The post in which I let my lactivism show...

Have you seen this story?  Basically, a Houston mother was fired from her job because she wanted to use a back unused room at her work to pump breast milk for her baby at home.  She took her employer to court and the judge ruled that it was not discrimination, that employers are under no obligation to let a woman pump during her regularly scheduled work breaks.

Can you see the steam coming out of my ears?

Multi-tasking.
Working on the computer and cuddling Belgee.

We have this idea in our society that because a woman can decide not to breastfeed and use formula instead that she should make that choice.  Lactation is not seen as the inevitable conclusion to the biological rhythm of life.

The rhythm of life goes like this: a woman ovulates.  If she doesn't get pregnant, approximately fourteen days later she menstruates.  Approximately fourteen days later she ovulates again.  Repeat, repeat, repeat until she either gets pregnant or hits menopause.

Menstruating is the natural conclusion of the 28 day cycle.  It is her natural state.  She can choose, of course, to take medical means to interfere with that.  But, can you imagine an employer firing a woman because she's not on the pill.  (Unless her employer is a pimp.)  Would a judge rule in favor of an employer who didn't give a woman the time and appropriate place to change her tampon?  I think not.

Lactation is the natural and obvious conclusion to the cycle of ovulation, fertilization, implantation, gestation, and birth.  Lactation is simply what happens next.  It is how human mammals feed their babies.  A woman's body does that all on its own.  A woman can choose, of course, to take medical means to interfere with that.  But, should she be required to?

The judge in this case said that lactation was not pregnancy-related.  (Methinks this gentleman needs a biology lesson.)  As a result of this faulty understanding the judge ruled that firing a woman because she is pumping breast milk is not sexual discrimination.  Are you serious?  People get breaks to smoke, use the restroom, make personal calls, etc.  But, if you want to use your break to pump it's out of the question?  Of course it's sexual discrimination; only women lactate!

Have sling.  Will travel.

I can hear some of my readers saying that this Houston mother shouldn't have been in the workplace if she had a nursing baby.  Regardless of how I personally live my life (I stay home with my children and don't even leave the baby with a sitter), I cannot be too quick to judge another's situation.  Many women, for one reason or another, work. We don't live in a perfect world.  Ideally, I believe a woman should be home resting while on her period (red tent anyone?).  But our world doesn't ordinarily give women the space to do that either.

The fact that breastfeeding women are not protected under the law is ridiculous, in my opinion.  President Obama's health care law does address breastfeeding and requires employers to give new moms a break to nurse.  However, it doesn't protect women from being fired if they ask to pump!  There's a severe chink in this logic.  (The more I learn about the President's healthcare law, the angrier I get.  There's no room for following the dictates of your conscience, is there?!)


I think some nurse-ins are in order.  Who's with me?

Nighttime Parenting

When I first had Meg I read books about letting your baby cry it out and sleep in her own crib.  It was supposed to be "better" and make my life "easier."  Instead, it made me a nervous wreck.  The more I learned about my baby as an individual the more I felt uncomfortable with training her that way.  At that point I don't think I had ever heard the term "attachment parenting" and I had never read a book on it.  I just prayed and started following my own instincts.  Which meant that Meg spent most nights in our bed.


Little-by-little my parenting style evolved to full-blown co-sleeping, baby-wearing, extended-nursing earthy-crunchy momma.  You can call it old-school and primitive or you can call it progressive.  To me, though, it has been what has come naturally.


If I paid attention to all the experts I'd have to change my parenting style every other week.  There is always some new study, new author, new PhD that has the answer to all parenting woes.  Some new gadget or method is supposed to make us happier or smarter or better adjusted.  What I find amazing is that we think that as a society we are so much more evolved than the rest of the world.  We think that modern research trumps ancient wisdom.  But, that is not always the case.


