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July 2017

The BIG Latch On 2017 Logo in color

The Big Latch On – Grand Rapids 2017

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World breastfeeding week is coming up! Why do we care?  

Each year, World Breastfeeding Week presents many opportunities to celebrate and promote breastfeeding. From August 1-7, this global movement strives to support breastfeeding by cultivating awareness and cooperation within and between communities worldwide. One big way we come together during World Breastfeeding week is with The Global Big Latch On.

The Big Latch On: 

The Global Big Latch On was started in 2010, and has since taken place annually during World Breastfeeding Week every August. Big Latch On events are held in communities throughout the world, with the shared goal to protect, promote & support families, strengthen support for breastfeeding, and improve the health of children and women around the world.

The Global Big Latch On reports that these events are “community initiatives that raise awareness of breastfeeding, encourage the formation of support networks between breastfeeding persons, and aim to normalize breastfeeding as a part of daily life”.

What to expect when you attend a Big Latch On Event:

Families with breastfeeding children (this includes all forms of providing breastmilk, including pumped milk, supplemental nursing systems, etc.) gather together to show support for our breastfeeding community, and to be counted for the Global Big Latch On count – where we strive to break the record numbers that were set the previous year. When you arrive you’ll be asked to sign in, get comfortable, and then at the same time, all the nursing babies/kids at each event location will be instructed to “latch on” (or otherwise demonstrate their means of receiving breastmilk), the organizers will count each participant, and send those numbers in to The Global Big Latch On headquarters be tallied with the numbers from other events all over the world.

Often there are snacks provided, fun giveaways, and an opportunity to connect with other families as well as some local family-friendly businesses and services.

Since 2010, attendance to these events has skyrocketed. In 2010 there were 147 total locations with ~2,000 babies counted. Just 6 years later in 2016, there were 758 locations in 21 countries, with nearly 18,000 nursing babies/children counted! Last year in Grand Rapids we had 45 nursing babies. We’re sure 2017 is going to be even bigger. Come help us break some records!

More information is available here.

With events planned for all around the world, including multiple locations in Michigan, we excitedly prepare to come together in Grand Rapids at our own local Big Latch On Event on Saturday, August 5th 10:00am-11:30am at Briggs Park in NE Grand Rapids. Make sure to sign in before 10:30am to be counted! Bring your picnic blanket and get comfy, mingle with other families, or just come to show your support.

Global Big Latch On objectives:

  • Provide support for communities to identify and grow opportunities to provide ongoing breastfeeding support and promotion in local communities.
  • Raise awareness of breastfeeding support and knowledge available locally and globally.
  • Help communities positively support breastfeeding in public places.
  • Make breastfeeding as normal part of day-to-day life at a local community level.
  • Increase support for women who breastfeed – women are supported by their partners, family and their communities.
  • Ensure communities have the resources to advocate for coordinated appropriate and accessible breastfeeding support services.

Other related World Breastfeeding Week Celebrations include Express Yourself (for all those women who provide breast milk to their child/children without latching them and those that donate milk either formally or informally) and Selfies Sunday (a count of all breastfeeding or expressing selfies posted on Sunday, August 6th with the hashtag #mybiglatchon).

Why is this important? Why do we participate?

Breastfeeding around the world deserves recognition and celebration! Some people don’t understand the hype around breastfeeding promotion. After all, we each have the right to feed how we choose; why all the attention for breastfeeding? Well, while I agree that parents should never be bullied or shamed about their feeding choices, I believe (and research consistently supports) that most parents, to varying degrees, want to breastfeed. We know this because the vast majority of families in the United States start off breastfeeding, or at least make an effort to. But despite this obvious desire to provide breastmilk, there remains a wide discrepancy between what is recommended, parents’ reported goals, and what is actually being done.

And we know that breastmilk is not only valuable to individuals for optimal nutrition, immune properties, and more, but many don’t realize how much breastfeeding is also an important and growing public health issue, as breastfeeding is associated with lower rates of obesity, diabetes, and many other health concerns that extend beyond infancy.

In the United States, breastfeeding initiation rates are quite high (80-90+% in many states), but quickly decline within the first 3 months (despite recommendations by both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics to provide breastmilk exclusively for 6 months).

