Self-Explanatory

An Apology

Dear DBM-ers,

You might remember that sometime ago, the DBM Facebook group was threatened (twice) with deletion due to 'obscene' photographs which some of you had wanted to share on the group wall.

At the time I was very concerned that our community was under threat and so I asked you to send me your photos via email for publication on this blog instead.  I disabled the wall so you couldn't post your pictures, and changed the community guidelines to say you shouldn't post pictures to the wall.

I was completely wrong to do this.

By allowing Facebook to dictate to me their definition of 'obscene' I toe-d a line which I shouldn't have toe-d.  A misogynistic line which seeks to tell women that they are still lesser beings than men because their upper body is 'obscene' but a man's is not.  A line which forces mothers to hide out of sight from the rest of society because using our breasts to feed and comfort our children is 'obscene'.  A line which says that breasts are fine when they are being used to titillate men but suddenly become obscene when they are used to nurture the children those same men sire.

According to the sociologist Allan G. Johnson, misogyny is: 

"a central part of sexist prejudice and ideology and, as such, is an important basis for the oppression of females in male-dominated societies. Misogyny is manifested in many different ways, from jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel toward their own bodies."

I'm really sorry :(  I should never have asked you to hide away.

Facebook is only a 'virtual' world but it plays an important part in many people's real lives.  I absolutely support your right to nurse in public and I therefore I must unquestionably support your right to share your nursing photos on our Facebook group wall too.  

But what happens if we get into trouble with Facebook and our group gets shut down?

If that happens, I will let you know how to find one another again via the Twitter account @bfdboobies  


I will also contact the press and campaign to have our group reinstated, just as the wonderful Leaky Boob did.  I will trust that other online communities will support us just as we have supported them in the past.  

As Jessica from the Leaky Boob promised me when DBM was threatened with deletion once before: 

'we've got your back'.

In the meantime I have a favour to ask.  There is a co-ordinated campaign of 'nurse-in's being organised at Facebook's offices around the world on February 6th.  You can learn more about them here. 

There will be one in London, and potentially one in Dublin if we can get it organised.  They will also be taking place throughout Europe, in the USA, Canada and Australia.  I want you to support those nurse-ins if you feel able.  

My reason for asking is this:  if Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest country in the world smaller only than China and India.  It is currently home to 800 Million users.  One analyst predicts that it will have 1 Billion users by August 2012.

We're allowing Facebook to tell 800 Million + people that breastfeeding is obscene and must be hidden, or done out of sight, and yet that same company makes millions from advertising formula milks. 

So that my lovely daughters don't inherit a world where breastfeeding mothers are still denigrated, things really need to change.  For the record, I'm not a fan of 'nurse-ins'.  I've actually never attended one before.  I'm not a fan of them because to me they're essentially just a 'sit-in' with babies and children around.  If those babies and children need a feed, then they have a feed.  However, this is what it is.  We're nursing mothers, we will probably need to bring our kids with us and they'll probably need to feed.  But anyone can 'sit-in' in support of the rights of breastfeeding mothers, so bring your friends, and your partners too - we don't discriminate ;) 

In the meantime I'm going to change the settings so you can post your nursing pictures if you want to.  I'll let you know when it's done.

Today I went for lunch with my mother and girls at an art gallery close to my home.  In the garden outside there are many sculptures (which my eldest daughter calls 'angels') and she asked to go and see them.  We walked around them all and the last one we came to was this one:

The name of this sculpture is 'Pillows of Strength' and it's by F.E. McWilliam.

I like that my daughter brought me to it today, and perhaps it was an angel. :)

Karen's Story

Below follows a mother's story sent in by Karen who runs Boobiemilk. 

They're going to be running a competition for us soon - however before that, Karen wanted to share her own story of breastfeeding her first child.  I can honestly say that I never cease to be amazed by the determination of some of the women in our group.  

Karen and William

'William was born in January 2008.  He was exactly one week late.  The labour went really well for the first 21 hours while I quietly laboured at home and then travelled 45 miles to the Birth Centre to labour in their birthing pool.  When I felt ready to push I asked the midwife to break my waters and sadly they were brown.  In this birth centre that meant a trip in the wheelchair underground and up the elevator to the hospital delivery ward.  This also meant that when William finally emerged after 3 hours of pushing and an episiotomy resulting in a third degree tear, a group of staff from the NICU whisked him to the other end of the room to be deeply suctioned.  William was finally placed on my chest and the NICU nurse told me not to breastfeed him yet because he would have to go to the NICU if his breathing worsened.  When I asked his APGAR score I was told 9, pretty good score for a baby finding it had to breathe?  

