T oday - La Leche League

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NEWOnline magazine
Premier Issue |05 | 2010
Mother
and Child
y
a
d
o
T
Guatemalan-style
The Breastfeeding
Mother’s Nutrition
Tinker
to Evers
to Chance
NEW8th Edition
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La Leche League
The Beautiful!
Breastfeeding
Older Children
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Today • Issue 1 • 2010 | llli.org
Celebrating Mothers and Babies Around the World
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Today
[06]
Tinker
[04]
to Evers
Mother and Child
Guatemalan-style
[08] The
Breastfeeding
Photo Rovonne courtesy of Sacha Blackburne, Bermuda
✪ ✪ [12]
Mothers’ Stories
12 Becoming a Mother
14 The Gift
15 A Second Chance
✪ ✪ [16]
La Leche League
The Beautiful!
✪ ✪ [18]
Book Review:
Breastfeeding Older Children
✪ ✪ [20]
✪ ✪ [26]
The Womanly Art of
Breastfeeding:
A Book that Changed My Life
✪ ✪ [28]
Your Letters: Letters Page
What’s Cooking:
✪ ✪ [22]
Stealthy, Healthy Nutrition
GlobaLLL : A look at what is
Donors Making a
Difference
LLLI News:
happening in LLL around the world
✪ ✪ [32]
✪ ✪ [24]
Breastfeeding In the News:
The Curious Lactivist
llli.org | 2010
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breastfeeding
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The Womanly Art
of Breastfeeding
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The following products are available from La Leche League International. Shop with confidence
that these items have been specially selected to help you on your parenting journey.
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Mothering Multiples:
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Mother’s Guide to
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by Norma Jane Bumgarner
Journaliste et monitrice de la Ligue
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by Karen Kerkhoff Gromada
Preparing for a multiple
birth, valuable information on
breastfeeding and caring for
multiples.
by Diana West, IBCLC, and Lisa Marasco, IBCLC
Latest research on the causes of
low milk supply and the way the
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L a L eche L eague I nte r national
Celebrating Mothers and Babies Around the World
EDITOR’S LETTER
llli.org
Today
Issue 1 | 2010 | Volume 1 | Number 1 © 2010,
La Leche League International, Inc.
Managing Editor | Barbara Higham
Contributing Editors | Kathy Abbott, Johanna
Horton, Barbara Mullins, Lesley Robinson
Review Board | Barbara Emanuel, Gwen Gotsch,
Carol Kolar, Kathleen Whitfield
Art Director | Ronnelito Larracas
Cover Photo | Bill Muirhead
Advertising Manager | ReNata Bauder
Web Development | Dave Davis, Shelly Stanley
Acceptance of paid advertisements does not
constitute an LLLI endorsement of the product
advertised. LLLI does not require advertisers
to carry product liability insurance.
Mailing Lists: LLLI sometimes makes its mailing list of members
available to reputable outside groups. If you prefer
Welcome to Breastfeeding Today!
I’m delighted to introduce this first issue of Breastfeeding Today published by La Leche League
International for breastfeeding mothers worldwide. This is an exciting time for LLLI—a new magazine
and a new edition this summer of our cornerstone book, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.
Bill Muirhead opens issue one with his reflections on the beauty and tenderness of the breastfeeding
mothers he observes on his travels in highland Guatemala. He gives us a glimpse of a culture where
breastfeeding is an everyday sight, and his vibrant photos celebrate the happy relationship between
mother and child.
When I first met La Leche League, I had already found my way as a breastfeeding mother. However, up
until that point, I felt that trusting my instincts with regard to keeping my babies close, nursing on cue
and cosleeping was perhaps a sign of weakness on my part. So I was encouraged to read more when
at the first LLL meeting I attended, the Leader quoted a passage from The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
telling mothers not to be afraid to “give in” to their newborns because this was “good parenting.” The
analogy was of fruit ripening on the tree, its source of nourishment, but spoiling if left on the shelf.
When I read the book for myself, I was pleased to find throughout its pages an affirmation of a more
gentle way of mothering.
The new Womanly Art of Breastfeeding honors the spirit and warmth of the original while carrying it
respectfully into the new century, with new information offered in a way that suits today’s mothers.
In “Tinker to Evers to Chance” the co-writers who worked on the eighth edition tell us about their
teamwork in conceiving and bringing it to fruition. Leader Anna Burbidge tells a story that will resonate
with many mothers about how this iconic book changed her life.
Professor Ted Greiner, PhD, tells us about the breastfeeding mother’s nutritional needs and provides
helpful reassurance and discussion of what to consider during the time a mother is producing the
“world’s only perfectly balanced food.” And on the subject of nutrition, don’t miss the tasty recipes we
bring you in “What’s Cooking.”
not to receive these mailings, notify LLLI.
Mothers from India, Germany, and the UK share inspiring stories of their breastfeeding experiences.
La Leche League International fully supports
We look at what’s happening in La Leche League around the world in “GlobaLLL” and you can hear a
song written by Alison Blenkinsop to celebrate LLL and the launch of Breastfeeding Today.
the WHO (World Health Organization) International
Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.
LLLI Board of Directors, (2009, 2010)
Breastfeeding Today is published by La Leche League
International Inc., PO Box 4079, Schaumburg, IL. 601684079 USA. Telephone 847-519-7730 (9 AM to 5 PM
Central Time). Visit our Web site at llli.org.
Canadian subscribers should contact LLL Canada at
PO Box 700, Winchester, ON K0C 2K0, Canada, or
go to www.lalecheleaguecanada.ca with any questions about
subscriptions.
Wherever you are, please share your stories, letters and photos with Breastfeeding Today. As mothers
we share a universal experience and I am thrilled to hear from mothers in so many different countries
and to know that La Leche League is supporting mothers and babies all around the globe. If English
isn’t your mother tongue you might prefer to write in your own language and we’ll do our best to find
a translator.
Let us know whether you enjoyed the first issue and watch for issue two—Breastfeeding Today will
appear every four to six weeks. I look forward to hearing from you!
Barbara
Barbara Higham | editorbt@llli.org
Barbara is a La Leche League Leader and LLL magazine editor, who lives in the spa town of Ilkley,
West Yorkshire in the north of England with Simon and their children, Felix (11), Edgar (8)
and Amelia (4).
Coming in issue 2:
Infant Sleep, Breastfeeding and Bed-Sharing by Professor Helen Ball, Parent-Infant Sleep Lab,
Department of Anthropology, Durham University, UK.
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Bill Muirhead
04
Mother and Child
Bonnie
photos
andcourtesy
Ruby photo
of Billcourtesy
Muirhead
of Lisa Trocchi
A few years ago my friend Ursula asked me,
“If you really want your photography to
document the culture, lives, and beauty of
the Maya, then why don’t you take photos
of mothers breastfeeding their babies?
It’s everywhere,” she said. Of course, she
was right: in the back of every pick-up
truck, every bus, in every field, with women
washing clothing, weaving, gathering or
carrying firewood, or buying or selling in
the market; everywhere: breastfeeding. I
responded that I thought breastfeeding
was a private affair between mother and
child, which I had no right to invade. I left
congratulating myself that my answer was a
good one. I even retold the anecdote a few
times in self-satisfied manner convinced
of my correctness. But, of course, I was
wrong.
My attitude soon changed.
August 15th is the principal day of the
feria of Sololá, the most colorful event
of my photographic year. To the entire
Catholic world it is the feast day of the
Virgin of Asunción (the patroness of the
city of Sololá). Day or night, rain or shine, I
walk with the processions. Once at a pause
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in the procession that day, a cofrada of
the cofradía (religious brotherhood) of
San Antonio asked me to take a photo of
her seated in front of the Saint next to her
antique incense burner. She was nursing
her baby girl while her eight or nine-yearold son smiled on. Her expression was
rapture. Later, when I gave her her photos,
she cried.
Breastfeeding and motherhood have
been photographic themes of mine ever
since. The tenderness between the Mayan
mother and her child is compelling. The
Mayan mother loves these photos dearly
too, and she approaches my camera
without reservation or reproach—to the
contrary, with pride. There is no stigma to
breastfeeding in highland Guatemala. It’s
part of the culture.
Bill Muirhead
05
Guatemalan-style
From their mothers’ backs, babies meet the
market with all of its sights and smells and
vibrancy. From the vantage point and security
of perraje or tzute, they see the world and
participate in adult conversation. I have seen
a child of one mimicking her mother picking
coffee, two-year-olds washing onions, and two
or three-year-old girls washing clothing in a
stream or at the lakeshore. Children participate
at an early age in the sustenance and economy
of their families and are generally loving and
well adjusted.
photos courtesy of Bill Muirhead
I laud the Mayan method of motherhood.
What one notices first about Mayan children
is that they rarely cry. When an infant does so,
the reason is obvious, and his cries are quickly
quelled. Beyond infancy, however, children
rarely cry.
Mayan babies go with their mothers
everywhere, wrapped on mother`s back in
long rectangular perrajes (rebozos) or square
tzutes of woven cloth. They accompany their
mothers to the fields to plant onions. They go
with their mothers to gather firewood in the
mountains, to fetch water in the lakeshore, and
to wash clothing in the public pila.
Bill Muirhead came from rural Illinois, USA to
the Lake Atitlán region of Guatemala in 2004 with
a keen interest in the daily lives, labor, farming
practices and customs of the Maya who live there.
His photos record the lives of Lake Atitlán residents
from virtually every town in the surrounding area.
This article is an extract from Madonna and Child
Guatemalan-style with selected photos from his
soon to be published book, The Lords of Lake
Atitlán, which explores eight important themes of
Mayan culture lakeside.
http://lordsofatitlan.com
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The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
06
Tinker
Diane Wiessinger, Diana West
and Teresa Pitman
Tinker to Evers to Chance. Ever hear
that phrase? Tinker, Evers and Chance
were three American baseball players
in the early 1900s who worked so well
together, passing the ball from one to
another to another, that eventually
the phrase “Tinker to Evers to Chance”
came to mean the smoothest possible
teamwork. That’s what we hoped for
when LLLI asked the three of us to write
the eighth edition of The Womanly Art of
Breastfeeding.