We are not meeting our national breastfeeding goals, and in many cases not our individual goals either. Reasons for this vary from family to family, but three big ones are:

  1. Lack of breastfeeding education: Lack of understanding about normal breastfed baby behavior, lack of understanding about how breastmilk production works, lack of information and resources for troubleshooting issues when challenges do arise.

Studies suggest that more than 90% of breastfeeding moms report having struggled or encountered a challenge during the early weeks of breastfeeding. This statistic isn’t intended to be discouraging, but rather to normalize the experience of struggling to breastfeed, to say, “just because you experience a problem doesn’t mean breastfeeding isn’t right for you or isn’t going to work for you”. Often it’s just a matter of having access to good information and support to get through the rough patches.

  1. Going back to work or school: Poor maternity leave rights and lack of options put most U.S. women in a position to return to work in the early months of life, often sooner than they may want to, which can disrupt the breastfeeding relationship.
  2. Lack of community support: Breastfeeding in the U.S. has been on the rise since the early 1990s, but we still don’t have a deep breastfeeding culture. Formula-feeding is still very much a cultural norm in many parts of the country. We no longer live in villages with extended family and other parents caring for babies in community. We suffer from a deficit of breastfeeding normalization, meaning most of us in the U.S. don’t experience many opportunities to witness, watch and learn from other breastfeeding moms when we are young. Many modern parents enter their own breastfeeding relationships in relative isolation, with little understanding of breastfeeding norms, and oftentimes less than adequate support to meet their own goals.

In many parts of the world, including the United States, breastfeeding can really benefit from more attention and support.

2017 marks World Breastfeeding Week’s 25th year. This year’s theme is about working together for the common good! Working together to “call on advocates and activists, attract political support, media attention, participation of young people and widen the pool of celebrants and supporters”.

Let’s come together in West Michigan to support one another, support healthy babies, and strengthen our breastfeeding community locally and globally!

Author: Shira Johnson, IBCLC

 

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Healthy Breakfast for Kids

[un]common sense: redefining breakfast one bowl at a time

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[un]common sense is a blog about navigating through everyday life, using some common sense tips to make it just a bit easier, and sometimes a little more fun. Alyssa is a wife, mother, and postpartum doula who has some tricks up her sleeve and wants to share them with the world. Well now, don’t you feel lucky?

Your child’s daily breakfast probably consists of cereal, right? And if you allowed it, so would lunch and dinner. At least in my house, that’s what would happen…cereal for every meal! My daughter loves cereal, like possibly as much as she loves me.

Most of us know it’s not the healthiest way to start our day, but I don’t know many kids who will sit down to a flaxseed and barley bowl in the morning (except my friend Julia’s kids). So what’s a parent to do?

I’ve come up with a few tricks to at least make breakfast a smidge healthier for the wee ones.

  • Instead of cereals loaded with sugar (which most are), find cereals that have 8 grams of sugar or less. You can add sweetness with raw honey or fruit on top.
  • Try getting your kids to eat oatmeal. Plain oatmeal. Not the prepackaged crap that’s flavored and full of sugar. Again, sweeten with honey or fruit.
  • Make your own granola. I know, I know. Who has the time right? But it’s actually super easy and something that the kids can help with. Making your own allows you to control how it’s sweetened, usually with honey or maple syrup.
  • If you don’t want to make your own, buy granola at the store. But the same rules apply, look for granola low in sugar.
  • Try yogurt in the morning with fruit and granola. Shocker, yogurt is also full of sugar! I know how delicious the vanilla flavored Greek yogurt is, but just check out the label. Go ahead, I’ll wait….see? Go for the plain yogurt and add honey, fruit, and granola. It’s delicious.
  • My final tip here is the most important….add things to the cereal/granola/oatmeal to make it even healthier. Get sneaky. Hide behind the open refrigerator door to add stuff without the kids seeing if you need to. I’ve started adding fish oil, a probiotic, and vitamin d to my daughter’s breakfast every morning. She has no idea. And I’ve had no complaints.

Side note: You can add anything you’d like, obviously taking into consideration any food allergies or sensitivities your child may have. Even if your kid will only eat frozen waffles or toast in the morning, do what you can to add some nutrition. The fish oil I use tastes like key lime pie, so I’ve used it as “syrup” on waffles for my daughter. The probiotic has no taste and neither does the liquid vitamin d. Be sure to talk to your health care provider first to make sure they approve of you adding these things. Mine is all for it.

