Laugh and Learn about Childbirth

Sheri Bayles has taught over 4,000 couples in the New York area and worked over 20 years as an Ob/Gyn nurse. The “Laugh and Learn about Childbirth” class is a 2-DVD set for a total of 4 hours and 15 minutes. Of all the DVDs, I enjoyed these the most. When I was pregnant with my first child, my husband and I took a Lamaze class offered through the local hospital. Frankly we would have been far more comfortable and invested a lot less of our time watching this DVD class at home! Sheri talks about “normal birth” and what happens when a “cascade of interventions” begins (such as in my first labor when I decided to get an epidural, needed IV fluids, had to have a catheter, and nearly had to be given pitocin when the epidural slowed down my labor).

One of the most powerful things presented in this class is how to talk to the doctor and nurses about managing your own labor. Want to breathe through the pushing stage but the doctor and nurses are telling you to hold your breath and push to a count of 10? Confidently say that you would like to try breathing and pushing for a while and see what progress you make, and if that is not going well you will switch.

The DVDs came out in 2007 and contained a lot of information from studies up to that point. The only change I would have liked to have seen was with the information presented and paper insert given about cord blood banking and a particular company. While I think it’s important for parents to learn about cord blood banking and make an informed decision, that felt more like an advertisement than information. It doesn’t diminish my recommendation of Laugh and Learn About Childbirth though and I highly recommend it.

Laugh and Learn about Newborn Baby Care

This short newborn baby care class covers everything the hospital nurse tried to teach me in 10 minutes before I was discharged from the hospital. I wish I had had this DVD to watch in the comfort of my home before I gave birth!

The class would be particularly helpful for husbands or partners to watch so that they can become comfortable caring for the baby as well. The lessons cover giving a sponge bath, diaper changes and dressing a newborn, swaddling, tub baths, diapers and dressing for a 3-month-old, and baby supplies. I recommend Laugh and Learn About Newborn Baby Care highly as well.

Laugh and Learn about Breastfeeding

As a breastfeeding blogger you know I watched Laugh and Learn About Breastfeeding first! As I said, Sheri is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She nursed her twin boys for nine months, which is an admirable accomplishment! The nine lessons offered are generally helpful and present some good information. There are just a few things I want to note. Sheri recommends breastfeeding for 10-15 minutes on one side, then breaking the latch, burping the baby and switching to the other side. For many mothers and babies that might work fine, but I see an awful lot of women at breastfeeding support meetings who have low supply because they followed advice to limit feedings to that short of a duration. Ideally babies should nurse on one side until they are done, and they are “done” when they either fall asleep at the breast or pop themselves off. Sheri also mentioned starting a bottle at two weeks, and ideally I think that should wait until four weeks. She talks about pumping a bottle for the partner to give in the evening so the mother can sleep: the mother last nurses at 8 or so, goes to bed, the partner feeds the baby at 11 or so, and then the mother gets up at 2 to feed the baby again. That could give the mother 5-6 consecutive hours of sleep, which I agree would be heavenly. However, nighttime is some of the most important time for nursing sessions to build up and maintain the mother’s milk supply. Some mothers who do have a good supply might experience engorgement, which is not only painful but can also spiral over time into lower supply as the body signals itself to stop producing as much milk because the breasts are uncomfortably full. Again, some mothers have success with the “relief bottle” but others need to be careful with that.

I have to mention one other thing, simply because I found it so funny! Sheri demonstrates different breastfeeding positions (and by the way I love the footage of the mothers breastfeeding their newborns in those positions!) In the DVD there is a written banner across the screen with the title of each hold. After the “Cross-Cradle” and “Football” holds, some sports-loving man must have been a little confused, because the banner read “Sideline” position (as in the sideline of a “football” field?) instead of “Side-lying” position. It does not affect the quality of the information presented, but it gave me a giggle!

Conclusion

I enjoyed these DVDs and will be passing them on to my sister who is due with her first baby later this month. If you have watched any of these DVDs, please leave a comment and let us know your opinion as well. If not, stop by on Monday and enter the contest to win your own set of “Laugh and Learn” DVDs!