At the moment a battle is raging in Milwaukee over bed sharing.  The city is on a campaign to raise awareness about how dangerous it is.  The county medical examiner is considering supporting legislation making bed-sharing illegal.  Apparently, Milwaukee has an extremely high rate of bed-sharing deaths.  So, to fight it they've developed the following propaganda marketing campaigns.

What these posters don't tell you is that in every single bed-sharing death reported the babies were not breastfed, but formula fed, something that co-sleeping and bed-sharing advocates have long pointed to as a factor when it comes to SIDS.  The difference is not that formula feeding mothers are inferior to breastfeeding mothers.  The difference is that the hormones released during nursing and the psychological bonding that occurs makes it nearly impossible for a mother to be unaware of her baby thereby rolling on her.  Breastfeeding is a component of safe sleep-sharing.

What these ads also don't tell you is that in most, if not all, of the cases in Milwaukee, drugs and/or alcohol were involved.  So, is it sleeping with a child that is dangerous or is it going to bed with a baby while you are drunk that is the problem?

Co-sleeping or bed-sharing, has shown in study after study to reduce the incidence of SIDS.  To try to pin SIDS on co-sleeping or bed-sharing is very short-sighted.  Remember that we used to call SIDS "crib death"?  Babies have suffered from SIDS when sleeping on their own in their own cribs.


Besides being a protective factor against SIDS, co-sleeping and bed-sharing is practically universal.  In almost all cultures, including ours, parents sleep with their babies.  It seems to me that the city of Milwaukee and others who decry the dangers of bed-sharing have not really thought this thing through.  Do we really want to vilify and make illegal something that is so common and natural rather than educating people about safe co-sleeping practices?  It would seem that this campaign puts a lot of good parents in opposition to the law.


The Mayor of Milwaukee defends these ads by making comparison to Third World countries.


"Some ZIP codes in Milwaukee have infant mortality rates higher than Third World countries. That’s unacceptable.  If the ads make some people uncomfortable, I guarantee it’s a lot less uncomfortable than having another baby die from co-sleeping,” a cause of death that is “so preventable."

The health commissioner, Bevan Baker, uses the same logic saying, “Is it shocking? Is it provocative? Yes.  But what is even more shocking and provocative is that 30 developed and underdeveloped countries have better [infant death] rates than Milwaukee.”

What is so ridiculous about this logic is that in so-called underdeveloped Third World countries parents, and even whole families, bed-share.  There isn't room in the house/apartment/yurt/hut for a crib.  Neither is there money for baby furniture.  If these places have lower SIDS rates than we do than clearly co-sleeping isn't the problem.


Nighttime Parenting

Me and Luc

When it all comes down, all of our "advancements" have in some ways robbed us of our instincts and common sense.  Nature points us to breastfeeding, not formula feeding.  (No offense to those who must formula feed for health, medical or personal reasons.)  Nature shows us that mothers who sleep with a baby have increased awareness of their surroundings and of their babies.  

Nursing while co-sleeping is an important facet of nighttime parenting.

Babies' sleep cycles (between "light" or REM sleep and deep sleep) are shorter than adults.  They startle themselves awake quite easily.  And unlike grown-ups, they can't just turn themselves over and go back to sleep.  They can't get up for a drink or water or a trip to the bathroom.  Babies often need to be parented back to sleep.  

Me and Belgee

If you train your child to sleep through the night thereby encouraging long deep sleep cycles you may, without knowing it, be stunting his or her brain development.  During REM sleep the brain is very active and blood flow greatly increases.  This is when the brain is actually LEARNING!  The brain is creating the nerve proteins that actually build the brain and the brain is processing everything seen and experienced during awake time.  During deep sleep, however, the brain does less and operates at a lower level--less blood flow, less growth.  Babies' brains grow to nearly 70% of their adult volume during the first two years of life.  So, these are ideal years for having shorter sleep cycles, awakening more often and "light" sleep.