William weighed in at 9lb, I know this because a volunteer stood in the corner of the delivery room until we let her weigh him.  She had been standing there for over an hour by this point while waiting for me to finish skin-to-skin. 

The brown waters and high birth weight meant that William was watched closely and had his blood sugar monitored every couple of hours for his first day of life.  Every time we mentioned going home, we were told that it was important for William to be closely monitored until discharged from hospital.   

I knew a lot about breastfeeding.  I had attended classes, I had read books, I ran a nutrition and breastfeeding program in the US.  This all flies out of the window when you hold your first baby in your arms.  “What’s the cross cradle position again?”.  

Many of the nurses tried to help with positioning.  One nurse told me “Your nipples will toughen up in time”.  A lactation consultant came to the room with her inch long fingernails to help me position William URGH.  My work colleague and lactation consultant came to the hospital to help with positioning.  We delayed his circumcision to prevent further breastfeeding problems and left the hospital after 2 long nights stay (circumcision is very common in the US, however we decided against it after reading that it is performed without anaesthetic).   

The first night in our own home things got worse.  William refused the breast altogether.  Every time he was put close to the nipple he would scream and try to get away.  After all the suctioning and constant help with breastfeeding he’d had enough.  I was so lucky to have my husband and Mum with me.  I hand expressed onto a teaspoon while my family fed the milk to my son.  I knew that at his age, small quantities of milk were enough for him.   

We made it through the first night at home and went to see our paediatrician the next day for a routine appointment.  The Doctor assured us that this was normal and breast refusal was common.  He offered us two things, a dental syringe and a can of formula.  He laughed when I took only the syringe, he knew I wouldn’t take the formula.  Plus, if I needed formula, Mead Johnson had kindly delivered two cans while we were in the hospital (which I donated to the local food bank or tipped down the sink I don’t remember which).  The syringe made things easier, and no milk was wasted in the task of hand expression.  I had a pump but hand expression was the best method for the first couple of days.   

William took many trips in those first few weeks in the snow to see my colleague the lactation consultant and to support groups at another hospital.  We tried lots of skin to skin, we tried a nipple shield, we worked tirelessly to encourage William to like to spend time at the breast and we worked on latch.  I knew that I needed to establish a good milk supply and so we got hold of a hospital grade pump and I pumped around the clock.  I made a huge mistake in my desperation to pump enough milk for the next feed and turned the suction too high.  I destroyed my nipples OUCH!  So, as William became better and better at latching I was in agony from the pump.  I used gel pads to help repair and soothe my nipples, I used antibiotics for the mastitis that I got from the nipple trauma.  I say William got better and better, but in reality he never got really good at breastfeeding, he was just lucky that I ended up with an oversupply.  I worked with four different lactation consultants before I found the right technique for us.  William would never open his mouth wide, he hated having his nose near the breast, and in the end we had to take a hands-on approach to get a good latch.  I know that many lactation consultants take a hands off approach to breastfeeding, but I really needed to be shown how to do it and I had to shape the breast for William to get a good mouthful and not have his nose touching anything. 

I probably pumped full time for William for about a month.  We then spent the next year with a great left side latch and a dodgy right sided latch.  At three months I went back to work and sadly had to start pumping all over again.  I worked four long days.  I would feed at drop off, lunchtime and pick-up, and William would have 2-3 bottles of expressed breastmilk.  My work was very breastfeeding friendly, and my staff were very encouraging and understanding.  It would have been very easy to miss pumping sessions, but I made it a priority and it worked for us.  William received expressed breastmilk until his first birthday, and I continued to nurse at lunchtime until he turned 2.  At 18 months one of his teachers asked me to leave the room and nurse him somewhere else, this was the first time I had met with negativity towards my breastfeeding a toddler (outside the family).  I had nursed him in that building 3 times a day for two years and never had a negative comment, it blew my mind.  She never asked me to move again, she would just quietly leave the room. 

William was never sick, he made it through all the bugs that came around at the nursery, he watched quietly from his cot as each and every other child and teacher went down with vomiting and diarrhea.  He never had an ear infection, had his first diaper rash at 2 (cloth nappies are the best) and the staff were very happy to inform me of his first illness at 15 months, pink eye.  I don’t think we could have travelled on a plane without him breastfeeding, it really has been a truly magnificent parenting tool.  At six months William came to a breastfeeding conference with me for work.  He was brought to me during one of the sessions and after the session was over we were asked to return after the break so that we could do a demonstration for the next session.  He spent the entire hour flirting with the audience. 

