Take back birth

Trying to Take Back Childbirth
Growing Number of Women Want Birth to Be a Natural Process, Not a Medical One
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

July 28, 2008 —http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/Story?id=5462833&page=4

Pregnant with her first child, Julie Speier prepared to deliver with the help of a midwife at a New York City birthing center. But in June -- three weeks before the due date and 600 miles from home -- her water broke.

Speier gave birth at a Cincinnati hospital, where she and her fiancé tried desperately to keep the birth natural -- a vaginal delivery without pain medication.

"I believe in the power of nature and that creation is next to perfect," said Speier, a 34-year-old yoga teacher. "I knew what I wanted and I had the confidence."

But as labor pains increased and Speier asked about breathing techniques, the doctor replied, "How do I know? I've only ever done two [natural childbirths]."

Today, natural childbirth is a medical anomaly in the United States, so much so that doctors are often thrown off guard by a determined woman like Speier.

A small but growing number of women who seek to avoid aggressive medical techniques like induced labor, epidural blocks and Caesarean sections find they are a lone voice among their friends and doctors.

"All of my friends think I am a little nuts," Speier said. "They say why would you do it natural?"

Speier said her own mother told her traumatic stories of her brother's breech birth. "Everyone I know has an 'I can top you' gory birthing story."

Pre-planned Caesareans are also in vogue. Women want to avoid future complications of multiple vaginal births, like uterine or bladder collapse. And today's body-conscious women worry needlessly about loss of muscle-tone.

'Too Posh to Push'

With the latest feminine plastic surgery rage -- so-called "pimping the vadge" -- some women prefer what the British call the "Posh push," referring to the planned Caesarean births of soccer celebrity David and Victoria Beckham's three boys.

Like the generation that pioneered the first wave of feminism in the 1970s, women like Speier want to take an active role in their health care. They view childbirth a normal, healthy process that requires time, patience, strength and endurance.

But in the decades since, new technologies, the rising cost of malpractice insurance and even the changing attitudes of women have all contributed to the near-demise of natural childbirth.

"It's a little tsunami," said Dr. Ben Sachs, chief of obstetrics at Tulane University in Louisiana. "All these forces are coming together at the same time."

Both doctors and midwives have been hit hard with the high cost of liability insurance. All agree they must take on more patients to keep their practices lucrative, giving them less time to wait out a long labor.

Doctors more frequently induce labor, using synthetic hormones like pitocin to strengthen and quicken labor, an intervention that was once used only as a "last resort."

But induction also heightens the pain of labor and can precipitate the use an epidural -- an injection in the lower back that blocks the pain of contractions while the woman is awake. And some say that, in turn, can delay the pushing mechanism and even trigger the need for a Caesarean.

Induction rates rose 5 percent in 2005 to 22.3 percent of all births -- double the rate since 1990, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Caesarean deliveries have also jumped -- to more than 30 percent of all births, a 46 percent rise in the last decade and a 4 percent increase over the 2004 record.

Hospital Costs Spiraling

So, too, have hospital costs spiraled, and doctors say the first cuts are in obstetrical care. Hospitals in many parts of the country can now be sued for malpractice, further eroding support for what is perceived as the economic risk of natural childbirth.

"Childbirth doesn't get the attention and respect it should," Sachs told ABCNews.com.

But he said it isn't only doctors driving the medicalization of pregnancy, but women themselves.

Many women are having their babies older, necessitating more Caesarean sections for high-risk pregnancies. Younger women who fear the pain or the cosmetic consequences of a vaginal birth pre-plan a Caesarean with their doctor's blessing.

"The question is, has it done harm to women or the experience of childbirth?" Sachs asked. "Positive things are coming out of this. There is a concentration on patient safety and reducing medical errors."

But a national survey by Childbirth Connection found just one incidence in 1,600 of a planned c-section, for no underlying medical reason. The non-profit also said the rate of Caesareans is going up in all groups of birthing women.

"The American healthcare system is increasingly dependent upon medical interventions to address what is, most often, a normal and safe physiological process," said Rebecca Benghiat, executive director of the New Space for Women's Health in New York City, where the Caesarean rate has just hit 31 percent of all births.

"Quite often, women are not fully informed of the risks associated with commonly performed obstetrical interventions, nor do they know there are options beyond hospital birth," she said.

