Best for Babes

We are pleased to announce the winner of the Giveaway:   Can this Book Change Our Culture!   We were thrilled by the enthusiastic response to the contest which featured the book Breastfeeding with Comfort & Joy, by Laura Keegan, R.N., F.N.P. a nurse practitioner who has dedicated 20 years to helping mothers succeed with breastfeeding.

The winner is Cheryl Marian, who wrote:

Wow, reading your description and going to Laura’s website has sold me. I am a lactation consultant, volunteer at our local pregnancy center and give 2 hour breastfeeding classes for low income and other mothers who wish to attend. This book would be a wonderful resource to show in class and read excerpts to validate many of the points I teach.  I would also, have the book available for lending on and off site for all mothers to read and to look at the real moms actually breastfeeding and loving their newborn/s and showing how involved fathers are also, even though baby is Breastfeeding. Thank you!

Congratulations Cheryl!    (We have notified Cheryl that she is the winner, if we do not hear from her we will choose a runner-up.)

HURRAY:   A Special, Limited Time Discount for You . . . And a Fundraiser for Best for Babes!

Because it was so difficult to choose the winner from dozens of wonderful comments, we asked Laura if she would be willing to offer a discount  to anyone who wants to purchase the book, and she happily agreed!   Not only that, but Laura offered to donate an additional $3 herself to the Best for Babes Foundation, to further our mission of  Giving Breastfeeding a Makeover and Beating the Booby Traps so that moms can achieve their personal breastfeeding goals!    Thank you Laura!   To take advantage of this special, limited time offer:

Go to http://www.TheBreastfeedingBook.com and enter     babes7 all lower case and no spaces in the Customer Code box on the left of the shopping cart page when ordering .   You will receive $7 off  (a 20% discount off the retail price of $35)  of every book you  purchase.  Best for Babes will receive a donation of $3  from the author, Laura Keegan, for every book sold. Offer is good until 11/12/09, so act now!

This book makes the perfect gift for moms-to-be and is a great choice for the upcoming holidays!

Here are 3 ways you can help moms and babies by helping Best for Babes raise money for our cause:

1. BUY a book for yourself or a friend, for your local La Leche League Chapter, or your breastfeeding support group.

2. EMAIL friends and family about this offer by linking to this post.   Put it on your shower, birthday or holiday wish list!

3. POST a link to this blog post on your Facebook page and tweet this link:  http://bit.ly/3Q21zq on Twitter.

Thank you in advance for helping us spread the word and raise funds for this important cause, so that all parents can make an informed feeding choice without pressure, judgment or guilt and so they can achieve their goals and feel good about it!   We think this is a wonderful book and leave you with these closing reviews:

“Breastfeeding with Comfort and Joy is magnificent. It’s like having a wise and loving grandmother show you exactly how to nurse your baby.”— Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

“I have worked with Laura Keegan for nearly 20 years.  Since her consultations with breastfeeding families are necessarily private, I never knew the secret(s) that made her patients so fiercely loyal and grateful.  Well, here they are.  Using beautiful images and clear, simple, accurate descriptions, Laura has created a manual of wisdom and celebration that should be read by anyone who is, has, or is going to breastfeed an infant.” —Larry Baskind, MD, FAAP

For actress Kelly Rutherford’s review of the book, click here.

Last Tuesday (October 6th) I attended the Big City Moms‘ Biggest Baby Shower Ever, held at the American Girl Place in New York City.     It was an awesome event and the line to get in went down the block.   All three floors were chock full of vendors, delicious treats, and fabulous moms-to-be chatting, checking out the goods, and asking questions about baby car, safety and sleep habits.

Seminars on a variety of topics were held on the first floor every twenty minutes or so.   I thought Big City Moms did a great job addressing subjects that moms are interested in; including sleep, feeding, and safety.    As fun as it is to shop and prepare the nursury it is so important the new mothers have the information they need to make healthy decisions!