My husband, myself and William moved back to the UK in 2010.  I was 5 months pregnant and William was still nursing maybe 4-6 times a day (he weaned at night 6 months earlier).  My family were a little concerned that he was STILL breastfeeding, but it really worked for us, and nursing while pregnant had been tough in the beginning, but had become a lot less painful by the second trimester.  I knew that William would have some jealousy when the new baby arrived, and a renewed interest for breastfeeding.  When Ellie arrived (easy labour, easy breastfeeder, gorgeous little girl), I think it really helped them to bond by sharing breastfeeding together.  William had decided early on in the pregnancy that he no longer wanted the right breast, and was very quick to give it to Ellie.  I must admit it was a little weird to look down and see such a tiny head and such a big head nursing together, but adorable all at the same time.   

William will be 4 in January, and he has had his last breastfeed.  He had been asking for it less and less, and telling me more and more when Ellie needed to nurse.  One night he asked for Boobie and Daddy told him he could have Boobie 5 more times.  I did not disagree with him, it was time.  While William nursed I cried.  It’s been a long and hard journey, but there’s nothing I would change as it’s changed my life for the better and I know that we are closer because of it.  I have used my experiences and passion for breastfeeding to promote and support other women’s choices and I’m even making it my living now.  Breastfeeding has helped me understand what help other women need to succeed at it, and I have been able to make positive changes in breastfeeding rates in the US as a result of that.  I have just graduated from Breast Buddy training in the UK which I hope will allow me to help UK women to reach their breastfeeding goals too. 

William has not asked for Boobie again. '

Ellie and WIlliam

  

Boobiemilk are having a sale throughout January with 15% discount at the checkout using the code JANUARY15  ~  'Like' their facebook page here.

STILL breastfeeding?

'Are you STILL feeding that baby?'

'Teeth are God's way of telling you it's time to stop'
(a doctor once said this to me...)

'There are no benefits to breastfeeding past 6m/1yr'

bla.

bla..

bla...

Dear Friends*,

You've made it to about 6 months or beyond, and hopefully breastfeeding is going well.  

Your baby is probably starting to eat solids and still breastfeeds.  

You are probably enjoying feeding - maybe you're even starting to reconsider your original goals.  6 months might be becoming 1 year, or maybe you've decided you now want to breastfeed until your child self-weans.  

You're just living your life, minding your own business and feeding your baby, and then someone - and it might be someone close to you - SOMEONE starts making *those* comments.

Apart from a rather ballsy 'what's it got to do with you?'  Or a (perhaps slightly cannier) 'what makes you say/think that?'), what can a mum say when the comments start?

Well, there are plenty of reasonable things you could say in response - but of course you never remember the best retorts until it's too late (or is that just me?).  

You could trot out the obvious 'the WHO recommend two years or beyond'; but even in the C21st many people seem to think that those recommendations only really apply to third world countries....  

You could ask them why they think cow breast milk is better for a human being that human breast milk?  

You could just say 'because s/he likes it and so do I' - but I think it likely that someone who will directly question how you feed your baby will also be the type of person who thinks that LIKING breastfeeding makes you a bit odd...

So I have a few suggestions to make about things you might store away for when the comments come....  (I realise that this list far from exhaustive!)

• 'Because the less my child breastfeeds, the more likely he is to become obese.'
  'These findings strongly support a dose-dependent association between longer duration of breastfeeding and decrease in risk of overweight.'
  
• 'Because the less my child breastfeeds, the more likely he is to develop diabetes.'  
  'breastfeeding has a significant, measurable effect on the important growth regulators in the blood, IGF-I and insulin. The more times the child was breastfed, the lower the hormone levels'
  
• 'Because the less my child breastfeeds, the more likely she is to develop mental health problems.'
  'A shorter duration of breastfeeding may be a predictor of adverse mental health outcomes throughout the developmental trajectory of childhood and early adolescence.'
  