But, childbirth advocates say that for women with uncomplicated and low-risk pregnancies, a natural birth can be safe.

"This is a big mess and no one is sure how we got there," said Erica Lyon, director of the education center RealBirth in New York City and author of the "The Big Book of Birth."

"We had a wonderful movement in the 1970s when women wanted to take control of their bodies," she told ABCNews.com "When we got to the eighties, we assumed it was fixed. But it wasn't."

Today, about 95 percent of all births occur in hospitals, 3 percent in birthing centers and only 1 percent at home, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. About 6 percent of all births are attended by midwives, but those numbers are dropping as their liability insurance rises.

Natural childbirth experts say they have seen a modest increase in interest in natural childbirth following a recent film by actress Ricki Lake, who gave birth at home with the help of a midwife.

Lyon charges that hospitals have "no standards of practice," bowing to the demands of overburdened doctors and women who don't understand the benefits of natural childbirth -- quicker recovery time, better baby bonding and more successful breastfeeding.

"It's good technology, but we do it over-aggressively," she said. "What we tend to do is treat it as an absolute rather than with a tiny bit of healthy skepticism."

But natural "means different things to different people," according to Dr. Lauren Streicher, an obstetrician gynecologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, who said current medical practices are safe and what women want.

'Go Ahead and Medicalize It'

"Most women say go ahead and medicalize it," she told ABCNews.com. "Low-intervention birth is on the decline because people are no longer interested. They say, 'I want an epidural and a C-section is fine for me.'"

Streicher opted for "zero pain" in her own pregnancy and planned to get an epidural even before her first contraction. But when her water broke weeks early, her anesthesiologist was on a ski holiday and her obstetrician was having a hysterectomy.

"I didn't panic," she said. "I had three or four very painful contractions, but after that it was a very lovely, easy labor and I pushed her [daughter] out."

She also agrees with women who say "there's no shame in doing a C-section."

But Dr. Louis Weinstein, chair of the obstetrics and gynecology department at Thomas Jefferson University, points out that although the mortality rate is "very low," a Caesarean is 6 to 20 times more dangerous than a vaginal delivery.

Though he will agree to an elective Caesaean, he makes sure the woman is informed and understands all the risks.

Weinstein also warned of the misuse of induction hormones, which he says studies show are the second most common source of medical errors.

Still, he said the use of epidurals, which carries its own risks, is safe when properly administered. "With all due respect, labor is uncomfortable and the reason someone coined it is you are working your rear end off," he told ABCNews.com. "Labor is very, very uncomfortable."

"I believe in choice, but this is a women's issue," Weinstein said. "We get more nasty letters that we didn't have time to put in the epidural."

But midwives say women are not encouraged by their doctors to explore alternatives such as birthing centers, where low-risk women can give deliver naturally, balancing technology with a home-like environment. There, no pain medication in administered, but women receive the support of a trained midwife and an assistant, who work with doctors to ensure safety. A warm and intimate environment -- and sometimes hot tubs and whirlpools -- provide a soothing atmosphere to experience the birth naturally.

"Most women don't know about their choices," said Asya Portnaya, 29, and a certified midwife from the Brooklyn Birthing Center in New York. "They are only aware of a hospital birth and just go as the doctor tells them to."

Midwives Show Lower Caesarean Rate

According to the Public Citizen Health Research Group, certified nurse-midwives have a Cesarean section rate of 11.6 percent compared with a national average of 23.3 percent.

"In a hospital, you get lost in the system, even as a midwife," she said. "If you take a child birth class in the hospital, they don't talk about natural birth as much. They talk about the epidural and the whole system supports an unnatural birth. You can't fight that."

Meanwhile, Julie Speier fought hard to see that the Cincinnati hospital team respected her wishes for a natural childbirth.

When the doctor seemed unable to guide the process, Speier's fiancé called a midwife friend and relayed her instructions to the doctor.

"At one point, the baby's head came out and the doctor pulled, but I said, 'Don't pull the baby, wait!'," she said. "Every doctor and nurse we spoke to knew it was important for me to have a natural childbirth. It was hard for them, but they stood back."

Despite the initial drama, Aine Joy, now 7 weeks old, was born healthy. Now ensconced in the joys of parenthood, Speier said she feels more empowered after going through the birth naturally.