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Today she talks about how breastfeeding success begins in the hospital:

Five Hospital Practices that Extend Your Duration of Breastfeeding

Photo by Vedrana Bosnjak

Your hospital experience — brief as it may be — can have a powerful impact on your long-term breastfeeding success. Making hospital changes in maternity care practices has been shown to significantly increase breastfeeding initiation and duration rates. The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) — launched in 1991– is a worldwide campaign to encourage hospitals and birthing centers to adopt maternity practices supportive of breastfeeding. (See www.babyfriendlyusa.org.) Hospitals that commit to improving their support for breastfeeding mothers by successfully implementing the BFHI’s Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding can apply for and receive the designation as a “Baby-Friendly Hospital.” While only 83 maternity facilities in the U.S. (among more than 3200 hospitals and birthing centers) have chosen to comply with all Ten Steps and be awarded “Baby-Friendly” status, a recent large study in Colorado1 has identified five of the BFHI supportive practices (dubbed the “Can Do 5!”) that have a significant impact on breastfeeding duration among mothers of healthy newborns. The following “Can Do 5!” successful maternity practices can help extend your duration of breastfeeding after you are discharged from the hospital:

1. Baby is breastfed in the first hour after birth. The AAP recommends that healthy infants be placed skin-to-skin with their mothers immediately after birth and remain with their mothers until the first feeding occurs. Immediate skin-to-skin contact not only eases your baby’s adaptation to the world, it allows the two of you to get to know one another, and promotes early breastfeeding. A baby who nurses well shortly after birth is more likely to continue breastfeeding effectively, and a successful early first breastfeeding experience promotes a mother’s confidence. Ask to have your baby placed tummy down on your bare chest immediately after delivery, and watch how her inborn reflexes help her achieve a successful early feeding. You may want to limit your visitors during this intimate bonding time.

2. Baby is fed only breast milk in the hospital. Many studies show that giving supplements to breastfed infants is linked with a shorter duration of breastfeeding. Supplemental milk should be offered only for a valid medical reason. When babies are supplemented with formula, they breastfeed less often, since formula takes longer to digest than breast milk. Infrequent breastfeeding may interfere with establishing an abundant milk supply. Furthermore, giving unnecessary supplements undermines a mother’s confidence in her ability to produce sufficient milk. Ordinarily, frequent, round-the-clock breastfeeding will provide all the milk your baby needs.

3. Baby stays in the same room with mother. By keeping your baby in your room throughout your hospital stay, you will learn to recognize her earliest feeding cues and be able to offer your breast whenever your baby is ready to nurse. Furthermore, studies show that babies are less stressed and do not cry as much when they are cared for in their mother’s room. Rooming-in is a great confidence builder. When you provide most of your baby’s care yourself in the hospital, you leave knowing that you will be able to meet your baby’s needs at home. To make the most of your rooming-in experience, ask your partner to help limit your visitors at the hospital and monitor their length of stay.

4. Baby does not use a pacifier in the hospital. Several studies have found an increased risk of early weaning when a pacifier is introduced to breastfed infants in the first weeks of life. During this sensitive time, all your baby’s sucking efforts should provide her with the milk she needs and stimulate your breasts to produce a generous milk supply. Sucking on an artificial nipple can interfere with learning to nurse, and frequent use of a pacifier may limit how often your baby breastfeeds. Once breastfeeding is going well and your baby is thriving, you can introduce a pacifier if you desire. To reduce the risk of SIDS, the AAP recommends that babies use a pacifier when falling asleep. Mothers of breastfed infants can wait about a month to offer a pacifier.

5. The hospital gives mother a phone number to call for breastfeeding help after hospital discharge. These days, most new mothers are discharged before your milk has come in and before your baby has become proficient at breastfeeding. Even when breastfeeding seems to be going well in the hospital, problems commonly arise in the early days at home. Knowing where to turn for help can allow you to overcome early breastfeeding glitches before you get discouraged. There’s no need to struggle on your own. All breastfeeding questions are important, and expert help is available. Ask your hospital nurse or lactation consultant who you can call for breastfeeding help after you go home.

Each of these five hospital practices was found to have a significant positive impact on breastfeeding duration. More importantly, breastfeeding continued longest among mothers who received all five supportive hospital practices. Nearly two-thirds of mothers who reported all five breastfeeding-friendly practices (versus half of mothers who did not) were still nursing their babies at four months after hospital discharge.

Clearly, what happens in the hospital in the first day or two after birth powerfully impacts a woman’s breastfeeding experience after discharge. Expectant moms can take heart in knowing that requesting five simple steps while you are in the hospital can boost your chances of long-term breastfeeding success.

