Best for babes - Human milk is miracle milk #bestforbabes

Since I am passionate about breastfeeding and the benefit of it for babies and toddlers, I am sharing this initiative for Mother's Day in Canada and the United States.
The first Nationwide Miracle Milk Mother's Day Stroll will be held creating awareness that human milk helps save the lives of 500 premature infants that die annually.

I have a large number of readers from that part of our Globe, and I think it is wonderful that they are planning to highlight the importance of human milk to babies.

Miracle Milk Stroll

Press Release - 1st Nationwide Miracle Milk Mother's Day Stroll


To take part, people can register for the walk, donate money, and even donate breast milk.

The importance of Donor milk for preemies

How cute are these?

Miracle Milk t-shirst

The surprised lactivist

Lactivist = lactation + activist


“Breastfeeding is a natural event and should be treated as such. Let's reclaim the life-giving tradition of nursing!” Lactivist

I am as surprised as anybody else that I am still breastfeeding. It works! Very well!

I never considered to breastfeed as long, as I had certain goal posts in mind, such as 6 weeks, 6 months, 1 year, and it just kept on shifting it further away…


In the meantime I gained more knowledge, such as:

- Breast milk adapts to baby’s and toddler’s needs. It does not diminish in nutritional value; to the contrary!

- Children get more intelligent the longer they breastfeed. (Yes!)

- Breast milk helps with keeping the immunity high!

- It is possible to get pregnant while breastfeeding.

- It is possible to breastfeed while pregnant.

- It is possible to tandem breastfeed a baby and a toddler.


The last three facts are fascinating to me, because it is not something that gets told in our Western Society. I know of many mothers who stop breastfeeding to get pregnant again.

I have come to cherish the breastfeeding relationship with my toddler as one of the best things I can do for her. It builds our relationship. It nurtures her into a strong independent human being. She does not have separation anxiety, or extra crutches such as dummies and blankets. (My teen had all the extra gadgets! I had to wean her when she was four months old when she did not want to take the bottle.) The best; she is very healthy! She did not get the flu this winter! (You go away, Murphy!)

With this I also do not want to make anyone feeling guilty. (Please, we have enough of that already!)

I just want it to become a possibility again in our society. It is acceptable and desirable to breast feed your baby and toddler for as long as they need it. We need to give the following generations a new mindset of thinking. Breastfeeding is better, and longer is even better! And it is not something to frown about, but something to aspire to!

By breastfeeding now for as long as possible, I am teaching my teen and my toddler that is a very viable option when they are going to have children. It only takes a generation to change a mindset!

[I am a lactivist! (You go, Powerwoman!) Wink smile]

Breastfeeding and Booby traps

There is wonderful breastfeeding advice on the Net. I wish I knew more of it when I started with breastfeeding 17 months back. I thought that there would be excellent help and that I would get wonderful support with regards to breastfeeding. Not so!

Best for Babes is an excellent website which talks about Booby Traps: cultural and institutionalised. (See the nice ad. I’ve grabbed it for the blog.)

Cultural is the stories and misconceptions and cultural myths that is being told by well-meaning friends and family and even other breastfeeding moms. How do you decide what works best for you? Or do you cave in with the first mention that your milk supply is not adequate? When your baby does not gain weight in a week? I struggled with all of these, but continued in any case.

In the beginning it felt like Mieka was stuck on my breast. We did not get a lot of sleep. My breasts were extremely sore. I asked for help from the sisters in the hospital, but nobody pitched to help me with the latching. There was a woman who came around twice who introduced herself as a lactation someone (I was too dazed to register) and I asked her twice to come and help me with the latching. She never came back. The clinic sisters were also more concerned about the weight gain than anything else. Luckily Mieka gained her weight every week in the very beginning.

Institutionalised is the help (no help) you get from the hospital /gynaecologist / paediatrician/ sisters and everything in the system. It felt more like something that was frowned upon than something to be congratulated for. Which all breastfeeding moms should be made to feel!

Powerwoman votes for huge accolades going to each and every mother who breastfeed and tries to continue for as long as possible!

Luckily I had a husband who supported me, and who did not feel threatened by the relationship between mom and baby. What a joy to be able to still breastfeed the toddler of 17 months which is tomorrow). I am very glad I persevered!

Related posts:
- Breastfeeding the toddler - positives and negatives
- Big heads and breastfeeding
- Breastfeeding blues

Breastfeeding the toddler: positives and negatives

It is going very well breastfeeding the baby. She is 13 months. While I can’t see any negatives for me or the baby, I will keep on breastfeeding.
She gets formula during the day at day care, but during the evenings, nights, early mornings; and over weekends it is breast milk.

Positives in continuing with breastfeeding after 1 years of age
- Baby gets the best nutrition possible.
- Bonding time with the baby is continuing.
- It is a soothing mechanism.
- Baby is not particularly fond of a dummy (no need to later struggle getting rid of the dummy or bottle)
- We don’t have to prepare bottles with formula.
- We save on formula.
- Apparently it is also very good for the mother’s health to continue after one year of age: “lowering their own risk of a heart attack or stroke.” (MilkUK)

- I am able to work, and still breastfeed late afternoon and during the night.

- (We are able to leave her with other people for a while, because she drinks bottle as well.)

Negatives in continuing with breastfeeding
- Difficult to get baby to stay focused while breast feeding. She wants to look around as well. (I am not able to breastfeed in public anymore; baby opens up the blanket when I try to put it over her head. Smile)
- Mother always has to be in the vicinity when baby needs her feed, especially difficult during the night.
- Struggle to sooth baby with the bottle or a dummy.
- We cannot leave baby for long periods with other people because she is still depending on breastfeeding. (Not a big problem, because we don’t want to)
- Baby bites with her new teeth! (Smile)

- Reason why we still struggle with sleeping at night?

My vote goes to breastfeeding and to try and continue for as long as possible. I will give her the opportunity to indicate when she wants to wean. Possibly at two years of age? I have heard that 2 years is a good time to stop? What do you think?

(Photo: The frown that pops up quite regularly now)

Related posts:

Big heads and breastfeeding

Breastfeeding blues

Expressions

Expressions and lactations