Masochistic Mommy

Mother Nature is a hypocritical sod. Check this out: The raison d'etre of your existence is reproduction. So why then, does good ol’ Mother Nature muzzle our fertility while we’re lactating? And is there anything we can do to get pregnant without pulling the plug on breastfeeding? In this post I will answer both questions in turn. What gives me the confidence to speak about this issue? Firstly, I've been there (conceived under 6 month postpartum whilst exclusively breastfeeding), secondly, I've conducted a shed-load of academic research into breastfeeding fertility. A word of warning before we begin: As a result of reading this, you may find yourself up the duff, toot sweet. Want closely-spaced siblings? Dream of tandem-feeding? Read on! Aunt Flo takes a vacation While breastfeeding a lot of mothers notice that ‘shark week’ no longer occurs every month. Yet, as with many physiological happenings that appear idiotic, Mother Nature has a plan. You see, every time you bring yo...

Lactation Consultants are fairy godmothers devoted to mothers and babies, appearing out of nowhere at the crack of a broken nipple or the click of a bad latch, they sprinkling pixie dust upon mothers' nursing dreams. When they impart their wisdom, their words weave a whimsical spell, furnishing a happily ever after for mom and baby. [Insert the sound of vinyl being scratched]. Back in the real world, lactation consultants, like any professional, are not immune to incompetency. No doubt you’ve heard about LCs dishing out faulty advice to an unsuspecting mother, unwittingly sabotaging her breastfeeding efforts . Perhaps after a poke and a prod they diagnose that a mother's milk has ‘dried up’ when in fact it has just regulated; or perhaps they advocate the breast pump as a gage of how much milk a mother is producing. Maybe they suggest formula top-ups, test weighing, block feeding, controlled crying, et cetera; the list of potentially poisonous advice is endless. Could this expla...

We’ve all heard the mantra “one bottle won’t hurt”. It’s the mating call of the disengaged health professional or well-meaning but ultimately misinformed relative. A study published last year even suggested that giving formula to babies can help relax mothers and increase the length of time they end up breastfeeding ( The Telegraph 2013 ). This was a huge pat on the back for supplementing mommas - and there are plenty of them about. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , one-quarter of the babies born in America in 2009 were supplemented with infant formula by two days of age, and by three months, this had increased to nearly two-thirds. With this bottle-centric backdrop it should come as no surprise that when I posted the following meme on Facebook, there was a lot of panties taking residence in buttcracksville: However, as I have explained previously ( here ), one bottle does in fact hurt. It can cause irrevocable damage to your baby’s immature digestive ...

‘Motherhood changes you forever’ - the cliché your own mother forewarned you. And she was right. Motherhood, and specifically breastfeeding - the most central physiological act of mothering during infancy, changes you because it literally alters your brain - structurally, functionally, and in many ways, irreversibly. I am about to explain how the act of nursing sets apart mothers who breastfeed from those who don’t – on a neurological scale. Breastfeeding mothers and their babies are attuned to each other on a deep biological level. In fact, a breastfeeding mother and her baby are sometimes referred to as a ‘dyad’ – two individuals so closely linked they are considered one unit. Her body nourishes him; his feeding determines her milk production. Scientists call this ‘limbic regulation’. It’s a remarkable natural phenomenon whereby the mother is neurologically and chemically in sync with her baby, and her baby to her. Michael Merzenich, the San Francisco University brain plasticity expe...

Stories of breastfeeding failure are demoralizing on a viral scale. One of the most common excuses mothers give for quitting breastfeeding is the assertion that their breasts malfunctioned. This gives other women a shaky perception of what their bodies are actually capable of. In this post I explain how and why the myth of widespread malfunctioning mammaries is utter tosh. Pierced nipples:  These chicks don’t usually cause a problem with breastfeeding. Occasionally, nipple piercings cause some of the milk ducts to seal over, so milk can’t get out from those sections of the breast. If this happens, milk production will stop in those areas and the rest of the breast will produce more ( La Leche League 1999 ). You should remove any rings or bars before you feed, though, so they don’t hurt your baby’s mouth, or you may prefer to let the holes close and have your nipples re-pierced later. Implants:  Implants are inserted behind the milk-making tissue, so they don’t interfere with ...