Excerpt
Eat Well, Lose Weight, While Breastfeeding
This book is intended to help you eat well, lose weight, and feel good about yourself, but that is not all it can do. I also want to support you in your decision to breastfeed your child so that you have a great nursing experience.
Breastfeeding is absolutely the best way to feed your baby, but American society is not always supportive of it. Before you begin reading about what to eat, I want you to appreciate that the feeding choice you made is a great one. I also want you to know that you are not alone if you have some doubts about the choice you’ve made. Though breastfeeding is wonderful, it also has some drawbacks.
New mothers often doubt that they can breastfeed, even though it is the way nature meant for babies to be fed. Whatever you do, don’t interpret these doubts to mean that you aren’t capable of breastfeeding. Even women who have had cesareans or twins or who have medical problems can nurse their children.
Take comfort in knowing that you are not the only mom who is fretful about her ability to breastfeed. Judy Jean Chapman, a nurse at Vanderbilt University, studied what new mothers worry about. She found that when first starting to breastfeed, mothers worried most about sore breasts, providing enough milk to feed their babies, and how frequently their babies nursed.
Of course, the mothers also worried about the well-being of their babies. Fussiness, sleepiness, mixed-up days and nights, rashes, the rate of weight gain, and colds were the most frequently reported concerns. When the mothers were questioned about their own postpartum problems, fatigue topped the list. They also expressed concerns about their older children, returning to work or school, and the extra weight they carried. I think anyone who has a frank discussion with a new nursing mom will hear some or all of these concerns. Of all the mothers I know, I can’t think of one who approached breastfeeding with absolute confidence. Of course some women are more at ease right from the start, but for many mothers breastfeeding is a skill that must be learned and practiced before it becomes second nature.
Three Tips for Successful Breastfeeding
1. Put your baby to the breast as soon as possible. This is more about contact and bonding than feeding. Most babies do not feed right away, but the skin-to-skin contact will support breastfeeding and mother-to-baby bonding.
2. Tell the hospital staff you do not want formula given to your baby. Providing just 1 ounce of formula can affect breastfeeding success. Make sure your husband or partner, friends, and family understand how important this is to you and ask for their support, too.
3. Allow ample time to breastfeed at each session and throughout the day. The more you nurse, the more you become relaxed and natural at nursing.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your worries, talk to a mother who has successfully breastfed her babies. If you don’t have a friend you can speak to, call the experienced moms of La Leche League. Their contact information is listed in the Resource section at the back of the book. If you are reading this book before you deliver, you may want to call the La Leche League in advance of your birth so you have a mother you know you can talk to. You may also want to contact a lactation consultant, a woman who has special training in the subject of breastfeeding and who can assist you with almost any problem. Ask your hospital, health care provider, or nurse-midwife about the lactation consultant they use or go to this page for information about how to locate a consultant in your area.
IS BREAST REALLY BEST?
No matter how unsure you might be about breastfeeding, you’ll be happy to know that breastfeeding is the best way to nourish your baby. It is only in the twenty-first century, with our sophisticated medical technology and research, that we have to spend thousands, if not millions, of dollars on studies to prove what Mother Nature and you already know. Studies repeatedly demonstrate that breastfeeding not only provides the ideal food, it also protects against illness by passing some of your disease-fighting antibodies to your child in your milk. Compared to infants who were never breastfed, the breastfed babies who nursed for three or more months needed fewer doctor visits, saving over $331 in medical care in a single year. Dr. Peter Howie reported in the British Medical Journal a study of more than six hundred Scottish mothers and their babies from birth to age two. He found that children who were nursed for at least thirteen weeks had significantly fewer reported instances of vomiting and diarrhea than babies who were fed formula.
The protective effect of breastfeeding lasted even after breast milk stopped being a baby’s main food. Babies who were nursed less than thirteen weeks seemed to have the same rate of vomiting and diarrhea as the formula-fed babies (while only vomiting and diarrhea were evaluated in this study, other reports show that breastfeeding protects against bronchitis, food poisoning, even influenza). More recent research has found that breastfeeding impacts sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). While breastfeeding did not eliminate the risk of SIDS, the rate is lower among breastfed infants. Breastfed babies may have lower blood pressure as they get older, too. Researchers followed formula-fed and breastfed premature babies from birth to age thirteen and from birth to age sixteen and found that the breastfed infants had lower blood pressure as teenagers. According to a Harvard study, breastfeeding improved how the body used blood sugar. The longer a woman breastfed, the lower her risk of developing type 2 diabetes in middle age. The evidence from these recent studies points out that mothers should be encouraged by their doctors to breastfeed at birth and to continue for at least six months to get the maximum protection against disease for their babies.
Women who must return to work soon after delivery are also encouraged to breastfeed for as long as possible. If a bottle or formula must be introduced, these mothers should use the bottle as a supplement, keeping breast milk as the primary food. Better yet, use expressed breast milk to fill that bottle.
The developmental benefits of breastfeeding are endless. Breastfed babies are likely to have better teeth and less likely to have “nursing bottle syndrome,” which occurs when a child is left with a bottle in his or her mouth (usually while sleeping) and the liquid—be it milk, formula, or juice—pools around tiny developing teeth, creating an ideal environment for cavities to form. A breastfed baby uses her tongue to suck in a way that protects against misaligned teeth. Babies also use more muscles in their mouths when sucking from the breast and this, too, protects against crooked teeth. In addition, breastfed babies are less likely to suck their thumb because nursing allows them to satisfy their need to suck.
Several studies confirm a connection between breastfeeding and intelligence. In a 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association study and an earlier study in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found that breastfed infants had higher IQs as adults than adults who had not been breastfed. The breastfed babies also tended to do better in reading comprehension, math tests, and school exams. Infants who had been breastfed for seven to nine months had the greatest increase in IQ.
Another big plus is that you can’t tamper with breast milk. Formula must be mixed or at the very least poured into bottles and consumed right away or stored and used within twenty-four hours. At any of these preparation stages, it is possible to contaminate the formula. Breast milk comes out of the breast safe and ready to serve. Formulas that require the addition of water can be over- or underdiluted, while breast milk is created in the perfect concentration.
Breast milk is even tailored to the baby’s age and nutritional needs. Breast milk is rich in protein at the beginning of a feeding, while the end of the feeding contains more fat, the nutrient that provides lots of good calories and assuages hunger pangs. Mothers of premature babies produce milk that is richer in protein than the milk of mothers of full-term babies. As the premature baby grows, the composition of the mother’s milk changes automatically to meet the baby’s needs. Within one month it becomes the same as full-term milk.
Another bonus is that a breastfeeding baby drinks exactly as much or as little milk as she wants, and this is a good thing, because only the baby really knows how much she needs. Mothers and babysitters who see that the baby has drunk only half the bottle may feel compelled to make the baby finish that bottle, even though she doesn’t really want it or need it, setting the stage for potential eating or weight problems down the road. Breastfeeding an infant for six months is associated with a lower rate of childhood and early adolescent obesity. Incidence of adult obesity appears to be less in those who were breastfed as infants as well. Interestingly, a 2004 Pediatric study found breastfeeding for any amount of time also protected babies against being overweight.
