Breastfeeding

I forgot to tell you about last week’s prenatal class. This class was about breast feeding, both the mechanics of it as well as any difficulties that might be experienced. We also had a hands-on session with various baby slings, cloth and disposable diapers, car seats and bathing accessories. And as an extra surprise, one of the couples who delivered early brought their 5-day old baby in to show the class.

So the first bit was about breastfeeding. It’s one of those topics that seems to strike fear into the hearts of some women – Mom-to-Be was particularly concerned about it in the beginning months but now seems to be okay with the idea. Frankly, the thought of having a baby feeding every 2-3 hours (or more!) for up to an hour at a time is not too bad. But the knowledge that the little critter will be clamped on to my nipple sucking away for that time would give me the willies.

The instructor discussed things to watch for – proper latching, how to break the latch without having your nipple pulled off, and how to hold the baby so that baby can have the proper head and body position to facilitate latching.

We saw a very interesting video about “baby-lead nursing” where the philosophy is for the mother to concentrate on calming the baby with the baby on her bare chest. Once the baby is calm, their natural instincts will take over and the baby will move to locate and start feeding on its own. The Mom’s role is to make baby calm and comfortable so that they are able to start the feeding process, then to physically support the baby in an appropriate position to facilitate a good latch and comfortable feed. It was amazing to see these babies – many premature but also those several weeks old – move themselves across Mom’s chest to locate the nipple and then correctly latch and start feeding.

The hands-on sessions with the various slings and such was great. It allowed us to see what’s available and compare the features of each. It also allowed us to get some hands-on experience using them – with dolls as proxies for our yet-to-be-born babies. It was a good thing we used dolls as the slings especially confounded many of us – and Peach probably wouldn’t have been very happy with all the mis-steps!

And the best part was seeing the new addition to the group. The baby was born a couple weeks early but was happy and healthy. It was reassuring and comforting to listen to their birthing story and realize that even though everyone has a different experience, there are common threads. It’s also nice not to be the first!