We had known of each other for years,
crossing paths online and at conferences,
but we first met as co-writers in
September of 2008 for a long weekend
at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. We
stayed at a cozy bed and breakfast with a
screened-in porch and a table big enough
for the three of us and our milk crates full
of reference books. Our stack of Womanly
Art editions included the original booklet
format that the Founders collated at their
kitchen tables in 1958. For three days,
we talked and laughed nonstop, reading
and re-reading, passing ideas back and
forth, building a vision of what we hoped
to create.
We knew that The Womanly Art had
been revised so many times that it no
longer had quite the warm, motherto-mother feel that was so endearing
in the earliest editions. At the same
time, those early versions were written
without the benefit of recent research
findings. And the “voice” of today’s young
mothers is, well, different from that of
the twentieth century. So we and LLLI
agreed that a fresh start was needed. A
complete rewrite. A new, but not too new,
edition—a beloved icon with a fresh face.
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07
to Evers to Chance
Sounds daunting, doesn’t it? But we trusted our
deep love for the La Leche League philosophy
and our many years of experience as Leaders and
nursing mothers. By the end of the weekend, we
had roughed out what we hoped to create in this
new edition, what we wanted to add or change,
and what the main messages were that we
wanted to share. La Leche League International
took our formal proposal to potential publishers.
Back in our separate homes, writing went into
full gear. We formed an email “brain trust” of
longtime Leaders, new Leaders, and first-time
mothers that we could tap for stories, insights,
memories and practical hints. We began each
chapter with a mother’s story. To highlight the
timelessness of breastfeeding, the stories range
from the mid-1800s to last year. But we also
consulted experts on specific issues to make sure
we were as current as possible.
We hope we’ve honored the spirit and warmth
of the original and carried it respectfully into
the new century, with new information offered
in a way that suits today’s mothers. And in
the process, in typical League style, our work
together has rewarded us with a strong and
happy three-way friendship.
Tinker to Evers to Chance—the smoothest
possible teamwork. It really did work out that
way. And we hope the final result will feel, to all
our readers, like a winning combination.
Diane Wiessinger MS, IBCLC, has been a La
Leche League Leader since 1985 and works as a
Lactation Consultant in private practice, in Ithaca,
New York. She is the author of many articles about
breastfeeding, as well as being a popular speaker.
Diane began her studies observing animal behavior
over 30 years ago. See her collection of
“Common Sense Breastfeeding” handouts
http://www.normalfed.com.
Photo: (clockwise) Diana West, Diane Wiessinger, Teresa Pitman
By June of 2009, LLLI had a contract with
Ballantine Books (a division of Random House)
and it was time to start writing. We realized
the best way to begin was by reaching out to
the people who started it all—the Founders.
Happily, Marian Tompson agreed to spend a long
weekend with us, this time at Diane’s parents’ log
cabin in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains.
Teresa couldn’t come, but she was there by
phone and email. Evenings by the fire, dawns on
the porch overlooking a misty lake, many long
conversations about the origins of The Womanly
Art, its philosophy and what has changed and
remained the same with mothers and children in
the past half century, all helped us find a “voice”
that felt comfortable to everyone. Diane, Diana
and Marian commemorated their time together
by signing one of the logs in the cabin (and we’ll
get Teresa’s signature there someday, too).
Twenty-one chapters, three writers and seven
months to deadline! We paired up differently for
each chapter, writing, editing and bouncing it
back and forth until the two of us were satisfied,
then handing it off to the third. More bouncing
back and forth, more versions, more tweaks,
countless emails and Skypes and phone calls. A
total of more than four hundred chapter drafts
(thank goodness for the online matrix Diana
created to help us keep track!), several Skypes
way past midnight and an eleventh-hour fullbook “smoothing-out.” With three writers, there
was always someone to break a tie, and that
meant there were never any real disagreements.
In the end, our words melded together so well
that we really can’t tell any more where one
person’s writing ends and another’s begins.
Diana West BA, IBCLC, is an LLL Leader and a
co-author with Dr. Elliot Hirsch of Breastfeeding After
Breast and Nipple Procedures, with Lisa Marasco of
The Breastfeeding Mother’s Guide to Making More
Milk and author of the Clinician’s Breastfeeding
Triage Tool and Defining Your Own Success:
Breastfeeding After Breast Reduction Surgery. She
lives with her three sons and husband, Brad, in the
picturesque mountains of western New Jersey.
Teresa Pitman has been a La Leche League
Leader in Canada for 30 years, and is the mother of
four children and the grandmother of four. She’s the
author or co-author of 12 published books, including
two on breastfeeding (with Dr. Jack Newman). Her
new grandson, Keagan, was born in November last
year (at home, like two of his three older siblings).
He is the fourth child for Teresa’s daughter-in-law,
Esmaralda, who is also an LLL Leader.
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Ted Greiner
08
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© Veer Incorporated
The Breastfeeding
Ted Greiner
09
On the social networking Web site Twitter (my
Twitter account name is “_breastfeeding”) I see
mainly three types of posts relating to maternal
diet during lactation: (1) women delightedly
calling for more cookies, (2) bitter complaints
that long periods of breastfeeding did not lead
to any weight loss and (3) warnings that one has
to avoid eating a wide range of foods that can
cause symptoms in the nursling.
and most graduate classes in nutrition when we
are discussing obesity: “Super Size Me.” It is,
of course, an exaggerated case study, but is full
of good public health nutrition messages and
warnings. One of the more shocking scenes is
where the dietitian shows the filmmaker that, in
spite of eating double his needs, nearly 5000
calories a day, his McDonald’s diet has failed to
come even close to meeting his daily needs for
most nutrients.
✪ ✪ Empty calories
There can be no doubt that junk food, fast food,
heavy consumption of snack foods high in refined
carbohydrates, fat and salt and reduced exercise
are the main cause of the shocking obesity
epidemic that has gained momentum in the USA
over the past 30 years.
Probably, as has been true for me for much of my
life, many readers are aware of and have largely
ignored the concept of “empty calories.” But
the bald, cold-shower truth is that every time
we consume alcohol (7 cal/g), sugar and other
refined carbohydrates (4 cal/g) and fat (9 cal/g),
we are giving our body two choices: (1) nutrient
deficiency or (2) having to eat much more to
obtain necessary nutrients, risking weight gain.
Refined carbohydrates have a rebound effect
that makes us soon want more, depending on
how much is eaten in what kind of meal, that is,
how rapid the increase of the resulting insulin
response is. Fat is somewhat better than it looks
because some types are nutritious and even
required (see below on DHA) and it does have
an appetite-suppressing effect. So if you eat
according to appetite (a good idea) fat in the
diet may be useful, but high levels of refined
carbohydrate in the diet are indeed linked to
unwanted weight gain. Whole grains are unrefined
carbohydrates and include brown rice and whole
wheat flour. Be careful though because “wheat
bread” may only contain some whole wheat. Look
for 100% whole wheat; healthy bread does not
feel like a sponge when you gently squeeze it.
I show only one movie to all my undergraduate
✪ ✪ Making milk
The lactation period, especially the first year,
is a time when women not only have to recover
from pregnancy and birthing, but they have
to manufacture and provide the nutrients and
energy contained in the world’s only perfectly
balanced food. Yes, you can eat more than you
otherwise do without gaining weight. But no,
filling those extra needs with cookies is not a
good idea.
amounts of natural, healthy food, high in dietary
fiber and low in refined carbs, that provides the
nutrients you need and stops you feeling hungry
half the time and (3) not drinking calories unless
they are in low-fat milk or occasionally in fruit
juice (100 percent juice, not a juice beverage).
From a purely biological perspective, weight loss
is a rare crisis. Losing more than 10% of one’s
body weight without intending to is usually a
sign that we are dying of something very serious.
During lactation is not a good time to try to
lose weight. Like any biological process, there is
much variation from person to person, but if you
exercise and eat a healthy diet nature intends for
you to lose the extra weight you put on during
pregnancy during the few years nature intended
for your child to get breastmilk. Nature’s goal is
for us to attain a healthy weight as we grow up,
if possible to put on a few extra pounds (or even
kilos) to protect us, in case we are subject to
short periods of famine, and then to more or less
maintain that weight throughout our lives.
✪ ✪ How much extra should mom eat?
The US Recommended Daily Allowance for a
breastfeeding mother has long hovered around
500–600 extra calories a day, but there are
so many factors to take into account that this
is almost useless knowledge. How much food
you need depends on how much breastmilk you
produce (influenced by the baby’s age, whether
you are breastfeeding exclusively in the first
six months, and how intensive breastfeeding is
after that), your body size and percentage of
body fat, how much weight you gained during
pregnancy, your age, how much exercise you take
and whether your goal is to gain, lose or maintain
your weight and how rapidly. Given all that
variation, it would take a very detailed workup by
a highly qualified dietitian to estimate how many
calories you ought to eat. And let’s be honest,
who sticks to such a plan for any length of time,
even if she does all the hard work required to
count all their calories honestly every day?
I recommend ignoring calories and instead
concentrating on (1) getting 30–60 minutes
of moderate exercise daily, (2) eating adequate
✪ ✪ Does mom have to restrict her
diet to avoid allergies in her
breastfeeding child?
The short answer, based on the evidence
available right now, is no. The causes of allergy
are still poorly understood. Particularly with
respect to more severe lifelong allergies
like asthma, it is just not clear what role
breastfeeding and the maternal diet play during
lactation. The UK National Health Service used
to counsel avoiding peanuts while breastfeeding,
but recently rescinded that advice because there
simply was too little evidence that there was any
impact. See http://tinyurl.com/2553jy5 If mother,
father or siblings suffer from serious allergies
you may want to avoid any foods known to cause
symptoms. Otherwise, just watch for early signs
of allergy in the baby (unexplained skin rashes,
often on the cheeks). Some babies become
colicky (lots of unexplained crying, usually at
night), but that can have other causes. Then
gradually eliminate one likely cause at a time
from your diet. The baby’s symptoms will usually
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Ted Greiner
010
✪ ✪ Does mom have to restrict
her diet to avoid colic in her
breastfeeding child?