Additional Hospital Practices That Promote Successful Breastfeeding

Other supportive breastfeeding practices that help lay the foundation for success include:

* Nurse as Often as Your Baby Gives Feeding Cues. Many new parents expect their baby to cry when she is hungry. But crying is the last sign of readiness to feed. Instead of waiting for your baby to cry, look for earlier, more subtle clues that she wants to nurse. Babies signal their readiness to feed by rapid eye movements, arousal from sleep, increased alertness, flexing their arms and legs, squirming, wrinkling the forehead, bringing a hand to their mouth, turning their head, or moving their mouth or tongue. One of more of these signs will be evident before your baby cries out loud.

* Nurse as Long as Your Baby Desires. In the past, new mothers often were advised to keep breastfeeding sessions brief until their milk came in. This dictum was based on the mistaken belief that sore nipples could be prevented by slowly building up an infant’s sucking time. Actually, the most important cause of sore nipples is improper infant latch-on, not lengthy breastfeeding sessions. If your newborn is latched on well, she should be allowed to nurse at least 15 minutes at each breast. Strictly limiting how long your baby nurses can prevent her from getting all the milk she needs and keep you from establishing an abundant milk supply.

* Forego Gift Packs Containing F*ormula. As a marketing strategy, infant-f*ormula companies routinely supply hospital nurseries with free f*ormula and giveaways for new mothers. However, some studies show a link between receiving a f*ormula gift-pack and a shorter duration of breastfeeding. To avoid an implied endorsement of f*ormula-feeding, some hospitals have stopped giving f*ormula-company gift packs to nursing mothers. If you receive a gift pack with f*ormula, make sure you understand when, and when not, to use it. Giving your baby f*ormula without a valid medical reason can undermine successful breastfeeding.

1 Erin Murray, Sue Ricketts, and Jennifer Dellaport. Hospital Practices that Increase Breastfeeding Duration: Results from a Population-Based Study. BIRTH 2007; 34 (3):202-211 (September)

©2009 Marianne Neifert, M.D., author of Great Expectations: The Essential Guide to Breastfeeding

For more information please visit http://www.dr-mom.com/

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

41. A good rule of thumb is that Mommy puts the food in and Daddy takes it out.

A little humor goes a long way to setting the right tone in this helpful but not preachy, quick-start guide to the basics of breastfeeding. At $8.95 list price this would make an excellent addition to a baby shower gift.

The author Michele Leigh Carnesecca is a registered nurse, lactation consultant, and better yet — mother of four breastfed children! She places a little more faith in doctors than I would (they’re often not as good a source of breastfeeding information as they should be) and focuses exclusively on hospital births, but those are minor details. In addition to the changes suggested by Tanya, I would like to see a few typographical errors corrected so they don’t detract from the quality of information presented (please, people, if you’re going to talk about breastfeeding “discreetly” then refrain from using the correct-word-but-used-in-the-wrong-context “discretely.”)

To sum up, I would not hesitate to recommend this book. If you are a pregnant woman or know someone who’s expecting, stay tuned as I will be giving away my review copy in a contest next week!

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

1. Watch your baby’s cues (rooting, fist in mouth, any fussing) and feed her before she starts to cry. It’s a lot harder to nurse inconspicuously when you’re trying to latch on a wailing newborn!

2. Consider whether you will be more comfortable using nursing clothing or regular clothing. Sometimes for me it’s easier to hike up a regular shirt than it is to fiddle with a nursing shirt. However, at a formal event (like the wedding ceremony I attended briefly yesterday) it is lovely to have a nursing dress rather than having to wear a two-piece outfit or excuse oneself to a private location to hike up a dress!

3. Along the same lines, consider whether using a nursing cover of some sort makes it more difficult or easier to nurse. If you are uncomfortable nursing in public without a cover, then by all means use one, but personally I find it very hard to maneuver a cover over me and the baby and still be able to see to latch the baby on. Plus it’s just too darn hot in the summer in California to use a cover. My motto: do what works for you!

4. Ignore everyone around you! The more you fret over who might be watching and what people might be thinking, the harder it will be to give your baby the attention she needs.

5. It does not bother me to see any level of exposure of a mother’s breast or nipple during a nursing session. I don’t even like to bring up the word “discreet.” What I will say is that the vast majority of nursing mothers do want to be considerate of others around them, and do wish to maintain as much modesty as possible when nursing in public. Having said all that, remember that you are likely much more covered than you think you are when you are nursing in public. I cannot count the number of times people have thought my baby was sleeping in my arms rather than nursing. Granted it’s not easy to get a newborn latched on, but it gets easier and easier (until you’ve got a wiggly toddler and that’s a whole other issue!)

