Talisha talked about in the different shapes of nursing pillows. This close-up shows the difference between a U-shaped pillow, and a L-shaped pillow like a Bosom Baby.that Talisha highlights.

Lanolin Lanolin is the smelly pale-yellow natural oil found on sheep's wool. As a waste product in wool processing, it's also known as wool oil, wool wax, wool fat, or wool grease. It's a natural water repellant — the function of which, as it's not too hard to guess, is to waterproof the sheep. Lanolin also has anti-fungal and antibacterial properties that protect the sheep's skin from infection. Derived from the animal's oil glands, lanolin is a mixture of wool fat and 25-30% water. Wool fat is a mixture of many different chemical compounds, including cholesterol and the esters derived from 'fatty' acids containing 18 to 26 carbon atoms.

Lanolin is the oily secretion found in sheep wool...Those sheep are also very likely to have been dipped in insecticides on the farm. These pesticides can accumulate in fat tissue, which researchers worry could affect the breast milk of new mothers.

We are now enrolling for our Winter Series
The Bradley Method® for New Parents:

What does that mean?  Normalize Breastfeeding.

I ask a different question: when did it stop being normal?  Did you know that the first formula was not brought to the market until the 1860’s?

While some babies were fed another animal’s milk, for the most part that means that greater acceptability of anything other than breastmilk has only been an option for around 150 years.  How long is human history?  Depending on whom you talk to, maybe 7500 years, it could be as long as 200,000 years.  However you count it, it is still a Very Long Time. 

Think about that.  Breastmilk and breasts were the “normal”.  For a much longer than it has not been "normal".  Humans survived through childbirth and breastfeeding without population problems long before the rise of the “modern era”.

What is it about machines and galvanized steel that we find so appealing?  Why do we allow ourselves to buy into the idea that science is always better than our humanity?

Absolutely, yes, there are so many things to thank science for – the lifesaving treatments and medicines, to the realization of putting a man on the moon.  All those things are tremendous.

So are we.  Humans: we have the vision to imagine and create modern miracles.  Our bodies are just as incredible.  Without conscious or directed thought, our bodies have the parts to make a new life.  Cell division happens without help from us.  This miracle of life grows within us without any help other than to eat, drink and sleep well. 

Once this life is born, *most* of our bodies know how to make the nutrition to feed our child, or children in the case of multiples.  What happened before 1860 if a mother could not or did not want to nurse her child?  The child was probably fed by a wet nurse.  Here is another interesting fact: did you know that there used to be wet nurse schools?  In fact, here is a quote from the first century about choosing a wet nurse:

“Above all, see that the child’s wet nurse speaks correctly.  The ideal, according to Chrysipus, would be that she be a philosopher…No doubt the most important point is that they should be of good character: but they should speak correctly as well.”

~Quintilian

Side note: I am not advocating “in-your-face” breastfeeding.  I don’t deliberately go find a group of children and plop down in the middle of them to nurse.  What I am saying is that if your child is hungry, just respond appropriately wherever you happen to be.  Feeding is feeding is feeding.  Just do it.

  

Fall 2013 Series

Although World Breastfeeding Week: Close to Mothers has come to a conclusion, we continue with Breastfeeding Awareness Month in the USA.  We will be bringing back our "In Their Own Words" for the rest of the month.

This series shares chronicles from students and readers about their own breastfeeding journeys.  Each mother has a unique story, one that I trust will empower you if you are learning about breastfeeding, and inspire you if you are in the trenches, struggling as you learn to breastfeed with your Sweet Pea.

Today's "Thoughtful Thursday" is not about breastfeeding specifically.  However, since a family's birth experience precedes the breastfeeding relationship, birth outcomes tend to directly influence the choice a mother makes about breastfeeding.  My thought relates to having a dialogue with your care provider about your birth:

"My obstetrician is trained medical professional.  He has years of schooling and experience about birth.  Who am I to question them?  Is it okay to question how they do what they do?"

"THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN touches on a number of past medical interventions that have gone terribly wrong. The film explores the use of the drug scopolamine in the 40s, 50s and 60s that put mothers into a kind of “twilight sleep” that didn‟t stop pain, but merely eliminated the memory of pain by attacking the brain functions responsible for self-awareness and self-control, resulting in a kind of psychosis, followed by post-traumatic stress-like memories in thousands of new mothers. In the 30s doctors routinely took x-rays of the pelvis, resulting in babies with cancer. In the 70s, use of the drug thalidomide, used for morning sickness, caused birth defects, while in the 90s, the drug Cytotec was used to stimulate contractions in mothers who had undergone previous Cesarean section. This was later found to cause ruptured uteruses and high infant mortality."  

Read more about the movie here:

http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/press/BusinessofBeingBorn.pdf