The first seminar that I did not want to miss was Dr. Alan Greene speaking about “Feeding Baby Green:  Teaching Your Baby to Love Healthy Foods.”   Boy is this guy excited about babies eating!!   He talked about how babies’ tastebuds are actually most sensitive in utero, and that they practice swallowing before they are born, drinking up to 3 cups of amniotic fluid per day!   Dr. Greene explained that not all nutrients pass through the umbilical cord, and that the baby is actually bonding with and getting to know his mother.    I really appreciated his non-judgmental style of speaking that addressed the concerns of mothers who were planning to breastfeed as well as those who were not.   He talked about “imprinting” and how babies who are breastfed get thousands of different flavors from mothers’ milk, exposing their tastebuds early on, and suggested that formula feeding moms switch brands a few times to change things up.   Dr. Greene doesn’t go for a lot of the standard feeding advice given by many pediatricians, especially as far as allergies and feeding schedules, and he explains why in his book, which was included in the gift bags.   I found his lecture to be super interesting and informative and well, really intuitive!   As a mom I always wondered why introducing solids had to be this highly controlled experiment, when really, babies have been reaching out of the sling for millenia to grab a bit of what’s going into mama’s mouth.

Me and Dr. Alan Greene at the Big City Moms Event

I was fortunate to get a chance to speak with Dr. Greene before his talk . . . I knew about his great work with Healthy Child, Healthy World and was excited to meet him.   I told him about what Best for Babes was doing and right off the bat he bubbled over with enthusiasm and fired off some recent breastfeeding research studies.   It was clear that he is very pro-breastfeeding and very knowledgeable about lactation science.   I told him I thought it was great that the Born Free bottles were BPA-free and hoped that the company would become WHO Code Compliant.  Dr. Greene shared that his wife is a breast cancer survivor (like my business partner, Danielle Rigg), and we talked about how strange it was that the big breast cancer organizations didn’t jump with joy over a recent study showing that women with a family history of breast cancer can reduce their risk by 60% — yes, 60% — if they breastfeed their babies.  We see eye to eye on a number of things and I was thrilled to meet him.

The last seminar of the evening was actress Kelly Rutherford speaking about “Socially Conscious Mothering.”   She is incredibly down to earth and warm and spent most of the time answering questions from the floor.    She has a very nurturing style and made me feel like we’re all in this together, trying to do our best as parents, picking ourselves and each other up when we fall.   She talked about some of the personal decisions she had made, including tandem nursing (see our interview with her) and her choice not to vaccinate.   I appreciated that she was very open as a mother who is trying to parent in a socially conscious way, and shared her own experience.   I think she is an awesome role model and all the expecting moms really enjoyed talking to her.  Best for Babes is very lucky to have her as a Champion for Moms!

All in all it was a great evening and a great resource for moms-to-be.   Everyone left with a huge gift bag filled with gorgeous items, and better prepared for motherhood!

There are an ever growing number of breastfeeding books coming to market, some that are more evidence-based than others, some that are more user-friendly than others, some that bring a much needed sense of humor.   All come with the intention of helping mothers to succeed at breastfeeding.

And then there is Laura Keegan’s book, Breastfeeding with Comfort and Joy:  A Photographic Guide for Mom and Those Who Help Her which can be ordered exclusively at http://www.thebreastfeedingbook.com.  (Enter giveaway below!) There are many ways that this book is different from all the others I have seen; and not just because it has almost as many photographs as it does words.   Uniquely, this book unfolds in lustrous images and reassuring words, page by page, drawing the reader in soothingly, much as a new mother draws her baby close for comfort and sustenance.   It is easy to read in one sitting; in fact I could not stop.   I was as mesmerized by the language as I was by the photos, most of which were taken by the author.    I still get goosebumps from the photo on page 2.

Although the photos-which are unapologetically graphic-do tend to take center stage, the text is a worthy match.   The introduction lays out the intention of the book to clear away the chatter of breastfeeding war stories we’ve all heard before, and to remind us that breastfeeding can actually be incredibly wondrous and enjoyable if moms are given the right support.   This concept is very much at the heart of what Best for Babes is all about-breastfeeding has been made far too difficult by a gauntlet of “booby traps” that keep moms from succeeding, despite their best intentions.   We believe that no one should tell moms what to do, but for pete’s sake, if she wants to breastfeed, let her succeed!   As long as 60% of moms are being prevented from achieving their personal breastfeeding goals by our disapproving culture and by hospitals, physicians, employers and insurers, it will be hard to get breastfeeding continuation rates to go up-only 11% are making it to the minimum 6 months recommended by the AAP.  As long as moms are struggling unnecessarily and not enjoying the breastfeeding experience they will pass on their horror stories and dissuade their peers.   We can do better for moms!

