Not evil, just corporations and marketing 101.
I feel the need to also publish this post tonight. I wrote this at the same time as I did my previous post, but they needed separating in order for my thoughts on both to be clear and concise (and to make sense to me!). My friend who wrote about the "heart" vs "brain" conversations when it comes to breastfeeding or not, also brought up something that I feel I need to explore in a bit more detail. She said in her post that:
...groups that appear extremist seldom accomplish much beyond polarizing the already divided public and swaying public opinion away from their original goals. I think the breastfeeding “movement” falls victim to this, getting labeled by the crazy behaviours of a smaller subsection of our population. This makes us feel sad and defeated, and we react from that emotional place as opposed to regrouping and considering more carefully our efforts.
Likewise, the women who find themselves on the other side of the debate, feel persecuted by the more extremist movement and, in an effort to self-protect and to defend, respond from an emotionally charged place to advocacy efforts that they perceive as being an attack on their choices.
These statements have forced me to take a very hard look at my advocacy efforts and my messaging to all mothers and to explore why this is happening as well.
I realize that I can never speak for or about mothers who have formula fed their children, as I have never done this. Really. If someone ever asked me how to prepare a bottle of formula, I would have absolutely NO IDEA! And I would have to point them to the best resource I know, the formula manufacturer. I am also not a breastfeeding expert. I am not an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant or even a La Leche League leader. I am a mother who has continuously been nursing one or both of my children for 5.5 years and in a few special circumstances. I know where to go for advice and more education if needed and I share that along with my own personal experiences with any and all who want it (or in the case of my blog, choose to read about it).
I also want you all to know that I am not about being 'the hippy child' versus 'the big bad corporation' either. It would be very hypocritical of me to be that person, coming from a career in the pharmaceutical industry and also as someone who relies heavily on modern medicines to keep me healthy.
I live by another saying in my life, and that is, "Nothing happens in this world until someone sells you something." Be that a product, a service, an idea or a cause. Formula manufacturers, along with most large corporations are not EVIL per se. They exist to make money for their shareholders and to sell their product. They are there to grow their market share and increase their bottom line. Plain and simple. Not evil, just capitalist. (I realize that this in and of itself could be a whole other conversation on it's own, but we'll leave it for another time!)
The problem with the formula manufacturers is that their market is mothers... with babies. And their main competition... yup, you guessed it, is BREASTMILK. And therefore their main target audience and how they GROW that market share is by focusing their efforts and advertising dollars on mothers who are breastfeeding (or the people who directly influence these mothers).
And here is where it gets all messy...
No one wants to believe that a company would willingly undermine a mother's breastfeeding relationship. No one wants to think that there is some evil plan conceived in a board room somewhere to get you to fail at breastfeeding. And you know what... NO ONE is actually doing that. There is no evil plan, there is just a corporate need (greed) to increase market share and make more money. Now to some, this may be the evil in and of itself, but really, this is just business as usual in a free market.
Does it suck? Yes. Are the marketing practices of these companies questionable and downright harmful to the breastfeeding rates in North America. Yes and Yes. Does this mean that they are being successful and doing a good job? Some would argue that yes, they are. This is after all a billion dollar industry and all this money = more dividends for shareholders and more market share. And so they continue on marketing, selling and growing their businesses.
On the other hand, we have breastfeeding.
NOT a billion dollar industry. Actually a free and readily renewable resource and with the right information, resources and support, a potentially life saving one as well.
Breastfeeding does not have fancy logos and pamphlets to pepper our doctors offices with. Outside of the ACTUAL breast milk, you don't get any free samples of anything in the mail or at the hospital after you've had your baby. Breastfeeding does not have millions of dollars to spend on ad campaigns with giggling, happy babies. Breastfeeding does not have any 'add-on' branded accessories that you need to buy in order to do it properly at home or 'on the go'. Breastfeeding does not have the 'continuing medical education' dollars from its manufacturers to spend on further educating our health care practitioners about it or give them the resources for referrals to the real experts.
So where does this leave us?
From an outsider's view it can look like a real David and Goliath scenario. A billion dollar industry with reach and scope worldwide versus...
Boobs. Big ol' breast milk producing boobies.
But the hard truth of this is that, in this fight, no one ever really 'wins'.
One side feels that the general public is being misled and misinformed about both breastfeeding and formula. There are protests, there are efforts to help the public understand more about 'the competition', there are peer groups and grass-roots organizations formed to give support and alternatives for infant feeding. And what happens time and again is that in the zeal and desire to educate and inform and yes, even expose the formula manufacturers and to an extend formula itself, the message is lost. It gets lost to the point that even when good, solid, evidence-based and peer-reviewed research and new information is available (either about breast milk/breastfeeding or formula), this too gets poo-poo'd and chalked up something that those "crazy breastfeeding (insert derogatory and inflammatory word here)" are saying.
And this makes me sad.