"I have more faith in my body than in medical systems," she said. "This is what a woman's body is meant to do."

Cloe Shasha contributed to research in this report.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

TIME MAGAZINE
Thursday, Aug. 07, 2008

Giving Birth at Home

By Ada Calhoun

For most pregnant women, a key part of their birth plan involves how they'll get to the hospital. But more and more moms-to-be are skipping that step and planning to deliver at home. Old-school birthing is back in style, with well-read women forsaking obstetricians for midwives and epidurals for warm baths. These women want to give birth in their own bed or tub, with none of the medical interventions that have become staples of modern childbirth, like contraction-inducing medication and C-sections, which now serve as the grand finale in nearly a third of U.S. births. "For a normal, healthy pregnancy, the hospital environment is overkill," says Jessica Reid, 27, a stay-at-home mom in Pasco, Wash.

Reid had her first baby in a hospital but plans to have her second--due in late August--at home. "Interventions that neither the mother nor father wish to occur are more likely when surrounded by people who view pregnancy as an illness or labor as inherently dangerous," she says. "I consider birth sacred and a joy, and I intend to birth my baby in a way that reflects that."

Not since Ina May Gaskin's natural-childbirth advocacy inspired a generation of home birthers in the 1970s has the practice been such a hot topic--or so hotly contested. While home birthing still accounts for less than 1% of U.S. births, there's a movement afoot to license more lay midwives to attend home births. Concerned by this development, the American Medical Association (AMA) is urging lawmakers to curb the home-birthing movement, including having the licensing of so-called direct-entry midwives--who do not have nursing degrees--overseen by a state medical-practitioner board.

One of the biggest champions of home birthing is former talk-show host Ricki Lake, who produced the 2008 documentary The Business of Being Born. Lake and other activists contend that fear of litigation has led to more women in labor being tethered to monitors and forced under the knife. And pro--home birthers are pushing the notion that choosing where and how to give birth should be regarded as a civil rights issue. "Legislating against home birth is totally un-American and unfair," says Joan Bryson, who has worked as a midwife in New York City for 17 years. "We rank 42nd in the world in live births, and we spend more money than anyone else. You can't blame it on home birth."

Most planned home births are assisted by a midwife, although some extremists favor so-called free birthing, with no attendant. Home-birth midwives say they accept only low-risk patients, which excludes women with diabetes, high blood pressure, multiple births or any other risky condition. Most midwives--who typically charge from $1,000 to $5,000 per birth, significantly less than the cost of a hospital delivery--travel with basic emergency medical equipment, including oxygen, resuscitation gear and medication to stop hemorrhaging. And all insist they practice preventively and know when--and how--to get a woman to a hospital.

Take, for example, the case of a prolapsed umbilical cord. In roughly 1 out of every 300 births, the cord slips down into the birth canal before the baby does and risks cutting off the baby's oxygen supply. Kitty Ernst, an expert on midwifery at the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing in Hyden, Ky., says midwives are trained to push the baby's head back up off the cord and hold it there--the same way an obstetric nurse would--and get Mom to the hospital as an operating room is being prepared for her. "Your hand gets pretty tired," she says of this emergency procedure, which she adds can take as little as five minutes if the hospital is across the street.

But it's those precious minutes that have obstetricians alarmed. "Unless there's ready access to certain emergency personnel and equipment and even surgery, you're potentially endangering babies' and moms' health and lives," says Dr. Erin Tracy, an ob-gyn at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital who authored two anti-home-birth resolutions approved by the AMA in June. "We've all seen scenarios where mothers came in, after very major blood loss, in a very catastrophic state," she says. "By the time they arrive in the hospital, you're sort of behind the eight ball in trying to resuscitate these patients. The same thing with neonatal outcome."

Doctors argue that what may seem like a low-risk pregnancy can go very wrong at the time of delivery--and that making home birth easier to access could lead to a huge step backward. After birthing moved to hospitals en masse in the 1950s, the maternal mortality rate plummeted, from 376 per 100,000 live births in 1940 to 37.1 per 100,000 in 1960. The most recent statistics show 15.1 deaths per 100,000. Many doctors fear that mortality rates will go up with the rising incidence of home birthing, but there are conflicting data on this. A study published in 2005 in the British Medical Journal found that home birthing had a similar mortality rate to that of low-risk hospital births; other studies have suggested a two- or threefold increase in the incidence of neonatal death.