It’s common on the Internet to read
advice to breastfeeding mothers to avoid
(or restrict) intake of caffeine, as well as
garlic, broccoli, beans and dairy foods, to
avoid gas in the baby. A colicky baby is no
fun, but no one knows whether avoiding a
wide range of nutritious foods like this has
any substantial impact on the likelihood
of your baby getting colic. We do know
that restricting the diet so radically has
an impact on the mother’s nutrient intake,
so I would on the whole recommend NOT
trying to avoid such a wide range of foods,
even in the early months when colic is more
common.
© shutterstock.com
✪ ✪ Babies under six months
need only breastmilk
subside in a few days if you found the right
one. I would start with fluid cows’ milk if you
drink a lot of it. Other dairy products are
much less likely to cause problems. Then,
reintroduce the eliminated food to your diet
to see if the symptoms recur. If so, you can
be pretty sure you’ve found an allergen. You
should avoid introducing that food to your
child early in infancy and introduce it with
great care later.
One of the nastier lifelong types of food
intolerance is to gluten, a protein found
in high quantities in wheat and in lower
concentrations in some other grains.
Gluten intolerance or celiac disease, once
it starts, never goes away, and it’s difficult
to diagnose, especially in babies. However,
it appears that the best way to reduce your
baby’s risk is to introduce wheat to her diet
while she is still getting a large amount
of breastmilk.
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Unfortunately, the ancients did not
understand or adequately respect the
concept of exclusive breastfeeding. In
particular, the Humoral Theory—along
with the similar concepts promoted by
traditional medicine in India and China,
probably the most widely shared belief
system in the world until about a century
ago and still widely influential—considers
colostrum to be harmful and recommends
such hazardous prelacteal feeds as honey.
Probably because of this theory, it is still
common in much of the world to use herbal
teas to treat or even prevent colic and
other symptoms. But the infant liver simply
cannot cope with many of the substances
in herbs that are perfectly safe after
infancy, and the resulting mild to moderate
liver damage may in turn be behind many
unexplained cases of illness and malnutrition
in infants. The bacterial spores in honey
can cause fatal disease in infants because
they don’t yet have stomach acid strong
enough to kill them. Thus, preventing the
use of honey, herbs, gripe water, and other
traditional treatments for infants, especially
in younger ones, needs to be a major
goal for breastfeeding counselors in many
cultures.
✪ ✪ The main public health impact
of maternal nutrition during
lactation relates to perceptions,
not reality
Warning a mother not to drink much
alcohol during breastfeeding may lead to
women deciding to avoid breastfeeding
or to breastfeed less. Yet a message is
needed because alcohol is slightly harmful
to breastfeeding babies and to the
breastfeeding process. The younger the
baby and the more the mother drinks the
greater the risks. The common advice to
take a beer before each breastfeed is based
on a myth—unless it’s alcohol-free beer,
which may perhaps have some benefit.
There is good evidence that mothers easily
(and incorrectly) take on exaggerated
beliefs that their breastmilk will be poor in
quality or low in quantity because of their
inadequate or poor diet. In some studies,
this appears to be a major cause of early
supplementation, especially with infant
formula. This is one example of how easily
a mother’s confidence can dip, especially
in settings (which seem to me to be pretty
universal) where women are already made to
feel self-conscious about their bodies.
I came across a shocking example when
I did my first breastfeeding research in
St. Vincent, West Indies, in 1975. In
interviewing all women with one-year-old
babies in two towns, I found that virtually
all did non-exclusive breastfeeding for
an average of eight months. (There was
a local belief that breastfeeding ought to
stop by nine months.) The most common
supplement was glucose water, given to all
babies born at the local hospitals. Its label
claimed it was helpful against a long list of
diseases. Most mothers also added some
formula early in the baby’s life. When I
asked mothers what would happen if a baby
got nothing but breastmilk for five months,
40% were worried the breastmilk might
not be enough, but 60% said it would be
good. When asked why they did not feed
that way, 60% said, “I couldn’t afford that.”
They then showed me the brightly colored
Nestlé brochure that they received from the
Ted Greiner
011
local clinics. Its centerfold consisted of a photo
of the meat, fish, milk and eggs, which made up
the 3000-calorie diet they would need to eat to
make good breastmilk. “So I just topped up with
Lactogen,” or, “I realized that if I have to drink
milk to make milk, I might as well give it directly
to the baby,” they told me—an effect of the
brochure that Nestlé was probably the only one
to understand.
Studies in both traditional and modern cultures
have found that the perceived insufficient milk
syndrome was the greatest barrier to exclusive
breastfeeding. And the greatest cause is often
What about quality? That’s a more complex
picture. Levels of protein, lactose, most
minerals, and some vitamins are relatively fixed
in breastmilk. If the mother gets too little in her
diet, she will suffer, but her breastmilk will not
be affected. But there are a few exceptions of
potential importance:
✤✤ Mothers rarely have enough vitamin D to
produce breastmilk that will provide the vitamin
D babies need. Sun exposure of mother and
baby can help, but is not recommended because
it is too difficult to know how much is needed
without risking skin cancer. Safest is to give
babies vitamin D drops. Mothers who do not
want to do so might try taking a supplement
of 4000 IU of vitamin D3 daily, which early
research suggests is safe and adequate. See the
following Web page on this complex issue
http://tinyurl.com/viatmind
© Beatriz Arce Venegas / 6o Puesto
✤✤ DHA can be low in breastmilk and the ratio
of n-6 to n-3 fatty acids will also be too low in
breastmilk if mothers do not consume enough
in their diet. A European food safety agency
recently recommended that breastfeeding
women consume at least 200mg/day but one
gram a day is probably wiser. Certain fatty fish
are the only good dietary sources (salmon,
sardines, and tuna are the most popular).
Here again, supplements might be a good
idea for many mothers.
thought to be the mothers’ concern that they
ate poorly or even just ate too much “snack
food” to be able to make enough milk. I expect
the perception that one’s breastmilk will either
be inadequate in quantity or quality unless
one can eat as well as the high-class mothers
shown on breastfeeding posters (especially the
ones sponsored by formula companies) is very
common everywhere.
The fact is that, although it’s not going to be
good for anyone’s health in the long run to eat
a poor diet, it has very little if any impact on
breastmilk quantity.
✤✤ Vitamin B12 can be obtained reliably only
from animal foods (including dairy products)
and breastfed babies can develop severe
deficiency and permanent nerve damage if levels
are too low in breastmilk. Vegans should thus
take supplements.
✤✤ Iodine and selenium are crucial minerals but,
being highly water soluble, they easily wash away
in large geographical areas. If there’s too little in
the soil, then there’s too little in the plants and
animals that live there. If a mother is deficient,
she is likely to have too little in her breastmilk
but, at least regarding iodine, the main harm to
the baby already occurs during pregnancy. Since
almost no one gets too much and the only really
good dietary source is certain types of seaweed,
we should all eat iodized salt. Selenium research
is at too early a stage to know how common
deficiency is or to figure out how best to prevent
it besides eating a wide variety of foods coming
from different geographical regions. The best
dietary source is Brazil nuts. It is widely found
in other plant and animal foods, including nuts,
cereals, meat, fish and eggs.
Conclusion
We all need routine exercise and to eat
healthy, natural food—a diet composed
largely of vegetables, fruits, whole grains,
legumes, low-fat dairy products and perhaps
seafood. I have mixed feelings about including
seafood in the list since some, especially
freshwater fish in some areas and seafood
from polluted coastlines, can contain levels
of heavy metals and other toxins that pose a
health risk.
When it comes to breastmilk, nature is robust
and your diet will not affect how much milk
you produce and, apart from the exceptions
mentioned above, will not have much effect
on its quality. If you cannot afford to eat a
healthy diet, or feel stressed to think about
having to eat in a more healthy way during
breastfeeding, it’s best to forget that for now
(and the breastmilk quality issues above can
be dealt with through supplements, which
some, who can afford them, may find to be a
less stressful approach).
Just go ahead and breastfeed as much and for
as long as you and your baby want to. You’ll
be giving your baby the best food she can
get, irrespective of what you eat.
Ted Greiner, PhD, is Professor of Nutrition in the
College of Human Ecology at Hanyang University,
Seoul, South Korea. He was at Uppsala University
Medical School in Sweden for 19 years, where
he was Associate Professor of International Child
Health. His main areas of research have been
linked to unraveling the reasons for suboptimal
breastfeeding and finding ways to improve things.
Most of his and his graduate students’ writings are
available in full text on his Web site:
http://global-breastfeeding.org
See http://www.llli.org/NB/NBmaternalnutrition.html
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Mothers’ Stories
012
Becoming a Mother
Effath Yasmin M.A., H.D.S.E.,
LLLL Mumbai, India
I felt confident that some day I would make
a good mother and dreamed of giving
birth naturally and unassisted. Reality was
quite different. I was unaware of my first
pregnancy and was treated for illness, which
was, I now know, a miscarriage. During my
second pregnancy, I was taken to a nursing
home with a suspected ectopic pregnancy.
Although this did not transpire, after three
weeks on bed rest, I suffered another
miscarriage at ten weeks. To my disbelief,
the doctor showed no sign of surprise or
empathy. My husband and I felt vulnerable.
stitched up to stop the progressing labor.
I was on complete bed rest until I had an
elective cesarean section, when I delivered a
beautiful baby girl, premature by four weeks.
We named her Zaara meaning “princess.” She
was rated low on the Apgar scale and needed
help to breathe. I just caught a glimpse of
Zaara before she was taken away to the
Intensive Care Unit, while I lay limp on the
operation table unable to move. I realized I
was just a spectator and felt my courage and
confidence vanishing.
Breastfeeding turned out to be challenging.
Other than knowing the benefits of
breastfeeding, I had little information, but
I was determined, having my sister, Nikhath
Tahseen, as a source of inspiration. I had
witnessed her difficult start to breastfeeding
and I felt her perseverance running through
me.