Because here is what I think is also happening. I think that the more we 'fight' about how we feed our children, the more we continue this breastfeeder versus formula-feeder stance.... the happier the shareholders at the formula companies are going to be.
Let me explain.
Mothers (and most people actually) who feel that they are being PUSHED to do anything, will push back. And in this case, if the push is to breastfeed (and the message being heard by some is "at all costs"), I think what we risk doing is simply pushing more and more mothers away from our messages, our information and from breastfeeding at all, and into the open, waiting and seemingly so very understanding (cue the BRILLIANT marketing) arms of the formula manufacturers.
So what is the answer here. How do we as breastfeeding advocates help spread a message and help further educate mothers and families with ALL the information they need about both breastfeeding AND formula feeding, without all the 'bashing' of the formula companies? To be perfectly honest, I don't know. I have been breastfeeding for over 5 years, have been an active participant in the advocacy movement for the past 3 and in all that time, not once have I ever seen a discussion about breastfeeding or formula-feeding progress beyond the "I am a mother, doing the best I can for my babies and it is my choice." rhetoric. From both sides.
What I do know is this. Formula manufacturers are companies (not people). They have a bottom line and that is to make money. In order to make more money they need to grow a market. And anyone who knows anything about marketing or has even taken a rudimentary Marketing 101 class in university knows that in order to do that, you need to convince said market that they NEED your product. If you create the NEED, they will COME! If you focus on how difficult it can be to breastfeed, provide 24 hour 1-800 numbers to help whenever that NEED arises, show TV commercials of happy, giggling babies who have had a "happy feeding", well... it is what it is folks. We live in a nation that, although we may embrace the World Health Organization and their standards for the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, neither the Canadian or the US governments have enacted legislation to ensure that anyone is bound in any way by its guidelines. Companies are free to market and advertise their products in the best way they see fit to make more money and grow their shares.
I don't really have any answers here and I don't know that there are any. In the face of all of this, I can only promise that I will COMMIT to keeping the dialogue open and to continue to advocate from a place of positivity.
I can not fight the Nestles and Similacs and Enfamils of the world on a grand scale. But I can use my voice, a NOISY one I think, and I will continue to speak out against what I believe are unethical and undermining marketing practices by these giants of industry.
I will not judge anyone's choice in this matter. Breastmilk, donor milk, formula. Doesn't matter to me one iota. As long as it is your choice and you are happy with it. (Happy with it, being the operative term here.)
I will share my experiences and those of others that have chosen this path. I will share as many resources as I can here on my blog and if you need more please email me and I will help you find someone in your city, town or hamlet who can help.
And I will not stop talking or writing about breastfeeding, and the many options for infant feeding that are becoming more available to mom's who are willing to seek them out and explore these options.
Thank you,
Natasha~
P.S This very lengthy post is an OPINION piece. MY opinion. Please keep that in mind when you are commenting.
P.P.S. Any comments that are inflammatory or divisive or that PROVE MY POINT about being over zealous in either camp, will be reviewed and probably deleted.
P.P.P.S. I am very excited to have found a way to use the word IOTA in a blog post! Just saying...
Passion and Compassion
It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
~Erma Bombeck
Oh Erma, how I wish this was more true.
Compassion. A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
As mothers we (are supposed to) have it in spades.
For our babies, who need us 24/7 to nourish, nurture, love and keep them safe.
For our husbands and partners, who for the above reasons need us as well and because they are there for us when we need them. Sharing our lives, bringing home the bacon, or doing the stay-at-home parent thing while we go back to work.
And for our fellow {wo}man. Our sisters, our friends, the stranger with 4 kids under 4 struggling at the grocery store, the new mama doing her best to figure this all out, the grandmother who has been there and done that and now looks on with a touch of nostalgia in her eyes.
BUT...
Throw in any bit of information about how you feed your baby, how you get your baby to sleep or what you do to discipline your child (just to name a few polarizing parental choices) and BAM!!
Our compassion and understanding seems to revert right back to judgment!
Especially on the interwebz!
Why am I bringing this up you ask? Am I being like one of the many blogs and sites out there trying to stir up page views by "fueling the mommy wars" as they like to say?
GOOD GAWD NO!! Please know that this is NOT my intention at all.
This post is being written because over the past few days, I have had a lot to think about. I have had a chance to see things from a different perspective and have come to some personal conclusions that have left me needing to write it all down to make sure I completely understand what exactly happened and why.
The other night, I got riled up. Full on, blood boiling, hands shaking, MAD! I was on Facebook (mistake #1) and followed a link to a site that had posted an article about the cancelled #GNO Twitter party. The post asked if indeed the party was in violation of the WHO Code of Marketing for formula manufacturers and I commented and said that yes, it absolutely was. A few replies later, the author stated that the party was shut down by a bunch of women who have a PERSONAL BIAS against women formula-feeding.
Cue my blood pressure shooting through the roof! REALLY? A personal bias against these mothers? ME?