In the absence of clear data, obstetricians in the U.S. are concerned about the recent push by direct-entry midwives to receive licenses so they can practice their craft without fear of prosecution. This summer, Missouri reversed its 25-year ban on non-nurse midwives. Twenty states have similar legislation they are either introducing or planning.

Meanwhile, many obstetricians are trying to meet women halfway, through hospital-affiliated natural-birth centers. These centers are often located near regular hospitals and boast low episiotomy and C-section rates. The decision about where to give birth "is not black and white," says Lake, who is on the board of a $7 million birthing center set to open in Manhattan in 2010. "It's amazing, the technology we have. But we are losing the value of normal, natural birth." Nationwide, the number of birthing centers is growing by about 5% a year. But what might seem like an ideal solution has run into roadblocks, as a few prominent centers have closed in recent years because of high malpractice-insurance costs--which means many natural-birth seekers will still have to choose between hospital and home.

• Find this article at:
• http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1830388,00.html

Business of Being Born 1

This is something that EVERY woman should watch!

Other 3 parts will be uploaded soon.

Business of Being Born

Please see this movie if you work in the Maternal Child Health profession.

Baby Signing Workshop in Harlingen

You're Invited!
Baby Signing Workshop


Around six or seven months, a baby's cognitive abilities will be developed enough to begin teaching sign language. Baby will already understand the power of vocalization — they cry and you pick them up — but you might not know if they're hungry, needs a change, or is in pain. By 8 to 12 months they may start signing back. Baby sign language gives them a tool to express needs and wants exactly.

Bright Babies Presents....

BABY SIGNING WORKSHOP
Saturday, June 28, 2008
3-5 pm
Lone Star Restaurant, Harlingen, TX

Tuition: $45 to get you started signing

Includes:
Food, drinks, and signing fun!
Tuition for 1 parent and child
Dinner and drinks for 1 adult, dessert for 1 adult
Goodie bag & snack for 1 child (infant or toddler)
Learning resources & packet of handouts
Baby Signing Guide Book

There will be:
Starting to Sign Training
Videos
Parent & Child Activities
Games & Prizes

Children are welcome to attend, especially older siblings. The class can be a bit long for mobile young children. The first hour is mostly training with the second hour being more hands-on interaction if you would like to have someone bring the young child in at that time. You will be free to move around at all times. We will have high chairs and a playpen.


You will learn:
·how to begin signing with your baby
·effective ways to begin teaching signs at home
·easy ways to use signs in daily routines
·what to expect as your baby transitions from signs to speech
·highlights signs that are most important in the lives of babies
·introduces play activities that reinforce important language, cognitive and social- emotional skills
·brings families together to share their signing experiences

Designed for expectant parents, parents with children ages birth to 2 years, day care and childcare providers, teachers, and any that works with parents and children.

Why use Sign language?
Your 8 month old could ask for milk or a drink
Your 10 month old could ask to read
Your 12 month old could say he is hot
Your 18 month old could tell you he is happy!


SIGNING...
• Reduces frustration and builds trust.
• Allows baby to share his/her world with you
• Strengthens the parent/infant bond
• Reveals how smart babies really are.
• Promotes positive emotional development.
• Boosts babies' self-confidence.
• Helps babies learn to talk.
• Jumpstarts intellectual development

Come hungry and ready to learn!

Call or email to reserve your seat!
(956) 245-1787
Feel free to forward information to family & friends!

Learn more at: http://mybrightbabies.com/

Thanks, Nicole Hoff

Doulas: A Key to Shorter Labors and Better Births

Doulas: A Key to Shorter Labors and Better Births
By Kristen Hart

What would you do if you were told that scientific studies have uncovered a way to have a shorter labor with less pain -- and that method is completely natural? Would you get excited? Many women hope for a shorter, natural birth. And studies have proven there is a way for women to have this. This amazing way to help laboring women is called the doula.

A doula is another woman who stays with a mother throughout labor and birth. The word "doula" comes from a Greek word that means "servant" or "women’s servant." A doula is a traditional role that women have been filling for centuries. Careful scientific studies in this century have proven what birthing women have always known -- doulas help women to have better birth outcomes.

