breastfeeding

     
  I was thrilled to see an article on breastfeeding in the recent Backwoods home magazine. yeah!!! It amazes me how many women will worry about silly things like how often their baby needs a bath while neglecting a life changing decision about what their babies main source of nutrition will be for the first few years of life.  1 in 5 infant deaths is a direct result of not being breast fed!!! Doctors are too weeny to tell women that formula is BAD for babies. science can not mimic breastmilk any better than they can mimic blood. and dont' bother asking your doctor about breastfeeding. a 1/2 hour lecture in medical school hardly makes them experts. breast fed people have fewer incidience of many health problems, from obesity to cancer. 1 in 5 infant deaths is a direct result of not being breastfed. scary huh. most doctors won't tell you this, they are too weeny and want your business. blind studies show that the longer a child was breasfed the better their first grade teachers scored them for behaviour. and it is well known that breastfeeding results in substantially higher iq scores compared to formula fed humans.
        it is good for your children as well as the enviroment. A family that desires to be self sufficient can not overlook breastfeeding both due to initial costs and the costs of health problems not to mention heartache. most problems involved with breastfeeding are short term especially in comparison to the entire life in front of your child. if your nipples are sore and you feel like complaining or quitting, go look your baby in the eyes and ask yourself how much pain you are willing to go through to save that inoccent child the pain of lifelong health problems and difficulties. if the answer isn't "as much as neccesary" you have bigger problems than sore nipples.
  

From what I hear, most formula is made from soy.  Most of the soy in this country is genetically-modified.  What kind of a start is that?

Mothers who don't breast feed seem to fall into two groups, from my very limited experience:  They're afraid it will ruin their figure, and their baby is in daycare.  In other words, breastfeeding is an inconvenience.  And convenience comes before baby.  Strange priorities.

Sue

the tendency for american mothers to not breastfeed is a symptom of a much greater problem. and you hit the nail on the head with the terms priority and inconvenience. little value is placed on being a mother anymore. and babies are expected to fit into whatever lifestyle makes the mom feel valuable and productive. and that means all the inconvenient neccesities of babies are neglected. its easier to set the kid in front of the television, make sure that you don't have to be there to feed it, get it to sleep all by itself and not have it be overly attached to mom. hmmmm all things that sound convenient but few people take the time to weigh whether it is what is best for baby.

something interesting I have noted with my own child. the more time i spend aways from her, the harder it is to get in the swing when I am with her. she is four now and has jsut started spending the occasional night at her grandmothers, she also is starting to pull away from me and when her dad is home mom just isn't good enough. normal development. but this leaves me with a rather new and strange amount of time to "do stuff" by myself!!! one weekend of getting to knock out chores speedily, leave when I am ready (10 seconds of preparation) and simply read a whole chapter in a book is nice. but. when my little girl comes home or dad goes back to work I find it more frustrating to deal with all the little things that come with a young child. which makes me think....all these women who dump their babies in day care are setting themselves up for a vicious cycle. babies and young children are demanding. it takes some adaptation of your mind to deal effectivly with them. you just come to respect that everything is going to take longer. that plans will change, that things you used to think were important won't get done. for moms of day care children they don't have to make that adaptation for a large portion of everyday. and i can see where getting thrust into the situation upon picking up baby could be ultra frustrating and lead them to want to take the kid back in the morning!. I have had several mothers tell me "I couldn't spend all day with my baby/child, I would go crazy". and I think it is because they set themselves up from the beginning to never adapt fully to being a parent. they had this in their mind that they could have all those conveniences and still be a mom and they continue the charade by dumping their kids off on the hired help.

The minimum wage 'hired help' are the ones raising their kids.  Then, when they run into problems with the kids, they wonder where the problem came from.  Dumb.