See the video below to watch the magic unfold.

See, it’s simple. Just add all sorts of wonderfully healthy things to their breakfast and they’ll be none the wiser. Get creative with your ideas. It’s okay to be sneaky!

 

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HypnoBirthing

Kerry – A HypnoBirthing Birth Story

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We love hearing birth stories from our HypnoBirthing students. Kerry had a rough ride but made it through three days of labor in the hospital, smiling in the end because of the tools and techniques she learned in Ashley’s HypnoBirthing Classes.

“I just wanted to shoot you a note thanking you so very much for all your help before we went through our birthing process. I went into the hospital on Sunday and gave birth to our boy on Tuesday. There were some complications so the birth was pretty tough, but I did get to do it vaginally despite quite a bit of c section discussion amongst the doctors. Ryan was a great coach and, despite my strict instructions to not look where the action was, he was super interested and watched basically the whole time!

At 20 inches long, 7lbs 12 oz at birth, little Benjamin Martin Racicot made his way into the world in a dramatic way. We were in the hospital for days while they tried to induce my labor. We went in on Sunday as the doctor told me there was some concern for still birth so she wanted to induce before I hit 40 weeks. They gave me three sets of pills to try and dilate me as I came in at zero cm throughout the night on Sunday. Monday morning I was still at zero cm so they inserted a balloon which was completely horrid, perhaps the worst part of the entire birthing experience. I started to have contractions right after insertion, but not before I told Ryan to go run to the cafeteria to eat something and assured him I would be fine. So there I am, all alone, experiencing contractions for the first time. Monday night I was at 4cm, and by 6:00 Tuesday morning I made it to 10 cm.

I was in active labor for about 12 hours on Tuesday and eventually had to push for 3 1/2 hours. Ben’s heart rate kept dropping with my contractions so there was some concern, and when he started to make his way into the world we found out why. We saw the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck… twice! The doctors made me stop mid push to cut the cord to prevent strangulation. Then he got stuck two more times while I was pushing. To make matters worse, my contractions became farther apart until they were about 15 minutes apart. I had him hanging out of me for about 45 minutes and would just have to wait to push! It was insane!

In the end, he burst into the world and has been a happy and healthy baby. A bit of a night owl, but we are finding our rhythm. Breastfeeding has been tough; I’m in an intense engorgement period at the moment. I look like Pamela Anderson circa Baywatch and am just wildly uncomfortable. They are hard as rocks and nothing I have fits. I basically look like a porn star with a baby. So that’s cool. The healing process has been tough enough as it is without having to carry around boulders on my chest.

Ryan has been waiting on me and the baby hand and foot. It has been a remarkable experience and really brought us even closer than before. Ben has been an incredible reward as well. Not to mention I haven’t changed a single diaper since the birth and, while I am sure that will change soon enough, it hasn’t been a bad deal so far!

Anyway, hope you are doing well, and again, thank you so much for all you did. Without the tools we picked up in your class, I’m not sure I would have made it through this crazy process!

All my best,
Kerry”

 

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mom guilt

Mom Guilt: How to Survive it and Grow from it

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Today’s guest blogger is a past birth client of ours, Nicole Vega, LMSW, CHC. Nicole is a fully licensed clinician and certified health coach. Nicole received her Master’s in Clinical Social Work in 2012 from Western Michigan University and became certified as a health coach in 2016. Her work is founded on the principle that individuals are the experts of their own lives, and therefore their own best healers. Nicole believes it is her role to establish a safe therapeutic space where she can assist her clients in focusing on their strengths and uncovering the tools needed to address what is causing them discomfort and stress in their lives; which may be manifesting as anxiety, depression, weight gain or other obstacles.

Today’s blog is going to focus on the guilt that many mother’s feel. Although both parents can experience feelings of guilt, it seems to be more prominent in mothers, but these tips are beneficial to all parents.

If you are a mother, or an expectant mother, it is likely that you’ve experienced at least some degree of “mom guilt”. In an article from BabyCenter.com, Top 7 mommy guilt trips – and how to handle them, the author describes mom guilt as something a whopping 94% of moms admit to having experienced. Mom guilt does not pick and choose who it affects and it does not simply affect stay-at-home moms, or working moms, or those who juggle life somewhere in between. It affects nearly every mom!

