reason to nurse your BPI baby

[Elisa]

During breastfeeding has always been my best time to do ROM on my little guy. I use one of those breastfeeding pillows which frees up both of my hands to stretch & massage his arm. He is VERY active, stubborn, etc. and breastfeeding seems to have wonderful sedating qualities (ha) that have allowed me to really get good therapy time in. I always joke and say I will have to breastfeed him forever since it is the only time I can get away with working on his arm. There are soooo many benefits of breastfeeding, but never did I imagine doing ROM's would be one of them.

[Paula]

I went to our local GNC and the lady there gave me mothers milk tea & alfalfa seed pills so I guess tomorrow I will run down and get the fenugreek, that one I did not know about. I pumped every 2 hours for 10 min. got a few drops on each side! and Rhonda you were right I had a hard time getting him to latch on so I will have to express and bottlefeed once I get going. There are no lactation experts in the phone book so tommorrow I will call the maternity ward and see if anyone knows one. Also, Francine I told my husband he could start on the drugs too that way we could take turns feeding the community. LOL. Karleen-ABRW is that a website? and the 1ABSupport what is that? I live in kansas where can I get the Domperidone from? Anyone else want to join in on the BF experiment I don't want to be the only guinea pig here. LOL Thanks all for the support.
---Paula

[AK1999]

1. This is the most BIASED study I have ever read about. The control goup (non breast fed) was inadequate...non breast fed babies just left in bassinet when procedure was done.

2. In order to conduct a study about the advantages of breastfeeding, a bottle fed group should also have been involved.


3. The sample size too small



How reliable are the conclusions?
The study was fairly well conducted. Results were available for all but one infant (who was unable to breastfeed during the study period). This infant's group assignment was resealed in the envelope, reshuffled and allocated to another infant. The outcomes of crying and heart rate were scored by researchers who were unaware of which group the infants had been allocated to. The randomisation procedure was not ideal however, and the grimacing outcomes were assessed by a researcher who was aware of group assignment, which may have influenced the recording of the results. Although the authors carried out a sample size calculation, a study of 30 infants seems rather small. The largest drawback is that the control group had no contact with their mother or any adult while the intervention group had skin-to-skin contact with their mother as well as breastfeeding. It is therefore impossible to conclude that breastfeeding alone was responsible for the reduction in grimacing and crying. In addition, pain was not measured directly, so the authors' conclusion that breastfeeding is analgesic should be treated with extreme caution.

[Anna]

my baby had associated torticollis - would not turn her head to the right (injured) side. I wondered why I was more sore on the left! With other interventions as well she is now turning her head equally, but I believe BFing had a BIG part in it, a very natural and motivating way to do therapy!

Paula, I think the "supplemental system" Karleen mentioned is called a nursing trainer - I saw a pic of it - looks a little weird (but, hey, if it works!), a tube comes out right next to your nipple to feed the baby formula while stimulating milk production because the baby is also suckling at the breast. Maybe you could find one at a hospital supply store or your hosp or do a search on the web and try this along with the herbs or meds.

As for the study I wondered how old these infants were. My dd at 2 days old had the PKU heel stick the conventional way and never cried! I wondered does my baby not feel pain! I've heard many mothers have similar experiences. My other dd at 2mo. had vaccines and didn't cry until the second shot. So I think there must be other reasons they might not cry when they are very young. Anyway, interesting article...

[Lenni]

Breastfeeding is a wonderful and rewarding experience for both Mother and Child and it's great if you can do it. I have two daughters and was only able to nurse one of them. The one that was not injured was the only one who would latch on and nurse. Aside from feeling guilty about my Daughers injury I also felt like a failure because my Daughter would not latch on and nurse. She went a whole week without eating while we stayed in the Hospital and had nurses and counsellers trying to get her to latch on, she lost almost two pounds!! Everyone was concerned and begged me to bottle feed her! So.......she was bottle fed and I still ask myself why it would not work for her? At 9 weeks of age, when she could not keep anything down she had surgery to repair her stomach. She weighed 9 lbs the day she had surgery!

Anyway my point is that while Breastfeeding is natural and provides a special bond and can relieve pain and stress in infants it is not always a possibility for new Mothers! So....be cautious of your tone and how it might make others feel.

Lenni

[admin]

Hi Paula,
1ABSupport is an email list you can find details at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/1ABSupportGroup/
Domperidone can be purchased in te US at a compounding pharmacy or from New Zealand via post (lots of people on 1ABSupport or ABRW will be able to help you with this). If your child will suckle at the breast the best thing you can do is get one of the supplemental systems I described. The two available in the US are the Lactaid (have their own website) and the Medela Supplemental Nursing System. If you use one of these you will be able to give infant formula (or whatever you are currently using) and stimulate the breasts to produce more milk at the same time. A lactation consultant should be able to help you with them is there a LLL group in your area? Someone there might be able to help you or at least refer you to someone in your area. Good luck with it all.

Thanks

PS watch out with the fenugreek- occasionally a woman taking it will get a bad case of the runs when taking it so if that happens to you it's the fenugreek- stop it and it will go away

[browning93]

Paula be careful, don't go overboard. The mothers milk tea Francine was talking about has the fenugreek in it,so you don't need the capsules too. I just don't do teas very well as I have so many allergies and the capsules worked the best for me.Since you have the tea tryit first.

[admin]

AK,
I think that maybe you misunderstand what the study was looking at. It was not looking at whether breastfeeding during such procedures is less painful than during bottlefeeding. Actually, bottlefeeding didn't come into it at all- they don't consider it. They were looking at whether breastfeeding during this procedure resulted in less pain than the control- in the bassinet- which is what they usually do. In standard experimental design the control is always what the usual situation is. They could have included bottlefeeding as another treatment if they had wanted to but they did not. Maybe they looked at breastfeeding because breastfeeding has been reported (by mothers- don't know if it has been studied)- as being helpful in comforting babies and young children.

They were not actually looking for advantages of breastfeeding- that was something that the reviewer who had read the article suggested. They were looking to see whether breastfeeding during the procedure had analegsic affects. If breastfeeding is seen as the normal way to feed babies- and it certainly is the biological norm- then to talk about it's advantages is a bit of a nonsense. Like talking about the advantages of not smoking. Not smoking is the norm so instead we look at the disadvantages of smoking. It may be why they did not look at bottlefeeding as a treatment (although personally I think it would have been interesting and worthwhile). Breastfeeding has no advantages.

As the difference in result between treatments was so large a larger sample size was not needed to conclude statistical significance. If the difference had been smaller than more babies would have been needed. It was also a pretty simple experiment with limited uncontrollable variables so that makes it easier to get differences between treatments (not like epidemiolgical studies looking at causes of cancer for eg- they need huge numbers). I agree that since it was so simple they could have included more babies. I wonder why they didn't?

I agree, it would have been better if the study could have been blinded but I can;t think of another way to do it, can you?

I agree that just the act of swallowing milk at the breast is not what they examined but the other things that you mentioned are an intrinsic part of breastfeeding and so you would not want them removed in any case. It's about more than transfer of human milk.

I haven't read the original article, just the abstract, don't have borrowing rights at a uni library at the moment- so my comments must be read with that understanding. SOunds like you have read the whole paper?