There is a surprisingly large amount of evidence-based information packed in to a small space.   There have been other excellent reviews (see the Motherwear Blog) of the lactation science in the book, and I defer to experts such as Tanya Lieberman, IBCLC.   However, I was very interested and happy to see the context Keegan established about “bottle-feeding imprinting” and how our culture interferes with mother’s natural nursing instinct.   I enjoyed how she succinctly explained skin-to-skin contact and the work of Lennart Righard, as well as the mother’s amazing ability to regulate her temperature to warm up her baby, even on command.    As someone who is squeamish about breastfeeding at heart, I did gulp at some of the photos, but I think they are incredibly important for helping moms get comfortable with their bodies, and they are needed to help change our culture.   Most of all, though this book wants us to fall in love with breastfeeding, and I did, in a way that I didn’t get a chance to experience when I was going through it myself.   For an expecting mother or new mother, I can’t think of a better gift.

I am especially pleased to be able to share actress Kelly Rutherford’s endorsement of the book as well.   Kelly has been very outspoken about breastfeeding, sharing her story openly with us and using her celebrity status as a star of “Gossip Girls” to raise awareness and appreciation of breastfeeding, and helping us shift the pressure off moms and on to the “booby traps”.   Here is what she had to say about Breastfeeding With Comfort and Joy:

To order the book, go to http://www.thebreastfeedingbook.com.  I am giving away one copy of the book, to enter to win, post a comment below by October 23rd explaining how you would use this book to help mothers and babies.   Only entries from the United States please.

“Double Trouble”

By Suzanne Schlosberg  

Suzanne Schlosberg is the co-author of The Essential Breastfeeding Log, The Active Woman’s Pregnancy Log and author of The Essential Fertility Log.

Editor’s note:  The following is excerpted from Unbuttoned: Women Open Up About the Pleasures, Pains, and Politics of Breastfeeding, edited by Dana Sullivan and Maureen Connolly, copyright 2009, used by permission from The Harvard Common Press.   I have 5 copies of the book to give away.   To win a copy, leave a comment describing why you would be interested in reading this book. 

I used to think that the most boring person alive was Steve Forbes, the former Republican presidential candidate who droned on for a decade about replacing the federal income tax with a 17% flat tax on personal and corporate earnings.

But I was wrong. It’s not Steve Forbes. It’s me. Because all I talk about these days is breastfeeding.

Consider: Last week at the supermarket I ran into an elderly couple from the neighborhood. Though we ostensibly had plenty to chat about – their trip to Florida, our town’s new Thai restaurant - somehow, within seconds, I turned the conversation to my milk supply. Marlene managed to feign interest, but poor Nathan was reduced to reading the nutrition labels on the ground beef.

Worse: Last weekend at a bat-mitzvah party, the president of our synagogue’s board of directors marched over, grabbed my hand and said, “Could you stop talking about breastfeeding for five minutes and come dance?”

But what’s there not to talk about? Feeding my four-month-old twin boys is the driving force of my existence. In my every waking moment, I’m never more than 2 1/2 hours from the next nursing or pumping session, which means if I’m not nursing or pumping, then I’m thinking about the next time I have to nurse or pump and calculating how to squeeze the rest of my life into that window. My breastfeeding schedule dictates everything, even down to where I get my snow tires installed. (Every year it’s been Costco, where I brave the long lines in exchange for the low cost. But this year I paid double at a local garage because the wait at Costco was longer than my breasts could withstand.)

The other day a friend startled me with this question: “What do you like most about motherhood?” She might as well have asked, “What do you like most about Slovenia?” The thing is, I don’t really think of myself as a mother. I think of myself as a breastfeeder.

