Friday, November 28, 2003
In the last little while, I have been sort of over the top busy, and we had our Central Australia holiday but I have managed to squeeze in a few lactation related things.
I went to Geelong, one of my favourite places in the whole world and attended a seminar called Attachment the Sequel. Being breastfeeding I thought it was attchment as in position and..., but it was actually about psychological attachment between mother and babies. Well that was in fact a real treat and I learnt more about an area we don't think about very scientifically. There were presentations by a physio and also the team who are investigating whether thrush in the breast is in fact staphloccocal aureus. Very interesting to think about.
I presented a paper at the CLC Link group in Boroondara on Nov 17 about giving birth and breastfeeding outside your own culture. That was really fun, my first ever powerpoint.
A lunchtime seminar on achieving balance in your life by Motherinc had some great speakers, Pinky McKay, Ms Megabyte, Helen Skouteris, and so on, and I sat with the man who developed and markets the Peace baby music CDs for baby's sleep time. He and Pinly have a pack with a CD and her book 100 ways to calm the crying.
This was followed the same night by a trip to the theatre to see Mum's the Word,a TOTALLY hilarious play about mothering, lots of stories of birth, feeding, embarrassing moments with kids etc. I had tears pouring down my face I laughed so hard.
I attended the Melbourne meeting to gauge interest in starting up a branch of the alliance for the Transformation of the Lives of Children aTLC which has a very interesting Proclamation and Blueprint Wouldn't it be great if there was worldwide consensus of the importance of children!
Antenatal breastfeeding classes with Teresa at the Mercy hospital were great and showed me that I have been pretty much on target with what I have been doing in Tokyo. But she has the luxury of being in a large Baby Friendly Hospital where there are policies in place to ensure that there is minimum separation of mother and baby, no unnecessary bottles and formula, breast pumps everywhere, many qualified IBCLCs on staff....I usually feel like I have to "arm" the Tokyo mothers with info so they can go out and fight for their rights with the hospitals!
And finally today, I observed at Lisa Amir's clinic in Richmond, where she had several cases of thrush (to be expected when she is the world's authority!) and I heard many interesting birth and feeding stories. There was one mother who reported pain in her breast consistent with the other thrush symptoms she has been having within only one hour after eating foods she was advised not to eat. This was regardless of whther that was a time baby was feeding or not. Lisa says the main offenders usually are cantalope, grapes, beer, champagne and vegemite(now that would have to be specific to here I suppose!)
Lisa also clipped one 2 week old baby's tight frenulum, after doing an assessment and discussing the procedure very thoroughly with the mother. Luckily after the clip was done, the mother had no pain when feeding any more. A happy ending to a very emotional 2 weeks for the mother.
I am still planning more but time is running out! Will post more later.
I went to Geelong, one of my favourite places in the whole world and attended a seminar called Attachment the Sequel. Being breastfeeding I thought it was attchment as in position and..., but it was actually about psychological attachment between mother and babies. Well that was in fact a real treat and I learnt more about an area we don't think about very scientifically. There were presentations by a physio and also the team who are investigating whether thrush in the breast is in fact staphloccocal aureus. Very interesting to think about.
I presented a paper at the CLC Link group in Boroondara on Nov 17 about giving birth and breastfeeding outside your own culture. That was really fun, my first ever powerpoint.
A lunchtime seminar on achieving balance in your life by Motherinc had some great speakers, Pinky McKay, Ms Megabyte, Helen Skouteris, and so on, and I sat with the man who developed and markets the Peace baby music CDs for baby's sleep time. He and Pinly have a pack with a CD and her book 100 ways to calm the crying.
This was followed the same night by a trip to the theatre to see Mum's the Word,a TOTALLY hilarious play about mothering, lots of stories of birth, feeding, embarrassing moments with kids etc. I had tears pouring down my face I laughed so hard.
I attended the Melbourne meeting to gauge interest in starting up a branch of the alliance for the Transformation of the Lives of Children aTLC which has a very interesting Proclamation and Blueprint Wouldn't it be great if there was worldwide consensus of the importance of children!
Antenatal breastfeeding classes with Teresa at the Mercy hospital were great and showed me that I have been pretty much on target with what I have been doing in Tokyo. But she has the luxury of being in a large Baby Friendly Hospital where there are policies in place to ensure that there is minimum separation of mother and baby, no unnecessary bottles and formula, breast pumps everywhere, many qualified IBCLCs on staff....I usually feel like I have to "arm" the Tokyo mothers with info so they can go out and fight for their rights with the hospitals!
And finally today, I observed at Lisa Amir's clinic in Richmond, where she had several cases of thrush (to be expected when she is the world's authority!) and I heard many interesting birth and feeding stories. There was one mother who reported pain in her breast consistent with the other thrush symptoms she has been having within only one hour after eating foods she was advised not to eat. This was regardless of whther that was a time baby was feeding or not. Lisa says the main offenders usually are cantalope, grapes, beer, champagne and vegemite(now that would have to be specific to here I suppose!)
Lisa also clipped one 2 week old baby's tight frenulum, after doing an assessment and discussing the procedure very thoroughly with the mother. Luckily after the clip was done, the mother had no pain when feeding any more. A happy ending to a very emotional 2 weeks for the mother.
I am still planning more but time is running out! Will post more later.