Proven Around the World

International studies have shown the benefit of doulas to birthing women. Women who have continuous doula support during labor have a lower cesarean section rate and a lower rate of assisted vaginal delivery (forceps and vacuum extraction). These results are consistent no matter what country the woman is giving birth in.

One to one care has been shown to shorten labor by two hours or more. A hospital in Dublin, Ireland gives all birthing women one-to-one, continuous support. At this hospital almost all mothers have labors of twelve hours or less. Studies in the United States have also shown that women who use doula support have shorter labors.

Doulas even help women choosing epidural pain relief to have better birth outcomes. A woman who chooses and epidural and doula support is less likely to have a cesarean section and is more likely to have an unassisted vaginal delivery.

Minimizing Interventions

A birthing woman who chooses to have a doula support her throughout labor is less likely to need synthetic oxytocin (Pitocin). Synthetic oxytocin results in stronger, harder contractions that many women have a hard time dealing with. The doula is full of wisdom to help a woman progress through labor, which lessens the likelihood of needing a synthetic hormone boost.

If a woman is induced or has synthetic oxytocin given to her during labor, her doula is able to help her cope with the strong contractions. Doulas are able to assist birthing women in a multitude of ways.

Helping Fathers Too

Even fathers find that doulas benefit them. Births where a father and doula are present usually result in happy parents. The fathers feel like they were given the support that they needed. A doula is able to help the father help the mother as much as possible. Doulas are also able to give continous care to each mother, allowing the father to take a break or freeing him to be there emotionally for the mother.

A True Asset

Doulas help mothers of all ages. Studies have shown that when young mothers are given doula support they have better birth outcomes and a higher breastfeeding rate. Older mothers are also assisted by a confident doula who has many ideas to help the mother through labor.

A doula is truly an asset to any birthing team. If you are looking for a shorter labor with less pain, find a doula in your community. Your doula is in infinite source of wisdom and support -- no matter where you give birth, how you give birth, or who else you want with you. Allow yourself the luxury of someone focused completely on your success -- have a doula on your team.

Kristen Hart is the owner of http://www.naturalbirthandbabycare.com She is passionate and committed to helping women have healthy pregnancies and happy, natural births. Learn more about doulas, pregnancy, and natural birth at http://www.naturalbirthandbabycare.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kristen_Hart
http://EzineArticles.com/?Doulas:-A-Key-to-Shorter-Labors-and-Better-Births&id=228520

Being a Doula

The Ins and Outs of Being a Doula
By Julie Johnson

A doula is a Greek word meaning “woman servant.” Doulas are trained professionals helping and guiding a woman and her partner through childbirth. A doula provides a continuous presence during labor and delivery as she takes care of a mother’s emotional and non-medical needs.

ARE YOU DOULA MATERIAL?

Do you pick up childbirth magazines, immediately turning to the labor section, and you aren’t even pregnant? Do you long to talk to anyone who is pregnant? I was this way before I became a doula or labor assistant. When I was looking for a new career path after the birth of my second child, I came across a doula when I was waiting in line to register my son for preschool. I was in a certified doula training class a month later and have never looked back. Now, I want to help other women who are passionate about childbirth and want to pursue a life change into the doula world. Once you decide that you want to become a doula, you will never be the same person again.

ALL NIGHTERS AND SHORT DELIVERIES

No one can prepare you for the all nighters. This is the hardest part of being a doula. You are consistently offering massage, suggestions on positioning and explanations of medical procedures throughout the night. You do all this with a smile on your face and a positive attitude. Some labors will take you through two whole nights. Try doing this when you are not a coffee drinker.

Some deliveries are long, some are short. This helps balance your doula practice. Thirty-six hours or 4 hours, either way you walk away from the delivery on a natural high. You feel on top of the world because you were apart of an extraordinary experience. You were able to provide assistance to a laboring mother and serve in a unique way.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The first thing you have to do is check into a certified doula program with CAPPA, Doulas of North America(DONA) and Lamaze International for local trainings. Get involved with local doula groups for support and friendship. Read everything you can get your hands on and talk to every pregnant woman you find.