I feel strongly that if Zaara had been
allowed to stay close to me after her birth,
breastfeeding may have been established
earlier. Medical procedures should be
geared more to facilitate mother and baby
togetherness. Her rapid heartbeat may have
been calmed by just laying her close to me
but instead we were separated for 26 hours
and she was given a pacifier.
Effath Yasmin & Zaara photo courtesy of Effath Yasmin
I believe that hope and support surmount
all challenges. My belief in God, the loving
support of my soul mate and husband, Dan,
and my family, especially my mother and my
sister, Husna Sabahath, helped me through
this time.
I later conceived twins. A diagnosis of a
bicornuate (or heart-shaped) uterus meant
a high-risk pregnancy. I lost one of the twins
at ten weeks—the doctor simply called this
“a vanishing twin.” At five months, I had signs
of early labor. Our doctor suggested an
emergency cervical cerclage, so my cervix was
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For three weeks I struggled through pain at
each nursing session. I had no idea if this was
how it was supposed to be. Then I found La
Leche League International on the Internet.
This was the beginning of a new chapter of
my life. Leader Averil Martin was a source of
great comfort and support.
More than any technique or corrective
measures I implemented in the following days
to nurse Zaara, the fact that I had someone
who would just listen to me made all the
difference. A first lesson of mothering—
patience, perseverance and loving guidance.
With a low milk supply, feeling overwhelmed
and frustrated, I needed to give Zaara
formula to supplement her feeds. However,
by six weeks, I was finally getting comfortable
at nursing. My sense of achievement was
great as Zaara was now exclusively breastfed.
I pumped frequently to substitute breastmilk
for formula milk in the bottle, while I
struggled with improving her latch.
My effort to increase my milk supply was
constant. In conjunction with nursing on
demand, I tried herbs and pumped after
every feed. All my efforts paid off and finally
I stopped pumping as Zaara got better at
nursing. I continued taking fenugreek seed
tablets that I made myself and asparagus
granules (Dabur’s Shatavarex—Ayurvedic
medicine). Zaara gained weight slowly but
steadily.
All along my mother was a big support.
Although my mother had not nursed her
babies for more than a few weeks, she
believed in my determination. She stayed up
several nights to take care of me and Zaara.
My gratitude to her is deep and I feel blessed
to have her as my mother. She has taught me
perseverance, dedication and unconditional
love.
With time and closeness, I learned to
recognize Zaara’s cues of hunger, when she
needed comfort or when she was
overstimulated. I better understood her
needs and pre-empted them. Besides calming
my baby instantly, breastmilk is her first
aid kit. I have used it as a decongestant for
clearing a stuffy nose and as eye medicine
for a bruise. If I ever sense an onset of a rare
tantrum, my best bet is nursing.
Nursing has given us more opportunities to
gather special moments every day between
us as a family. I consider this a unique
gift. Few things will match my sense of
accomplishment when I see how sensitive and
smart Zaara is growing up to be.
Mothers’ Stories
013
Once I had a meltdown when I was overtired.
Zaara nodded as if to tell me, “Don’t cry mama.”
I was awestruck and enlightened by the complex
interaction that goes on between a mother and
her baby during nursing.
An innate bond exists between the mother
and baby, seeded early in the womb and it is
significant enough to cause intense pain of
separation due to a miscarriage. Nursing has
provided that healing touch for the pain of my
miscarriages. The deep intimacy feels so soulful.
A beautiful smile comes on my little one’s face
when she snuggles close for some quiet time with
mama. It’s almost like falling in love—a heady
experience.
Effath Yasmin and family photo courtesy of Effath Yasmin
My husband, Dan plays an important role. We
were surprised by the changes to our lives when
Zaara was born. I left my employment, choosing
to be at home for Zaara and letting Dan care
for us all. The supporting role of the father is as
deserving of respect and appreciation as that of
the mother is in nurturing the baby.
I still remember the night after Zaara’s birth
vividly. As I lay on the hospital bed feeling groggy
and almost paralyzed, hearing Zaara screaming
her little lungs out at the NICU, Dan stood
beside her, touching her and providing all the
comfort he could. Back at home, he sat up at
night while I grappled with nipple shields, syringe
feeding and a hand pump. He would encourage
me to pump when I felt I could no longer do it.
I have always appreciated his patience and
understanding. He has put up with average
meals, managed with undone laundry and coped
with stress at work and at home. Even today
Dan wakes up most nights to see if Zaara and
I are comfortable. We have grown together
and appreciate the benefits nursing has had
on Zaara’s health and on us as a family. Our
transition from a couple into becoming parents
has been beautiful.
As Zaara grows from infancy into childhood—
at a much faster pace than we had anticipated—
I have begun to understand how the love that we
share will help me guide her and set limits.
For the first few months Zaara needed to be held
close constantly. Nursing gave me the closeness
to understand Zaara better. This I see as a
stepping stone to understanding her developing
needs. I remember holding her all through her
naps and most of the night for several hours at
a stretch. Although many around me mentioned
this might become a compulsion or a bad habit,
I knew I was fulfilling her need. My understanding
was right that when a need is met consistently
it soon outgrows itself and, sure enough, Zaara
did stop needing to be held while sleeping. I still
carry Zaara around sometimes in a sling while
I go about my work at home. I have begun to
understand Zaara’s need for closeness increases
at the onset of overstimulation, feeling unwell or
tired, or just when she wants to be held close.
My family seems surprised but also happy to
see how connected Zaara is with me. They were
impressed that she really listens to me. I realize
my hard work toward parenting my little one with
loving guidance has made such a huge difference
in our lives. Zaara requires reassurance, guidance
and redirection and nursing gave me a head start.
I feel so humbled by this little achievement and
recognize that this is just the beginning.
This was a difficult story to tell. Painful memories
crowded my mind in this journey of becoming
a mother but one strong emotion emerges and
promises to stay—my desire to help other
mothers.
Although my grief over my miscarriages, aspects
of my pregnancy and early nursing remain
unresolved I have drawn inspiration from LLL
Leader Averil Martin and Ruth Malik, co-founder
of Birth India. They inspired me to work hard to
accredit as an LLL Leader and now it suffices my
soul to hear several nursing mothers say, “Thank
you for your help. You made a difference in my
life.” This is just a beginning. There is still a long
journey ahead in which I hope to touch many
more lives and empower mothers with support
and information.
As Zaara looks coolly at us before she decides to
dig into a socket or put something in her mouth,
being right there to distract her or taking time
to explain at that moment matters so much and
seems better than constantly parroting, “No,
No,” which might only impair her little exploring
senses.
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Mothers’ Stories
014
Not everyone has a mother who enjoyed
breastfeeding her three children to encourage
her, not everyone is given a copy of The
Womanly Art of Breastfeeding to guide her
through those tough first few weeks, so it’s
understandable why some women turn to
formula in difficult moments.
I believe part of the problem is that for
many of us “natural” has the connotation of
“easy”; we are shocked to learn that there
are ups and downs in the normal progress of
breastfeeding. Another part of the problem is
that the negatives of formula-feeding are not
widely understood, no doubt because of careful
marketing by formula companies. If someone is
promising that an aspect of parenting will be
worry-free, they’re probably trying to sell you
something.
Anna Earley photo courtesy of Anna Earley
The Gift
Rosanna Hanson, Stuttgart, Germany
The moment came after the nurse shut
the door. She had just spent the last five
minutes struggling to explain that my new
baby daughter, Emma, was jaundiced, but my
understanding of German was poor and her
English was limited. I looked down at my twoday-old baby and for the first time recognized
how yellow she was. The powerlessness hit me
like a wave: “I can’t take care of you,” I thought
to myself.
Minutes later, three nurses came in with a bottle
of formula. “I want to breastfeed,” I told them
weakly. I came to understand that they would
not let me leave with my baby until the jaundice
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had improved and she had gained weight. I
watched as one nurse gave my daughter the
bottle. Emma sucked the formula down eagerly
as the nurses cooed at her. “She’s hungry,” one
of them said. I felt my ability to mother sink
silently away into the ground. A few days later,
we left the hospital when Emma was a little less
yellow. I had sore nipples and terribly engorged
breasts, and I had packets of complementary
formula tucked away in my hospital bag.
Have you ever felt vulnerable as a mother?
Looking back now, I am amazed that my
daughter and I went on to have almost 18
months of exclusive breastfeeding together.
When I talk with other women, I always
recognize that moment in their stories, the
moment when they lose confidence in their
ability to provide milk for their baby, the
moment they start to supplement.
For millennia, it was normal for women to rely
on each other for information and support
when it came to breastfeeding, just as we often
rely upon each other now when our baby is
starting solids or is teething, or our toddler
is potty training or throwing tantrums. Sadly,
some of our breastfeeding expertise has been
forgotten and, in a culture where women are
encouraged to wear “hooter-hiders,” mothers
can often feel awkward talking about a subject
that is so normal.
Luckily, La Leche League International shares
information, educates about breastfeeding and
offers support from mothers who have been
through many of the same challenges that are
part of the normal, beautiful gift we give to our
children that is breastfeeding.
A Second
Chance
Vicky Groombridge, Coventry, UK
My baby, Toby, was born four months ago.
Although I attended an antenatal clinic while I
was pregnant I never really thought much about
breastfeeding. I had heard it was common for
women to find it difficult, but I assumed it would
come naturally to me and never really considered
alternatives.
Vicky Groombridge photo courtesy of Vicky Groombridge
I was induced at 37 weeks due to health
concerns and, although my baby was perfectly
fine and healthy when he was born, he was taken
to the neonatal unit to be kept under observation
for a couple of days.
He breastfed immediately after delivery, but then
I didn’t get to feed him for a day and he was fed
through a tube. By this stage I was starting to
get a little anxious about breastfeeding. He was
slightly jaundiced, but I was told to feed him
regularly and we went home after a few days.
Mothers’ Stories
015
Within a week Toby had lost 15% of his
birth weight and I was becoming increasingly
concerned about the feeding. I didn’t experience
the engorgement that you hear about when the
milk comes in. I tried expressing and would only
get a few milliliters at a time. We went back into
hospital, where my baby was treated for jaundice
with phototherapy and put on a drip to rehydrate
him.