In a fit of frustration and with a very strong desire and intention to have a real conversation about all of this on my personal Facebook Page with my Facebook Friends, I posted a status update requesting this. (mistake #2)
What happened next was 4 hours and 153 comments of a very passionate discourse. It was FILLED with emotion, it was exhausting, and in the end I did not feel like it got us anywhere and did not even come close to the conversation I was looking for.
And I should have known better.
I should have given myself 24 hours to cool down after I read the original post and then figured out if I did indeed need to have this discussion... AGAIN. (And perhaps not on Facebook, where filters are often off and we say or type things when we probably should have left well enough alone.)
Here is what I have learned in the last few days after some personal reflection and thanks to a very long note from a friend that helped immensely. This topic, these breast milk and formula feeding conversations, regardless of how you frame them, will ALWAYS be a case of 'the chicken and the egg" and I fear that there will never be a 'right' answer or a 'winning' side. And as Albert Einstein himself said,
Doing (or in this case, saying or asking) the same thing over and over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
My very smart friend, who did take 24 hours to formulate her response to my original post, also very wisely said that,"Breastfeeding (or the ability or choice NOT to) is a 'heart' issue." Meaning, that most mothers can't help but talk to you from an emotional level on the subject. And in one of the many side conversations that were also going on that night, another dear friend sent me a message and said that, "A breastfeeding mother is changed forever emotionally." I can not emphasize enough how much I agree with her on this and firmly believe that breastfeeding changes us on an emotional, physical and biological level. What I also learned that night is that a mother who desperately wanted to breastfeed, was told from a trusted source that she could not, had to supplement with formula, felt judged for that decision and who continues to harbour guilt and shame for it, is also FOREVER EMOTIONALLY CHANGED.
Both are mothers, both have struggles and triumphs, both are doing the best that they KNOW HOW for their children and themselves and neither deserves to be judged or criticized for her decisions.
I am a very firm believer in the saying "When you know better , you do better." Trust me, I knew a lot more going into my second pregnancy and having Princess L than I did with Little C. Do I wish I was better informed the first time around? Absolutely. But hindsight only serves to build frustration and regret, and I really don't have time for either of those in my life. If I was to have a third child (not gonna happen y'all!) you can bet I would even more, very differently than I did in Round 1 or 2.
Being an advocate for something (anything really) doesn't mean condemning or judging people's past, present or future choices. There should never be any "You should have..." or "Why did/didn't you...?" in advocacy conversations. There should only be, "Here is the information and resources we know and have NOW, please listen, read, hear what I have to say and make your decision(s) with them in mind. Thank you."
Which brings me back to compassion.
As mothers, I think we need to have way more compassion in our conversations, especially our online ones.
Having discussions about "heart" topics in not a bad thing, but we must keep in mind not only our own hearts, but those of the people we are communicating with as well. If someone is being defensive about something, we need to do our best to find out why? Don't be afraid to ask about someone's feelings and experiences, find out what is behind a person's hurt or anger. Be compassionate.
This becomes even more important in the world of advocacy and especially so in the world of motherhood. There will always be things that come easier to some than to others, there will always be things that work for you that don't for me, and there will always be new information coming forward that may or may not change the way we do all of these things.
In these matters of the "heart", that are so deeply rooted in us and our identities as mothers, that rouse our passions and our emotions to such heights, let us not forget that we are all mothers doing the best we can for our beautiful babies and travelling this long and dusty and often pot-hole filled mothering road together. Let us hold each other up, pass the canteen and keep on moving forward.
And here is something else that I think needs to be said about any 'how I feed my baby' conversations,be it in person or online (and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong and completely off on this one). I think that the mothers who CAN and DO breastfeed, whether it is an easy road or not, may need to have a teensy bit more compassion for the mom who did not or can not do so. For whatever the reason, be it misinformation, lack of resources and support, personal choice, medical reasons or whatever the case may be, we need to show compassion along with our passion. Because deep down, I am pretty sure there exits an element of guilt or regret or failure in all these mamas about the one thing their bodies are supposed to do for their babies.
Thank you for reading and I do appreciate your comments...
Please keep them respectful and compassionate.
Much love,
Natasha~
Photo Credit: Lawrie Cate's Flickr Photostream
Attachment Parenting... Not as 'fringe' as you may think.
Kooky. Fringe. Unhealthy. Enslaving. Controversial. These are just a few of the terms I have heard this week to describe Attachment Parenting.
All of this in the wake of Mayim Bialik's new book, "Beyond the Sling: A real life guide to raising confident, loving children the Attachment Parenting way." being released.
Mayim tackles and explores the many aspects of attachment parenting in her book, including babywearing, baby-led weaning, elimination communication and co-sleeping.
