Nice job, mama! How a physician makes breastfeeding work.

At a family outing to the zoo a few weeks ago I sat on a bench to nurse my 6-month-old son while my husband took our older son on the carousel. I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Nice job, Mama!” I looked up and saw a woman smiling ear to ear as she was dragged by her own child towards the carousel. I got a little misty. Even as a neonatal intensive care doctor who is well-versed in the numerous, well-documented benefits of breastfeeding, acts of solidarity from total strangers sometimes do more to strengthen my resolve to keep doing this … this, not the nursing, a truly gratifying experience for which I am deeply grateful, but this, what it actually takes to be a working mother with an exclusively breastfed infant. Over the past few years, I have welcomed the explosion of social media attention on nursing mothers. Viral videos and photography installations are helping to debunk old-fashioned ideas about breastfeeding, and bring much needed attention to the lack of safe, private, non-bathroom space for breastfeeding in public places. Most states now have laws on the books protecting public breastfeeding. Federal law requires employers to provide break time and non-bathroom space for women to express breast milk.  In our newborn intensive care unit, as in many others, our breastfeeding rates are quite high — this is important as premature babies get extra benefits from breast milk, like protection from serious intestinal illness. But as the theme of 2015 World Breastfe...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Physician Pediatrics Source Type: blogs