Me and Captain

Also, by training your baby to sleep through the night you encourage longer periods of deep sleep, which may be great for mom and dad, but not so good for baby.  Babies' breathing is irregular and there are sometimes pauses.  However, babies startle easily and go in and out of REM sleep frequently.  If they enter into a deep sleep for too long it can increase their risk of SIDS.  Dr. Sears writes, "I believe that training babies to sleep too deeply, too long, too soon, while convenient to parents, is not in a baby's best biological interest. Sleep- training done before their cardiopulmonary control mechanisms are mature enough to handle prolonged deep sleep could be risky. Training a baby to fall asleep and stay asleep alone in his own room in his own crib may be the "modern" way, but for some infants sleeping lighter and for shorter stretches may be the safer way."

Imagine being cradled in a warm, safe and secure environment where there is constant soothing noises.  You're never hungry, never thirsty, and never alone.  That's a baby's life before birth.  Imagine suddenly being born--an emotional event in itself!--and then being put in a crib alone, in a room separate from your mother's sight, smell, touch.  It could be very disconcerting.  The nighttime could be a very long and lonely period.  Co-sleeping reduces infant anxiety.

When a mother and child sleep together, their breathing synchronizes.  Without perhaps knowing it, they touch each other in the night, adjust to one another and bring one another in and out of sleep patterns.

Co-sleeping also helps foster the breastfeeding relationship.  Baby has easy access to nursing, reducing the incidence of mom becoming engorged from too long a period without nursing or poor milk supply from not frequent enough nursing.  (Milk supply is basic economics--supply and demand.)

In addition to these benefits to baby, there are some real benefits for parents who co-sleep.  

First of all, you'll be much less sleep deprived.  I sleep quite well most nights, even with a six week old baby.  When we snuggle down for the night I know River will be waking up in a few hours.  I do not have to get up to retrieve him from another room or another bed.  I simply direct him to the breast if he needs help, (but once nursing is established babies rarely need help.  They have radar.  They know where mom and boob are.)  I drift right back to sleep.  And unless the baby is being particular fussy because of something like teething, Gana never has to wake up.  So, he's never dragging himself to work sleep deprived.

Being able to parent my child in the night, without having him cry himself to sleep reduces my anxiety, too.  Co-sleeping fosters harmony between mother and child.

Also, when a mother nurses a child to sleep and falls asleep herself, her body releases extra prolactin--keeping her in a positive emotional state and suppressing ovulation.   Nighttime parenting is an important part of ecological breastfeeding or natural child spacing.

Me and Luc

The point of this post is not to try to convince you to co-sleep if you don't want to.  If you are in doubt, research it for yourself and follow your own intuition.  You know how you sleep.  If you don't feel safe, don't do it.  The point is that co-sleeping is natural, universal, and safe when practiced by good parents who use their common sense and intuition.

If you are going to co-sleep:

1) Breastfeed

2) Don't smoke in the home or around the baby

3) Don't go to bed impaired by drugs or other substances

4) Keep the blankets and pillows away from the baby's face

A newborn baby has only three demands.  

They are warmth in the arms of its mother, 

food from her breasts, 

and security in the knowledge of her presence.   

Grantly Dick-Read

Breastfeeding: Cultural Confrontations

It's World Breastfeeding Week.  (Hurray for boobs!)  So, I thought I'd share various breastfeeding stories, anecdotes or things that might make you laugh or shake your head and say, "What?"

I absolutely always knew I would breastfeed. There was never another consideration.  But, truth be told, I did have a very Western understanding of breastfeeding.  You know, you breastfeed exclusively until 4-6 months when you introduce solids--and by solids I mean that paste-like substance they call baby rice cereal.  (gag!)  And somewhere around a year you wean your baby intentionally by little-by-little or all at once saying no to nursing.  I don't know where I got these ideas, except that I just absorbed them from living in America and from very "helpful" books like "What To Expect...."  (which I most whole-heartedly do not recommend).

