Choosing Waterbirth: Reclaiming the Sacred Power of Birth (21 page)

One more thing to remember while trying to coast through these trying first six weeks is that your baby is little for only a short time. This is such a special time that you only get to experience with your child once, so don't waste it by thinking you should be doing something else. Do your baby now; everything else can wait.

My mother gave me a plaque when my first baby was born:

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow,

For babies grow up, we have learned to our sorrow

So, quiet down cobwebs, and dust go to sleep,

I am rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Try to remember this when your dishes are stacked to the ceiling right next to the laundry that has taken over the hallway. Try to remember this when you 're trying to decide how much time to take before you pick up your responsibilities on the work front.

This is definitely a challenging time, but it is also one of great wonder. If ever there was a time to stop and smell the proverbial roses, this is it.

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Chapter 28—

Mama Juice

Watching a baby suckling, you can feel the contentment. Babies love to nurse. Nothing is better to a newborn than suckling its mother's breast. As her mother, you were all she knew of the world while
in utero
. Now, having you as the source of food, as well as of love and care, your baby seems to experience a continuation of the deep bond she felt while in the womb. Cradled in your arms, her eyes closing in contentment as warm milk fills her belly, she never seems happier than when she is at the breast.

Many women also enjoy breastfeeding, deriving pleasure from this innate ability to nourish their babies, their hearts overflowing with love as they watch the baby suckling contentedly at their breasts. They think of breastfeeding as a natural extension of their nourishing the baby in the womb.

Experts say that a person's personality is created in the first eighteen months of life. Because of this, how your child views the world and self is Page 144

directly linked to what kind of care they receive as an infant and toddler.

When you come into physical contact with your baby, as you do during breastfeeding, you are giving your child a specific kind of care. The touch of your skin, the closeness of your body, and the attention you shower on your baby while it suckles at the breast is like the light of the Sun to your newborn. Shining on them, it nourishes them and helps them to grow. While feeding your baby, you can feel that exchange of energy passing from you to your baby and back again. The bond that was created between you in the womb is still strong and can be easily felt as you hold your baby in your arms, pouring love and attention onto him. Babies feel this kind of energy easily. They are so new and open to this world that they have not yet learned how to block out the energy of others. This is why babies often fret and cry when there is nothing apparently wrong with them. And this is why they often nurse as much for enjoyment as for nourishment.

Because of this mutual pleasure often experienced by both mother and baby, breastfeeding can be wonderful and fulfilling. However, like everything else having to do with children, it can also be challenging and difficult.

The first couple days after birth your breasts do not produce milk at all. They produce a special substance called colostrum, often called the "first milk." In hospitals, this milk is usually expressed from the breast and discarded, and the infant is fed sugar water until the true milk comes in. First milk is very important for the new baby as it is vitamin rich, with a high protein content, and full of the mother's antibodies to be passed onto the newborn whose undeveloped immune system has no way yet of fighting off disease. To discard this very important first milk is knowingly putting the baby at risk.

Each time you sit down to breastfeed, you will have a "letdown" effect. As your baby latches onto the nipple, hormones are released into your bloodstream sending a signal to your breasts to produce milk. A few moments later, the milk "comesin" allowing the baby to drink until satisfied.

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About seventytwo hours after the baby is born, your ''regular" milk will begin to be produced. With only colostrum in your breasts, they may still resemble the breasts you had before pregnancy. When around the third day after the birth, the milk comes in, your breasts become so full of milk, they look huge, even ridiculous. My first experience of breast engorgement had my baby nursing from a breast that was larger than his head! He didn't seem to mind. Fat and happy, he soaked up the milk.

Along with the arrival of your "regular" milk, comes one of the first challenges of breastfeeding: engorgement. Characterized by the fulltobursting effect that occurs as the milk comes into your breasts for the first time, all at once, some women find engorgement painful; others find it disconcerting, but have no pain. If you have pain, take a warm shower or bath to ease the discomfort. Loosely binding your breasts with a soft cotton cloth to give them support, but without the restrictions of a bra, may also help.

Don't be surprised if it seems that as much milk as the baby drinks, the same amount seems to pour freely from your breast, soaking everything in sight. This is nature's overflow mechanism and will help you feel better.

During engorgement, your breasts learn how much milk they need to produce based upon your baby's nursing patterns. The more your baby suckles, the more milk your breasts will produce. This is why the recommendation to "Feed only on schedule, every four hours, to prevent the baby from being demanding," can result in a failure in breastfeeding. The baby should be demanding as this "demand" is what produces the milk.

It has always fascinated me that my breasts know how much food my baby needs. The baby nurses and if there isn't enough milk, he nurses more. Twentyfour hours later, my breasts will meet the new demands and produce enough milk to keep him full and happy. He determines by his nursing how much he needs and "speaks" to my breasts, commanding more. Without my direct involvement, my breasts comply.

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Meanwhile, I'm starving and constantly thirsty as my body searches for the nutrients to replenish itself.

The initial engorgement period lasts two or three days while your body gets used to how much milk is needed. Later you may have minor repeat versions of the initial effect.