To the parents reading this today who are currently experiencing guilt, or who have in the past, please know this; you are doing enough; odds are you are doing more than enough.

So what is mom guilt exactly? Mom guilt often presents as that sinking feeling we as moms have when we think we are not doing enough for our children. That “I wish I could afford all organic everything, cook every meal from scratch, and not miss a moment of my children’s life” type of thoughts. That feeling of not being “enough” for your children. In some circumstances, mom guilt can even turn into anxiety or depression. The good news for all you moms/parents reading this today is there are ways to decrease these feelings of not being enough. As a mother of two myself, I can completely relate to mom guilt in its many forms. Though I do not believe you can eliminate all feelings of guilt related to parenting, I do believe you can find great ways to cope and to make the moments in which you experience this type of guilt less daunting.

So here is my go-to list of ways to combat mom guilt; but remember, for these tips to work you have to actually use them and implement them as much as possible on the days, weeks, and months when mom guilt has you struggling the most.

Tip #1: FIND YOUR TRIBE: Find a group of people to support you during these long days but fast flying years. Think of the expression you’ve probably heard a million times, “It takes a village”. Well, it does take a village. This group will look different for everyone. It maybe a group you create at church, with mothers from your children’s school, work friends, or maybe even people within your family. The amazing thing here is that you get to design this group and determine who will be a part of your tribe. It really is a beautiful thing, and is vital to getting through the trappings of mommy guilt.

Tip #2: DEVELOP YOUR OWN SELF-CARE TOOLKIT: There are about a million different articles and posts on what self-care is, or what people believe it “should be”. I, however, have come to understand that self-care is different for everyone. I have seen this in my own life and as a clinician and certified health coach working directly with other women. I think often we see self-care as having to be elaborate, when in reality, that just simply is not an option for the majority of moms. So finding simple things you can do that truly work for you is key. Your tool kit may include having consistent date nights with your spouse/partner, developing a yoga practice, taking a relaxing epsom salt bath, or maybe something as simple as having 10 minutes a day to read a book you love. This toolkit will require some trial and error, and in many cases require you to ask for help from others, but hey since you’re going to find a nice tribe to become a part of, you’ve now got a ton of built in babysitters just a call away!

Tip #3: FIND A FORM OF MOVEMENT THAT YOU LOVE: Similar to your self-care toolkit, finding movement that you love will require some trial and error, but once you find what works, it’s a game changer! Healthy-healing movement can be a number of things: dance, martial arts, yoga, kickboxing, running, walking, barre, or cycling. All these are just a few great options to choose from. An amazing thing about being a parent today, is we have access to so many great options of movement, many of which you can do from the comfort of your own home (some of which are completely free). When I’m working with clients as a coach (who have been cleared for adding movement into their routine) I begin by asking them what types of movement they enjoyed before it became about “weight loss” or “having to workout”. I do this because participating in movement that you actually enjoy creates a mindset shift, which in turn creates a shift in your body. It has taken me many years to find what “my movement” is, and I am still surprised to say that for me it’s yoga. I am surprised because when I was much younger I used to despise yoga and found it boring. I now have learned that yoga may not always be exciting for me, but it is always healing.

Now I could offer a few more tips in this article, but I find that once you give more than three, people become overwhelmed and have difficulty even choosing one to incorporate into their lifestyle, at least initially. As a certified health coach and therapist who works primarily with women (many of which being mothers) one-on-one I am able to help women learn to implement the tools I mentioned here, as well as, assisting them in developing more. My goal is to help my clients move forward feeling empowered in their role as a mother and less overwhelmed by it.

If you are feeling like you are experiencing more than just infrequent episodes of mom guilt and are feeling overwhelmed, depressed, or in a state of anxiety over the many hats you wear as a parent, I’d love to help! As a health coach and therapist, I create my sessions and programs to meet your needs, so you can achieve your goals. I am driven by a person-centered focus when working with clients, rather than a specific model of care. I can see clients both locally in my office or via tele-health services.

If you are in a stage in life where you would like to investigate therapy or coaching, you can contact me directly at http://healthforlifegr.com/experts/nicole-vega/ .

 

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