I went to Chapter's earlier this week to see if I could get my hands on the book, but they had not received their shipment yet. :(
I am really looking forward to reading this book. I think that Mayim has a lot to offer the parenting world and not just the 'kooky' attachment parenting world. I mean, the woman does have a PhD in neuroscience and did her thesis on the properties of human attachment, outside of her own experiences as a parent, I think this gives her some definite cred in this regard.
What is getting me all hot and bothered about this though is that all the conversations, articles and interviews on this topic are treating these attachment parenting options as some kind of weird and crazy way to parent. Words like DIVISIVE and UNHEALTHY are being bandied around and people seem to be of the opinion that in attachment parenting, we are literally ATTACHED to our kids at all times.
I think what I have decided this week is that I really dislike the terminology being used here. If the attachment parenting style is a fringe style of parenting is the opposite of it, the so-called mainstream style, then DE-tached parenting? If you do not see yourself at an AP parent, would you want this detached moniker be the one that describes you and the way that you parent? I know I sure wouldn't, the implications just seem way too severe. As I believe they are at the other extreme too.
Because seriously mamas, how many of you have NEVER, EVER, slept with your child? If you have, guess what? You were co-sleeping! Anyone ever carry your baby in ANY kind of baby carrier? Baby Bjorn, Snugli, frame backpack, sling? That's right, you were babywearing! How many of you tell me or tell others that your baby decided he just didn't want to nurse anymore at 8 months or 10 months or 14 months? That kind of sounds like baby-led weaning to me, but I am no expert.
Now I completely understand that some things in the attachment parenting continuum may seem extreme to some, but in the grand scheme of things, maybe not so much. The resurgence of cloth diapering and subsequently elimination communication (babies peeing and pooping on a potty with the help of mommy/daddy) is not just for the 'hippies' anymore. Plenty of "mainstream" mamas are looking at cloth as a better alternative not only for their babies bottoms, but also for the environment. And to be perfectly frank, the leap from cloth diapering to EC is not that big a jump. And trust me, it can be a lot easier to get a 9 month old to sit still on the potty than to convince a kid after three years of pooping in one place to all of a sudden start doing so in another!
Breastfeeding is a whole other beast of a topic on its own, but the more we learn about breast milk and yes, formula too, the more information we have to make the decision that is right for our family and ourselves.
I am in no way telling you that AP is the way to go and that "my" way is the right way here. I mean really, this IS parenting after all and we all have to find a way to do it, enjoy it and yes, even survive it some days! But, what I do want to say is this. Parenting (or heck, LIFE for that matter) cannot be accomplished by trying to fit in a box of someone else's choosing. And parents, mamas especially, you really shouldn't live your lives being defined by how you do or do not do things or feel ashamed of any of your choices.
I mean if Beyonce can babywear and breastfeed Baby Blue (in public no less) and one of the queens of the blogosphere, the wonderful Pioneer Woman herself, is a homeschooler, the principles of attachment parenting can't really be all that 'fringe'. Can they?
Don't be the mama whose "secret" weapon to getting her kid to sleep is actually co-sleeping. Just do what you have to do. So what if you have a baby who needs to be held constantly? Find a good comfortable baby carrier and carry and hold your baby and do what you need to do to keep both of you happy (and NO, you will not spoil your baby). So you want to try out cloth diapering but still use disposable diapers some of the time, go right ahead! There is no need to feel ashamed of your choices and there is no need to EXPLAIN any of them to anyone.
A smile and a 'thank you for your opinion', a la Mayim will suffice and then you can go on your merry parenting way.
The best way that you see fit for you and your family!
Much Mama Love to all of you,
Natasha~
P.S. I promise a full review of Mayim's book, "Beyond the Sling", as soon as I get my kookie AP hands on it!
three days
Day 10: Childhood...
heroes that is.
Day 11: Where I sleep...
well, at least it will be in about 6-8 weeks.
Day 12: Close-up
My beautiful "Renaissance Baby" nursing.
For most of my #JANphotoaday shots I have been using a new photography App called Camera+ and I am really liking it.
I hope you are enjoying my shots!
N~
Repeat after me... Breastfeeding is not OBSCENE!!
...and yet, the breastfeeding witch hunt rages on... And very strongly on Facebook again!
More breastfeeding pictures have been removed, people's accounts have been blocked or suspended and there is much confusion about what Facebook's actual policy on breastfeeding photos is or if they even have one.
You would think that they do have one based on this response from Facebook's own Help Centre.
But in an article published in the Vancouver Sun yesterday, Facebook's Canadian publicist said that,
"...although Facebook does not have a specific policy regarding breastfeeding images but given that Facebook’s policy is no nudity it would be best not to post (breastfeeding images),.."
The mixed messages from Facebook are enough to make my head spin!
For the whole back story and media updates I will direct you to my friend Jodine Chase's blog. She has been chronicling this most recent battle daily since it all started on Sunday when Emma Kwasnica, founder of the Human Milk 4 Human Babies milk-sharing network (which ironically started on Facebook), had her breastfeeding pictures flagged, removed and her Facebook account suspended for 24 hours and then another 72 hours after that.