Sue

I agree with lee sattler you have to adapt to having children, i think that lots of parents get cross with children because they have decided they can carry on their life and have a child and the child interferes and they feel the child should adapt to their pattern and get cross wiht it. I left everything reading and studying only cooked and washed up to be with them and i was with them all the time nearly. Had i know more people here they woudl not have been with me so much i regreted how few other people they met. 
  One way to stop people breast feeding is to say that you only have to give ten minutes on each side, i am not sure all little babies are good enough at sucking for ten minutes to work and then breasts give more when the baby sucks more, it is sign that it is older and needs more, if you have decided only to g¡ve so much on each side, how can your body know it is to produce more.
  I breast fed for a really long time, I later read that the dioxins in the mothers body get past on to the baby. I don't know how negatively that effects the benefits bad things for the baby count.
  Also some motheres are really good language teachers they talk to the baby all the time, always naming evrything in short easy phrases, and all the languge they give has to do with what is happening between the two, the easy way to learn, the main part of which repeats itself everyday babies get plenty of repeticion, what happens when babies stop getting twenty four hour individual language coaches. 
  As to women getting back into the house i think machism is terribly abusive, they want you stupid, they don't tell you anything and then they can say i have to make decisions, she is stupid, pointing out something you did not know about. Ignorant  mothers aren't good for childrens education either, mother need to look after their own development. Mothers continued advancemente should be looked after too. Imagine you are a lawyer like Shark, how much you must learn after university, so there is an ever widening gap between the thof a cetian level and the person left at home, how very behind people who are shut up at home could get. You can learn a lot in adult life, mothers who were lazy at school could be learning a lot as adults and might want to by that time.
      In societies with a meeting of elders, the men at least, are getting an education all through their adult life from the meeting to discuss village  politics and they have story tellers and reunions with other villages. We make no provision for adult education which is crazy i don't mean all day but once a week. The anachists who were big in Spain before the civil war here used to organize lectures  for adults villagers and that is peasant villagers and they brought some villagers on to  a really high level. Paul Wheaton is an anarchist maybe.
    Into the bargain  there is nothing so lonely as looking after people you can't go out and find freinds and a childs love is very lovely but it is not a help in many things and  it makes you more vunerable you want the advantages for them you would have if you were gettign more powerfull, better placed to help them instead of less well plaaced everyday, not being in a group makes you very vuneralbe. You need to be with adults, if possible, for part of the time. rose macaskie

I breast fed all five of my kids.  I was even still nursing #3 when I got pregnant with #4, continued to breast feed while pregnant, and was nursing both for a few months (that was hard!).

None of my kids ever had a bottle.

For me, it was always a no-brainer (as were cloth vs disposable diapers).

One thing I can never understand is when I hear people say it's "easier" to bottle feed. 

How is it "easier?"  Bottles to wash, formula to mix (or does it come ready to feed?  I honestly don't even know.), dealing with keeping it safe to feed when traveling, etc.

And the cost.  I've never bought formula, but I have been behind people in the checkout line buying it and oh, my gosh!

With all the information available out there, I just don't understand why anyone would choose to not breast feed.   

Oh what wonderful soul-mates you guys are.  Breastfeeding is very close to my heart - mentally as well as literally.  I struggled so much with #1 son and couldn't find real help so I trained as a La Leche League leader so that hopefully I could be there for another mum who was struggling.  I got over the problems and, like you Cinebar, I went on to b/f both of my boys whilst I was pregnant too though didn't tandem feed as they both gave up of their own volition when I was about 30 pg.  That was the eldest b/f for 2.5 years and #2 until he was 3.  And now we have baby #3 and he too will be afforded his right to b/f for as long as he feels he needs to.  No more planned though as I'm old and wrinkly now at 44.

It saddens me greatly that the medical profession won't be honest about the dangers of formula for fear of guilt-tripping mothers.  Let them have the guilt I reckon as it's not their life that they're mucking up but someone else's, baby's, who can't even decide for himself if he wants his life mucked up or not. Grrrr.  Speaking out as me not a LLL leader now.

And yes having your children around all the time is sometimes challenging (we home-educate/home-school) and loads of parents say "Oh I'd love to do that and I can see so many benefits but I just couldn't have my children around me all the time".  That's sad too, not that I'm knocking folk whose children go to school but more the ones that send them off to breakfast club, then school, then after-school club then home for bath and bed (one of my friend's children even get fed at after-school club so they get to see their parents for one whole hour a day as bed-time is set in stone at 7pm).  Why oh why did they have children???

And yes when you have children loads of things don't get done and you have to prioritise and yes, like you Rose, some days we only manage to get meals on the table and wash up. But our children hopefully know that you can trust humans to be there with you and that sharing life with fellow humans (currently their parents) is the best thing and that hopefully they won't feel the empty need to turn to drugs or alcohol or whatever else fills that empty hole. 

But as an adult this can be very frustrating and I'm busy writing some sort of post as to 'what do we do in permaculture terms with so much land and so little time'.

In terms of learning and growing as adults, some forums like this, are wonderful places for that.  I learn so much from posts and get loads of little sparks of inspiration that set me off on hunts for info or change my mind-set whilst I'm pondering.