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

1. DO NOT let anyone tell you it is necessary to toughen up your nipples for breastfeeding.

2. DO some reading about breastfeeding. Good choices are:

~ The Breastfeeding Book: Everything You Need to Know About Nursing Your Child from Birth Through Weaning
~ The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding: Seventh Revised Edition
~ The Nursing Mother’s Companion: Revised Edition
~ The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers: The Most Comprehensive Problem-Solving Guide to Breastfeeding from the Foremost Expert in North America, Revised & Updated Edition

3. DO NOT think you need to buy a lot of breastfeeding-related products. The great thing is all breastfeeding really requires is you and the baby!

4. DO, however, consider whether you might enjoy shopping for breastfeeding products and learn how to choose and use a breast pump safely if you will be returning to work.

5. DO NOT listen to people who pressure you to formula-feed.

6. DO attend a La Leche League meeting while you are pregnant (find a local group in the United States or other countries) and surround yourself with family, friends, and medical professionals who are supportive of breastfeeding. (If you are wondering, here’s how to pronounce “La Leche” League!)

7. DO NOT accept or keep any free formula samples “just in case.” (For thoughts on what to do with any samples you might receive, see this post).

8. DO have the phone number of a local La Leche League leader and/or lactation consultant with you at the birth.

9. DO NOT neglect to talk to your health care providers and birth attendants about your birth plan and your desire to breastfeed.

10. DO believe in yourself! Taking these 10 steps can give you the knowledge and confidence to have a good breastfeeding experience.

Enjoy these other entries in this month’s carnival (and watch for additions throughout the day):

~ Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: A Breastfeeding-Friendly Birth Plan
~ BreastfeedingMums: Preparing for Breastfeeding
~ Natural Moms Talk Radio: Breastfeeding during Pregnancy and Tandem Nursing
~ Crunchy Domestic Goddess: Breastfeeding while Pregnant (Trying at Times but Ultimately Worthwhile)
~ Permission to Mother: Low Milk Supply in Pregnancy
~ API Speaks: On Breastfeeding while Pregnant
~ Milk Donor Mama: Her Experience of Preparing for Breastfeeding and the Advice She Offers Now

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Click here for more breastfeeding videos. For more help with latch-on, see the Checklist for a Good Breastfeeding Latch.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

__ In the cradle or cross-cradle positions, the baby should be resting on his side, his tummy facing your tummy, shoulder and hips aligned, mouth level with the nipple

__ The baby’s mouth should be covering at least a half inch of the areola, the dark area of skin around the nipple

__ His nose is touching or nearly touching the breast

__ Both the top lip and bottom lip are flared out

__ Once your milk lets down (starts to flow freely), you can see the baby’s jaw moving all the way back by his ear

__ The baby’s temple may wiggle, too

__ You can hear the baby swallowing (you might notice a pattern, such as “suck, suck, pause for swallow.” The pattern will slow as the baby fills up and takes in less milk). Dr. Jack Newman describes an “open mouth wide – pause – close mouth” pattern that indicates whether the baby is swallowing big mouthfuls of milk.

__ Absence of pain (if breastfeeding doesn’t hurt, that’s a great sign that the latch is good. Some women may experience initial soreness, tenderness, and even pain in spite of a good latch, but it’s a good idea to work with a La Leche League leader and/or lactation consultant to rule out problems with latch, thrush, or other things that could cause pain).

__ The baby’s tongue is extended over his bottom gums and is cupping the breast (if you peeked, you could see a little triangle of tongue in the corner of his mouth, but there’s no reason to peek if everything feels right).

__ When the baby pops off (or the latch is gently broken), the nipple does not look unusually squished or angled like the tip of a new lipstick (a distinct line across the nipple might be a sign of tongue-tie).

One final way to gauge latch (and the baby’s consequent intake of milk) is to watch the baby’s output! Is the baby having enough wet and poopy diapers?

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If breastmilk has been thawed and wasn’t used, can I refreeze it? If not, and I store it in the fridge, what’s the shelf life?

Good questions! If breast milk has been thawed and was not used, it should not be refrozen. In the back of the refrigerator (not in or near the door), thawed milk can be stored up to 24 hours for later use.

For more information on storage and handling of expressed breast milk, see:

LLLI.org: La Leche League Storage Guidelines for Pumped Milk; For an update from June 2008, see La Leche League Updates Breast Milk Storage Guidelines
Kellymom.com: Breastmilk Storage and Handling
Kellymom.com: Human Milk Storage — Guidelines for Premature or Hospitalized Infants (these guidelines are more restrictive)

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3