Julie L. Johnson is a wife and mother of three who has experienced every pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and breastfeeding situation there is and has lived to tell about. She is a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, Certified Doula and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant practicing in Southern California. Her website http://www.mybirthangel.com provides services and products to help ease transition through motherhood. The products also make great doula “Thank You” gifts or for a baby shower.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Julie_Johnson
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Ins-and-Outs-of-Being-a-Doula&id=60692

Acupuncture Helps Mothers Breast Feed

Acupuncture Helps Mothers Breast Feed
By Susanna Ng

So now not only acupuncture can control pain, it can also help a mother to have a smooth breast feeding experience. A group of Swedish scientists set out to compare acupuncture treatment and care interventions for the relief of inflammatory symptoms of the breast during lactation, and to investigate the relationship between bacteria in the breast milk and clinical signs and symptoms in a randomised, non-blinded, controlled study.

The researchers are from Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Helsingborg Hospital and Faculty of Social and Life Sciences, Karlstad University in Swede.

205 mothers with 210 cases of inflammatory symptoms of the breast during lactation agreed to participate. The mothers were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups, two of which included acupuncture among the care interventions and one without acupuncture.

All groups were given essential care. Protocols, which included scales for erythema, breast tension and pain, were maintained for each day of contact with the breast feeding clinic. A Severity Index (SI) for each mother and each day was created by adding together the scores on the erythema, breast tension and pain scales. The range of the SI was 0 (least severe) to 19 (most severe).

Significant differences were found in the mean SI scores on contact days 3 and 4 between the non-acupuncture group and the two acupuncture groups. Mothers with less favourable outcomes (6 contact days, n=61) were, at first contact with the midwife, more often given advice on correction of the baby’s attachment to the breast. An obstetrician was called to examine 20% of the mothers, and antibiotic treatment was prescribed for 15% of the study population. The presence of Group B streptococci in the breast milk was related to less favourable outcomes.

“If acupuncture treatment is acceptable to the mother, this, together with care interventions such as correction of breast feeding position and babies’ attachment to the breast, might be a more expedient and less invasive choice of treatment than the use of oxytocin nasal spray,” the researchers wrote.

However, no significant difference was found in numbers of mothers in the treatment groups, with the lowest possible score for severity of symptoms on contact days 3, 4 or 5. No statistically significant differences were found between the treatment groups for number of contact days needed until the mother felt well enough to discontinue contact with the breast feeding clinic or for number of mothers prescribed antibiotics.

The researchers add that midwives, nurses or medical practitioners with specialist competence in breast feeding should be the primary care providers for mothers with inflammatory symptoms of the breast during lactation. The use of antibiotics for inflammatory symptoms of the breast should be closely monitored in order to help the global community reduce resistance development among bacterial pathogens.

Journal: Midwifery. 2007 Jun;23(2):184-95. Epub 2006 Oct 18

I’m a Vancouver-based newspaper editor. I have long wished to build an info website about evidence-based Chinese medicine. Chinese Medicine News is an info weblog dedicated to reporting evidence-based studies and research on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). With the growing interests in alternative medicine from the public around the world, it is important for them to get informed of the validity and reliability of the herbs they want to take / are taking. For more information please visit: Chinese Medicine News

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Susanna_Ng
http://EzineArticles.com/?Acupuncture-Helps-Mothers-Breast-Feed&id=632842

Seek Breastfeeding Help

Seek Breastfeeding Help From Professionals
By Apurva Jain

As a first-time mother, you might be quite unaware of the techniques and intricacies of breastfeeding and in such a situation breastfeeding help can be a good source of much needed information. You can get proper advice regarding many aspects of breastfeeding such as how to take care of the baby, the right time to feed it, what type of feed you should take, when you should go to sleep and what to feed the baby if you run out of milk. Breastfeeding help would be ideal when you are exhausted after the birth of the baby. You would also gain immensely from the advice of lactation consultants at this stage.

Lactation consultants are available either in hospitals or in the office of a pediatrician. They also work privately and it is advisable for first time mothers to consult them shortly after the birth of the baby so that proper breastfeeding techniques are adopted from the very beginning. It is essential to know about latch-on basics but merely reading text and seeing pictures might not be of great help. Instead, if voluntary breastfeeding counselors show you the techniques practically, you would be in a much better position to feed your baby properly and also avoid latch-on problems such as sore nipples and the baby getting less milk. Lactation services are also provided by many hospitals as a component of their maternity schemes.