Oh that's all my 3 up now so my posting time is curtailed.  On with another day but I'm thinking "Ain't life grand"

Cinebar wrote:

And the cost.  I've never bought formula, but I have been behind people in the checkout line buying it and oh, my gosh!

the cost is amazing! and unfortunatly the people who (for a variety of reasons) often don't breast feed are the people who can afford formula the least! it saddens me so much to be behind one of those women in the checkout line that looks like she hasn't slept in ages with a tiny practically brand new baby in a carrier buying can after can of formula. I just want to go to her and ask if I can please help her......none of my business though...

cinebar said she breast fed while she was pregnant , i breast fed my daughter till i got pregnant again or till just before and my pregnancy was marked by a strange exhaustion i couldn't do any extras like a going off clothes shopping i had to keep things to a minimum or i was done up. If you say you are tired, what do people understand by it? i don't know, how do you explain how effected you are, i remember i thought for a long time afterwards i don't want to try that one again and i am a i want lots of children type person.  Maybe breast feeding that long had taken a lot out of me maybe it is not such a cool idea to breast feed that long.
  Those pop bellies in Africa are from a lack of proteins not a lack of all food i heard. It seems that in some parts they just eat millet porridge and that has no proteins and so when they stop breast feeding the the children start having an badly unbalanced diet. In vegetarian Indian a good Hindu does not eat meat, they combine grains and lentils, according to vegetarian books if you combine pulses and grains you get all the amino acids you need so they need to eat lentils or beans as well as millet in those places were toddlers get pot bellies or breast feed forever, that might do for the mothers.
    MY experience as occasional weekend gardener is that i can do more than i expect to be able to do, maybe as the plants get bigger and there are more small jobs tying things up and watering a bit that is no longer true that i can do a lot in a day. finding i can do a lot in a weekend  makes me think that may be growing a lot of food, if you did it everyday, would not be such terrible hard work as it is said to be.
    I did not really feel the world population was up to me having a lot of children.
    Sometimes i have thought that parents dismay about the amount of time toddlers  take up is because they imagine things stay that hard forhthe whole of the children's childhood, when they get a bit older they aren't nearly so time consuming.
    Some one said that it was bad to have haired hands to look after children, Renoir the painters mother used to find him lovely girls to look after him, who his father used to paint, normally relations of his mother. He was gratefull all his life to his mother for filling his childhood with nice people, so hired hands are not always a bad thing, think  of all the girls you went to school with most of them nice and most girls love a baby and your children knowing a variety of people must be good for them, i don't ploy to look after them mind you many mums are around for much of the time  the nannies are around like when children get back from school. I agree about not approving of mothers who find outside occupations for their children all the time. Poor kids they must feel that they obviously don't have enough charms to hold even their parents attention. There's that song from the musical "Hair". "Mary loved her son why don't my mummy love me, Hair".
  I know people, who when you talk about giving attention to everyone, say, that would be false, i just like most people, at first at any rate but if you don't, you have to pretend, how is a poor child to understand that he or she's just not charming enough, they are not usually capable of seeing it has nothing to do with their charms but with their mums preferring adults or something or that there mum is just too lazy to be as nice as there friends mums are.
  some people think you should be truth full in your relationships i suppose the see the necessity for faking things at work, like, if they're teachers looking strict or serious or whatever when it is appropriate but with friends or family they think they should be truthfull,  IE. i prefer my newsparper to you or i like this child more than that one and i see no reason to pretend that the one that bores me interests me. So they do what amuses them most, so as not to gully anyone. They are hell to be with. there is often an apparently moral reason for bad behavior like, i don't want to trick you.
      How children perceive your spending lots of time with them  is another question, they might get cross with you whatever you do, maybe if your nice it stops them from taking drugs even if it does not stop them thinking you should have been nicer. I have seen desperately ignored children who adored their mother, she was good at playing with people, in the sense of manipulating them.
      rose macaskie.

rose macaskie wrote:
cinebar said she breast fed while she was pregnant , i breast fed my daughter till i got pregnant again or till just before and my pregnancy was marked by a strange exhaustion i couldn't do any extras like a going off clothes shopping i had to keep things to a minimum or i was done up.

I don't think this neccessarily had anything to do with the breastfeeding.  I am currently in early pregnancy right now and am just a week or so past the ridiculous and infuriating exhaustion! I am generally the type of person that is always doing something but it was all I could do to get up and find something to eat and I had to make myself get up and do the most basic necessary chores often stopping to sit on the ground and rest halfway to walking somewhere. I was literally sleeping 11 hrs at night and taking nap in the afternoon and other than extremely neccessary duties, resting (or trying not to vomit) the rest of the time. about 9 -10 weeks along I rounded some kind of hormonal corner and I am now working my way back up to a reasonable level of activity....and thankfully I am not feeling sick constantly.

You pregnant, thats great. Love children. If your tired you certainly seem to do a lot. My exhaustion lasted the whole pregnancy i don't think i slept much more just could not do too much, i had my daughter so i could not sleep all the time, it was strange, if i did too much it took a long time to relax enough to sleep at night and if i did to much one day then it took several days to recover. rose macaskie.

