is up.

If there isn't a story prompt (or fifty) in here for me and other science fiction writers, I will turn in my Science Fiction Geek Club card (whatever it may be.)

What do you think? Can you see the logic that technology made the humans rather than humans made the technology? And are you even more impressed with women's ingenuity? We've always been seeking ways to multitask - even 2.5 MILLION YEARS AGO. No wonder I'm so tired!

Another one of those pregnancy things - this one about wine

A friend linked to an older article on the Women Wine Critics Board, the title of the post is "Wine and Pregnancy - Lies that Women are Told."

It's an interesting post, something I always wanted more information about while pregnant because I always felt like the knee-jerk complete abstinence rule was a bunch of unfounded hooey.

But as a few of us got into a bit of a debate on this friend's FB post, I had the chance to get up on one of my high horses, which I do so enjoy. So I'm going to get on it again so you can all enjoy me on my high horse, too. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Here's the thing - we treat pregnancy and breastfeeding like they are abnormal things that happen to women. Alien invasions and body snatching. Women are chastised and told to avoid a thousand things from coffee to wine to brie. I mean brie? Might as well lop off a limb as abstain from brie for 9+ months (please remember that a pregnancy is a lot closer to 10 months than it is to 9...)

The thing that bugs me about these kinds of articles is the underlying attitude - that pregnancy and breastfeeding are not natural states for women's bodies to be in. They ARE. I have to say it again for emphasis: Pregnancy and breastfeeding are natural states for women's bodies to be in. They are normal parts of our growth and maturity just as menopause and adolescence are. When we treat them like disease states, we create a whole new set of rules for moms, more ways that they can be accused of "doing it wrong" or feeling guilty.

It's really terrible what the medicalization of maternity has done to mothers - they've lost faith in themselves, in their abilities to make simple decisions about their own health and the health of their unborn baby/babies.

When going through my first pregnancy almost 10 years ago, I was amazed at the way people in my online pregnancy support group found ways to obsess about things - one would post continuously after the most innocuous things. Like she was at a pizza place and the employee was cleaning the window next table over from her...it's possible some window cleaner got in the air and she inhaled it - is her unborn baby okay?

Honestly? You need to ask about that sort of thing? How are you going to be able to make decisions on his/her behalf once that baby is out in the world and breathing?

We're women. We're smarter than that. We can make our own decisions, and we can and should trust our instincts. 

I should probably pay better attention to these things

I have just realized that the two big feature articles I wrote for New Beginnings Magazine (a publication of La Leche League International) are both available online. They weren't at the time the print magazines were published, so I kind of ... eep, forgot about them.

Terrible, terrible. Bad writer, bad!

But now, I can share them with you in all their long-leggy glory (they are longer than I remember, wowza.)

 
The first is called The Shape of Motherhood, and explores a lot of different perspectives on what the transition to motherhood is like. Thanks to many of my online friends for their quotes and snippets. I ended up looking like I traveled to the ends of the earth to get interview subjects, when all I did was login. :) (pre-facebook even!)

The second is called The Basics of Motherhood and addresses how you can meet your own needs while also meeting the needs of a newborn. It was quite astonishing to me how hard it was to do just the basic things like feeding and bathing MYSELF daily after having a baby. This should read like a New Mom Survival Guide.

Enjoy!

image courtesy of scvimagery on Flikr

Domperidone and breastfeeding - Survey

I hope those of you who are breastfeeding and who have taken domperidone (or reglan) for milk supply issues will consider taking this survey that Kathleen Kendall Tackett and Dr. Thomas Hale have put together. Per Kathy:

"Tom Hale and I could use your help. We have a small window with the FDA regarding domperidone in the U.S. But we need some data to document its safety and efficacy and how it compares to Reglan. If you've taken either (or your mothers have), please fill out our questionnaire. And feel free to share this link. We only have a small opening but we want to do what we can with it. Thanks."

I hope you'll consider helping.

Breastfeeding question: My doctor says there's no benefit to breastmilk after 1 yr but I want to continue pumping - what should I do?

It's been a busy week for breastfeeding help! This is another in an occasional series of answers to common breastfeeding questions I field in my volunteer work as a breastfeeding counselor. Standard disclaimers apply as explained in this post.

