Last Saturday (Aug. 3) 1,136 mothers publicly exposed their breasts for a global cause, a new world’s record, and, because their babies were hungry. National Breastfeeding Week (Aug. 1-7) received an international plug in Berkeley, Calif., when the mothers took their seats in the Berkeley Community Theater, and at the announcement, “1-2-3 Latch!”, began feeding their children. The American women broke the previous Guinness Book world record for mass breastfeeding of 767 – set just two days earlier in a movie theater in Adelaide, South Australia.
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Laura Wilwerding, M.D. |
Today, the benefits of breastfeeding children are so well established, the wonder is why so many mothers never breastfeed, or if they start, stop within a short period of time. The growing movement of mass public feedings is aimed at heightening awareness of breastfeeding’s healthy values, as well as to demystify and break down public cultural ignorance about breastfeeding that often makes so many women self-conscious and reluctant to participate in this most natural act between a mother and child.
Laura Wilwerding, M.D., UNMC clinical assistant professor in the department of pediatrics, and Tess Parriott, R.N., NHS lactation consultant, are two of the most visible flag wavers on campus for breastfeeding. They not only do so by medical avocation and profession, but above all, as mothers.
NHS lactation consultants
Parriott has been a nurse for 18 years, including 15 years in neonatal intensive care. During that time, she had four children of her own – some of whom spent time in the NICU. She experienced problems breastfeeding her own children and that inspired her to investigate and learn all she could about breastfeeding. It led her toward a new career as a certified lactation consultant — a board-certified designation that required more than 4,000 hours of study and one-on-one direct involvement with breastfeeding mothers and an extensive national examination. Since 1999, Parriott and Donna Slovinsky, R.N., have staffed the NHS lactation consultants office.
Dr. Wilwerding has three children, two of whom were born and breastfed during her residency program at UNMC.
“I enjoy teaching very much and accepted a position on UNMC’s faculty,” Dr. Wilwerding said. “But my office is in Plattsmouth where there was a huge need for pediatrics and also breastfeeding education in that whole region. There really was very little when I started my practice. We had a lot of work to do and are continuing to, hopefully, really make a difference.”
Sobering results
The latest study results about breastfeeding in America are sobering.
Only about 10 percent of children are exclusively breast fed for the first six months. Only 22 percent of kids are getting some breast milk at six months. At one week old, more than 50 percent of babies received breast milk. For the most part, it’s almost as though once moms leave the hospital, breastfeeding is history.
Advantages of breastfeeding infants
Breastfeeding:
- Provides the ideal food for children and the best nutrition
- Lowers the rates of infectious disease, ear infections, diarrhea and obesity
- Provides milk that is stocked with disease fighting antibodies as well as fatty acids, cholesterol and other building blocks of healthy development
- Allows babies to have fewer colds and respiratory infections
- Is more digestible, lessening incidents of constipation and colic
- Makes babies suck harder than with a bottle. This better develops jaw and facial muscles
- Helps mothers lose weight
- Decreases a mother’s chance of breast cancer
- Reduces the risk of ovarian cancer
- Helps the mother’s uterus return to size
- Is easier than mixing and heating formula, sterilizing bottles
- Costs less
- Provides loving contact with baby, which has extended benefits to mother/child relationship.
