Hospital Practices Influence Which Moms Will Breast-Feed

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Dana, If I were queen of everything, adoptive mothers would also breastfeed! I have a friend who did this, and who had never had biological children, but she worked with her doctor to begin lactating before the baby was born so when he was placed she was able to nurse. I don't know if she got to 100% breastmilk, but she sure did a great job of giving him all the benefits of breastfeeding for as long as they wanted to do it. I think the option of breastfeeding should be included in all trainings for adoptive parents, and those who wish to do it should get all the help they need to be successful. It seems to me that babies who have lost their birth parents need all the help they can get to settle into a new family and attach to the parents, and this is one thing that a mom can do that will definitely, unequivocally, help. Additional benefits are the mutual production of oxytocin (the love hormone) that helps mother and baby fall in love with each other (you don't get that bottle-feeding) and the sensory experience of skin-to-skin contact to anchor the nursing experience.

Claire Winstone of CA 12:58AM July 14, 2009

My daughter was born in Columbus, OH (Mt. Carmel East) and the lactation consultant was very helpful, as was the home visit nurse. I did get the formula samples, but I knew that the companies probably paid the hospital and my ob/gyn's office to distribute those. I do use the free diaper bag (my daughter is only 18 months) given to me at the hospital from Similac (Enfimil? I don't recall). I was also able to nurse my daughter within her first hour of life.
There isn't as much ready information on breastfeeding as bottle feeding. Sure, the mainstream parenting magazines will occasionally have articles on breastfeeding success or "Breast or bottle? Making One or Both Work for You" or something like that. The magazines are filled with ads for formula. Yesterday, I was reading and breastfeeding my daughter and looked up when I heard something about breastfeeding. It was a Medela ad. The information saying that breast is best and more natural was great. I think I might have been while I was watching "A League of Their Own" on one of the women's cable networks.
The pump I tried seemed good, but the valve doesn't stay on. Also, my daughter didn't take to a bottle or a pacifier, for which I am happy. Even a couple of weekends ago when I was gone for a retreat, she wouldn't take the bottle, but took organic soy formula (corn syrup free!) from a kids' restaurant cup (good sturdy plastic with a good sturdy plastic lid and reusable straw) just fine. This was after the poor girl fussed and screamed for awhile at bedtime because she realized that she wasn't getting real milk from Mommy and after my husband told her that Mommy was gone and it was just him and the bottle. When I got home, and nursed her again, she very eagerly and happily latched on. She didn't nurse for over an hour like she did the first time I was gone for four days in December/January when we got home from the airport (she nursed for at least a half hour at the airport, once we settled), but I could tell she missed me.
I also believe the formula is only for when the mother is gone, the mother and/or the baby are medically unable to breast feed, or with adoption (which we plan to do, I will already be giving the baby a great start in life with adopting him) Thanks to slick marketing campaigns, free samples at hospitals, doctor's offices and even through the companies, people are uneducated, or they just look at beasts the way our culture does, simply as sexual objects. Or they think if this doesn't work out, there is formula. Almost as though they are giving themselves permission to fail. I've talked with a moms who seemed to give up easily and seemed to regret doing so.I don't know how formula could be easier with the buying the product, buying a different product if the first doesn't work out, lugging said stuff in addition to bottles and the diaper bag around, etc. My milk is perfect and free and effortlssy transportable.)

Laura of OH 6:41AM March 22, 2009

This is important stuff. When my son was born in 1996 nobody knew how to help me start him breastfeeding. I intended to do it, I wanted to do it, and I utterly failed because even the nurses were no help. In 2004 I had my daughter and I'd had more information this time around, but just barely made it. They gave her formula, they gave me samples to take home, the lactation consultants weren't that great (one of them even SHOVED my baby's head forward so she'd latch on--why??)... in the end what did it was my newborn baby's determination (1) to never have to wait to be fed again and (2) to never have to drink cold formula. I'm sure of it. I saw the little wheels turning in her head. *smile* Moral of the story, we need to educate prospective mothers about this stuff through channels besides the hospital. We should also make formula advertising illegal as Europe has done, and forbid drug companies from making it available to moms of healthy infants in hospitals. Formula is supposed to be for babies whose mothers have died, or who can't breastfeed due to physical limitations.
The other part of this is, we need to start talking frankly to new moms about going back to work. They say to themselves, "Oh, I'll pump." There is zero information coming from the government or any medical organization about which pumps are good and which are worthless. Even with the good ones they don't work as well as a baby does for getting milk out of the breast. Pumps mean an end to breastfeeding, ultimately, more often than not.
I don't disagree that many moms need to work outside the home. But we need to really start pushing to make workplaces more friendly to them. I don't know what it is going to take to get from here to there but something's got to give. Paid maternity leave for a year, letting women bring their babies to work (some workplaces do this!), reduce the barriers to working from home, I don't care what, do *something* useful. If nothing else women need to keep up their job skills and work histories in case something happens to the fathers of their children. And the health outcomes for children will be a lot better in the long run.

Dana of OH 11:09PM March 20, 2009