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First, I am really surprised that your doctor thinks that breastmilk isn't adequate for your child's nutritional needs. It's quite shocking, actually! I am disappointed that your doctor is unaware of the reams of excellent research out there. The WHO (World Health Organization) breastfeeding information is top-notch and clearly discusses why breastfeeding past one year is a good idea. There is great information on La Leche League's website as well, but i wanted to point you to this resource on nursing past one year on the very well-regarded breastfeeding site, kellymom.com.Additionally, I have heard Dr. Jack Newman speak on this subject a few times. He has a great resource on his website called "What to feed the baby when mom is away at work." His primary quote that I recall from his talks is "breastmilk doesn't turn into just a "white fluid" on the 12 month 1 day mark. It still has all of those nutritional benefits we knew about before the 12 month mark."

If you were in the mood for a cheeky comeback, you could ask your doctor for the studies that show that cow's milk has superior qualities to breastmilk. After all, cow's milk is made for baby cows, a whole other species. It does have many nutritional benefits, I drink cow's milk and have no problems feeding it to my children, however, cow's milk is not tolerated by everyone. Furthermore, mother's bodies continue to adapt the kind of milk they make to the kind of child they have. The milk a mother of a one year old is dramatically different (in quantity and makeup) to the milk made by a mother of a one week old, and that is dramatically different from the milk a mother of a preemie is making. Our bodies know what they're doing, our babies teach us.

To get to the practical details of your situation, here are some thoughts from me based on my experiences working and pumping. I nursed my son until he was almost two. I worked for that whole time. At 12 months I began to taper pumping sessions, because I was finding that he could be well entertained by the babysitter with solids feeding (he had never taken a bottle very well so his milk was typically in a sippy by then.) I also was starting to get flak from co-workers "Really, you're still pumping? How old is that baby now anyway??" It was astonishing to me that the people who were supportive when my son was itty bitty suddenly got weird about it. It is endlessly frustrating that we're not farther in our acceptance of breastfeeding as the norm here in the U.S.

At any rate, in addition to tapering the pumping sessions, I was laid off when my son was 13 months old, which changed my life dramatically (I don't recommend it, it was devastating at the time, although I have to look back with a bit of 20/20 hindsight - had I not lost that job I don't think I would have been able to decide to stay home, which I did when my son was 2 and I was 30 wks pregnant with his sister!) I don't recall what happened to my pumping routine, other than things were a little up in the air during my job search. We kept the babysitter, but I think I nursed on demand during those times. When I did get a new job when he was 15 months old, I didn't pump at work, I found I didn't need to.

Rather than offering a lot of other milk during our separations, I let the sitter give him ALL of his solids for the day. That way, when I was home (and in the morning before I left for work) I just nursed whenever he wanted, and I didn't have to fuss with the bowls and spoons! :)

Truthfully, that baby has never been much of a milk drinker, having milk only occasionally even now at age 8. I let the sitter offer him cow's milk from time to time, but I didn't make it a primary source of nutrition, figuring that I was responsible for providing that. I did make his baby food, so I had good control over the kinds of food he was eating. I made a lot of a soup mixture of many mild chopped veggies (corn, peas, carrots, green beans) with a teensy pasta, vegetable broth (we have raised our children as vegetarians, but meat-eaters would want to chop up meat into very small pieces and add it here) and then I used infant barley cereal to thicken the soup into a stew that stuck well to the spoon. He loved this soup and would eat it a few times a day. Chopped tofu could be added as well. I felt better knowing that he was eating foods I had prepared even if I wasn't providing pumped milk. We also used up any frozen milk during that 12-18 month time period.

Because we had a sitter, I didn't have to negotiate these details with a daycare, but I wonder if they might be receptive to you just bringing in pre-made sippy cups? Do you have to tell them what's in the cup?

As with all feedback, please take what works for you and your family and leave the rest. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask to clarify.

Best wishes to you as you work to negotiate this next phase of motherhood. The fun never ends, I have to tell you! :) Making choices that are a little outside the norm puts us in constant...discussion...with others. But you know, it's what we do as parents. We do our best for our children, even if that is different from what others around us are doing/recommending.

Breastfeeding question: How to prepare for breastfeeding with a planned c-section?

One in an occasional series of answers to common breastfeeding questions I field in my volunteer work as a breastfeeding counselor. Standard disclaimers apply as explained in this post.

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You should know that even with a c-section, your body still knows how to make milk for your baby. It’s the delivery of the placenta that triggers the body to begin the process of your milk “coming in” which you may have already heard about. And your body has been making colostrum for a number of weeks by now! There is some great information about what’s called Lactogenesis (there are three specific states discussed – I, II, and III on this page. It can run a little technical but it’s worth a look.) on this page about lactogenesis.