When engorgement happens, occasionally all of the milk is not drained from the breast and a clogged or blocked milk duct occurs. Felt as a very sore spot or painful lump in the soft tissue of your breast, blocked ducts occur much more frequently when outside influences are present. Exhaustion or trauma to the soft glandular tissue of the breast are two such influences. Wearing a bra that fits too snugly also seems to precipitate a blocked duct, as the restrictive nature of the device doesn't allow for the proper flow of milk.

When you have a blocked duct, try to make sure that all of the milk is drained from the breast with the blockage. It can also help to gently massage the sore spot, rubbing toward the nipple as the baby nurses. While ducts can be painful, they generally go away on their own unless they progress into mastitis, which is infection of the breast. This condition produces a red, very painful breast and is often accompanied by a fever. If you suspect you have mastitis, you should contact your practitioner.

Another difficulty that can accompany the initial engorgement is the socalled "baby blues." Disconcerting though they are, baby blues are normal. Some women never experience them at all, some only to a little degree, and some find them crippling.

I wept through my first experience of baby blues, wondering how I could be so unhappy with the most perfect person in the world lying on my lap. They hit me at two in the afternoon, three days after Sampath was born, as I sat with him sleeping on my lap. My rear end was still sore from the birth; my neck had a crick from looking at him so much; and my breasts were the size of footballs. All at once, it was all too much and the tears came fast and freely. I knew the blues were the result of powerful hormone changes in my system, but

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even so, trying to keep my emotional balance was like surfing in high waves. I felt insecure, unable to cope. I was solely responsible for the health of another person, my body hurt, I was tired and hungry all the time—how was I ever going to survive motherhood?

From that experience I learned that the blues are most often shortlived. They come, and they go, and all I had to do was be willing to go through them.

However the blues present themselves to you, try to recognize them for what they are and treat yourself gently. Now is not the time to be thinking about getting up to vacuum the living room or rearrange the closets. When the blues come, just be blue. Cry, lament, whine. Go to bed with your baby and stay there. Let everyone else take care of things for a while. The feeling of being overwhelmed is only a temporary one. Six weeks later, you will feel differently. Honor this process and don't try to fight it and the blues will leave you soon enough.

Differing from the baby blues is postpartum depression. This serious hormonal imbalance can make you feel tired and sad all of the time. Alternately, it can make you feel irritable and angry. If you find that you aren't able to cope on a daily basis, or if you are tired and depressed without a reason such as sleep deprivation, you should contact your practitioner to have them check for postpartum depression.

Another complication to breastfeeding is nipple soreness or cracking. The soft tissue of the nipple, being unused to the suckling of the baby, may become very tender from the unfamiliar pulling action. To help prevent this from happening, prepare in advance by exposing your breasts as often as you can to fresh air and sunshine. This will help toughen the skin somewhat in preparation for nursing.

A cracked nipple, which is extremely painful, can result when the baby does not latch onto the nipple properly. By sucking on only part of it, the strong pulling action causes the skin on one side of the nipple to be pulled very hard and possibly to tear. To prevent this, when your baby nurses, make sure he takes the entire nipple into his mouth.

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If you get a tear, put lanolin on it or, even better, petroleumbased calendula ointment, which can be found at your local health food store or a pharmacy which carries homeopathic remedies. Put this cream on immediately after the baby has nursed, seeing that the nipple is dry first. When it is time for the baby to nurse again, make sure that you wipe the cream off before nursing. Nipple soreness without a tear or laceration of the skin will last only a few days; a tear can last for a week or ten days.

Be sure to continue nursing even though your nipples are sore. Your nipple will be most sore when the baby first latches on, the pain will lessen after that as the baby suckles.

Most of these problems occur within the first four weeks. Usually by six weeks postpartum, most of the kinks have been ironed out and breastfeeding becomes the enjoyable and fulfilling experience it was meant to be. It is helpful during the early adjustment period for you to have someone around who has breastfed before who can help you through any difficulties. If no one you know has breastfed her baby, check out La Leche League. An international organization dedicated to supporting women in their choice to breastfeed, La Leche League has a wealth of information available to help you with breastfeeding concerns. Their website is www.lalecheleague.org

(phone: 847519775).

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Chapter 29—

Bed Habits

Once the baby is born the inevitable question comes of where the baby should sleep. These days, it is commonly recommended that the baby sleep separate from the parents, either in the same room, or in another room altogether. As with so many babyrearing practices, I cannot understand this.

Nearly every woman on leaving her sleeping child will look down into the cradle and long to take her baby into her arms and carry it to the bed to lie snuggled against her breast. Nearly every woman will awaken many times in the night to check on her infant and she will either fight the urge by lying awake and worrying in bed or she will pad a dozen times down the hall to the nursery to make sure the baby is all right. We cannot help doing this. Nature created us perfectly, and perfect mothering means total protection and caring for our young. One of the ways we show this caring is by checking on our babies in the middle of the night to insure that they are safe, warm, and content.