Breastfeeding Support

I was just looking at the beautiful pictures on a soon-to-be-published calendar in my town, and thought I would post a link to it so you can all enjoy them! Lots of positive images, and encouraging stories too.

Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response Are you ready?

OBJECTIVES OF WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK 2009

* To draw attention to the vital role that breastfeeding plays in emergencies worldwide.

* To stress the need for active protection and support of breastfeeding before and during emergencies.

* To inform mothers, breastfeeding advocates, communities, health professionals, governments, aid agencies, donors, and the media on how they can actively support breastfeeding before and during an emergency.

* To mobilise action and nurture networking and collaboration between those with breastfeeding skills and those involved in emergency response.

RATIONALE

* Children are the most vulnerable in emergencies – child mortality can soar from 2 to 70 times higher than average due to diarrhoea, respiratory illness and malnutrition.

* Breastfeeding is a life saving intervention and protection is greatest for the youngest infants. Even in non-emergency settings, non-breastfed babies under 2 months of age are six times more likely to die.

* Emergencies can happen anywhere in the world. Emergencies destroy what is ‘normal,’ leaving caregivers struggling to cope and infants vulnerable to disease and death.

* During emergencies, mothers need active support to continue or re-establish breastfeeding.

* Emergency preparedness is vital. Supporting breastfeeding in non-emergency settings will strengthen mothers’ capacity to cope in an emergency.

Hello All. I am frustrated and hoping some of you can share experiences! I am a huge supporter of breast feeding. I truly loved it. I remember thinking, "How will we ever want to wean from such a great experience?". My daughter is now almost 13 months old, has a healthy appetite for solids, loves cow's milk, is walking, talking and full of zest, independence and cuteness. With this well rounded diet and comfort with cow's milk, I felt that this might be the right time to start weaning Livia. We were both showing signs of readiness...I am working and we really only nurse about 4 times a day, unless I'm off, in which case we nurse whenever. She has started biting me hard with her little teeth, playing around while nursing such as doing assorted acrobatics, spinning, flipping around and generally not focusing on the bosum when we are at task. I tried to gradually wean her by removing daytime feedings and leaving it to nights when she is still waking to nurse. I'm pretty confident she is on to me as today she would nap, but only if hooked to my nipple, otherwise it was a crying fit and she was already clearly over-tired! Then when I went to put her to bed, she would wake, crying, everytime I tried to remove the sleeping child from my bosum, all resulting in 3 hours(!!) of more or less forced nursing. My left breast is killing me between sudden engorgement, teeth and pressure. I'm tired as I've yet to sleep through the night since before her birth. I'm looking for ANY advice you can offer folks. I'm a mother on the brink! Thanks in advance...

Hello, Today I went to a breastfeeding clinic at the hospital and the appointment was really informative. I forgot to ask a few questions though, one being about dummies. Is it okay to give your baby a dummy whilst breastfeeding??? I know I did with Ethan, but I only fed him for three weeks. My second child, which I fed six months, wouldn't have a dummy or expressed milk at all. Any help would be appreciated. I really want it to work this time. Love Tanya xo.

And mothering is something that our culture does not value enough to support.

 

 Ricki Lake & The Business of Being Born has some exciting announcements - a new site to check out & join, mybestbirth.com, for pregnant women, moms, parents & birth professionals, a new book in stores now, "Your Best Birth" and the online rental of "The Business of Being Born" now available at thebusinessofbeingborn.com. If you know someone who is pregnant, they will want to know about this!

Well Taylor is nearly 6 weeks old and is doing really well being breastfed. There are a few issues like latenight when he is hungry and has fed on and off for the last several hours and I have no milk left due to the fact that my body can't produce it fast enough, so end up sitting up til 2 or 3 am in the morning tryin to work out ways to put hom to sleep. But other than that everything is going well he is putting on dbl of what they expect a baby to put on each week. He is already over 5kg's. He is a generally happy healthy little boy.