I continued to express with a hospital-grade
pump with very little success. After a couple
of days we were able to go home again and my
baby seemed much more alert and started to
breastfeed well. However, after another few days
all he was doing was sleeping and he was not
waking for food. Although the midwife visited us
and said everything was fine I was not convinced
and went back to the Accident & Emergency
department at the hospital. He had developed an
infection, which we were told could be meningitis
and he required a number of blood, urine and
spinal fluid tests. We were terrified and, with
the stress and exhaustion, I continued to try to
breastfeed but my baby wasn’t interested, so
again he was given formula.
We spent five more days in hospital and I
continued to express milk, still only getting a few
milliliters. By this time my baby was three weeks
old and I was convinced I had no milk and that
I would not be able to feed my baby. I talked it
through with a breastfeeding counselor at the
hospital and we decided that the best thing for
everyone would be to give up breastfeeding to
ensure my baby recovered from the infection and
started to put on weight. At the time I felt sad
and guilty but also slightly relieved.
Back home we settled into a routine of bottlefeeding, but day by day I became more and more
upset by my decision. My baby would turn to me
to try to breastfeed and I couldn’t believe that I
couldn’t do it.
After a week of not breastfeeding I deeply
regretted my decision and contacted La Leche
League, where I was offered the support and
encouragement I needed. At the time I had no
idea it was possible to restart breastfeeding once
you had given up. I started by putting my baby to
the breast as often as possible and before every
formula feed. It was only a couple of days before I
felt the milk coming in and my breasts started to
feel full before feeds.
I found I didn’t really have time to express as
I was breastfeeding a lot of the time. Some
afternoons I spent hours breastfeeding but I
didn’t let this worry me and just sat down with a
good book or a movie. I continued to supplement
with formula, writing down the amount I was
giving at each feed and gradually started to
reduce it. In fact, as I was reducing the last bit
Toby suddenly jumped up in weight so I realized
he actually didn’t need the top-ups and that I
just needed confidence that I had enough milk to
feed him.
Vicky Groombridge photo courtesy of Vicky Groombridge
I am so pleased that I made the decision to give
it another go. It has been hard work but never
a chore. Every day I continue to feed Toby I feel
amazed at what I’ve achieved.
He’s now four months old and is a big, healthy
baby. The feeds are much quicker and I can
express enough for a feed in one go rather than it
taking three or four sessions to get enough.
I’m really grateful to La Leche League for giving
me the support to enable me to persevere. The
local breastfeeding clinic, my health visitor, my
husband, my mother and my NCT (National
Childbirth Trust) group have provided me with
an incredible support network.
P
lease send your stories and photos
for publication in Breastfeeding Today
to editorbt@llli.org
llli.org | 2010
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Today
Alison Blenkinsop
016
La Leche League The Beautiful!
Alison Blenkinsop, IBCLC 1999–2009, is a musician, songwriter
and associate member of Lactation Consultants of Great Britain.
Alison has written the following song to celebrate the launch
of Breastfeeding Today in tribute to La Leche League.
Listen to LLL mothers in the UK in the Isle of Man and
Folkestone singing the song here:
http://tinyurl.com/LLLItheBeautiful
Please send your performances
of the song to the tune of your
choice to Breastfeeding Today!
Fit To Bust by Alison Blenkinsop, Pen
Press Publishers 2008
is a comic treasure chest of songs,
stories, photos and cartoons celebrating
breastfeeding and motherhood. Its aim is
to raise awareness of the value of mother’s
milk and funds for Baby Milk Action, a nonprofit organization, which works to protect
both formula-fed and breastfed babies and whose work La Leche
League supports through IBFAN (the International Baby Food
Action Network). The joy Alison takes in playing with words
makes Fit To Bust a really entertaining read.
Fit To Bust is available from www.lllgbbooks.co.uk
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Book Review
018
Breastfeeding Older Children
by Ann Sinnott, Free Association Books
Review by Doris O’Connor, UK
In this new book, Ann Sinnott explores the re-emergence in western
society of the practice of breastfeeding older children and paints
a unique picture of full-term breastfeeding. She draws on child
development theories, research in neuroscience and anthropology,
as well as survey responses she received from
thousands of mothers, fathers and children from
48 countries. Parents and health professionals
alike will learn from this book, which puts
breastfeeding into its societal context as a
global necessity.
http://tinyurl.com/bfolderchildren
Ann states that human infants are born with an evolved need to
breastfeed for several years, something any mother who is nursing
an older child will recognize. She examines full-term nursing from a
historical perspective and the last chapter, which covers the origins
of western culture and anthropologic findings, is fascinating, if a little
challenging.
The book is well referenced and researched and the voices
of mothers, fathers and children resound throughout. As the
breastfeeding mother of a five-year-old, I found myself laughing out
loud, nodding along and, at times, getting cross with the voices I
heard, when they mirrored my own feelings throughout my nursing
relationship with my daughter.
Ann explores why women choose to sustain breastfeeding for longer
than the conventional norm, how society reacts, how fathers respond,
the impact of full-term breastfeeding on couples and how nursing
an older child fits in at the workplace. She explores the reactions
of health professionals, including psychologists, and the relevance
of John Bowlby’s attachment theory to sustained breastfeeding,
together with what neuroscientists are learning about the effects on
the brain of secure attachment.
Photo Leanne and Grace (Credit: ©HiltonSanders Photography at Oulton, Leeds www.rugbybreastfeedingcafe.co.uk)
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The reader becomes aware that there are, in fact, lots of mothers
out there who are nursing their older children. This book will be
hugely reassuring for them. It affirms what many mothers know
instinctively—that their children need to nurse and to deny them this
comes at a price to the individuals involved and society as a whole. In
Ann’s own words in the book on page 167:
Book Review
019
“I welcome Breastfeeding Older Children. I often
talk to mothers who continue to breastfeed
their older children but feel under pressure from
other people to stop. Ann Sinnott provides
valuable support by stating the benefits of
sustained breastfeeding, and quoting mothers
who have written to her from different parts of
the world. She also shows how people who object
to sustained breastfeeding have not given her
rational justifications for their opposition. This is
a unique book.”
Naomi Stadlen, La Leche League Leader and
author of What Mothers Do – Especially When
It Looks Like Nothing
http://tinyurl.com/2da3435
Doris O’Connor is a stay-at-home mother to eight
children. They all live together with her husband,
two dogs and three cats in a far too cluttered house,
affectionately known as “the tardis.” She has been
an LLL Leader for the last six years and a nursing
mum for the last seven.
Rovonne photo courtesy of Sacha Blackburne, LLL Bermuda
“SOCIETY NEEDS WOMEN TO BREASTFEED
Breastfeeding isn’t just a private matter—there
are repercussions for the whole of society.
Research has shown that breastfed children
are healthier then their formula-fed peers and
grow into physically healthier adults, and a
growing body of research strongly suggests
that sound psychosocial development is also
founded on breastfeeding (see Ch 3). Physical
and psychosocial good health established in
infancy has a positive impact on public healthcare
monetary costs throughout the life course of
a breastfed individual’s life—and a benefit to
every taxpayer. There are also health benefits
for breastfeeding mothers, with similar societal
impacts.”
“At last, a writer who taps into the authentic
voice of women who must fight to do what
most mothers, since the dawn of time, took for
granted. Ann Sinnott addresses the fact that
children as well as babies need to breastfeed.
She challenges the discrimination and even abuse
that their mothers often endure. A stimulating,
fact-filled book which will intrigue, enthrall and
appall the reader.”
Resources for
Breastfeeding Beyond
12 Months
http://www.llli.org/NB/NBextended.html
http://www.llli.org/NB/NBtoddlertips.html
Gabrielle Palmer, author of
The Politics of Breastfeeding
– When Breasts Are Bad
for Business
llli.org | 2010
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Today
Your Letters
020
Letters Page
Allie Van Gundy and baby photo courtesy Allie Van Gundy
Allie Van Gundy’s baby courtesy of A Van Gundy
Theresa Garnett and Danny © 2009 Ben Fullerton
(Credit © 2009 Ben Fullerton)
✪ ✪ The Lullaby
✪ ✪ Wearing Your Baby
✪ ✪ Baby Joins the Party
I have been a La Leche League Leader
since 1978 and have had the privilege
of performing my family-friendly
folksongs (say that 20 times fast!)
for La Leche League International
Conferences and LLL Area Conferences
from Ohio to New Jersey. The folksongs
I write emerge from repeated themes I
have seen with women and their families,
including breastfeeding, which often
appear in
my lyrics.
I’d like to share these video
demonstrations I made of how to put
your baby in a sling. You don’t need to
speak French to understand them. The
music speaks to everyone.
Here is a photo of me carrying my then
nine-month-old baby, Danny, in a sling
at my sister’s anniversary celebration.
I must say, the position isn’t great,
though. My shoulder should be centered
between the fabric seam and the rings.
I recently discovered a fascinating
global community of ukulele musicians
when I entered the Bushman World
Ukulele Video Contest and posted
“The Lullaby” on Youtube:
http://tinyurl.com/LullabyKShaw
I was inspired to write this song one
night after sending my night-owl son,
the one that used to keep me awake,
off to work the night shift at the post
office. The song offers a role call of night
watchers across time and around the
world who have kept vigil for loved ones
or for duty. This lullaby, unlike some, is
written for wakers, not sleepers, who
may appreciate the company of music on
a lonely night. Happy listening!
Karen Shaw, Falls, Pennsylvania, USA
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I hope you enjoy them.
Pte Calllin:
http://tinyurl.com/Pte-Calllin
http://tinyurl.com/astharte2001
Allaiter en écharpe:
http://tinyurl.com/Allaiteren-charpe
Charlotte Yonge, Paris, France
Theresa Garnett, Minnesota, USA
S
end your letters and photos
A p r ize for the
star letter!
The star letter for Issue 2, 2010,
will receive the new 8th edition of
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding!
When
mothers
become
grandmothers...
