From Nancy: Green poop? Baby poop is high on many new parents’ worry list. How often should baby poop? Does baby’s poop provide clues to how breastfeeding is going? What do color and consistency mean? When should you worry? Normal Color and Consistency Baby’s first stools are the black and tarry meconium that was in …
Milk Production Concerns
All Things Breastfeeding Episode 87: Parental Leave
In this episode, Barbara Robertson and Nancy Mohrbacher review recommendations and outcomes of parental leave policies around the world. Paid parental leave varies by country, but the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) has issued a new position statement for maternity leave guidelines, recommending at least 6 months of paid leave. Nancy and Barbara dive into …
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The Clock and Early Nursing
From Nancy: Time and nursing? The clock looms large in the lives of many nursing families. When a new baby is born, some parents are told or make assumptions about: How many minutes their baby should nurse How long their baby should be satisfied between feedings The longest stretch of time their baby should sleep …
All Things Breastfeeding Episode 85: Alicia’s Returning to Work, Travel and Breastfeeding Story
Working and breastfeeding! We have another parent interview episode! We were thrilled when Alicia reached out to us from across the country to offer to share different parts of her feeding journey with baby Grant, especially factors related to returning to work and breastfeeding. We discussed Grant’s week-long nursing strike soon after Alicia returned to …
Hand Expression: A Beautiful Tool
From Barbara: What is hand expression? Great question! Basically it means getting breast/chestmilk out of a lactation breast without a baby or a breast pump. At LactaLearning, hand expression is a typical tool we value and teach about because you never know when you might get caught with no baby, no pump, and a full …
When is pumping too much?
From Nancy: When Is Pumping Too Much, Not Enough, or Just Right? I’m often asked the question: “Do nursing parents need to pump in order to make enough milk?” The short answer is no. Effective breast pumps have been available for only about the past 70 years. Clearly humans have successfully nursed their babies for …
The Cost of Formula Feeding
From Barbara: What is the cost of formula feeding? As much as we are not fans of artificial baby milk, ie formula marketing, the product itself was created to help keep babies alive when human milk was not available. The first rule of lactation is feed the baby. The second rule is protect the parent’s milk supply. If we do not …
Relactation Basics
From Barbara: Do we really need to know about relactation? A few years ago in Michigan we experienced a crisis in formula availability. This led many families to think about the idea of “relactation” so they could rely on their bodies to feed their babies instead of outside resources. This often comes from a “Desire …
Nursing is Much More Than Milk
From Nancy: Nursing is much more than milk. When discussing lactation, the health effects of human milk often get top billing, but nursing gives children much more than calories and immune-boosting ingredients. Nursing provides sensory stimulation that enhances infant neurodevelopment.[1] It is one of baby’s first social interactions. The sucking of nursing calms and comforts …
Cow’s milk protein allergy?
Many of our families are told by well meaning health care professionals (or family or friends or social media…) that they need to eliminate dairy from their diet to cure fussiness and gas, basically a variety of normal newborn behaviors. Newborn babies are almost always fussy and gassy! Eliminating cow’s milk from a person’s diet …