Congratulations Leah  .  Gosh and you do SO much.

Yes I can relate to tiredness thing at the beginning but actually more so with #1 - if I'd found a wee space on the shelves in our supermarket I swear I would have curled up and gone to sleep.  Grocery shopping REALLY took it out of me.

I can't say that the breastfeeding made me tired.  Actually it was better as we didn't have to deal with tantrums - THAT must tire you out.  They weren't feeding mega amounts by then, maybe just 2 or 3 times a day, but I still got those lovely calming mama hormones that you get through your system when breastfeeding - don't ya just love 'em.

i very highly recommend breastfeeding, did with our child through his first year and slighting into second and he was extremely healthy all his life..still is.

didn't even supplement the breast milk with water or juice..until he was able to eat normal food mushed up in a blender

heninfrance wrote:
if I'd found a wee space on the shelves in our supermarket I swear I would have curled up and gone to sleep. 

that really hits home! a couple weeks ago I was at the market and got stuck in a sllllooooooow checkout line. I wanted so bad to just lay down right there on the floor and close my eyes. I honestly believe I could have fallen into a deep sleep right there on the floor and I wouldn't have given a rip about what anyone though about it.....except social services would have probably wondered if I was fit to care for my  4yr old.......

Oh congratulations, Leah! This is a great thread - breastfeeding and exhaustion. Both important issues for which to give and get support and information.

Breastfeeding--

My aunt formula-fed her first two kids, then learned how much better breastfeeding is and breastfed her second two. The second-two kids are taller, larger-boned, much more healthy looking and much jollier people even now, almost forty years later!

Breastfed my two kids who are now strapping, sturdy young people, too. Loved it, and could never imagine fussing with bottles.

Breastfeeding Tiredness--

There is some mild sleepiness that comes from breastfeeding. It's from oxytocin (sp?) that's released while nursing. It relaxes you and brings on more "mothering" feelings. Did you know they gave oxytocin to roosters, and the roosters began to fuss around and take care of the baby chicks? 

I was HUGELY tired after my first child was born, and had to nap every time she napped, but it wasn't breastfeeding. I was anemic (bled for five weeks after giving birth) and I was eating wheat (gluten) which makes me very tired, full of sinus infections and overall feeling yucky. Had the second child, had my iron levels up (sort of--bled for weeks again), and went off wheat and wow, I could stay awake while nursing and when he napped! Nice.

Pregnancy Exhaustion--

The pregnancy exhaustion is rough. I used to swim laps every morning when I was 21. Then, all of a sudden, I would stand at the end of the pool, thinking, gee, I just really don't think I can swim today. I very soon found out I was pregnant with my first child. With both pregnancies, I just decided pregnancy was sloth time. 

I did food shopping it was on top of that a clothes shopping day i found i could not handle . Maybe the tiredness would not have worried me if it had not been for mothers who do an incredible lot when they are pregnant and so i felt it must be wrong. i tried to remember what i felt and i think the nearest  i could get was to feeling as if i had flue, except not that either. rose macaskie.

I guess, like most things in life, it affects different folk in different ways.  I was major tired at the beginning (though thankfully no sickness with any of my guys  ) and quite tired in the last few weeks.  They say there's an 'energy boost' in the second trimester - well, for me, I'm not so sure; I just stopped being so tired and felt 'normal'.  I have thankfully had really lovely births, 2 of which were homebirths, and I'm on a high for weeks afterwards but then I get a crushing tiredness about 6 weeks post-partum that seems to last for 2 or 3 weeks then goes again.  Funny old things these hormones!

rose, i really understand how it can be watching some women just go go go. it is almost embarrassing to be so tired, makes me feel lazy. with my first one I thought just had to make myself do things whether I wanted to or not. I went too far sometimes and in hindsight it probably wasn't good for me or baby. this time I'm trying really hard to just submit to whatever my body is telling me. If I am just not up for something one day I just don't do it. to heck with cleaning the house and making dinner etc......as long as critters have water and food then everything else is just non essential. my daughter is old enough now she can go to the pantry and rustle up something simple to eat, and despite what my husband thinks he is too


heninfrance- I love the idea of a homebirth. I wanted one with my first pregnancy but was diagnosed with iugr and ended up being induced (just a few weeks early) so I there was really no hope for a home birth. but I took control of as much as I could and insisted on being induced with cytotec to increase my chance of a natural birth. I refused the iv and refused to stay stuck in bed with a monitor on. my doctor HATED me but I gave birth naturally to a healthy little girl with no complications for me or her. it would be so much easier to not have to feel adversarial with the doctors and nurses and get to relax at home. I still rememer being so mad while pushing and the nurses are hollering about when to take a breath and when to push and in that very vulnerable intense moment it was extremely distracting. if I would have had and extra breath in me I would have screamed "SHUT UP! I know when to freakin breathe and push you idiots!"  I had a wonderful doula and I can't imagine giving birth without one. unlike the doctors and nurses she would wait for the perfect moment if I needed to be told something and she would come to my ear and quietly tell me or ask me. she knew how to make me actually hear and understand. the doctor and nurses just infuriated me by intruding at  terrible difficult moments. I am a little worried in that I can't find any doula's in this area. they are all up in northern ok and ar.