LLL News
021
Grandparents
around the world
now have an online
magazine and
website just for them!
Grand
The ONLINE MAGAziNe foR GRANDpAReNTS
GRAND is perfect for grandparents
who want to...
save articles, e-mail to friends or print out
• Share their values and wisdom with the
next generation
• Make their time with the grandkids
unforgettable
• Learn what’s new since they last changed
diapers
La Leche League international is a GRANDpartner
for Grandparents TM. Subscribe today with special code
LLpRA1 and GRAND will donate $2 to support
LLLi’s mission of building healthier families.
Enjoy dazzling pages
with video, podcasts and
so much more
one-year (12 issues) $7.99; Two-years (24 issues) only $9.99
order at www.grandmagazine.com.
llli.org
turn pages,
just like a real
magazine
|
2010
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Today
LLL News
022
GlobaLLL: A look at what is happening in LLL around the world
✪ ✪India’s virtual LLL Group
✪ ✪La Leche Liga Österreich
(LLL Austria)
✪ ✪LLL Belgique (LLL Belgium)
La Leche League Pan-India has set up a virtual
Group for mothers all around India. Members
dial a local telephone number from their city and
the calls are bridged by a conference call from
Mumbai. This enables many mothers who do not
normally have access to an LLL meeting in real life
to talk to other breastfeeding mothers from the
comfort of their own homes. LLL Leader Yasmin
Effath helps keep virtual Group members in touch
by regular emails.
Any mother can join by clicking on the following
link. http://groups.to/lllpanindia
Has a revamped Web site www.lalecheliga.at
National Conference May 28–30 in Eben
(which is close to Radstadt).
Issues a monthly online newsletter in French
and English that reports research, details of LLL
meetings and conferences, video clips and each
time includes something charming or amusing
that a child has said. Check it out here:
http://tinyurl.com/22n7f3k
✪ ✪La Liga de La Leche de
Euskadi (LLL in the Basque
Country)
✪ ✪La Leche League of Bermuda
✪ ✪New LLL Group in Dubai
Dubai has a new Group in Mirdif, Dubai.
“We are working on publicity and promotion
now to make sure as many mothers as possible
know about our meetings,” says Group member
Caroline. The Group attracts expatriate
mothers who can find the extra support and
companionship that in many circumstances family
would have provided back home.
If you are interested in attending the Group
please contact: lalldubai@yahoo.com
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Euskadiko Esnearen Liga
http://preview.tinyurl.com/index-archivos
IV Simposium Internacional De Lactancia Materna
Lactancia Materna y circunstancias especiales
Bilbao Palacio Euskalduna Nov 15–16 2010
Is sponsoring the first annual Breastfed Baby
Photo exhibit along with the Department of
Health and Bermuda Hospitals Board as part
of World Breastfeeding Week 2010 see
http://tinyurl.com/27ms292
LLL News
023
✪ ✪LLL France
✪ ✪LLL Great Britain
✪ ✪La Leche League of Central
Lake County, Illinois, USA
http://tinyurl.com/lrtdelallaitement
LLL France has 345 Leaders and 181 Groups
and is still growing!
The publication of L’Art de l’allaitement
Maternel—involving the adaptation and
translation of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
into French—was a huge joint effort, with about
30 Leaders and Leader Applicants (as well as
a professional translator) actively working on
the project. L’Art de l’allaitement Maternel was
released in September 2009. It is sold in major
bookstores, in “hyper” markets and in small local
bookstores, as well as on the LLL France Web
site www.lllfrance.org and in local Groups. It is a
best seller in France and is already on its second
printing.
LLLGB is delighted to have more mothers than
ever before who are interested in becoming LLL
Leaders. Last year it accredited a record 37 new
Leaders and this year expects a similar number.
The Leaflets’ Team continues to produce
up-to-date and beautifully illustrated new
information sheets. The recent My Baby Needs
More Milk concentrates on common concerns
and making breastfeeding solutions a priority.
Information about managing supplements when
necessary provides helpful reassurance that
supplementation short term need not spell the
end of breastfeeding. My Baby Won’t Breastfeed
is another new information sheet, which
examines some of the problems babies may have
establishing breastfeeding.
You can order LLLGB’s information sheets at
http://www.lllgbbooks.co.uk/
Local photographer, Krista Schumow of Shoot
The Moon Photography has photographed
LLL mothers and their children enjoying the
breastfeeding relationship to illustrate a
calendar for 2010.
Photos
Photo: shutterstock.com
La Leche League International is
seeking high quality digital
photographs for use in various
media. If you would like to submit a
photo, you may send us a digital
file of your work.
Resolution: 300 (dpi = dots
per inch) and Size: 5”w x 7”h
Proceeds from the sale of the calendar will help
fund breastfeeding education and support
for the mothers and children of Central Lake
County, Illinois.
To order your copy visit
http://laleche2010calendar.blogspot.com/
P
lease send notification of your
country’s LLL news, events and
resources to editorbt@llli.org
(Payment for photos: Unless
specifically solicited by LLLI, photos
are not purchased. If your photo is
used, photo credit will be given.)
Send digital file(s) to:
photos@llli.org
llli.org | 2010
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Breastfeeding In the News
024
The Curious Lactivist
Kathy Abbott, IBCLC, Boston, USA
✪ ✪ Time to finish our
medicine!
We’ve all done it. The doctor gives
you a prescription of antibiotics
to help you feel better and tells
you to keep taking it until all the
medicine is gone. But after a few
days you feel a lot better and you
find yourself forgetting to take your
pills. Six months later you find the
half-empty bottle in your medicine
cabinet and you wonder if you
should throw them out or keep
them for next time. Meanwhile the
surviving bacteria that your doctor
had so gallantly tried to defend
you from have now mutated into
a newer form forcing doctors to
scramble as they try to find a more
powerful antibiotic to overpower
them. (When penicillin was first
discovered in 1945 it took only
45,000 units to cure the average
bout of pneumonia. Today it takes
at least 24 million units of penicillin
to do the same job.) We’ve all done
it; we’ve all neglected to finish our
medicine.
As with antibiotics, we are finding
more and more evidence that the
benefits of breastfeeding are also
dose related. The longer a child is
breastfed the stronger the benefits.
In Australia, where one in five
children struggle with mental health
issues, a new study was recently
released showing that not only is
breastfeeding for more than six
months associated with significant
mental health benefits for the child
but also that for each additional
month of breastfeeding their
emotional behavior improved as
well. (“Breast feeding for over six
months could aid mental health”*)
These benefits could still be seen
at ages two, five, eight, ten and
even in fourteen-year-olds! More
©Sarah Powell/MORLEY BOSOM BUDDIES
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importantly, the benefits remained
after adjusting for social, economic
and psychological factors and
even early life events. Conversely,
children who were breastfed for less
than six months showed more signs
of behavior problems that could
be interpreted as aggression or
depression.
For years now we have made the
mistake of marketing breastfeeding
as a medicine, specifically an
evidence-based preventative
medicine designed to make babies
healthier. Babies, not children. Like
those powerful antibiotics we have
long assumed that breastfeeding
is a quick fix. A few short months
should do the job. But babies
grow quickly and the value of
breastfeeding past a few short
months has not always been as
apparent. Part of the problem
is that researchers haven’t been
able to find the numbers of
long-term breastfeeding mothers
needed to make their studies
worthwhile. There just isn’t enough
data out there on the effects of
breastfeeding for years as opposed
to months. So instead of hard
data we get conclusions that
include little caveats like “for each
additional month results improved.”
But it is time to start looking at
breastfeeding as a lifestyle benefit
instead of a short course of
treatment. It’s time to start talking
about breastfeeding as a longterm, dose dependent contributor
to wellness. We already tell heart
disease patients that for the sake
of their health they need to make
lifestyle changes; that they need
to eat right and exercise more.
We know that this is the best
preventative medicine we can
give them. The same is true with
breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding In the News
025
Rather than talking about the benefits of a few
short months, we need research that shows
the risks of not breastfeeding for months and
even (dare I say it?) years. Instead of saying
that breastfeeding lowers risks of mental health
problems in later life, we can and should be
saying that breastfeeding for a shorter duration
may increase the risk of mental health issues in
our 14-year-olds! It’s time to stop looking for the
quick fix. It’s time to finish our medicine.
* Oddy, PhD, W.H., Kendall, G.E. PhD, Jianghong
Li, PhD et al, The long-term effects of breastfeeding
on child and adolescent mental health: a pregnancy
cohort study followed for 14 Years, The Journal of
Pediatrics, published online Dec 14, 2009.
✪ ✪ UNICEF
Baby Friendly Initiative
Research News
Breastfeeding could more than halve a mother’s
risk of metabolic syndrome, sometimes referred
to as pre-diabetes, a range of symptoms that
includes high blood pressure, obesity and
cholesterol. Women who developed gestational
diabetes gained even greater protection, with
their risk cut by between 44 and 86%. The
study of 704 women, all of whom were expecting
their first child, looked at the development of
metabolic syndrome in the 20 years after they
gave birth. Study leader Dr. Erica Gunderson said:
“The findings indicate that breastfeeding a child
may have lasting favorable effects on a woman’s
risk factors for later developing diabetes or heart
disease.” The benefits did not appear to be due
to differences in weight gain, level of physical
activity or other lifestyle factors affecting health.
The findings appeared in the February issue of
the journal Diabetes.
Support LLLI
on Facebook!
Become a member of the
La Leche League International
Facebook Group and support the
LLLI Cause at
www.causes.com/llli
✪ ✪ UNICEF
http://tinyurl.com/JournalPediatrics
“Baby tents” offer Haitian
mothers a safe place to
breastfeed
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, February 18,
2010—Amidst the collapsed buildings and
temporary camps of this battered city stand 12
special tents dedicated to providing mothers
and their infant children a safe and calm place to
breastfeed.
www.TheCuriousLactivist.Wordpress.com
Kathy Abbott as “The Curious Lactivist” likes to
reflect on the ways that breastfeeding is presented
in the news media. As a private Lactation Consultant
and LLL Leader she is constantly learning from
the women she works with and as the mother of
a smart, vivacious, totally awesome 13-year-old
daughter she is renewed in her faith that the next
generation will most certainly get it right!