It’s true that I’m the one who delivered my twins - one vaginally and the other via c-section, which, technically, makes me not only a mother but also a war hero. And yet I feel I’ve done so little mothering. I would venture to say that my husband, who bathes the boys before bed and massages them with lotion while I work in my office, does the bulk of the mothering. Even when I’m singing “The Wheels on the Bus” to the boys on the morning shift, my mind is wandering: How much will I be able to accomplish before the next feeding?

A friend suggested that my preoccupation with breastfeeding is biologically driven – that new mothers are programmed to be so single-minded because otherwise their babies would starve. It’s a good point. I’m acutely aware that a few wrong moves – a couple of mistimed dermatologist appointments or a six-hour wait at the Costco – and my milk supply will dry up like Lake Anguli Nur in China.

Before the boys were born I wouldn’t have pegged myself as the type to blather on about nursing. After all, when I was pregnant, I rarely talked about my pregnancy. What was there to say? I was fat. I had heartburn. My ankles were swollen. None of this struck me as newsworthy. Pregnancy was easy to dismiss as a conversation topic because, other than monthly doctor’s visits and a trip to the jeweler to get my wedding ring sawed off, it required nothing of me. I was pregnant the same way I was left-handed: I just was. But breastfeeding is different, not only because it demands so much of my attention but also because my milk supply has been so hard-earned.

Toby and Ian were born a month early, weighing about 5 pounds each, with less body fat than Nicole Richie pre-rehab and even less interest in sucking. When presented with my nipples, they were at a complete loss, as if someone had offered them fly-fishing rods. They’d fall asleep or cry or just flail about, but rarely would they suck. Without sufficient stimulation, I was producing no milk. The hospital outfitted me with an industrial-grade breast pump that looked like it could extract breast milk from my deceased grandmothers, and I dutifully cranked it every three hours, 24 hours a day. But still, no milk.

To help the boys along, the nurses hooked us up with a remedial nursing system, training wheels for the lactationally challenged. Clipped to each of my bra straps were small, formula-filled bottles with tiny hoses dangling from them. I’d tape the hoses to my breasts, then insert the ends into the corner of the boys’ mouths as they “nursed.” The idea was that the babies would think they were breastfeeding when, in fact, they were sucking formula through a straw. My boys did not seem to appreciate the leg up and would expend huge amounts of energy shrieking and yanking the tubes off my breasts.

All of this was monumentally distressing. I couldn’t help but feel that I was failing Toby and Ian. (I’ll admit that at a low point, I tried to get them to shoulder some of the blame and blurted out, “You people have only one job – to suck – and you can’t even do that?” I later apologized.)

After four days in the hospital our problem moved home, along with all my anxieties. The situation remained so frustrating and so utterly ridiculous that my breastfeeding, or lack of it, was unquestionably my biggest headline when my friends asked how I was doing. And they seemed rapt as I described our strategies to keep the boys from falling asleep on the job, like tugging at their ears, tickling their feet and promising to buy them video games when they grew up, the kinds with Uzis, suicidal terrorists and mutilated female corpses.

We abandoned the hose system – you can’t use training wheels forever – and, gradually, the boys did start to catch on, though not enough to earn any Boy Scout badges. Toby would lick instead of suck. “It’s a nipple,” I’d plead, “not an ice-cream cone.” Ian would spit out my nipple 15 or 20 times per feeding, as if he were being force-fed Brussels sprouts.

I’m certain I’d have thrown in the towel if not for the encouragement of a friend with twins who’d persevered through ten weeks of the same problems, plus a breast infection and cracked and bleeding nipples. I felt like a demoralized marathon runner who’s on the verge of dropping out of the race – until someone with an artificial leg hobbles by. Quitting was not an option.

Plus, mercifully, there was Charlotte. Charlotte was our baby nurse, generously underwritten by my parents for our first two weeks of parenthood and imported from Los Angeles, where they live, because there was no such person as a baby nurse in my town. (I live in do-it-yourselferville, and though I’d like to maintain the delusion that I could have done it myself, I’m skeptical, and utterly grateful I didn’t have to find out.)

I adored Charlotte, mostly because she was even less domestic than me. Charlotte was incapable of loading a dishwasher – she’d arrange five dishes and suddenly the dishwasher was full - and her scrambled eggs were both burnt and runny, if that’s even possible. This was a woman who had raised three children. There was hope for me, after all.