In a show of solidarity with Emma and ALL breastfeeding mamas and their rights to post these photos on Facebook and as a kind of virtual nurse-in (and yes, I will re-address my stance on nurse-ins in general in another post), I asked my fellow mamas and followers on the Natural Urban Mamas Facebook page to post their breastfeeding photos.
And the response was amazing...
All night long and well into Monday mamas posted amazing, beautiful, funny, newborn, toddler and everything in between BREASTFEEDING photos all over the Natural Urban Mamas wall!
But I wanted to do more.
And so I made this.
I hope you like it.
I hope you will share it.
And I hope that not one of you backs down or ever feels like you need to cover up or "do that somewhere else" while breastfeeding, whether in real life or virtually by not posting or removing your nursing photos from social media sites like Facebook.
This is for you Emma and for all of the breastfeeding mamas out there fighting this battle and working tirelessly every day to make the sight of a breastfeeding mother the normal, commonplace, not-really-a-big-deal, just-a-baby-eating, thing that it really is!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvVVAtTo4Y[/youtube]
Give those babies some Booby Snacks Mamas!
Natasha~
Video music credit goes to:
The Star Wars Theme by John Williams
Booby Snacks by Moorea Mallat, www.songsforbreastfeeding.com
Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Machine, www.florenceandthemachine.net
All tied up.
The topic of tongue and lip-tie has come up quite a few times lately in regards to it's effect on the breastfeeding relationship and the health and well-being of both mama and baby. I asked my friend Joanna to share her breastfeeding journey from this past year. This is her story.
A year ago my husband and I welcomed our beautiful son into the world. Nursing my baby was something I was passionate about and was so looking forward to creating that special bond with my new baby.
I started breastfeeding him a few hours after his birth and it hurt. I remember my doula saying to me a million times “If it hurts, you’re not doing it right.” So I continued to try to improve his latch. Several hours after he was born the pediatrician came to check him out. The first thing he said was “Your son is tongue-tied (ankyloglossia – medical term), he needs his tongue snipped or you won’t continue nursing. Make an appointment with my office.”
I had never heard of this before. Our Lactation Consultant (LC) confirmed his tongue-tie and at a week old we had our son’s tongue-tie snipped (frenectomy). The procedure didn’t seem to bother him at all. The anterior tongue-tie was easy to diagnose once you knew what you were looking for: our son’s tongue was heart-shaped at the tip, he couldn’t poke his tongue out, and he had very restricted movement with his tongue. Basically the frenum (the skin under the tongue) was tight and short. Straight away I could feel a difference nursing, but it still wasn’t painless.
By 7 weeks of age our son was gaining weight beautifully, but I was still having issues with nursing. We’d been battling thrush for 5 weeks due to the nipple damage my son was causing while nursing and he made a clicking noise with his tongue. He would also lose his latch frequently, and he was always full of gas which made him very cranky. After nursing my nipples were always flat and the tips of them blanched. When he wasn’t nursing and wasn’t asleep he was unhappy – despite being held in arms constantly. My LC came back at my request and her conclusion was that his latch was still poor, he couldn’t get his tongue forward enough to get the nipple into the back of his throat and that’s why we were still having these issues – his tongue was still restricted. She advised us to continue to work on the latch.
When our son was 9 weeks old he commenced a breast refusal that lasted 10 days. He would only nurse at night when he was asleep. I was expressing milk and we were syringe feeding him during the day. When he finally started to take the breast again during the day, he then became a very fussy nurser.
At three months of age, the thrush had gone but we had been dealing with severe gas issues in our baby for two months and I had no fuel left in my tank. Every night he had wakeful periods on and off from 2am until mid-morning – he was writhing around in pain and passing gas. We’d seen a chiropractor and a craniosacral therapist, tried Chinese herbs, and colic remedies, but no one could solve the gas issues. The paediatrician labelled it colic and also said reflux medication might help. The doctor requested x-rays and ultrasounds of his abdomen just to make sure nothing serious was wrong. The results were all negative. We were frustrated and burning out.
I then went to Australia with our son to get some much-needed support from my family. We came back to Canada when our son was 5 months old and was still very gassy but the nipple pain had reduced considerably and he was nursing much better. However a few weeks later he went on another breast refusal. It was much the same as last time and I was very frustrated. Nobody could suggest anything that I hadn’t already tried, such as nursing in the bath, wearing him, staying at home in bed etc. I finally managed to get him nursing during the day again by nursing him to sleep for his naps while standing up, and rocking him in our ring sling.