• 'Because the less my child breastfeeds, the more likely she is to suffer from Autism.'
  'No breastfeeding versus breastfeeding for more than six months was significantly associated with an increase in the odds of having AD when all cases were considered'
  
• 'Because the less my child breastfeeds, the more likely he is to suffer from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML).'
  'This meta-analysis showed that both short-term and long-term breastfeeding reduced the risk of childhood ALL and AML,'
  
• 'Because the less my child breastfeeds, the lower her IQ is likely to be.'
  'a significant positive association between duration of breastfeeding and intelligence was observed' 
• 'Because the less my child breastfeeds the less support his immature immune system will have.'
  'Antibodies are abundant in human milk throughout lactation' ' a child's immune system doesn't completely mature until about 6 years of age' 

And because it always staggers me that women don't shout more about the protection longer term breastfeeding affords them - tell those pesky breastfeeding saboteurs that:

• 'my risk of developing ovarian cancer increases the shorter I breastfeed.'
  'Breastfeeding of 18 or more months was associated with a significant decrease in ovarian cancer risk compared to never breastfeeding'
  
• 'my risk of developing breast cancer increases the increases I breastfeed.'
  'The total duration of breast-feeding was associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer (for each month of breast-feeding)'
  
• 'my risk of suffering from high blood pressure increases the shorter I breastfeed.'
  'never or curtailed lactation was associated with an increased risk of incident maternal hypertension'
  
• 'my risk of developing diabetes increases the shorter I breastfeed.'
  'increasing duration of lactation was associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. For each additional year of lactation, women with a birth in the prior 15 years had a decrease in the risk of diabetes of 15%'
• 'my risk of suffering a heart attack increases the shorter I breastfeed'
   'women with a single live birth who breast-fed for 7-12 months were significantly less likely to develop cadriovascular disease'
  
• 'my overall health is likely to be worse the shorter I breastfeed'.
  'dose-response associations between breastfeeding duration and later health'  'among postmenopausal women, increased duration of lactation was associated with a lower prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and cardiovascular disease.'

As I said - this list is far from exhaustive...  

Many of the 'benefits' of breastfeeding are dose specific.  The longer you do do it for, the healthier for you and your child - simple.  
I like to think of this as Mother Nature's reward ;)

So, lovely mums:

If you like breastfeeding, and your child still wants to breastfeed, let the only people to have a say in when you stop breastfeeding be you and your child. 

(*you know who you are)

Links and further reading:

Obesity:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/162/5/397.short
http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v28/n10/abs/0802758a.html
http://www.healthjockey.com/2011/12/28/breastfeeding-reduces-obesity-risk-in-kids-life/
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/113/2/e81.short

Diabetes:
http://truthdive.com/2011/12/21/Breastfeeding-cuts-kids-risk-of-developing-lifestyle-diseases-later-in-life.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1464-5491.2010.03134.x/abstract
http://www.jacn.org/content/24/5/320.short
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/294/20/2601.short

http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/fulltext/2009/05000/duration_of_lactation_and_risk_factors_for.5.aspx

Mental Health:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=23636338


Austim:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1746-4358-1-16.pdf
http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-ZFYB200814018.htm

http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ejap/article/view/158/177   


Childhood Cancers:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8282392
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2899774
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1497668/pdf/15504444.pdf
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673688928358/abstract

Higher intelligence:
 http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/287/18/2365.short
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/65/5/578

Breast Cancer:
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/96/14/1094.short
http://breastcancer.about.com/od/riskfactorsindetail/a/breastfd_prevnt.htm

Ovarian Cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17450440


Blood Pressure:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8949323/Mothers-who-breastfeed-for-at-least-six-months-have-lower-blood-pressure.html
http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/fulltext/2009/05000/duration_of_lactation_and_risk_factors_for.5.aspx

Better Overall Health for mothers:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/161/3/289.full.pdf+html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/health/research/22breast.html 

Immunity in children:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/433149
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309043913&page=134#pagetop
http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detwean.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1398-9995.2000.00118.x/full 

Ardo Competition Winner!

CONGRATULATIONS to....

Danielle Baker (entry via email) 

who was randomly selected by this generator as the winner out of the many entries to our Ardo Calypso competition!

The question was: 'What is the technology called on the Calypso which gives you complete protection from contamination?'

Of course, the correct answer (which all of you got!) was B - VacuuSeal.  

Read more about why such protection is important here.

Please get in touch with me Danielle, via email  so I can arrange to have your pump sent from Ardo.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and huge thanks to Ardo for volunteering such a generous prize!

I hope this competition has helped to raise a bit of awareness about the importance of supporting breastfeeding by choosing to patronise companies who are WHO code compliant :)

Happy New Year!