Then I had Meg.  And we had a great nursing relationship.  I tried introducing solids at about 6 months, but she wasn't so into them.  I tried "weaning" her, but just didn't have the resolve.  BUT, I was already pregnant with Israel.  I just assumed that I would have to wean her before the new baby arrived.  Everyone I talked to assumed the same thing.  Time ticked by.  Closer and closer to the birth of our second baby.  Then a nutritionist at WIC of all places said, "Why do you have to wean her?  Nurse them both.  At least you won't get engorged after birth because she can take whatever the new baby won't." 

Well, that sealed it.

I tandem nursed.  One day when Meg was about 1 1/2 years old, I offered to nurse her and she said, "No thanks.  I'll have an apple."  So, I just had Israel.  But, Luc was born right before Meg was 2 1/2 and so I tandem nursed Israel and Luc. Until Israel was done and I just had Lucas.  And the story goes on.



When I moved to Mongolia a friend who had recently had a baby was not producing enough milk.  So, they asked me to nurse the baby.  I was uncomfortable with nursing someone else's baby.  It didn't fit in my Western Nursing Paradigm.  But I was willing to express.  So, every day I expressed a bottle or two for their baby.  They came over one night and all the friends were just sitting around the living room when the father of this baby warmed up the breastmilk.  Then put the nipple in his mouth and tested it.  Another friend said, "Man, you know that's Daja's breastmilk, right?"  He said, "Yes, but I wanted to test the temperature."  The friend replied, "Why don't you use your wrist like everyone else?"  The father said, "I trust my mouth."  The friend said, "I hate to see how you test her bath water."

Shortly after that I had some expressed milk in the fridge that they weren't able to pick up.  I didn't want it to go bad, so was considering what to do.  Gana's mother said, "Can I have it?"  Ummmmmmmmm........  Apparently, breastmilk is very good for one's liver.  And she should know.  She's a research physician.  So, she drank my breastmilk.  My Western Nursing Paradigm was not in Kansas anymore.

From that point on my mother-in-law frequently drank my breastmilk.  And when we go to Mongolia, even now, I express some for her everyday.

One day a friend of mine who had a baby about four months old had to go away overnight for a church conference.  She expressed milk ahead of time for her baby.  While she was gone she became painfully engorged.  So a mutual friend relieved her engorgement.  They were on a bus and there was not cup or means of expressing, so she did it the au naturel way.  My Western Nursing Paradigm was gone FOREVER.

When we moved back to America, a friend of mine who was a doula was at a birth that took much longer than expected.  She had expressed milk ahead of time for her baby, but it was now gone.  Her husband brought the fussy wee one to Bible study.  Without permission I slipped to a quiet room and nursed her baby.  She calmed and slept.  Everyone was greatly relieved not to hear a crying baby.  But I made the other moms that saw me do it swear to secrecy.  About a month or so later, Gana and I went to a wedding and these same friends watched our children.  It took longer than we thought to get home.  When we picked up the kids my friend said, "Um, I hope it's OK, but your baby was so fussy and wouldn't calm down.  So, um......I nursed him.  Is that OK?"  I started laughing.  "OK, well, now I can tell you.  Last month I nursed your baby when you were at that birth."  We both cracked up.  From then on I regularly nursed her baby when babysitting. 

And so my nursing journey goes on......its tenth year.  Saraa only nurses occasionally now.  But, soon we'll have a new baby to nurse and the fun will begin all over again!  Hurray for boobs.

It's World Breastfeeding Week!

Hurray for  Boobs!!!!

Yep, it's true.

At a recent church luncheon, I was collecting enough dessert for my whole family.  As I stacked up cookies on a napkin I said to one of my lady pastors, "These aren't all for me, by the way.  They're for the whole family."  I was hoping no one thought I was going to eat 8 cookies (although I certainly could if they were tasty).  She laughed and said, "You're breastfeeding!  Take as many as you want, you deserve it!"  I replied, "Well, I've been breastfeeding for nine years.  Someday I'll have to stop using that excuse."

Yes, you read that correctly.  It's not a typo.  I have been breastfeeding for more than 9 years--with about a two month break between Belgee and Saraa.