Nursing in one of our carriers at the Edmonton Heritage Festival – 6 months old
When our son was 6 months old I felt pretty good about our nursing relationship, everything was going well and he was taking in lots of milk. Then at 7 months of age I started to get regular pain while nursing again. I wondered what had changed and why it had to put a damper on my one month of nursing bliss! I got talking to a new friend who is a lactation educator and she asked if he was lip-tied (maxillary fraenum). I remembered my LC had checked for that when I’d had her back to my house when our baby was 7 weeks old and she had said no. So I told my friend that he wasn’t. She insisted on taking a look and her reaction was pretty obvious – he was severely lip-tied. She explained that his lip-tie was preventing him from flanging out his top lip to create a good seal and take in enough breast tissue. He had been using his gums to hold the latch. The reason why I was experiencing more pain now was that he had cut his top teeth he had to use his teeth to maintain the latch rather than his gums. She told me that if we didn’t get the lip-tie fixed he would most likely prematurely wean.
So I began a search. Who could fix his lip-tie? No one seemed to know. While I had this fantastic network of LCs, lactation educators, nursing moms, and IBCLCs, no one could suggest anyone to take my son to. Finally after 2 months of searching on the internet I found a pediatric dentist in Albany, New York, one Dr. Lawrence A. Kotlow. At the same time my friend, Natasha, from Natural Urban Mamas, posted a link to a blog from a mom who had flown halfway across the States to take her daughter to this dentist. As I did more research I discovered that mothers were flying from all over the USA and the world to take their infants to see Dr. Kotlow for tongue-tie and lip-tie revisions. Dr. Kotlow has easy-to-understand instructions on how to diagnose tongue-ties and lip-ties in your own child, and low and behold, I came to the conclusion that our son had a Class IV lip-tie (the most severe – the lip-tie goes in between the two front teeth, causing a gap, and is connected into the hard palate) and a posterior tongue-tie (where the tongue is thickly and tightly tied at the base of the tongue). Not only that, I also came to the conclusion that all of our son’s gas issues, colic behaviour, breastfeeding refusals, fussiness nursing in public (and in general), plugged ducts, thrush, and my nipple pain was because of both of these ties. Dr. Kotlow has written a publication linking colic/reflux issues with tongue-tie and lip-ties. Reading this article was like reading a story about my child. The marvellous thing about Dr. Kotlow, is that he uses a laser to revise the tissue in the mouth. Laser is fast, pain-free, and creates an anaesthetic effect. It takes a very short period of time to heal, involves no sedation, and can be done in the dentist's office.
By this time our son was 10 months old and he was also having issues with speech and with eating solid foods. His speech was impeded because his tongue couldn’t move to the roof of his mouth, and this same tongue restriction was not allowing him to chew food properly. Food mostly got spat out half-chewed or he gagged on it. His nursing was also getting worse with my nipples getting more and more damaged and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could deal with the constant pain. He was pulling off the breast constantly, gagging while nursing, and was also leaving teeth indentations in my areolae as he attempted to maintain a latch. We made the decision that we were going to travel to the other side of the continent to see Dr. Kotlow!
At the same time I met a local mother whose past year roughly reflected what I’d been going through, except that her 10 month old had struggled to maintain weight due to frequent and lengthy breast refusals. They were scheduled to visit Dr. Kotlow a week after we met, but before she left for Albany we decided to make one last-ditch effort to get the revisions done locally. We both called dozens of dentists in our town and couldn’t find anyone that would use laser to revise tongue-ties and/or lip-ties on infants under two years of age. She had even seen a pediatric plastic surgeon who said he would do the revision using a scalpel under general anaesthetic, but not just so she could continue to breastfeed her son. I’d have to wait nearly a year to get the surgery done. This was not a viable option for me on many levels.
My new friend made the trip with her son to New York State to see Dr. Kotlow and we went a month later. Both of us are amazed at the profound difference it has made in our sons! Dr. Kotlow is committed to helping mothers have pain-free nursing and his office staff are just as supportive. The procedure took 10 minutes. My son came back to me drenched in his own sweat, red-faced, and crying, more from being away from me than any pain and an hour later he was eating, playing, nursing and then sleeping!
Nursing was unbelievably different. The first thing I noticed was how wide he could now open his mouth. Dr. Kotlow said the lip-tie was so tight that it prevented him from having full range of movement in his jaw. I also noticed how much more breast tissue he had in his mouth and that his top lip was flanged outwards! But the best thing I noticed was that it was pain-free! Yay! Dr. Kotlow checked him out the next day and showed me the stretching exercises we were to do four times a day for 14 days. These exercises are critical post-procedure as they stretch the revised area to ensure the tissue does not heal back together.
Since the procedure was done we have noticed big differences in our boy. Not only has his nursing improved but so has his speech and eating. He is pronouncing sounds much more clearly. You can now see him use his tongue with a much wider range of movement to chew food. He is no longer gagging on food and his smile is different too! He is also able to suck out more milk with each nursing session and sleep more soundly. He isn’t losing his latch anymore and he isn’t fussing at the breast while nursing. He has even started to ask me for milk by signing ‘milk’ – this is a totally new experience for me and something that melts my heart. And I am still pain-free!
