Ask the Doula

It is 2:38 AM and I have just finished nursing my daughter back to sleep and as I stumble back to bed my stomach lets out a frightening growl and that cold feeling of hunger creeps into my belly.   Knowing that I will have a hard time going back to sleep unless I put something in my belly; I groggily try to decide what to do.   When I first came home from the hospital with my first child I had a hard time adjusting to the fact that I had to eat more than I ever had during my pregnancy to help maintain the needed calories for breastfeeding.   When none of your normal clothing fits, and you are looking for some semblance of the life you used to have prior to baby it is easy to understand why so many women are concerned about quickly losing all of our baby weight as soon as possible.   Grand plans for exercising and eating low calorie meals come to a screeching halt when faced with the reality of lacking energy as one recovers from labor and delivery and staying up with a hungry baby la

This month I have the opportunity to teach a new parenting class with the Natural Parenting Education Network of Lafayette.  (See Here) In preparation for the course I was reveiwing my resources for breastfeeding and came across a link on how to hand express breastmilk.  I encourage all moms and dads to watch this movie as it is very simple to understand and can be very beneficial for those wanting to breastfeed their babies.  Here is the link h ttp://newborns .stanford.edu/Breastfeeding/HandExpression.html Studies have shown that if hand expression 5 times a day is used in additon to the use of a breast pump, mothers produce up to 80% more milk.  And the more milk a mother is producing the easier it is to breastfeed your baby.  Knowing how to hand express is also helpful later in the nursing relationship in case your pump stops working, you need to relieve pressure while away from your baby, or for the mom that only needs to express enough for the occasional feeding that she wil