Lactation consultants can provide proper breastfeeding help and breastfeeding tips if your baby finds it difficult to latch-on or suck or if some other medical problems are making it difficult for the baby to breastfeed. All that you need to do is to look around, make some queries and find a good and experienced lactation expert. You can take the help of your childbirth educator, or the health care provider for finding the best lactation consultant in your area. It’s important to check the credentials of the lactation consultant and you should look for the credentials IBCLC (international board certified lactation consultant) or CLC (certified lactation consultant) after the name.

Many nursing mothers get specific problems regarding breastfeeding. These problems need special devices such as pumps or breast shells to facilitate the discharge of the milk. A lactation consultant is the best person who can guide the mother on the proper use of the breastfeeding pump and how to eliminate the problem that created the need for the external device.

There are many volunteer organizations like La Leche Volunteers that provide breastfeeding help either on the telephone or through support meetings. Many leaflets and books are also published by them to provide breastfeeding help to the mothers and to give all possible information and support to the mothers who can gain sufficient confidence and practical knowledge. By attending the monthly meetings, the mothers can interact with each other and exchange notes based on their personal experiences. Moreover, the mothers can gain proper knowledge regarding positioning of the baby near the breast, public place breastfeeding and general tips regarding mothering.

You can get the best breastfeeding help only from professionals and as such you should turn to such lactation experts or to the volunteer organizations that have sufficient experience in this field.

If you have any doubts related to breastfeeding, do not worry because you can seek breastfeeding help from lactation consultants. You can either speak to your doctor or seek online breastfeeding help from volunteer organizations that would provide you more information and details about breastfeeding on issues such as, latch-on basics, using a breastfeeding pump. Search online for breastfeeding counselors or good books on breastfeeding.

Pregnancy provides more information on breastfeeding and pregnancy related issues.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Apurva_Jain
http://EzineArticles.com/?Seek-Breastfeeding-Help-From-Professionals&id=597853

Benefits of Hiring a Professional Lactation Consultant

7 Benefits of Hiring a Professional Lactation Consultant
By Kristi Patrice Carter

A lactation consultant is an experienced professional that is specially trained to assist breastfeeding mothers. She may or may not be certified and will likely have varying experience working with mothers and their infants. In addition, their training will vary significantly. For instance, some Lactation Consultants are also Licensed Practical Nurses, or LPNs, and have successfully completed nurse training. Whereas some Lactation Consultants are certified IBCLCs (International Board Certified Lactation Consultants), who have completed course work, clinical practice hours, and passed an exam that covers breastfeeding, milk production, management of breastfeeding complications, etc. Unlike a nurse or physician, the IBCLC designation does not mean that they have a certain amount of experience; it just means that they have passed their exam and have been certified.

That said, if you're a new or experienced mother that is looking for support from a professionally trained person, then a Lactation Consultant is the way to go. Here are 7 Benefits of hiring your very own Lactation Consultant:

1. Your lactation consultant can help you with your breastfeeding concerns, which can include breast infections and clogged ducts, offer treatment suggestions, address milk production issues, etc.

2. She can answer all of your breastfeeding questions. Just
consider her your real live breastfeeding guide.

3. She can show you proper positioning or "latch on" techniques that can eliminate any physical discomfort.

4. She can help you diagnose signs of a breast infection and offer recommendations. For instance, if you have any redness or pain and/or have flu-like symptoms, she may conclude you have mastitis and give you a regime of warm compress, rest, more frequent breastfeeding, pain medication, etc.

5. She can provide general information about breastfeeding, as well as how to successfully wean baby when you're ready.

6. She can help you recognize signs that your baby is "rooting" or ready to feed so that you can respond to baby's hunger cues.

7. Your lactation consultant can help you increase your milk supply by suggesting you breastfeed more frequently, eliminate all pacifiers, or recommend holistic remedies like Milk Thistle, Fenugreek or other Galactogogues in order to increase your milk supply.

In conclusion, a professional lactation consultant can be your key to successful
breastfeeding. By hiring the right person and following her advice, you can receive the support you need and handle any breastfeeding issues with strength, knowledge and confidence.

For additional information about breastfeeding and weaning your child, please visit http://www.breastfeedingweaning.com, a valuable resource that provide mothers with quality information and tips on breastfeeding and weaning their children.

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