It has been a frustrating journey and definitely not the nursing journey I envisioned having when our baby was born. It is amazing how many people I have met and am continuing to meet who are also having nursing issues due to tongue-ties and/or lip-ties. While anterior (the tip of the tongue) tongue-ties are easily diagnosed by pediatricians and LCs, posterior tongue-ties and lip-ties remain poorly diagnosed. Lip-ties are much easier to diagnose once the top front teeth have erupted through the gum. However, once diagnosed, the real problem is finding someone to do the revisions locally. Just recently, a local dentist, Dr. H. Sekhon from Lewis Estates Dental Centre, performed three lip-tie revisions using laser. I am grateful that there is now a local dentist performing lip-tie revisions and would love to see him pursue further training with Dr. Kotlow.
Throughout our nursing relationship, many people have questioned why I have decided to continue nursing. I guess stubbornness and determination on my part comes into play here, but I also believe that my son has a right to nurse for as long as he chooses to. Of course I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the love and support of my husband and family in Australia, and the wonderful network of babywearing and breastfeeding mamas I have found in my local area. I feel nursing strengthens our bond and our relationship. I am so grateful that we now have the opportunity to continue our nursing relationship into my son’s toddler years.
Joanna is a mother of a one year old boy, Xavier, and a 18 month old puppy, Bailey. Her and her husband came to Canada from Australia almost three years ago for an adventure and to further their careers in environmental management with the public service. Both are passionate about sustainable development and love the natural environment. Joanna has studied journalism, international relations, biological sciences and environmental management and has graduate and post-graduate degrees in these fields. She is a straight talking Aussie who loves to be around people and animals. She likes to stay fit by playing many different sports, wearing her baby on her back, and hiking in the Rockies. Joanna is now pursuing her passions for babywearing, breastfeeding and birth support in between and while caring for her family.
Nurse-in. Nurse-out.
Tomorrow, there are nurse-in's planned at Target stores across the USA and in some Zeller's stores (the future home of Target) across Canada. It is all in response to an incident that happened to a breastfeeding mom at a Houston Target store in late November 2011. You can read all the details here, in the post written by Annie Urban from PhDinParenting on the Care2 site.
This is sadly not a new news story. Long story short is this: mom is shopping with baby, baby gets hungry, mom has a full cart of items and decides to sit down and nurse her child with a cover over her. Mom is subsequently harassed by store employees asking her to move or leave and then proceed to threaten to call the police and have her arrested for indecent exposure, etc, etc, etc....
And... Cue the Lactivists!! And the uproar from both sides of this issue. (See the 489 comments on Annie's Post! 489 people!!)
And then nation-wide nurse-ins are planned.
And I get a kind of weird uneasy feeling in my tummy about these gatherings.
Please understand this. I am a very vocal and proud advocate of breastfeeding. I believe that breastfeeding is the normal and yes, best way to feed our babies. I believe that mothers should nurse their babies anytime and anywhere and not have to suffer any kind of harassment or public humiliation for giving her baby the simple basics of food and love.
I believe that leading by example and modeling the kind of behaviour we want to see in others and around us is the best way to change the world. I especially believe this about breastfeeding and this is why I have and always will nurse in public when I need to. I will do so with a smile on my face, with or without a cover, with my newborn and with my three-year-old. I will nurse at a pool, at a restaurant, in the mall, at the park, in church or sitting in the lawn furniture display at Superstore.
Some may think I am a 'breastfeeding nazi', because I believe that this is the best way to feed my babies and I will do whatever I need to ensure that this is what happens. I will share my knowledge of breastfeeding with those around me and help whomever asks me for advice or help! I will support businesses and products that enhance the breastfeeding relationship and remove my support from those that I feel undermine it.
But on the subject of public gatherings and nurse-ins...
To be completely honest, and I know this will get me in some hot water with some people...
I do not think that this is the way.
This 'Stickin' it to the man', or in this case (and as the media will undoubtedly portray it) 'Whippin' em out in front of everyone', will HURT the lactivist movement. This will become less about a mother's right and basic human need to feed her child when and where that child is hungry, as it will be about a group of outraged feminist crazies and exhibitionist women 'flaunting' themselves in the name of breastfeeding in public.
Do you think I am wrong?
Maybe I am, but I know what kind of world we live in.
We live in a world where boobs = sex. Where one of the most watched fashion shows on the planet is the Victoria's Secret one and it is chock full of barely there bras and panties and lots of bouncing boobs. Where the biggest social media website in the world will allow almost pornographic pictures of breasts and other questionable body parts, but actively removes, bans and shuts down pages that show a breastfeeding mother and child. We live in a world where the most powerful nation known to man has the most appalling maternity leave policy on earth and does next to nothing to support breastfeeding mothers.
So what is a breastfeeding advocate to do?