These articles also discuss early-weeks concerns such as how to position the baby at the breast, what to do if you encounter problems, etc.

Latch

Early Weeks

The biggest suggestion I can offer you is to try to get the baby to breast as soon after delivery as is feasible, even if you’re still recovering. This can simply be a skin-to-skin connection between you and baby where the baby has the opportunity to seek the breast and try to latch (it’s a very innate process, as you’ll see.) A helper/husband/support person can aid you in making sure baby is safe if your mobility is impaired.

On a more practical front – most friends (I had only vaginal births) have told me that the best bet with cesarean is to get up and moving as soon after delivery as you can, as the mobility helps get all your parts working again (which is important for your release timing) and also just helps you feel better faster. If you feel pain or have concerns about the incision site, many moms find that holding a pillow against it can help them feel better. This can help when nursing as well, placing a pillow across your incision site. (I’ve even heard of moms who do this when they need to cough or laugh in the very early days, as it helps them feel less like they’re pulling at their stitches.)

Once you’re through the surgery and you’re with your baby, nurse often. Removal of milk/colostrum from the breast is what triggers the body to make more (this is explained in more detail in the lactogenesis link above.) A c-section baby may have been exposed to more anesthesia during delivery, though this is often less the case when dealing with a planned c-section, so you may not experience this. If the baby is sleepy or seems less interested in breastfeeding, try to do as much skin to skin contact (baby in just a diaper against your chest) as possible. This is one of the ways your hormones regulate, and also other body processes like body temperature. Babies in the early days should nurse 8-12 times a day (more isn’t out of the question either.)  If your baby is sleepy, you can tickle her toes or under her chin to try to rouse her. Use the breast to tickle the baby’s cheek to get him to turn and indicate interest.

Breastfeeding question: When is a good time to start pumping?

I do breastfeeding support, and it occurred to me recently that I create a small mountain of content each year just in the email replies I write to mothers, grandmothers, friends and family. If only there were a simple way to archive such content and index it so that it's available to more than just the one mom I helped that day? Hmm...

So this is the first in an occasional series of random bits and parts of breastfeeding answers. A few standard disclaimers: these are offered for information and support purposes only. I am not a medical professional, you should contact your health care professional with any medical questions. However I and the volunteers who work in this field as I do are experienced in the things that happen in the normal course of breastfeeding. Please feel free to ask any of your common breastfeeding questions via the comments section or personal email.I will always remove any personal details from the notes I post. If by doing so, something gets lost in the translation, please let me know and I'll clarify.

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Now, onto the regularly scheduled program: When is a good time to start pumping? (Context: Asked by a very recently-delivered second-time mom who has some slight engorgement and is not returning to work for a while.)If you don’t need to save milk for any specific upcoming separation, I’d suggest you wait for at least a month until breastfeeding is well established. Pumping early when you’re trying to get your supply in balance with your baby’s needs can be tricky, as you can pump too much and make any strong letdown or abundant supply worse.

For managing engorgement, have you heard me suggest cabbage leaves before? It’s a little crazy sounding, but there’s some evidence that a substance in green cabbage leaves has anti-inflammatory properties. Just take a leaf, crush it slightly in your hand to break the veins (the substance is in there) and stick in your bra. Yes, you’ll smell like cabbage but it’s very temporary and worth a good chuckle. Only leave the leaves in until they wilt – 30 mins or so. Bonus – when the cabbage is cold from the fridge it feels refreshing on sore breasts!

If you feel like you need to pump because baby can’t latch on, or because you’re so engorged, try pumping only for a few minutes, 2 or 3, just until the breast softens a bit. You could also hand express to achieve the same effect, collecting any milk in a glass measuring cup (seems to work well for transferring to a storage device later.) Only do this for a few days to get through engorgement, and only do it on feedings where you feel like baby can’t latch because the breast is so full/taut.

I can kill cancer cells!

While not currently lactating, I have in the past.

This research is familiar to many in the lactation community, but it's always surprising how many people in the general population are unaware of some of the more magnificent benefits of breastfeeding and breastmilk.

The HAMLET substance found in breastmilk is lethal to tumors. This is useful seeing as how HAMLET stands for: "Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made LEthal to Tumour cells" Wouldn't it be embarrassing if HAMLET only maimed tumors instead of killing them?

You need to read about this, though, because honestly - this is what babies eat. Stuff that's so amazing it kills cancer cells. Please support the breastfeeding women you know, and even the ones you don't know, for that matter.