Saturday, July 7, 2012

Boobs & Poop, Milk & Beer.

I was a very colicky baby, as I have been informed all too many times by my parents. I totally tortured my mother. "Back then" they didn't tell my parents anything about babies medically or about baby rearing, etc., so they had no idea what was going on. My mother brought me back from the hospital (the place where births should almost NEVER happen) and I just kept screaming. They though I was dying. Sorry mom! However, it could have been the fact that they never assisted my mother in breast feeding, so she was unaware that milk can take anywhere from 3-7! days to "come in". They instead fed me formula, far less superior to the perfect design of breast milk, and well, I had screamingly horrible intestinal pains because my body couldn't digest it. It IS amazing I am still alive.

The breastfeeding mom is my hero now. Now that I know that it does take patience, diligence and awareness to set up breastfeeding initially and that the mother knows instinctively and/or consciously how much good she is doing for her baby's immune system and overall health and wellness...for life. Plus, you have to give yourself to your baby wholly and completely. You carry their food and if you nurse on demand like I have for the past 8 months (and not pumping, storing, rewarming, etc) your time is in their hands (well, mouth) literally.

Mastering the latch is key to a happy breastfeeding experience, free of trauma and disappointment. I just kept working away at my latch, reading Dr. Jack Newman's info (http://www.nbci.ca/) again and again, and since I had midwives for my home water birth with Anwyn, one came to me for many post-partum visits and assisted me with latch and answered any questions I had.

Anwyn received all of my precious colostrum however my milk took those entire 7 days before it started flowing, despite all the suckling, massaging, etc. Jay and I both were very upset. Those days felt like an eternity. I had all sorts of emotions accompanying this screaming, hungry baby. I felt inadequate, I felt mad at God/Shakti/The MultiVerse for this cruelty. Why would evolution do this to us? Was this wait natural? Was these some real reason for it? And please don't tell me baby's suffer for "Eve's garden mistake" or some other ignorant B.S. I would imagine there is some medical and vibrational reason for it, but as knowledgeable as we think we have become, it seems there is so very much we just don't know. Now I can understand what happened with my mother if I took 7 days for milk flow, she must have thought she had duds!

Thank goodness for our neighbour with two children, she had extra milk in the freezer from one of her children that she gave to me to give to Anwyn. It helped bridge the gap and at least satisfied her enough to sleep and calm down. The midwife was hinting at formula and I just said no way! As much as I had to fight the tapes of 'bad mommy' I knew in the long run I was doing a good thing, so I stayed true and it all worked itself out.

Once my let-down reflex got rolling it was such a joy to hear her gulp and to see her poops change. The joy of poop! If you are a parent, you totally know what I mean.

My boobs grew too! Bonus, well sort of. Really one boob grew bigger than the other. Oh.
Well then! I surrender my body to this child so that she will grow healthy and strong and with love in her heart and she will carry this with her to share this love with others...that was, and still is, my mantra.

I also did not have an over-active let down reflex nor did I ever leak. For some mothers, this is an extra challenge, but one I have not experienced. Except for the beginning, I have had no pain, cracking, bleeding, infections or the like. Only twice did I have the beginning of a blocked duct happening and I got on it right away with homeopathics, herbals for my immune system, extra rest, massage in the shower and changing suckling positions and it cleared up very quickly. Both times it happened I was very stressed regarding the relationship with Anwyn's dad.

As well, due to relationship stress as well as financial concerns my milk was low and Anwyn got quite angry, especially when the 'easy milk' was gone. I resorted to herbals (galactogogues) and non-alcoholic beer (it's the hops that does the trick) to increase my supply. I used fennel, fenugreek, blessed thistle, oat straw, nettle and raspberry leaf and cut out mint and garlic. I just always had a big pot of it going on the stove, strained, added some honey and drank many cups per day. I also took in more spirulina, known to assist supply. They all worked very well and once I did this for a few months, my amounts were established and I no longer needed any exogenous stimulus. More info here: http://www.canadianbreastfeedingfoundation.org/induced/herbs.shtml. I never needed to use domperidone or the like.

Even so, Anwyn was very gassy, which I half expected. I had to cut out many things from my diet to assist her: wheat, milk (not all dairy, just milk), garlic, onion and anything sulphuric (cabbage, broccoli, etc) and I started to take digestive enzymes. When she was in pain we would give her probiotics, fennel or dill weed or seed tea, homeopathics like carbo veg or sulphur (I find the sulphur connection fascinating!), castor oil rubbed on the belly, a warm shower with mommy and skin to skin with a grapeseed oil massage before and/or afterward. I never resorted to enemas or anything synthetic. The bouncing though...oh the bouncing. Our wrists paid that price. I remember once reaching over to pick her up and I literally thought my wrist was going to fall apart! She is over most of the gas now but if I eat wheat now she still gets a bout. That's no problem, gluten is not healthy to eat anyway so I steer clear and I feel better for it.

As I have been attachment parenting Anwyn, it's been a labour of love and in her case, really paying off. For the first 4 months we almost never put her down! And now at almost 8 months she wants to be put down and she already plays independently and is a very happy, calm baby.

She started reaching for my plate right at 6 months. I had planned exclusive breast feeding until that time, as is recommended by WHO and other groups. I started to do baby-led weaning with her so she would learn about her gag reflex, how not to choke and how much is too much into her mouth, so I started to give her slices of watermelon, whole bananas and cooled, cooked sweet potato. She did very well with all of them. I started to notice that chunks of food would just come through into the cloth diaper (I will talk about diapering in another, upcoming post) and I really started to doubt this method. How on earth is she digesting any of this food? Yet I did want her to control what she was eating herself (i.e. I didn't want to spoon feed her). So I spoon fed her organic apple sauce and showed her how to use the spoon herself, which she did quite well with (messy of course!). Now she is eating a lot of foods and again, the food issue will have dedicated posts to their discussion.

She is still breastfeeding consistently (the other nice thing about breastfeeding for many, not all, moms is no menstruation! Bonus!) so I wasn't, and still am not, worried about the nutrition factor.

One thing is certain, she is growing and she will be tall. As of today she is 15.13 lbs and almost 29 inches long. She gets chunky and then long, chunky then long. If you trust nature and yourself it's amazing to see how life flourishes.

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