Since you know that breastfeeding
is the best infant feeding choice,
this may be why you became
involved with La Leche League
International in the first place!
Join other breastfeeding
supporters around the world to
share your story, promote the
benefits of breastfeeding, and
make a difference in the lives of
families around the world who
look forward to a rewarding and
positive breastfeeding experience.
VIDEO:
http://www.unicef.org/emerg/haiti_52797.html
The “baby tents” are run by Action Against
Hunger, with support from UNICEF.
llli.org | 2010
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026
A Book that Changed My Life
Anna Burbidge,
Chair of La Leche League Great Britain
When I was 19 years old I was overjoyed
to be expecting my first baby and I felt
completely ready to be a mother. Even
though my own mother had given up
breastfeeding after being told her milk
was “too thin,” I assumed that all babies
were breastfed at first. However, this
was 1972 and I soon heard from the
other women at my antenatal class how
difficult breastfeeding was and how most
of them did not even intend to try. The
health visitor* did not help much as her
talk on breastfeeding included displaying
a tray of equipment and complicated
washing routines involving boiled water
and sterilized cotton wool.
I was slim and amazed everyone by
giving birth to a 9 lb 4 oz baby, whom
it was assumed I would never be able
to breastfeed. In spite of four hourly
feeding routines, my baby being in the
nursery at night and the usual ten days
in hospital, things were going well. My
daughter made contented noises and
test-weighing showed she sometimes
took four ounces of my milk although
as I had no idea how much she needed
I didn’t know this was good. I was upset
when an auxiliary nurse told me I should
stop breastfeeding as I was putting
her off her bottle but it turned out
she had got me mixed up with another
mother, whose husband wanted her to
breastfeed while she didn’t!
All of a sudden I was at home with a
new baby and feeling overwhelmed with
the responsibility. I had no idea how
milk production worked. I had been
told to top up with formula until my
milk increased. My health visitor came
in with the words “Goodness, I’ve got a
breastfeeder,” and proceeded to tell me
to give a bottle at the 10 pm feeding to
save up my milk until morning. After two
nights of that I realized it wasn’t a good
idea and, thankfully, I also resisted the
advice that as she was such a big baby I
could give her solids at two weeks!
I was told there was one other
breastfeeding mother in the village, but
when I met her I found that she was
still nursing her eight-month-old and
I decided to give her a wide berth—
whoever heard of a baby being breastfed
for more than four or five months?! If
only I had realized what good sense she
spoke, but, sadly, the top up formula and
four hourly routines meant that by 12
weeks my baby was completely bottlefed. I realized straightaway that I had
lost something special and even asked
if I could put her back to the breast but
was told to forget it. I was determined
that any future babies I would have
Anna Burbidge photo courtesy of Anna Burbidge
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would
be breastfed for
longer and one day I sent off for a
couple of books on breastfeeding. Dr.
Spock’s was the only childcare book I
had read at that point. Looking down a
long list I ordered two. One was called
The Simplicity of Breast-Feeding and was
positive and informative but still with an
eye to routines and bottles of water. The
other was La Leche League International
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.
Something about this book really spoke
to me. I learned later that some women
disliked what they saw as its sentimental
style but it filled me with a sense of what
mothering could be and I just knew,
without any doubt, that I would be able
to breastfeed my babies.
The book was so warm and comforting,
although there were a couple of things
in it that I was unsure about. One was
that it talked about sleeping with one’s
baby—I had secretly done this but
knew it was not approved of. The other
was a mention of one mother who had
nursed her twins until 11 months and
13 months. I thought this must be a
printing error and should actually read 1
month and 3 months.
027
joined LLL and happily breastfed
her babies.
Dani, Toby, Tamsin, Anna (in front, Thomas, Justin, Joella, Rebecca, Kris)
photo courtesy of Anna Burbidge
I was eight months pregnant with my second
child when I saw a poster for an LLL meeting.
I recognized the name from the book and was
surprised—this Group was one of the first in
Great Britain. I phoned up for details “just in
case” and fate again intervened as there was a
meeting the next evening and I was persuaded
to go.
I wasn’t just learning about
breastfeeding though. Through
LLL I learned so much about
mothering. I learned to listen, to
understand, to accept. I learned
about respectful communication
and ways of disciplining without
smacking, which was all I had
known before. I embraced the
idea of the family bed, and I
found ways to work from home
to be with my children. I learned more about
healthy eating, and I finally managed to have a
home birth.
In 1976 I helped set up an LLL Group and
became a Leader Applicant but shyness meant
it was 1983 before I felt ready to accredit as
an LLL Leader. I took on various national jobs in
the organization. When I left school, aged 16,
I didn’t know it then but going to my first LLL
meeting was going to change my life. It may
sound corny but I really felt I had “come home.”
I was among women sharing ideas which felt so
right to me and they were breastfeeding their
babies outside of their homes! I had fed my baby in
the car once and thought I was doing something
unacceptable.
Without LLL I might never have discovered the joy
of snuggling next to my children. I would certainly
have been a harsher, less understanding mother.
I may have returned to work outside the home
instead of finding jobs that let me work with my
children around. I have a different attitude to life
as a result, a better understanding of people and
a much broader knowledge. It is uplifting to know
that I have played a small part in helping others
to enjoy their mothering more.
I always wanted a big family and finding LLL
helped me to find true fulfilment as a mother of
six. LLL philosophy has become a part of my life.
Ultimately, all of this happened because one day
I looked down a list of books and put a tick in the
right box. That really was a book that changed
my life!
*In the UK in the National Health Service the health
visitor is a qualified registered nurse, midwife, sick
children’s nurse or psychiatric nurse with specialist
My second daughter arrived and, with my
new confidence and information, I no longer
doubted my ability to breastfeed. In fact, having
learned about breastfeeding on cue, I was rather
disappointed that my baby often went three
hours between feeds. I intended to nurse for six
months, but that became nine months, then 12
months, then I just decided to carry on and was
quite disappointed when at 16 months she made
it clear she was weaned.
My first son was born seven weeks prematurely
and it was the information and support I got from
LLL that enabled me to breastfeed exclusively.
Every baby has a unique personality and feeding
habits and my fourth, fifth and sixth babies all
taught me something new. I nursed through
a pregnancy and by now toddler nursing and
beyond felt natural. My mother became a
complete convert and said she wished I could
have told her all this when I was a baby! My sister
I became Publications Director and now, as Chair
of LLLGB’s Council of Directors, I deal with media
enquiries and PR. I represent LLL at events and
meetings, sometimes traveling abroad, and I
even manage to stand up and address a hall full
of people at our annual conference. I have LLL
friends in many parts of the world. These are all
things that would never have happened if I had
not found LLL.
qualifications in community health, which includes
child health, health promotion and education. Health
visitors are particularly involved with families who
have children under five.
Anna Burbidge is the mother of six children aged
from 16 to 36. She joined La Leche League to find
breastfeeding support as a young woman in 1972,
and has worked as a volunteer in many roles. She is
Chair of LLLGB’s Council of Directors.
Anna Burbidge photo courtesy of Anna Burbidge
http://tinyurl.com/LLLGB-WAB
I wanted to be a journalist but I didn’t have the
qualifications. For LLL I began writing articles and
reviewing books. I edited the national Leaders’
newsletter for six years. As the children grew up, I
found what I had learned in LLL continued to help
me through school days and difficult teenage
years. It has enabled me to accept and respect
the choices my adult children make.
llli.org | 2010
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What’s Cooking
028
Stealthy, Healthy Nutrition
G
ood
nutrition
means
✪ ✪ Here are some tips.
eating a well-balanced
✤✤ I don’t know what it is about onions
that make kids hate them so much. My kids
will happily eat them as long as they can’t
see them. Pureeing them before adding
them to sauces and soups can help hide
them, while still providing their wonderful
flavor.
and varied diet of foods
in as close to their natural
state as possible.
✤✤ Pureeing in general can help hide
foods—this is the trick Jessica Seinfeld
uses. Most vegetables will need to be
cooked first before pureeing. A friend of
mine snuck spinach into her daughter’s
pancakes with great success. I created a
spinach bread recipe (that follows) using
this method. However, my spinach bread
doesn’t hide it.
Rachel Leon, Rockford, IL, USA
Last year Jessica Seinfeld made a splash
with her book Deceptively Delicious, full of
recipes that sneak vegetables into one’s
family’s meals. I’ll admit I didn’t like the
concept. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all
for sneaking in something healthy, but I
hide things like flax seed and nutritional
yeast. No, what I was against was the idea
of offering meals that don’t appear to
contain vegetables. If we hide vegetables
doesn’t that create problems in the long
run? If kids don’t realize they’re eating
vegetables, won’t they turn their noses up
when vegetables are offered in their regular
colorful fashion and won’t they think it’s
normal and acceptable to have a dinner
plate without a single (visible) vegetable?
But then a couple of days ago I found the
big bag of beets I’d bought. They needed
to be used and I found myself grinding
them up in the food processor. Now what
was I going to do with all these? Some
members of my family likes beets (when
they are sliced and cooked in a certain way)
but there was no way I could get everyone
to eat them. I looked in a cookbook for
ideas and came across a chocolate beet
cake recipe that said even “beet-bashers”
would love the cake. I didn’t have the
ingredients to make the cake, so instead
I made my own recipe for beet brownies,
going from a recipe I found in a different
cookbook. (The recipe follows, lovingly
named after my son.)
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The brownies were a hit! Everyone in my
family gobbled them up. My oldest is the
most adamant about hating beets, yet was
the one who said it was “the best dessert
he’d ever had” and begged me to make
them again. I made them again tonight and
told him my secret ingredient. His eyes
bulged out, but then he shrugged and said,
“They’re still good.”
I still think the idea of always sneaking
vegetables in isn’t the way to go. However
I love the idea of adding extra nutritional
value to things that could use it (like
brownies) and sneaking in vegetables
that my kids wouldn’t otherwise eat.
