Now for a couple of public service announcements:
1) A friend of mine has started a google group for new moms - especially those with DE babies and/or IVF vets. She would like the window to be spring / summer 2008 babies. The hope is that it will be a place to share ideas / experiences (as time permits, of course). I am hoping to start a discussion about elimination communication. I am afraid I am not very good at it - at least not yet. I will post more about that topic later. Back on this topic . . . if you are interested, please send me an email at myinfertilityadventureATgmail.com or leave a comment with your email address and I will see that you get an invitation.
2) As so many of us do, I have already started thinking about how to give LB a sibling. Since I was reading breastfeeding books anyway (things are much better, btw) I looked into breastfeeding a first child while pregnant and then continuing to breastfeed the toddler after the baby was born. I found out that most meds are ok to take while breastfeeding (despite what most doctors will tell you), although I haven't looked into fresh IVF meds - the ones for a DE cycle are ok. Below is the response I got from Dr. Jack Newman's website -I liked his book on breastfeeding the best.
Yes, you can breastfeed while pregnant. Yes, the new baby will get colostrum.
1. The baby will suffer from lack of nutrients. There is no evidence for this if your diet is reasonable, and the experience of millions of women who nurse during pregnancy and give birth to healthy babies denies this also.
2. There is an increased risk of miscarriage. This is hard to document since 15-25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage during the first 3 months, so that if the mother is breastfeeding, breastfeeding is blamed. If she is not breastfeeding "it's just one of those things we can't explain".
There are issues however.
The mother may be sore, as nipple soreness is associated with a new pregnancy.
Fatigue is normal when you are pregnant early on, but I don't see why continuing breastfeeding is more tiring.
The milk supply does go down when you are pregnant, but you increase the toddler’s solids and have him/her drink more (from a cup, not a bottle, and not a sippy cup which is a bottle), or liquids can be mixed with her solids.
It is up to you actually. Nobody can force you to listen either to me or to the others.
For general breastfeeding information, see www.drjacknewman.com.
See also the first draft chapter on breastfeeding a toddler, from my book, Dr. Jack Newman's Guide to Breastfeeding (HarperCollins, 2nd revision 2005) as it's called in Canada, or The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers as it's called in the US (now out in a new edition, as of November 2006).
I now also have a new book out, published by Hale Publishing, called The Latch and other keys to Successful Breastfeeding. Ordering information is available at www.ibreastfeeding.com
We have an instructional DVD for breastfeeding called Dr. Jack Newman’s Visual Guide to Breastfeeding. For a preview and more information, see www.drjacknewman.com.
Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC
We no longer receive government funding for our clinic and are constantly on the edge of having to close. If you value this service, please consider a donation to the Canadian Breastfeeding Foundation (registered charity) and earmark the donation for the Newman Breastfeeding Clinic and Institute. You can donate through their website http://www.
canadianbreastfeedingfoundatio n.org/
4 comments:
ugh I just posted and it disappeared into the ether. UGH.
anyway, I'm surprised with the "no bottles or sippies" even at the toddler age... by then, BF'ing is plenty well established that they're not going to be confused. Ben had bottles from 1 month on, and he BF til 16 1/2 months, and I'm the one that stopped it, not him. He also had sippy cups! :)
And I have a friend who's PG with her second and "nursing" her first (19 months) even though she has no milk now. SHe's hoping to keep going til the new baby comes so she can tandem nurse. Weird to me that the baby still wants to even though there's no payoff of milk!
I'm curious to hear how the elimination communication goes for you guys... it is something I've been interested in, but then you know the whole getting pregnant and calmly breathing through hotflashes sort of distracted me a bit and took priority in my mind:)
A wonderful book that I can't live without is "Medications and Mother's Milk" by Jack Hale, PhD. His specialty is lactation pharmacology (hope I got that right); he teaches at a medical school. It will not give you tips on breastfeeding, but it will tell you what is safe to take, what is not, and suggest alternatives.
Both you and your doctor(s) will appreciate the way it is written. It's kind of expensive ($30 or so for a paperback), but it will help you win an argument with your doctor about whether you have to wean or not. It certainly helped me win an argument with my RE, who was dead set against my going forward with a medicated cycle while nursing.
I had to stop BF'ing when I TTC#2. My first is now 2...still no pregnancy. I was doing fresh stim cycles so I had to stop or the RE would not treat me. I wish I had waited now so I could have BF longer. But there was no way to have known how long TTC 2 would take. 1.75 years and counting.
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