As I read this thread, I'm wondering if maybe the nutritional level needs to be jumped up in pregnancy -- maybe that would help a little with the exhaustion, although I know it's partly hormones.  I remember that tiredness from when I was pregnant with my three girls (youngest is now 29). 

I nursed all three of my girls, but had to put the youngest on a bottle when she was six months old as she was failure-to-thrive -- she had 'reverse tongue thrust' and didn't nurse properly, so my milk was drying up.  (She's severely mentally handicapped and has some physical/health issues as well).  I was very disappointed.  I'd nursed her two older sisters until I was pregnant with the next one, then quit as my breasts got very tender in early pregnancy.

There are some similarities between the reasons people don't breast-feed, and the reasons they won't home-school -- for the most part, all selfish reasons, not for the good of the child. 

Kathleen

I know there has been much speculation about the cause of early pregnancy exhaustion and sickness but it still remains a mystery. b vitamins apparently often help with the sickness. it obviously has alot to do with hormones. with the hcg levels doubling every 48 hrs and...*I think* there is something like 7 hormones present that are only present in pregnancy. I suppose some of it is just the rapid changes.

sensitivity to smell
nausea
exhaustion


when thinking about this I speculate.....

all those symptoms could point to natures way of preventing a woman from eating much of anything and especially anything strong tasting or smelling. I personally have as well as many pregnant women developed a pretty strong aversion to red meat. the thought of a steak right now sounds about as good as jumping into a volcano!  maybe in an effort to prevent exposure to possible pathogens and natural toxins during the most critical period of development the body has resorted to illness as an evolutionary trick to prevent exposure. its something interesting to ponder.

Leah it is interesting to ponder wheather the body develops illness as a solution to the possibility of the mother doing unhealthy things for the baby.
  I remember how terrible the smell of acrylic paint was when i was pregnant and then my father said that plastic paint contains arsenic, and how my blood boiled if my brother in law got at me, i thought gosh maybe mothers are meant to be fierce, to clear a path to look after the baby safely i had never had a strong chemical physiological reaction to being teased before or since i have to fake it.
  I once heard that a bad social situation increases nausea that if you take the woman to a place she feels safer in the problems reduce or cease. rose macaskie.

Gosh what interesting thoughts!

I was interested to read some time ago that there's potentially a link between the increase in mental health issues, especially depression, and breastfeeding.  The research seems to be saying that breastfed babies are exposed to the hormone chemicals that cause all sorts of emotions like happiness, anger etc. but in small doses.  Their bodies then learn how to handle these chemicals whereas a bottle-fed baby is denied that learning process.

It is a crazy world of psychiatric ideas that have not been around long enough for their faults to be known . i have known lots of bullies and the know days they bully you, in theory, to let you get through the feeling good and being cross, bully always find an excuse to bully people anything anything from psychiatry can be used as an excuse to get their teeth into you. rose macaskie.

The report was definitely in SUPPORT of breastfeeding, saying that those who are bottle fed may be more likely to develop depression etc.  We know that bottle-fed babies are more likely to develop lots of things as they were denied what nature intended for proper human development.

that is very interesting about the depression. like with many other things the research is plagued with so many variables that it is difficult to pin what problems with formula fed babies are associated with the actual nutritional aspect and what is associated with lack of normal human interaction. every time I see an infant in a store or restaurant with a bottle propped up with a blanket, being totally ignored whilst mum chats it makes me think and wonder how much of the statistical behavioural differences later in life are a result of minimized/delayed socialization of the child in part due to bottle feeding. obviously some women are very aware of the risk of ignoring thier child even if bottle fed and take concious steps to prevent it. although I am not totally against pacifiers (my daughter never had one) I think they can be misused and create some of the same issues. with some people everytime a baby makes a peep they have a pacifier or bottle stuck in their mouth. no wonder the the speech and language delay in those babies. a breastfeeding mum is I think more likely to pick baby up and talk with it as there is no easy way to just shut baby up and go on about your business. and it isn't very comfy to have baby sucking on an relatively empty breast for long. it forces women to find/develop "baby skills".