I have been invited to our local nurse-in tomorrow, but I don't think I will go. I see these actions as confrontational and in my opinion THIS tactic rarely ever works to change people's minds and only serves to alienate those we want support from and make the issue seem more sensational than normal. There is something to be said about attracting more flies with honey than vinegar and I truly believe that this highly charged topic of breastfeeding in public is one that needs way more sweet than bitter to move it forward.
I don't know what the right answers are here and just like feeding our babies, it is likely as diverse and varied as these answers and choices are.
I personally choose to make my stand for nursing in public (NIP) as I feed my babies. On demand. And trust me, with a three-year-old who is still nursing and very vocal about it, she can be very demanding! As demanding as a screaming hungry newborn. And you can bet that I would, I have and I will nurse my children when and where they need it.
So for all those shop employees, shoppers, diners, people walking by, fellow church goers and everyone else who seems to have a problem with a mother nursing her child, I say this...
Your choice is...
THIS.
Or THIS!
Look away or deal with the high-pitched, full-throttle and seemingly never-ending screams of a hungry child!!
Natasha~
P.S. I fully support all the mamas and daddies and everyone else who IS going to the nurse-in's across our nations. I am with you in spirit and will likely be somewhere else quite publicly nursing my toddler and being an example to all those around me.
That's OK, I don't like you either.....
We have to say what we believe...whether it is popular or not. ~Howard Dean
There is a lot of animosity on the web these past few days. At least in the mommy world. And specifically in the "I am a breastfeeder" and "I am a formula-feeder" world. Now, I am not going to go into this debate again, because, well, A) you all know how I feel about it and B) it is kind of "useless, never-ending round and round we go saying the same things and not hearing each other" conversation.
This latest round of "She said, She said", has just solidified a thought that has been brewing in my head for a long time. And likely in a lot of other's heads too...
So I am just going to say it.
NO, we DO NOT all have to get along.
It's true. I may not only not agree with you, but I may genuinely not like you. And you may not like me.
And that's OK.
I had the pleasure of sitting in a room full of 200+ women last week. We were described by some as a 'sisterhood', digital women from all walks of life coming together to learn, to network, to connect. Some of these women are moms, some are not, some are more successful than others, and some were 'working the room' like an E-Talk reporter clamoring for sound bites on the Emmy Red Carpet!
And each and every one of us was sizing up the person next to us and figuring out if they were someone we wanted to get to know, someone who is 'competition' or someone whom getting to know would somehow get us further along in the game. THIS is human nature people, it is not a judgement of anyone, it's just a plain and simple fact of life.
You know the sayings..."Like attracts like", and "Birds of a feather, flock together", well, they are true. Just look at your own life. Who is in your 'tribe'? Your core group of friends? They are most likely people who share your beliefs, your values, and who give YOU validation for the choices and decisions that you make in your life.
I met some really amazing women at the ShesConnected Conference. People that I want to get to know better, that I think can offer me something in my life and people to whom I think I can offer something as well. And yes, I also met some people who I was immediately turned off by. People who made no effort to get to know me or who were perhaps just as turned off by me as I was by them. And so I moved on to the next person...
Which brings me back to the 'She Said, She Said' battle again.
And I will use myself as an example.
I believe in living as close to a natural, chemical-free, and so-called 'crunchy' life as possible. Especially when it comes to parenting. I use cloth diapers and practice elimination communication, I wear my babies in beautiful baby carriers, I do not believe in letting them 'cry it out', and I have breastfed each of my children to the ripe old age of three years. I am not opposed to home-schooling and I also believe in a delayed vaccination schedule.
In doing all of these things, I have met a lot of other mamas that feel the same way as me and that share my parenting philosophies. And I have met a lot that do not.
And while I respect all people and all parents to make decisions for their own families....
...who do you think I am more likely to hang out with?
I am not saying that if you don't do things exactly as I do that we can't be friends. Personally, I love diversity in my life and I learn so much (about life and about myself) from people who are NOT like me.
What I am saying is this. Respect others, yes. Agree to disagree, very likely. But do I have to always like everyone and everything they say or do? Absolutely NOT.
I liken this to the nursing in public argument. If it makes you uncomfortable, than JUST DON'T LOOK!
So if I see or read something that I don't like, or meet someone I just don't click with, then I do not have to click on their link, share it, or if it is a person, engage with them, either online or in real life. MY choice. Simple as that.
So with all the talk this week of Mom Vs Mom and more about how we are shaming each other and blah, blah, blah, all I have to say is...
...SUCK IT UP LADIES!
This whole line of 'dialogue' (and yes, I am using the term lightly) is getting us nowhere.
Please just OWN your choices, your decisions, and your opinions. Share your knowledge and your insights if you so choose, but know that once you do this, you are opening yourself up to scrutiny and other's opinions too. Be prepared for what may come, don't take it all too personally and know this.
Not everyone is going to like you or what you have to say...
I will leave you with the words of a brilliant man.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”