Nutritionists agree it is important to eat
a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. I’m
now a convert to the idea of sneaking what
my sons consider less palatable vegetables
into baked goods in the interest of adding
variety to their diets.
✤✤ Shredding is my preferred method. It
might not hide the vegetables as well as
pureeing, but this way you aren’t cooking
the vegetables twice. (You are cooking the
vegetable you are hiding first to puree it
and then to bake the dish.) Shredded raw
vegetables contain more nutrients.
What’s Cooking
029
Isaac’s Beet Brownies
Spinach Bread
adapted from Maple Walnut Brownies in How it All Vegan!
This savory bread goes well with pasta dishes and makes
excellent garlic bread.
1 1/3 cup
whole wheat flour
1/3 cup
unsweetened cocoa
10 oz frozen spinach
1 cup boiling water
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup honey
1 cup water or milk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp oregano
4 T oil
2 tsp maple syrup
1 cup shredded beets
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, sift together flour,
cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add the remaining ingredients and mix
together until just mixed. Spoon into a lightly oiled 8x8 pan and bake
for 25–30 minutes. Test with a knife to check if it’s done.
Rachel Leon is an LLL Leader living in
Rockford, IL with her husband, Alan and
their three sons, Isaac (10), Adam (4) and
Noah (2). She is involved in community
activism and enjoys reading, writing and
cooking.
1 egg beaten (or egg replacer)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a food processor, combine spinach
and boiling water. Process until smooth. In a large bowl combine flour,
baking powder, baking soda, salt, garlic and oregano. Add spinach and
water mixture, oil, maple syrup and egg until just combined. Pour into
a lightly oiled loaf pan and bake for about 25 minutes or until done.
“What’s Cooking” is edited by LLL
Leader Lesley Robinson. She lives in
Ottawa, Canada with husband, Mark.
Her three grown children have ﬂown
the nest.
P
lease send stories and photos
llli.org | 2010
•
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•
Today
Pre-Order...
New
8th
Edition
NOW – July 18, 2010!
Help Make this book
a New York Times best seller
Your order makes a difference – be a part of history!
Paper Back
Books will ship after July 13, 2010
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Questions?
Mothering Matters
New items
store.llli.org
Go Global with the LLLI International bag! made from 100%
recycled materials. Reusable for groceries, to tote personal items, and to
show your support for breastfeeding mothers and babies around the world!
(Measures 13x13x5.)
Medications and Mothers’ Milk
by Thomas W. Hale, PhD
New 14th edition, provides on-the-spot information on the impact
of currently used medications on breastfeeding mothers and infants.
Stillen: einfach nur stillen
(Breastfeeding Pure and Simple)
by Gwen Gotsch
Vermittelt Ihnen genaue Informationen und vor allem die
Begeisterung, die Sie brauchen, um Ihr Baby am Anfang
und in den vielen kommenden Monaten zu stillen.
USA
g IL 60173
Road • Schaumbur
HE
Plum Grove
60 • 800.LALEC
957 North
30 • fax 847.969.04
847.519.77
Ca re Pla n for
USA
rg IL 60173
Road • Schaumbu
ECHE
Plum Grove
957 North
.0460 • 800-LAL
• fax 847.969
847.519 .7730
Mastitis
It is usuallyof the breast.
breast. This
inflammation
section of the
Mastitis is an
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your baby.
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No. 10220
any further
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No. 10245
or other breastfeedin
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A Guid e to
Pumping
Your Milk
Establishing
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Your Milk Sup
LLLI Information Sheets (Tear-Off)*
*Available in Spanish, and will be available in additional languages soon!
provide easy-to-read, and research-based
mothering topics/information for new moms. (50 sheets per pad)
Encourage
enough
to nurse long
and high in calories.
on each
Your baby needsof a feeding as it is creamy least 10 to 15 minutes
at
or start to flow,
toward the end nurse from both breasts
to “let down,”
have
to
baby, if willing, the milk two or three minuteshad enough hindmilk usually
suckled both
side. It may take beginning. Babies who have
If your baby
the
at the breast.
the baby nursed
especially in
and may fall asleepnext feeding with the breast take one breast at
the
only
relaxed bodies
feeding, start like late preterm infants,
are nursing frequently
breasts at the
small infants,
just fine if they
from last. (Often few days, and they do
first
a feeding the
enough.)
.
suckling effectively
League Leader
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of milk
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tissue?
depends on milklarge mouthful of breast
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Milk production
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baby’s tongue swallows? Can you hear baby comes off the breast? from
removing milk
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or
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breast has been
of improper latch
assessing weather
feel like your
be helpful in
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questions may or cracked nipples may
the breast. Sore breast.
the
positioning at
Tip 5: Be sure
© January 2010,
No. 10238
Survivor Moms
Mickey Sperlich, MA, CPM and Julia Seng, PhD, CNM
Learn how sexual abuse affects women during pregnancy and
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Motherbaby Press, Paper, 246 pages $34.95 + S&H
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International
in any manner
not be reproduced International.
League
al sheet may
This informationpermission from La Leche
without written
Brought to Earth by Birth
For more information
llli.org
Harriette Hartigan
This stunning collection of black and white photographs
by one of the world’s master birth photographers celebrates giving birth and being born. Here is creation,
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La Leche League
** Breastfed newborns
their birth
should regain
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A baby who
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Tel: (541) 344-7438 (800) 743-0974 US/CAN
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Donors Making a Difference
032
Give the Gi ft of
Donors Making a
Difference
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding!
NEW 8th Edition
Help a new mother and
baby get the best start
Every gift of time, money or talent to La Leche League
International (LLLI) enhances the health and lives of mothers
together by giving the
and babies worldwide. We are grateful to the many donors
gift of The Womanly Art
who, through their generous contributions, have enabled LLLI
of Breastfeeding today!
to continue its mission of helping mothers to breastfeed through
mother-to-mother
support,
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learn more!
and education, and to promote a better understanding
of breastfeeding as an important element in the healthy
development of the baby and mother.
Here are some examples of how donors are
supporting the work of LLLI around the world:
✤✤ A generous donation from the Isdell
Family Foundation enabled LLLI to provide
10,000 New Mother Packets containing
helpful breastfeeding information to over 30
hospitals and health care centers in the United
States and to the Peace Corps’ breastfeeding
program in Jamaica. La Leche League Leaders,
such as Isadora Britton of LLL Red Mountain in Arizona, USA and her
family, helped distribute packets to their local hospitals
✤✤ A grant from Great Britain’s Department
of Health enabled LLL Great Britain to expand
their Local Groups network in England so that
more mothers have access to LLL support.
✤✤ LLL Mumbai, India received a contribution
to develop a library of LLLI publications.
The funding came from a private donor who
heard about the expansion of LLL Groups in
the city and wanted to provide a selection of
breastfeeding and parenting books to support
these Groups and the mothers they serve.
✤✤ An advertisement promoting LLL on a
truck in Italy and one
on bicycles in France
were donated
by individuals in
appreciation
for breastfeeding
support, which they or
a family member had
received from local La
Leche League Leaders.
Do you have fundraising ideas to share or a story about how a La Leche League donor
has made a difference for families in your community?
Please contact us at fdassociate@llli.org
Today
•
Issue 1
•
2010
|
llli.org
NB_issue1_09.qxd:06Nov_DecNBƒ.qxd
4/16/09
his first joke. I remember the lows—the
nipple pain; feeling overwhelmed by
Oliver’s needs. But the hundreds of
normal days, the thousands of warm,
enjoyable but unmemorable feeds, fade
into a blur.
Attending LLL meetings and hearing
about other mothers’ breastfeeding and
parenting experiences have been
brilliant. Over the past two and a half
years I have gained so much from the
mothers I have met through LLL.
They’ve suggested tips for specific situations, changed some of my attitudes
completely, and given me true empathy.
Their experiences have helped me to
recognize the truth in the phrase “this
too shall pass.” This has really helped me
to enjoy the good bits and cope with the
rocky periods. I would like to say a
particularly warm thank you to my local
Leaders Ruth, Suzanne, and Barbara for
their listening ears, helpful information,
and, of course, their friendship.
Joanne Whistler
West Yorkshire Great Britain
Adapted from a story in LLLGB’s Breastfeeding
Matters
A Gift from
My Sister
1:23 PM
Page 19
Sisters Diane and Jamie and their babies
about it, just the basics, and thought
that my baby and I would figure it out
if it were meant to be.
I didn’t talk to my husband about it
much or have him read anything about
it either. I remember him being very
shocked when late in the pregnancy I
announced that I would be exclusively
feeding the baby; we would not be
using bottles if all went well. I
remember he was not too happy about
it. Looking back now, both of us should
have read a lot more and given a lot
more thought to the subject.
My sister and I were not breastfed.
Our mom says it just was not
something you did then. So, we had
never really been around any breastfeeding mothers. We were never taught
about it in school, and no one ever
talked to us about it. I believe that my
lackadaisical attitude toward breastfeeding during my pregnancy came
from a lack of knowledge; knowledge
(thank goodness) that my sister learned
from a book and passed on to me.
When my daughter was born, I had
some complications, and it took seven
days for my milk to come in—seven long
days in which my husband and I were
vigorously reading about breastfeeding.
Our LLL Leader, Jeanette, was awesome,
providing us with much needed support
and encouragement. She even came to
visit me at my house because I was too ill
to leave. And, of course, I called my sister.
At that point I was determined to breastfeed. Seeing what a positive experience it
was for my sister made me all the more
eager to nurse my own child. I am so
glad that I did.
My 11-month-old daughter, Madison,
My younger sister, Jaime, has always
LANACare Organic
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been one to learn
a lot by reading. So
when she was pregnant, Jaime read and
Nursinglearned
Pads
a lot about breastfeeding. She
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a La Leche
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content provides
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washabout
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only occasionally with lanolin-replenishing
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told me several
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LLL meeting late in my
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llli.org | 2010
•
Fit Pregnancy
and
Issue 1
•
Issue 1, 2009 • NEW BEGINNINGS 19

T oday - La Leche League

Transcription

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