freeholder,  it must have been really traumatic having a ill child, i suppose that breast feeding her till six month was ever so much better than nothing and lots of physical contact maybe make up for breast feeding. I think some parents get so proud of the advances they have managed with disadvantaged children that they feel really interested and proud of their child and themselves, so it ends up not being as bad as others think, though it can just be terrible.
      Here they have a Mongol boy who got two degrees at university and the other day on CNN  i saw Japanese or Chinese boy with cerebral palsy whose father had massaged and massaged him massaging people is much more normal and exended in china they ahve always practiced it,  till he got him moving and ended up teaching him how to do boxing, of all things. Maybe you can find it if you look up cnn health or celebral palsy or some such it appeare daa week or two ago.
    I don't know if you will like or hate these stories, forgive me if i say all the wrong things, i have so little experience talking of this sort of thing, i find it hard to know what is going to make parent happy and what is going to increase their pains.
  I heard various times of the good effects of movement for creating synapsis in the brain, move your baby around. One bit of therapy they talked of in England was people running to get over brain injury and in America being put in one of those contraptions they use for astronauts with lots of concentric circles that you can turn peole upside down and everywhich way and round and round in.
      People imagine that intellectual abilities develop with intellectual activities, but intellectual capacities also increase with physical movement, people brains who learn the violin have much more synapsis than the brains of people who don't do physical things and much simpler physical exercises than playing the violin are good to.
      Jon Stewart had the neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, on who writes great and fun books on questions related to the brain, from things that effect the preception of your everyday person to more complex problems, on his show a week or two ago and he was mentioning this thing about phisical activities and the brain, so i have heard of it on about six different occasions by now.
 
  I have heard that dolphins and other animals horses and dogs help children with problems- Relating with horses, if it includes mounting them, brings together physical movement and the therapeutic qualities of relating to animals. You would have to have a well trained horse or mount your child up with you, i don't know if you have horses. You probably know all this gunck already, rose 

Had to add my own experience so that folks who find this thread in the future will have yet another testimonial. 

My kids are 19 and 22 now.  Each was breastfed to age 4; I left it to them to wean.  The overlap was not an issue; my son was only nursing twice a day by the time I got pregnant.  He just continued at bedtime and waking till he was ready to stop.

I was determined to give my children the best possible start, despite negative stuff from my mother and coworkers.  Stayed home full time till the younger was 2, but never let it keep me housebound.  Can't imagine having to deal with refridgeration, heating, and sanitation for bottle feeding; breast was always there and ready and no crying.  I had the happiest babies I knew, except for the other La Leche League kids!  Discreet clothing meant we nursed wherever and whenever when they were less than a year.  After that, I cut down on accessibility, but they were able to wait and to eat other stuff.

My kids were also very healthy, except for my daughter's food allergies, which, as an infant, manifested as projectile vomitting.  Neither ever had an ear infection or tonsillitis.

I needed a lot of sleep for the first four months of both pregnancies.  With the first, I was falling asleep on the bus on the way home from work till I started sleeping more at night.  With the second, I figured out I was pregnant before I even missed a period because I was suddenly unbearably sleepy in the afternoons! 

My daughter, the second child, was born allergic to several common foods.  It was a great deal easier to eliminate those foods from my diet than to find a formula she could have tolerated.  It was in response to her allergies that I read the ingredients of baby formulas.  The first ingredient of both cow's milk and soy formulas is actually -- CORN!  And she was allergic to it. 

I had very different experiences with introducing table food to my two kids.  I tried to encourage it (force it, more accurately) on my elder, starting at 4 months, because he was very thin.  (He still is!)  He fought me all the way and was a picky eater for years.  With the second one, on the advice of my LLL leaders, I didn't even offer it till she started grabbing stuff off my plate at eight months, and then introduced new foods slowly.  She was a much better eater! 

I would absolutely encourage any mother to breastfeed for as long as it feels right for her and her child.  For about a dozen reasons!

Patricia

  this is  a rude awakening to modern day life but i have a seriouse article saying you pass dioxins on to your children when you breastfeed. I breastfed my first till she was two and a half so the idea of this makes me as sad as it could make anyone. This is a factor that must be gone into carefuly when we think carfully of the pros and cons of breastfeeding. agri rose macaskie.

Rose, I'm sorry -- my home computer was out of commission for several months, only recently got it fixed, and so I didn't see your reply to my post until just now!

