Tag Archives: Breastfeeding Cafe

Dealing With the Opposition

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is about birth experiences and breastfeeding. Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!

While unusual, I didn’t have the most traumatic of birth experiences. Peanut certainly did not come how we had planned, but all in all, things went well. The first thing I tried to do after getting over the shock of birth a baby in my bathroom was breastfeeding said baby. I specifically remember taking off my dress (did I hand her to someone? I must have) because it was getting in the way. Never mind the 10+ paramedics all standing around me—I’m trying to feed my baby.

Sadly, I couldn’t figure it out at home. So we went to the hospital and I had a lovely nurse help me nurse her for the first time while I was waiting to get stitched up. She immediately latched and latched well. We had a few hitches with her not wanting to wake up to latch and not being able to get a lactation consultant to help (grumble grumble), but breastfeeding was going very well in my eyes.

But there was an unexpected consequence of our birth experience—the change an “emergency” situation makes in the doctor’s eyes. (I’m going to insert here that this is my opinion and is based on very little actual research.) When Peanut’s hematocrit levels were slightly high, the pediatrician immediately said we needed to give her Pedialyte. I remember it feeling so wrong to me, but this was back before I learned I could disagree with a doctor, so I gave it to her. I knew it was important that she didn’t have bottles (to avoid nipple confusion) so they let me use a syringe while I was breastfeeding.

It immediately felt like every breastfeeding session was a huge ordeal. Not only did I have to get her latched correctly, but then my husband needed to help me get the syringe ready and in place. They did a second test that came back normal, but still insisted on us continuing the Pedialyte. Finally when they tested her hematocrit again they said it was normal now and we could stop. Honestly, I had already pretty much stopped by that point. I was starting to feel like her hematocrit levels weren’t really high to begin with, but again, just my opinion.

In the end, the whole mess with the Pedialyte didn’t hinder our breastfeeding relationship. I felt bad about the fact that she had something besides breast milk for a long time (like when people tried to tell me that she wasn’t exclusively breastfed, which I believe she was), but that has quickly dissolved into a worry of the past. She threw most of it up anyway.

I still feel that if we weren’t classified as an “emergency” situation that they needed to “fix” straight from the get go, that maybe they wouldn’t have jumped to the Pedialyte so quickly. While it took me time to get over not having my ideal birth (ha!), I still do not believe that it was such a bad thing for Peanut to have been birthed that way. I don’t think that they needed to put the IV I didn’t want in, I don’t think they needed to give me a Pitocin shot from my supposed bleeding issue (which magically turned into “wow, you’re hardly bleeding at all” after that shot. yeah, I think not), I don’t think that Peanut needed to be bathed the instant that we entered the hospital.

All of this just confirms the fact that I want to have a planned homebirth next time around. Next time, I will surround myself with only people who support my choices for birth and breastfeeding. I will not deal with a nurse who can’t or won’t help me, I will not deal with a lactation consultant who doesn’t really help, and I will not deal with doctors who aren’t doing everything in their power to help my breastfeeding relationship. I shouldn’t have to deal with anything when I am giving birth to and breastfeeding a baby.

Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

Not Really Wordless Wednesday: First Breastfeeding Photo

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is Wordless Wednesday: Breastfeeding Photos! Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st! 

 

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not supposed to put words on the Wordless Wednesday post. I’ve been getting a lot of photos for the Cafe’s Wordless Wednesday slideshow (thanks everyone BTW!) and a surprising amount of photos were moms breastfeeding within hours of birth. It made me start to wonder about the first photo I have of Peanut breastfeeding. Well here it is. No, she’s not exactly breastfeeding in the photo. This is when she was passed out “milk drunk” after breastfeeding. Yes, she’s laying her head on top of my boob.

When I took this photo, I thought it was so provocative. I wasn’t even sure if I should send it to my mother because “Oh my that’s the top of my boob in that photo!” It’s amazing how much I’ve changed over the last year and some change. I regret not taking more photos of Peanut breastfeeding when she was younger. I love the photos that we have now, but already those first few months are turning into a blur (I have some memory issues) and it makes tears well in my eyes thinking that I don’t have any photos to remember the early days of breastfeeding. I guess I’ll just have to make up for it with photos of her breastfeeding now.
 

 Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

Breastfeeding Student

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is about breastfeeding and employment. Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st! 

 

I am a breastfeeding student. I go to school part-time and just received two Associates degrees. I am starting on my Bachelors degree this fall. Let’s start off this post by acknowledging the fact that I am an untraditional student and I don’t expect to have everything catered around me.