Charlotte was intimately involved in our fledgling breastfeeding operation. Every three hours, she’d bring the boys to me in bed, then stand by my side and knead my breasts, imploring them to produce more milk and cheering on the boys as they thrashed around in the vicinity of my nipples. After my 10 minutes of quasi-nursing, Charlotte would bottlefeed one baby with a mixture of formula and breastmilk while my husband would bottlefeed the other, and I would pump. We made for a great threesome. I was sad to see Charlotte go.

Charlotte’s replacement, Sally, a grandmother of eight, billed herself as a doula – available “to do whatever a mother needs,” according to her resume - but seemed to have a single goal: to do as little as possible. Upon arrival, at 11 p.m., she’d yawn and whine, “Ooooh, I’m soooo tired.” (She was tired? One morning I applied mascara under my eyes instead of concealer, accidentally achieving the linebacker look.) Once, at 4 a.m. Sally carried the boys into my bedroom and announced, “OK, they’re ready to eat!” when, in fact, the boys were nearly comatose. Clearly, she was trying to unload them so she could go home.

Sally made no attempt to conceal her disapproval of our breastfeed/bottlefeed/pump triumvirate. She inspected my nipples, pronounced them “marvelous,” and insisted that if only I took vitamin B12 complex, my breasts would flow like the Fountain of Trevi. (I did take vitamin B12 complex, plus various herbs and teas, and none of it made a difference.) Sally lasted three days.

After six weeks of audacious effort, my milk was finally flowing. The boys were nursing like champs, and I could handle the whole operation solo. Breastfeeding became such a non-event that I could manage it while reading a magazine, a feat that, early on, seemed as improbable as my learning to juggle while riding a unicycle.

But even though the big headlines have vanished, my obsession has remained. Where previously I was consumed with my shortcomings, now I’m completely caught up in the complexities of this whole process. Take, for instance, how I’ve mastered breastfeeding two babies at the same time.

Tandem nursing is not something you do at Starbucks. I see women breastfeeding while chatting with friends and sipping a latte and marvel at how discreetly it can be done. Tandem nursing is more like a piece of performance art involving a bed, numerous props and, inevitably, exposed breasts. There’s no stylish shawl that can shield the public from the spectacle of two four-month-olds sucking down their lunch. You’d have to erect a four-person tent.

These days I nurse my boys on a twin bed in their room. I place one Boppy on each end of the bed, then plant one baby on each Boppy while I buckle myself into a giant, U-shaped foam pillow that my friend Sarah has dubbed the “life raft,” all the while asking my wailing boys to forgive me for the delay. I place another foam pillow between my back and the wall, then hoist each baby atop the life raft and shove one Boppy under each side of it, to make the surface flat so that the babies don’t roll off.

Like I said, not something you do at Starbucks.

Once they get going, I never fail to be impressed with their competence and to note that they’ve each developed their own signature style. Ian sucks rhythmically, with his eyes closed and long lashes fluttering, and appears to be concentrating hard, as if he’s doing calculus in his little, lopsided head. Toby operates entirely on instinct. He sucks erratically, with his plump little fists planted on his temples, as if to say, “Oy vey, the brisket is undercooked.”

Sometimes, when he’s really hungry, he’ll …

Oh, dear. I did it again. I’m being boring.

When I think about how my life has come to this, I tend to start counting up all the hours I’m now devoting to breastfeeding. Some babies take five minutes to suck down a meal, but perhaps making up for all those weeks of trying, Toby and Ian prefer to linger at the table. (Lactation consultants call babies like mine “gourmet eaters.”) Sometimes, I’m nursing for 40 minutes, not counting the set-up time. Multiply that by four, then add in two half-hour pumping sessions (to produce enough milk for the boys’ daily bottle, given to them by our babysitter while I work). Then multiply it all by seven, and I’m spending upwards of 25 hours a week simply feeding my children.

Maybe breastfeeding is all I talk about because, some days, it’s practically all I do.

I know, I know. Breastfeeding is supposed to be a special time of intimacy and bonding. Well, when I calculate that I’ve probably spent as much time breastfeeding in the past four months as some women spend in a year, I have to wonder: How much more bonding do the three of us really need?