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1700-1600 B.C. – At this point in history, breastfeeding was the only option. Just as with other mammals, if human offspring was not suckled, it did not survive. The only question was whether the infant was breastfed by its own mother, a relative, friend or wet nurse. 600-500 B.C. – About this time, the Egyptian, Roman and Greek empires began widespread wet nursing for royalty and babies of the wealthy. Breastfeeding was still used for the majority of children. Medieval Period — From 1500 to 1800 A.D. wives of European aristocracy, wealthy merchants and farmers, scholars, lawyers and physicians regularly used wet nurses. Also, wet nursing was essential for orphans (foundlings). Breast milk substitutes (cow and goat milk) became increasingly popular by the late 1400s. Late 1600 to early 1900s — During this period there was a resurgence of mothers breastfeeding their own children, even though many had to overcome the opposition from older women who had been raised on the tradition of wet nursing. Dry nursing (the mixing of flour, bread or cereal with broth or water) became popular. It was cheaper to dry nurse than hire a wet nurse so hand feeding became more prevalent. Nursery bottles were first introduced in early 1900. Post Industrial Revolution — By the 1920s, the feeding of most children in Europe, North American and Australia was totally different from that of babies born 100 years earlier. Also, women in rural areas continued to breastfeed their babies while urban women in the growing industrial towns went to hand feeding foods early on. 1930s to Post World War II — The promotion of breast milk substitutes steadily increase, especially in Europe and North America. Both food and drug companies greatly expanded the infant formula market, cutting breastfeeding in half between 1946 and 1956. By 1956, only 25 percent of mothers breastfed after leaving the hospital. 1956 – La Leche League is founded in Chicago by breastfeeding mothers tired of excessive bottle promotion of physicians. La Leche revitalized the value of mother-to-mother support of nursing mothers without directing any outward opposition against infant formula companies. Taken from Biocultural Perspectives on Breastfeeding, edited by Patricia Stuart-Macadam and Katherine A. Dettwyler |
Dr. Wilwerding and Parriott recently discussed these benefits as guests of Dr. Bill Gust on his KIOS radio program, Community Health Line, and on the KMTV-3 Midday news show.
Motivating, supporting women
“I think that the real key is women’s motivation,” Dr. Wilwerding said. “If women are given the appropriate education so they realize what the health benefits are for themselves and for their babies, it will help their motivation. A mother has to be truly motivated and have adequate support. That is where someone like Tess comes in.”
Dr. Wilwerding noted there are a lot of women motivated to breastfeed, but when difficulties arise they don’t have anyone to turn to. A lot of people are isolated from their families and don’t have any help or they just don’t understand that their particular problem may be quite normal and solvable. Ultimately, the mothers become frustrated. The social climate says bottle and formula feeding is the norm anyway and they soon give up on the idea of breastfeeding.
“I visit with all new moms, at least once while they are still in the hospital,” Parriott said. “I get to all of them quickly. I try to help them understand what is normal, how do you know if the baby is getting enough to eat, that the baby is latching on properly and the mother isn’t getting sore. I provide her information on how to contact me or my partner, Donna, at any time day or night.”
Dr. Wilwerding notes that one of the glaring areas of breastfeeding support is within the ranks of physicians’ themselves. There are no formal training programs for physicians in lactation. She is a member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and is dedicated to expanding formal education for physicians on the benefits of breastfeeding.
“Physician education in terms of lactation is sorely lacking — not only in our medical schools but in continuing education,” Dr. Wilwerding said. “My own experience is that a lot of the misinformation about breastfeeding is coming from other physicians. As a pediatrician working very hard to promote accurate information about breastfeeding, this can be very frustrating.
“I also think we need to look at hospital policies that take babies away from the mothers right away. We know this is awful. Babies need to stay with mom in this transitional period. We also need to look at artificial feedings early on when the babies don’t need them, lack of support in their work place, lack of facilities to pump their breasts when they need to do it, and basically feeling that their employers won’t understand it.
“There is a lack of family support, societal support and just the way that breastfeeding is perceived on television.”
Gaining acceptance
In Seattle, on Aug. 6, several dozen women held a public feeding in the food court of one of the city’s biggest shopping malls. In addition, a national nonprofit organization named Promotion of Mother’s Milk, Inc. (ProMoM) is encouraging women across the country to breastfeed in public, even if for three minutes. Each act (called a Nurse Out) is considered another chip in the public’s refusal to accept breastfeeding as a normal act filled with great health benefits for mother and child.
But Dr. Wilwerding has a vision of a public relations promotion for breastfeeding that could bring the issue to even greater public awareness.
“Instead of some famous athlete or celebrity wearing a white mustache, I’d love to see a giant billboard with a mother’s breasts feeding an infant, and nothing else under the photo except those two famous words “Got Milk?”
More information
For more information, contact the NHS lactation consultants at 552-3487.