Colleges and universities do not seem to expect a parent of a baby or toddler to ever enter their campus. In the one college and two universities that I have been to on multiple occasions, I have yet to find a single changing table. I also have yet to find any sort of plan for breastfeeding mothers.

You would be surprised how many moms go to school—I certainly was. Ideally we would be done with things like school before starting our journey of motherhood, but life just don’t work ideally. So many moms out there continue their education along with their new mothering gig. The Department of Education recently reported 13% of students are single parents. So that’s over 1 in 7 students and it doesn’t even count married parents! Yes, we’re still the minority, but I think that we at least need a changing table.

When Peanut was just two months old, I went back to school part-time. I thought it would be easy to just sit in my car and pump between classes. Ha! It only took a few weeks of trying to handle the pump under my hooter hider and failing miserably before I started skipping classes. I even tried the bathroom a couple times out of desperation, but of course the loud pump made that embarrassing. I couldn’t even get letdown half of the time! I am honestly lucky that I didn’t fail any classes that semester.

After that first bad semester, I started doing classes far enough apart that I would be able to go home and feed Peanut between them. I was also going to school 45 minutes away, so this meant for a lot of driving. Really, if I weren’t so stubborn determined, I would have easily either quit school or breastfeeding.

So all I ask is for a plan. Maybe somewhere reasonably close with a locking door that I can nurse/pump. I don’t care if it’s an open classroom, just somewhere that I can be alone and uninhibited. When you’re worrying about your classmates hearing the pump, dropping your supplies on the gross bathroom floor (not the mention into the toilet!) or dying of heat in the car, it’s pretty difficult to produce milk. Should it really be a one or the other type of thing? Either you breastfeed or your a student? Why should it take absolute determination to do what is biologically normal while trying to better myself?

You know what? While I’m at it, at least one changing table per campus would be nice too.

 

 Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

My Biggest Advocate

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is about nursing in public. Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st! 

 
As many of you know, I am not nearly as outspoken in person as I am on the internet. Actually, I am embarrassingly shy and hate confrontation. When I get into arguments, even civilized ones, I instantly get hot in my cheeks and forget all of my points. I put my foot in my mouth constantly, I talk too much about nothing when I’m nervous, and I rarely speak in front of groups. I will never be a good public speaker and I’ve come to grips with that.

It makes me feel very conflicted about the topic of breastfeeding in public. I am constantly arguing with people on the internet when they shun breastfeeding in public. I am constantly encouraging other mothers to have the confidence to NIP. Yet, it is one of my biggest fears that someone will actually get upset about me nursing Peanut while out and about.

So when I read the line “Who or what makes it easy for you to nurse in public?” when we were coming up with and editing the list for the carnival, before I was even in blogging mode, I instantly thought of one person—my husband. My husband is confident and outspoke, yet still diplomatic and able to handle arguments with ease. I have always hoped that he would be there if I ever get confronted about nursing in public.

I am blessed to have a supportive husband. When I hear other moms talking about their husbands not being supportive of their breastfeeding, it just feels alien to me. I can even picture myself sitting there with my mouth agape out of shock. How can your husband not be supportive? How could I survive without my husband being supportive? Supportive isn’t even the best word—he is my biggest advocate. How could my breastfeeding relationship survive without that unconditional support?

It’s because breastfeeding has turned into something much bigger for him than I had expected. I figured he would go along with it because it’s what I wanted (and of course the fact that it’s cheap would make him all sorts of happy). I thought that he would passively endure. Maybe he would go as far as telling me that I have the strength to continue when I felt I wanted to quit. Yet somehow, he ended up feeling as strongly about it as I do. He is the one person in my physical world that I can tell the research to and he’ll listen with interest, I can speak of benefits without him taking offense, and I can breastfeed where ever I want knowing that if I’m not able to stand up for myself when someone speaks against me, he’ll gladly take that role.

It’s not just his protection that makes it easy for me to breastfeed in public. Even if he isn’t there if/when I get confronted, I feel him supporting me will help me to stand up for myself. Him having absolute confidence in me and agreeing with my stance 100% makes me realize I am not alone. I am not the only one who knows I have the right to breastfeed where ever, when ever, and how ever I want. I am not the only one who knows that this is just how babies eat. So hopefully, if the need arises, he won’t be the only one who can stand up for our daughter’s right to eat.

 

 Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

Community is What You Make of It

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is about baby friendly communities. Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st! 

