Masochistic Mommy

The pain of thrush can rival that of labor. Burning sensations that radiate through the breast are accompanied by deep stabbing and shooting pains. What's more, the outward appearance of thrush varies widely, making diagnosis a problem. Some women have red or shiny nipples, fissures or flaking skin, others exhibit no visible signs at all. And diagnosis is only the start. Thrush is remarkably persistent and knowledge of the best treatments to cure breastfeeding-related thrush is sorely insufficient, as this week's triumphant mom found out. “ I gave birth to my daughter Olivia at home. I really wanted to let her find the breast herself but I remember almost feeling like I needed permission from the midwives. When they finally told me it was time to try and nurse I chickened out of the natural 'breast crawl' approach. Instead, they had me sit up in bed and told me to use the cross hold. Nipple Damage Olivia latched incorrectly immediately and I started to cry. I kept her o

There’s no such thing as nipple confusion. Bottle feeding is best because you know exactly how much your baby is consuming. It’s wise to introduce a bottle as soon as possible to ensure your baby won’t reject them.  Premature babies, in particular, need bottles because they can’t suckle - These are some of the typical myths promulgated by our bottle-centric culture. This week’s triumphant mom fell casualty to these myths, yet clawed herself out of the bottle trap. This is her story: “My pregnancy was normal until about 29 weeks. I had plans to have peaceful water birth at a local birthing center. Within 3 weeks, however, I developed high blood pressure which turned into severe pre-eclampsia and was hospitalized until I delivered. Being hospitalized for that long was quite scary and lonely. The days felt like they dragged on forever. When the protein in my urine reached a certain level, the doctor made the decision to operate. Born 8 Weeks Early I had my daughter, Lucy, at 32 weeks. Sh

4.2% of babies are tongue-tied. Those with the condition are 3 times as likely to be exclusively bottle fed at 1 week ( Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine 2005 ). Is this any surprise when prevailing medical opinion is that tongue-tie 'will usually right itself' by the end of the baby's first year. If the baby still has a problem after that, a paediatric surgeon might consider a frenulotomy - a procedure that divides the frenulum from the base of the mouth. Others will not perform surgery unless the child develops speech problems and has not responded to speech therapy. By that time, the child will require a general anaesthetic for the procedure. Where does this leave nursing mothers and their barbed-wire gummed babies? (click  HERE  to read the story of a mom that had to fight for her baby's tongue tie to be taken seriously). However, fortunately, some doctors believe in a more pro-active attitude. These pro-baby miracle-workers are few and far between; m

In recent years there has been a welcome cultural shift in the way our society (the scientific and medical communities at least) views breastfeeding. Research has re-established breastfeeding as the normative ideal for infant feeding, partly-facilitated by a boom in breastfeeding activism . However this growing pro-baby culture has produced a particular breed of formula feeder – the ‘Defensive Formula Feeder’ (or ‘DFF’ for short). In this article I am going to outline the central characteristics of defensive formula feeders and how you can distinguish them from all other formula feeders. Victim Mentality DFFs are plagued with a victim mentality. They claim (and may even believe) that they had no control over the way that events unfolded leading to their breastfeeding failure. They use words like, “I had to use formula” and “I had no choice ”. They spend their time looking outside of themselves to explain what happened or didn’t happen. DFFs see any discussion of breastfeeding as an op

Medical staff have a trigger happy tendency to push formula upon babies at the best of times. However, when  confronted with a baby that doesn't fit the textbook norm, the drive to push formula is even more relentless. Rather than research or seeking specialist knowledge, medical staff who find themselves in this scenario often give half-hearted assistance and blind guesses before resorting to bottle-pushing, as this mother found out. “ I always knew I'd breastfeed, formula wasn’t even considered. I did plenty of research on latching, I felt so prepared! Even so, our problems began right at the start of our journey.  Hostile Hospital Staff When Evelynn was born I noticed she had a flattened nose, making it hard for her to breathe and suckle at the same time. Consequently she kept pulling off. I asked the hospital staff to watch me nurse and they said the latch was great and that my daughter needed to eat right away. They said I wasn’t giving her enough. I insisted I wanted to

Are some babies inherently good sleepers, while others aren’t? Yes to a certain extent this is true. However natural variations are a lot less than most parents think. There are specific patterns of sleep which are universal to most babies and toddlers. This timeline, collated through years of research, will outline these typical sleep patterns. It will explain what sleep behaviour you can reasonably expect of your little one at each stage of their development. In Utero: Nestled in the sleep-inducing womb, the environment is consistent and perfect for sleep. It’s dark, warm, quiet, and when you walk or move about, your baby is rocked to sleep. Your unborn baby sleeps twenty hours or more each day ( Pantley 2009 ). Your baby is used to hearing the comforting sounds of your heartbeat, the gurgling of your stomach, and the soft tones of your voice. Also, he never experiences hunger due to being permanently hooked up to a steady stream of nutrition. As a consequence of these factors, your