I’m already itching to quit, or at least scale back. I’d like to retrieve some of that time so I can do things that make me feel more like a mother than a breastfeeder. I want to sing “The Wheels on the Bus” without looking at the clock, and I want to know my children better when they’re not eating. I’d like for their dad to take over some of the feedings so that, sometimes, I can be the one to pick out their sleepers and toys at Target. And let’s deal with reality: I’d like more time so I can earn the money to pay for those sleepers and toys. If I just had a few extra hours, then I think I could put an end to this compulsive need to discuss my milk supply and stop being the most boring person alive.

I know that day will come soon enough, but right now, it seems a lifetime away. And so I talk, and I continue to test my friends’ patience. When I apologized to one friend last week for prattling on about my noisy breast pump, she cheerily told me I wasn’t a bother at all.

“You think you’re boring now?” she said. “Wait until all you talk about is potty training.”

Here is an awesome new tool that can go a long way, babe, to helping mothers succeed at breastfeeding:  The Essential Breastfeeding Log by Sarah Bowen Shea and Suzanne Schlosberg, available today wherever books are sold.   It’s a perfect shower gift, especially as a motivator for brand new moms who are unsure about breastfeeding but willing to give it a try. 

I had a common experience after the birth of my first baby:   Everything I thought I knew about frequency of feedings or number of wet diapers to look for went out the window.   I am sure there was a chart somewhere in the mound of badly xeroxed and boring sheets they gave me at the hospital, but it got lost in the shuffle.   Brand new moms are like budding fitness devotees—smart and stylish tools and accessories can boost your self-confidence and skill-set and improve the odds that you will stick with it for the long term.  Getting through the initial learning curve of breastfeeding can be challenging, just like starting to work out, and this snazzy little book can help you make sense of the process and appreciate your and baby’s progress.  Both authors breastfed their babies, including exclusively nursing twins (!) for over one year, so they have walked the talk.

While I’ve seen a number of logs created to track feedings, diaper changes and the like, this is the first feeding log devoted to the mother who wants to breastfeed.   The log pages are extremely well designed, and I think they represent a significant advance over other logs on the market.  You will find a page for each day of the first six months, with a place to track feedings, diapers, sleep habits, and notes; even a gentle nudge for moms to get back to exercising to boost those endorphins!   Scattered throughout the book are “breastfeeding factoids” which will not only amaze and inspire you but subtly dazzle and educate your babysitter, your friends and your mother-in-law, as you leave the log out to be filled in by others on your way to the gym or a well-deserved date night.  These breastfeeding facts are so intriguing that it is worth buying the book just to pore over them at your leisure, and are what sets this book apart from other logs;  you are not just noting the facts but getting inspired and empowered along the way.  This handy log also serves to help break down one of the hidden obstacles to breastfeeding—what Best for Babes calls the “booby traps”, the cultural and institutional barriers to success.   In our bottle-friendly and measurement-obsessed culture, many moms and many pediatricians are ill-at-ease with breastfeeding’s natural intuitiveness.   “How will I know how the baby is getting enough?”  is a common refrain.   This log is a valuable tool to track visible signs that the baby is truly getting enough (and remember, babies are hard-wired to breastfeed) and provide comfort and reassurance to those who are not yet proficient in working with breastfeeding moms and babies!   

We strongly encourage you to read the full intro, and not just skip to the log pages.  The intro is well-written and will help boost your knowledge and motivation to succeed.    We’re adding a couple of tips here, based on our experience in the breastfeeding biz:  1) amazingly, exclusively breastfeeding moms actually report feeling more well-rested and get an average of 45 minutes more sleep per night; 2) rely on word-of-mouth or your breastfeeding network to find a good breastfeeding class and lactation counselor—hospitals with poor breastfeeding success rates are not the best place to turn for help; 3) you may not need to supplement, but if you do, push for donated, screened, pasteurized breastmilk through a milk bank (it is significantly superior to artificial substitutes, as per the World Health Organization).

Best for Babes is pleased to recommend the Essential Breastfeeding Log for it’s ability to inspire, prepare and empower new moms to breastfeed successfully.