Yes, I do think that the breast-milk that Juniper got was probably a good thing for her.  It's so hard to know what we could have done differently when she was small, as we had no idea what we were dealing with at the time (she, and I, should have been on a gluten-free diet, for one thing, but we didn't find that out until years later).  She's autistic, has celiac disease, vitiligo, and lupus, and possibly some minor skeletal deformities (there's a very wide gap between her top front teeth, which one doctor told us was because her skull hadn't completely fused; she also has one leg about an inch longer than the other).  She functions about on the level of a three-year-old, but has been helped a lot by a couple of medications.  I resisted having her on any prescription medications for a long time as I'm against that on principle, but couldn't find any natural remedy that helped her, so she's on an antidepressant, which helps with the autism temper tantrums, and on plaquenil for the lupus.  She is a MUCH happier young lady now.  I still wish we could find some other way, but am thankful for the great improvement -- she is so much easier to live with.

I'd like to have a large pony for her to ride -- we've had several horses and ponies over the years.  But right now we are living on one acre of land which doesn't belong to us (belongs to my grandmother), and really all we have room for is the goats.  A horse would just be too much here (although a lot of our neighbors on similar-sized lots have one or even two horses!).  Maybe someday we'll get one again.

Way off topic from the original post!  Sorry!

Kathleen

     Katheleen Sanderson. I am glad you got your computer back working again it must have been horrible without it.
      You say you can't have a horse, well if all balancing questions are good for autism what about a rocking chair or rocking horse which could be easier than a horse though it lacks that animal contact. RUpert isaacson rode a neibors horse.
     Your poor daughter has so many illnesses, i don't really  know about any of them i have only looked into autism because my mother was interested in it and then because my sister had two autist boys, my sister has distanced herself from the family though we have part of the guilt i don't think it is all ours. I never see her i just would like to, mind you she's dangerouse verbally so i would like to know a sister who no longer exists in a way, I daren't go neer the one who does, she leaves others looking so silly, it is best to have no contact with her and it is hard to get her to have contact with you. People leave you loooking stupid and argue that you have once criticised them, what to answer, "but you have reall torn me completley to peices" is the answer their is really a difference between criticising people an dripping them to peices or running them right out of town or driving people off the road.
   Dr Temple Grandin who is  autist with a a bachelors degree in phsychology and a masters degree in animal sciences, was a sever autist but you probably know about her she gets interveiwed by Larry king, she is a famouse person, says that rocking is good for people with problems. Also she is a designer of machines for handling animals and she made herself a bed sort of thing that hugged her. SHe says that activities in which you have to regain your balance like ridign and rocking stimulate the learning centres of the brain.
    If you had a rocking chair on a turntable you could put her through variouse types of movement that her mind would register and the mind registering movent helps people get a bit better mentally. I think just a rocking chair sounds more comfortable.
   In Mongolia many chamans were one time autists and they lead normal lives except they cure people and comunicate with animals and such but otherwise lead normal lives married capable of other occupations that are not communicating with spirits, comunicationg with the minds of the living at a distance seem to be called spirits by them as well, maybe, as the dead .
   Did your doctor diagnos lupus because of the vitiligao they both have symptoms of changed skin pigmentation does she really have both illnesses? I have met a lot of silly doctors in my life somthing i found hard to recognise after being taught to trust them. I no wat fifty five would say get lots of second opinions, time and money permiting which it often does not. Maybe autists always do have lots of illnesses.
 Does she like animals some autists can have special relations with animals? They filled the boy, whose life is told in horse boys books, room with pictures of animals when they found he liked them. He rode another persons horse the owner was kind enough to let him ride, but then his father was an expert rider, horses are tricky so you would want an expert, they now have a riding school for autists in autstin texas.
     The boy first related to a bad tempered old lead horse, the father writting later has started  to get too polite to the horse to mention this but i think its important, the horse chose the boy and the boy liked the horse, th ehorse somhow they had started a realtion between the two of them from the other side of the fence, the father did not organise it,  maybe it is better to see if the horse likes the child than to chose what seems to you the safest mount. The horse was a neighbour so may be they had had a chance to observe each other. I was reading about rupert Isaacsons plans to make the film abuot his son and to take him to mongolia and to write a book before he published the book, he had bits written up on internet, thats how i know he used to describe the mare as a bad tempered mare, somethign he does not so to the same extent in the book.
    I have no idea how much of this you know already all i can do is write everything i know.
   Some also use dogs to help autists don't they? and delphins, i think the delphins in our zoo i madrid would be better off helping autists than doing silly and probably much to easy for them, tricks, for a lot of easily impressed  adults.
    I think dogs are more usefull if the owner of the dog is a person who believes in their intelligence and abilities not one of those that thinks they have none and i am not talking of thinking they can get a masters degree, just accepting the normal intelligence of animals who after all look after their own young and relate to each other an ddefend their territory and such in the wild, things you coudl not do if you were totally stupid. My dog was nice to the tramps when i was trying to help tramps till i got so attacked by catholics to judge from the ideology of my detractors, that i gave that one up.
  WHa tis true of animals is also true of autists, if you think they can communicate even if they don't talk and look for their strange ways of comunication then you can communicate more to them instead of wishing they comunicated as normal children do.  I would not treat them as three years olds however much they may seem it in some aspects i would read and talk to them though they did not seem to listen about adultish things, i think they listen though they don't talk or look at you. though there are normal people who are too lazy to listen much.
Temple Grandin says you can spoil them about making a scene in a place if they are frightened but not aobut being rude to people.  
    The latesst i heard of autists work being done with them in spain is they like and do better with lots of love, shows of affection even if these shows are returned in the normal way.  
Doctor Temple Grandin has realy good talks on autism on you tube, she takes medication as your daughter does and swears by it, she says it suits her and works, so she is going to stay with it, she is on you tube , look her up in google or you tube. The book  "Horse Boy" about Rowan Isaacson  is written by his father Rupert Isaacson, and also has lots of usefull information in it. I would like to see the film.  agri rose macaskie.
   

