Sep 14 2007

Picnic with the girls

Lucy went to her first picnic yesterday with Candace, Vera and Sunny. (Candace is a bit of a Firefly/Wondercon nerd, but I digress.) Here is a pic taken by Vera of our dejeuner sur l’herbe, it kind of reminds me more of that Seurat painting (probably ’cause of the umbrella.)

It was a beautiful day with blue skies and green grass, and a pleasantly empty campus. Lucy was just one of the girls, she even tried her first sourdough bread. (See more pics in the photoset here.) A fun time was had by all!

By jill • by Jill, The Kid • 5

Aug 6 2007

Lucy eats cereal

This post is courtesy of Auntie Laura, who writes:

I was so honored last Thursday to be present for Miss Lucy’s first taste of that gourmet delight, rice cereal (think instant mashed potatoes but with less flavor!). Her response was so priceless I have to post them all here: http://picasaweb.google.com/LKJohnston/LucyEatsCereal

enjoy!
Laura

By jill • by Jill, The Kid • 0

Jul 9 2007

Nursing Lucy

Lucy and I are a nursing dyad. I can’t imagine it any other way. Mike often comments, with a sense of awe, ‘She is alive because of you. Her whole life she has had nothing but you for sustenance.’

We are having a great time nursing, it has been such a bonding experience, and so much easier just to have her sustenance at the ready. I don’t have to worry about washing bottles, sterilizing them, waiting five minutes for the milk to heat while baby screams, etc. Nothing to measure or buy. No need to deal with all that bleary eyed in the middle of the night.

I was very lucky to have my baby here, there was a lot of support both before birth (classes recommended by the doc) and after (every nurse on every shift helped me learn to nurse, and I got check up calls from a lactation consultant after we got home.) And I definitely couldn’t have done so well so fast without the support of my mom, hubby, sis, and mom-in-law.

Even though I’d always intended to nurse and had never subscribed to any mailing lists, somehow I got on somebody’s list (my guess is from baby registries? couldn’t have been from the doctor!!) and have been getting free samples and coupons and surveys from formula companies since before she was born.

At first I thought, cool, free stuff, but in the back of my mind I was thinking, isn’t there some great scandal about formula, that they aren’t supposed to do this? I remembered something from speech and debate in high school. But that was long ago (hey, don’t ask how long!).

Then I looked it up, and there it was. The Nestle boycott, the codes UNICEF and WHO had to create to protect against unfair marketing of milk-substitutes, the nuns who sued formula companies, the babies who died unnecessarily. Countries who had to make laws against formula marketing.

Basically, in developing countries, formula got mixed with unsafe water, which made babies get sick or die, or to save money, it was mixed with too little powder, which slowly starved them. They didn’t get the immunities from mother’s milk that would have protected them, and their parents had to spend the majority of their income on formula they couldn’t afford.

The sketchy marketing practices back then included companies sending in women dressed as nurses to distribute free samples, not printing labels in the language of the country it’s sold in, and giving the samples just long enough to dry up mother’s milk so she is reliant on formula she can’t afford.

But hey, that was a long time ago, right? Apparently not! This recent article about formula marketing practices includes a brief history of it, and a report of what is still going on today.

Then I got angry that I kept getting tubs of free formula in the mail, along with coupons, unbidden and unwelcome. I started thinking, hey, if I’m getting this, I bet every new mom in America is too. What about the WHO code? Why are they so flagrantly violating it? Doesn’t anybody remember? Doesn’t anybody care?

The marketing in the US is both subtle (the inverted adline that formula is almost as good as mother’s milk, instead of the reality that formula has risks) and blatant (the barage of free samples and coupons) as well as psychological (‘don’t say formula isn’t just as good because it will make mothers who use it feel guilty.’ Are we afraid to warn moms against smoking because they’ll feel guilty?!)

It makes me mad and sad that babies are dying who don’t need to, just so somebody can make a buck. And it saddens me that women here don’t see mothers feeding their babies every day like they do elsewhere (I’ve heard anecdotes that in Europe moms congregate in coffee houses to nurse. Imagine that in your local Starbucks!) Plus they get a year maternity leave, but that’s another issue…

The lack of support when learning to nurse is just as destructive. All you need is a few people to say “I don’t think you can do it,” “you don’t have enough milk,” or “try this formula in the meantime,” to knock down your confidence and thereby, your commitment to learn how. Or having no one to ask when you don’t know what you’re doing. Nursing is an emotionally dependent thing, like public speaking, and if you doubt your ability, or feel uncomfortable, the milk won’t flow.

I think that’s where the difference will be made, mothers helping mothers to figure out nursing. That’s all we need, that wisdom from grandma and auntie and the millions who’ve done it before.

So I’ve started my own little protest. I’ve stopped buying Pellegrino, my fizzy water of choice, since it’s owned by Nestle. I won’t buy a parenting mag with formula ads. I’ve stopped Tivoing all the baby programs with formula product placement (like ‘A Baby Story’). And I’ve joined La Leche League, a support group for nursing mothers. Little things, I know, but a start.

Linguistic note:

Notice I haven’t used the B-word at all? That’s because it’s about the milk, not about the boob it comes from! If I say ‘nursing mother,’ my first thought is of a mother with young children, rather than if I say breast… ‘hey, there might be an exposed boob, that might make someone uncomfortable, yadda, yadda, yadda.’

Why say ‘breastmilk’, when all milk comes from a breast? Why not just ‘milk,’ and if you need to differentiate, human milk and cow’s milk? When you say ‘breastfeeding,’ instead of just feeding or nursing, it implies it is some kind of feeding outside the norm.

So I prefer to say ‘nursing,’ which covers the feeding and the nurturing which happens with it, and leaves out the boob.

OK. Rant over for now.

Addendum: I found out the two big senders of formula samples to me are owned by Bristol Myers Squibb, and Abbott Laboratories. Nothing I use from the former, it’s all drugs for diseases, but I can stop buying Ensure and Zone bars from the latter.

By jill • by Jill, The Kid • 8

Jul 8 2007

Babywearing Ambassador

We went to the grocery store the other day and as usual, I had Lucy in a wrap to walk around the store. We usually get one or two comments, but that day it was really busy (4th of July) and we got one on every aisle!

In the beverages it was “look at the baby,” in the frozens it was “mommy, you should carry your baby like that,” and at the checkout, “they do that a lot in Guatemala.” Lucy is a regular babywearing ambassador!

p.s. she is almost 6 months old!

By jill • by Jill, The Kid • 0