 

I do not plan on having any future babies in a hospital. Of course, if there are any complications, I will gladly birth in a hospital. Assuming my pregnancy is healthy and complication-free, I plan on birthing my baby about 3 yards from where I’m sitting.

When I was pregnant, I specifically chose to birth in the only hospital in Utah that is Baby-friendly certified (and over 45 minutes away). It’s not that I was against homebirth, but I decided that it just wasn’t for me. I was living in my in-laws’ basement and that simply did not feel like my home to me. I knew that women decided to have birth at home because that is where they felt comfortable, but I felt like I would wake them up, get their house dirty, etc. Even with my decision to birth in a hospital, I did not want to go there too early. I was very afraid of the procedures they may do or the higher risk of c-section. I spent many hours researching all of the things I needed to put on my birth plan and my husband and I took a Bradley Method class so that he would be prepared to be my advocate.

Then I gave birth in my bathroom.

Of course, the ambulance took me to the closest hospital. I spent all of our time in that hospital hating it. We spent only a day and a half in that hospital—partially because I was trying to get out the door the second they brought me in. We spent that whole time working against the system and being handed formula samples. I am very grateful that I was so stubbornly determined to breastfeed, because in that kind of environment that’s what it takes to succeed. That is why I’ve chosen to not put myself in that situation again.

After leaving the hospital, I immediately surrounded myself with my new, baby friendly community. I have spend the last 16 months attempting to make every possible connection in the attachment parenting world. I go to La Leche League in two (formerly three) different counties. I spend way too much time reading other moms’ blogs and Twitter. Of course, I also use my blog to try to inform other parents—because the system works against us making educated decisions.

Community is really what you make of it. Of course, you can’t change the cards that you’re dealt, but you can make an active decision to surround yourself with the parts of your community that are baby friendly. Sometimes it may be tough to separate yourself from the places or people who are baby friendly, but it’s worth it. If someone or something does anything besides making breastfeeding easier for you, they aren’t worth it.

 

 Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

Nursing at the Zoo

The Carnival of Nursing in Public is going on right now. I know, I know, I should have submitted a post for it. Lactating Girl of all people should submit a post! Life is so hectic right now with the new house and spending all of my Peanut-free time working on marketing for the Salt Lake City Breastfeeding Cafe (if you’re interested in participating in our two week carnival coming up soon, let me know!). Anyway, I figured I’d share a quick post about a recent experience of nursing in public.

This is Peanut nursing on the train at the Hogle Zoo. She was getting ansy while we were waiting for it to start, so I figured it was a perfect time to nurse! I thought she would stop once the train started going, but she just kept on nursing. Kind of sad that she only saw the right side of animals, but she didn’t seem to mind—she just kept on staring at the animals on the left and smiling. Wanna know what I’m happiest about with this picture? The fact that I know that right in front of me are a bunch of girls who we were with at the zoo (it was a birthday party) and they saw me nursing. I played my one little part in them being more comfortable with breastfeeding and hopefully doing it themselves one day. :-D

Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’m the Marketing Coordinator for the Salt Lake City Breastfeeding Cafe this year. This post is a copy of the one I’ve posted over at The Cafe’s blog.

Hello Cafe Enthusiasts!

As you know, we’ve decided to do a blogging carnival as a countdown to The Cafe this year. Really, technically 14 different carnivals (starting July 18th with a new one every day for two weeks). What fun!

Some of you may be asking ”What exactly is a blogging carnival?” A blogging carnival is when a bunch of different bloggers do a post on a specific topic on the same day. So if you choose to participate, you will be sent a list of topics for each day (example: How has your community helped you to breastfeed?) and you will post a blog on it on the same day as everyone else.

Your blog doesn’t have to be parenting related, just open for the public to see (as opposed to private blogs). The theme for The Cafe this year isBreastfeeding Cafe: A Baby-friendly Community so our topics will be focused on The Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative, your community and breastfeeding, etc. You even get extra traffic because everyone who participates puts each other’s links at the bottom of their posts! So send me an email if you want to be part of the email list for the carnival. I’ll be sending out topics for all the days soon.

What if I don’t have a blog, but still want to participate? You can! We’ll be doing a guest post on The Cafe’s blog every day too! The guest post works basically the same way as the other blogs, except you’ll send it to my email and I’ll post it to our blog! We’re trying to come up with a list of specific people for specific days ahead of time, so please send me an email as soon as possible if you want to do a guest post.

Send emails to: clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com

Warmly,

Claire Lindstrom

Marketing Coordinator