My older boy Damian absolutely adore's him but just doesn't like it when I am feeding Taylor as he doesn't get as much attention at these times. But slowly he is learning that while I am feeding he can go off and do his own thing in his playroom which is good, there is no danger in there and plenty of toys.

Hope everyone else is doing well

Cheers Queenie

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Hello everyone,

I'm 25 weeks pregnant and am hoping to breastfeed longer than I managed to last time.  I planned on feeding Ethan for at least six months but unfortunately about 2 and a half weeks into feeding him, I ended up getting sore on one side and by the time I realized that the problem was mastitis, it was too late.  I was in way too much pain and had already decided to put Ethan onto the bottle because he was stressed out and so was I and it wasn't worth us both being miserable over it.

I breastfed my second child for six months and although he was a real demand feeder, I never found the actual breastfeeding part difficult.  It just happened naturally and I only weaned him because he got very badly ill with gastro and because he'd left it so long to feed, my breasts were very sore so I thought weaning would be the best thing as six months was a good run and I wasn't expecting to be able to feed him at all after my first child wouldn't.

Anyone who has any advice or suggestions for me for breastfeeding, I'd be very grateful.

Tanya.

One of my friends has a son (9 months I think) who has bad eczema which seems to be triggered by wheat and dairy. Consequently she has been advised to keep him off all those products til 12 months. She is still breast feeding him, and as he doesnt much like food that is just as well IMO!

But now she has been to a homeopath who has told her SHE is also allergic to these products and has told her she must stop breastfeeding so she can detox as this would be bad for her son, and that she must instead move him onto goats milk (not soya etc) as it is better nutritionally. However, having guzzled his first bottle of goats milk down he had a bit of a reaction to it. She is currently reducing his breast feeds with a view to stopping feeding as advised and will try the goats milk again in a few days.

I bit my tongue a bit this morning as my instinct said that breast milk is still best for him and she should not stop on the say so of one expert on allergies (who probably knows very little about breast feeding). Before I launch myself carefully into this mine field, does anyone else have any experience of this, or any opinions, or good websites, please?

the NEW ABA Breastfeeding Helpline is 1800 686 2 686, or 1800 mum 2 mum :)

1800 mum 2 mum delivers breastfeeding advice, mum to mum

Australia's first 24-hour toll-free helpline for breastfeeding mothers was officially launched on Friday March 20.

1800 mum 2 mum (1800 686 2 686) is run by the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) and utilises the real-life experience of over 200 trained volunteer counsellors each week who help other mums with issues including the early days with a new baby, expressing and storing milk, weaning, supply and what to do when baby simply says no.

"This is such an important resource for breastfeeding mothers," says Australian Breastfeeding Association president Querida David.

"Mothers everywhere can call one toll-free number for mum-to-mum support and information from trained breastfeeding counsellors. That's good news for mothers, babies, dads and families. Getting the right help at the right time is important for breastfed babies and their mums. The Australian Breastfeeding Association's free breastfeeding helpline 1800 mum 2 mum delivers that help whenever mothers need it."

The 1800 mum 2 mum number replaces 13 different numbers that operated in different states, with different levels of service. It is proving a word-of-mouth hit even before its official launch, averaging 1214 calls per week in February, which were answered by an average of 214 volunteer counsellors each week.

Each volunteer counsellor has completed 400 hours of training and has a Certificate IV in Breastfeeding Education or equivalent. The service is available to everyone, from mothers and fathers to nurses and other health care professionals, whether ABA members or not.

The major upgrade of the ABA Breastfeeding Helpline is possible through funding from the Federal Government under the Support Breastfeeding Mums initiative.

About ABA: Australian Breastfeeding Association is a voluntary organisation established in 1964 to encourage and support mothers who wish to breastfeed their babies. There are 300 ABA groups nationwide with over 17,000 members. www.breastfeeding.asn.au