Leah Sattler wrote:
I am a little worried in that I can't find any doula's in this area. they are all up in northern ok and ar.

Have you had any luck finding a doula?

rose, you posted about the dioxins.  Yes there was a documentary some years ago in the UK on this very subject and we had many many calls to La Leche League following it (I am an LLL leader).  It is true but you have to ask yourself how it got into milk in the first place.  Basically by being absorbed through your skin.  This means that any human in a 'western' environment will be exposed to dioxins, breastfed or not.  The health benefits of breastfeeding still far outweigh the sad side of ingesting these horrid things.  I can only hope that the western world starts waking up to all the invisible 'poisons' that many insist on surrounding themselves with - actually even those we unwittingly expose ourselves to.

Gwen Lynn wrote:
Have you had any luck finding a doula?

well. yes but....I found a doula that is willing to drive in but she is an hour away. basically my only option though so I am hiring her. A very nice woman practicing several hours from here took time out of her life to cruise the trade boards and find someone willing to drive to my area. although I have some reservations. after taking my history of my first labor into account......about a 45 minute labor.... ........she said she would help me find someone in my area and as she put it "I need someone camped out in my backyard" due to the fact that second time labors are usually shorter then first time . she made it sound like I may not get to the hospital much less get a doula there in time!



I have to agree with heninfrance about the dioxins.  you can hardly be frightened of them in your breastmilk in comparison to what goes into manufacturing formula and the multitude of serious health problems associated with its use.

Leah, our midwife this time was 3 hours away!!!  I was in strong labour when I called to say that this was really IT but once I'd made the call, the contractions faded considerably.  She is a very wise woman (midwife in French is sage-femme, literally translated as wise-woman and so she is!) and she said that's often the case that your body subconciously 'knows' when the time is right.

And my first baby was 'out' in 4 hrs beginning to end, number 2 was 14 hrs!!!  Number 3 was 10 hrs.  Never can tell I guess.  You'll know how to handle it when the time comes 

I like that "sage-femme", & sure I wish I was one. I'm afraid I'm more of a "sage-foutre"

Perhaps that is the only regret I have over not having children. I think I could be a really good doula, but giving birth should be a prerequisite!

yeah having experienced birth is sorta of a prerequisite! there are things my doula knew that I am not sure can be trained. and knowing some crucial emotional and physical signs and not being emotionally involved in such a way that can alter your judgment is important, at least in my opinion. knowing what pain is normal and what is not how and when to comunicate etc..... the doctors and nurses were totally USELESS! I will never forget them thinking that the only way to communicate with me was to talk REALLY REALLY LOUD! it was so disturbing to my mindset. they left me alone just fine until it was time to push and then suddently they started barking orders about when to breathe and when to push. which I can't quite articulate how utterly ridiculous it was. it was obvious they had no idea about the timeing of the contractions even with the monitor they strapped on me. I of course didn't have the mental power to say shut up! my doula was the only one that calmed me. I am going to have a list of rules posted on my hospital door this time.

be quiet
do NOt force me onto my back for pushing
do NOT direct my breathing or pushing


hopefully I will have enough warning so I dont' turn into one of those people who have to stop the car on the side of the highway to have there baby. I was induced with cytotec on my first so I think that could have really affected the normal birth timeline....but the doula wasn't so sure! I was only at three cm and had been for a while with nothing happening. at least nothing more then a few occasional cramps not even as bad as my monthly. then they broke my water. I lost it and started crying, I was just sure was going to end up with a c-section for a failed induction. that was at 3:45. a few minutes later I felt some "real" contractions. within 15 minutes I was in heavy labor and I think my little girls birth certificate says she was born at 4:27. it was pretty intense but I was more then happy in that I didn't end up getting loaded up with drugs or an epidural and all the problems that can be associated with that.