A comprehensive longitudinal study in Australia (not yet in the journals - looking forward to getting my hands on the published paper!) has shown that children who were breastfed for less than 6m as babies, had increased risk of mental health problems at age 2, 6 and 10 years.  The mental health problems they cite include ‘deliquent, aggressive and anti-social behaviour’ and being more depressed, anxious and withdrawn.  Of course, as with any ‘risk’ that’s all it is - an increased chance, not a definite ‘if you don’t breastfeed for longer than 6m, your child will be mentally ill’!  The researchers assert that the results stand true even when adjusted for ‘socio-economic situation, education, happiness and family functioning’.

What I find interesting about this study, though, is not the results (although, of course, they’re pleasing to me!), but what the researchers put the results down to:

‘Researcher Dr Wendy Oddy said the findings add to growing evidence that bio-activity in breast milk played an important role in the rapid early brain development that occurs in the first year of life.’

The reason I find it interesting is because I (and I imagine a number of psychologists etc.) would put it down to the attachment to their mothers that babies inevitably experience if they are breastfed, attachment that they are expecting and are often denied.  This is not to say that artificially fed babies can’t experience these levels of attachment - if their mothers recognise the need for close attachment, then they’ll get it however they are fed.  The thing is that whether or not a breastfeeding mother recognises the need for close attachment to her baby, the baby will get more than an unattached artificially fed baby (as opposed to an artificially fed baby whose mother recognises the need for attachment).  It is impossible to breastfeed without frequent episodes skin-to-skin contact and cuddles, whereas it is perfectly possible to bottle feed an infant with no cuddles at all, let alone skin-to-skin contact.  I believe that for babies and toddlers breastmilk is the bonus of breastfeeding, not the reason for it!  The happy hormone levels increase the minute a baby latches on and starts suckling, whether or not there is any milk flowing - suckling is such a powerful calming action, which is why so many babies are happy with dummies.  Skin-to-skin contact with any adult has been shown to speed up babies’ development and boost heaps of different body functions - immune system, intelligence etc.  It also helps them to learn to regulate their body temperature, heart rate and breathing much faster.  So who care’s what’s actually in the breasts?  Ok, so breastmilk itself is pretty magical, and of course it is the most perfect milk for human babies but the babies are getting so much from being latched on to their mother’s breast, even if we don’t take the milk itself into account.  And that’s what I put the lower levels of childhood mental illness down to, and why I think it’s unfair to mothers of artificially fed babies to put it down solely to the constituents of breastmilk, as it is perfectly possible to get such levels of attachment if you’re bottle-feeding a baby.  Maybe they need to repeat the study with all babies who are attachment parented regardless of how they are fed, to see if the results are similar…

I’ve just been looking at our local LEA’s website and the information they have there seems to indicate that they’re going to be particularly interfering.  They go on and on about home visits and inspecting children’s work and there’s a form they ‘request’ that we fill in if we’re intending to HE and one of the questions on it is ‘how do you intend to ensure that your child gets to have social interaction with other children?’.  I’m wondering how long we can stay ‘hidden’ for simply because I don’t want to have to answer to anyone!  I know that we are a million times better placed to educate our children than school teachers, yet we’re going to have people breathing down our necks wanting to see work our children have done to ‘prove’ what they know!  My children just don’t do things unless they want to do them, and I want it to stay that way.  I don’t want them to do things to show me or anyone else what they know or can do - I want them to be able to do the things they want to be able to do!  Thank goodness there is such a good support network in the UK now for HEors.  To be honest, I don’t envisage any problems with proving that Flopsy and Mopsy are capable of anything, as they are ahead of most children their age in many things - that’s not showing off, it’s just the way they are and I’d be just as happy if they were behind other children their age.  What I want is for them to do things as and when they want to, not as and when I, or the LEA ‘Home Visitor’/government wants them to.  I don’t care about some random targets some random person has invented for children - if my children don’t want to reach them, then that’s fine by me!  I’m in the process of deciding what I’m going to do with the letters I’ve been warned by other local HEing families that the LEA will be sending me this year…if I ignore them (which I’d ideally like to do!), I’m told they’ll say ‘if you don’t tell us where your child is going to school, you won’t get your first choice and we’ll just allocate them a place at your most local school’.  Ok, this is illegal (I’m told) but will just cause more hassle, surely than would happen if I just ‘played the game’ in the first place and told them we were HEing, but then we’ll get them at our door saying ’show us your children’s work’.  I’ve been advised that we might get away with replying and saying ‘we’re making private arrangments’ but it seems that our LEA is quite clued up (lots of HEing families in our area) and will probably suss us out.  So it seems they’re going to force us to tell them what we’re up to, as if they register Flopsy with a school (whether they do it legally or illegally), we’ll have to deregister her, or at least get into a battle with them to get them to admit they are in the wrong - sneaky so-and-so’s!  In an ideal world, the LEA would know nothing about us, and we could just get on with our lives with no interference, allowing our children to live as they want and learn as they want to and not asking them to prove periodically to some stranger that they are learning.  Of course, I could just let the inspectors (sorry - ‘home visitors’ - as if that term sounds less busy-body!) speak to the girls and they’d soon work out that they’re doing ok, but then I have to let them have access to my children, which I also don’t want!  So, our plan is:

 1. Ignore any letters we get and deal with any more worrying ones as and when they come with the support and advice of those who know the law better than we do

2. Enjoy what may be the last year we have of not having to justify ourselves to anyone

Flopsy’s just announced:

“I’m going to be a naughty girl today, Mummy!”

Fantastic!  Can’t wait for the day to get going then…

On Thursday, it’ll officially be only 8 weeks to go until our baby’s due and I haven’t got anything ready, really!  It’s just going too fast - I keep thinking ‘oh I don’t need to sort out baby’s clothes/buy Christmas presents/find Mopsy’s old nappies/think of names yet - it’s ages to go!’ and then suddenly another week’s gone by and I remember all the masses of things I have to have ready for when the baby comes and I get all concerned - for all of five minutes until I forget about it again.  Then the next week comes by…and so on!  I’m really going to have to start writing lists and making myself deadlines so that I know I’ll get it all done in time for me to have a bit of a rest before the big stuff starts happening.

Well my tutor has just sent me her comments on my final essay and she’s posting it off to be second assessed!  I’ve been working hard putting together my final portfolio, which I’ve got to get copied, bound and sent off to a designated NCT BFC Tutor who’ll assess it and hopefully award me my license to practice by the end of Jan!!!  Then the university exam board is in February, so I need to get all my essays to them by the beginning of Jan and then I’ll get awarded my diploma (hopefully!) in April.  I’ve nearly done all the work I need to do and I can’t tell you how happy and sad I feel about it.

Mopsy has been feeding like a newborn at night lately, and it’s really tiring me out.  I’ve tried saying ‘no’ and offering other drinks etc. but it just leads to screaming, as does DH trying to settle her instead.  I’ve started to wonder whether it’s because I’m not feeding her enough in the day time.  It’s nothing to do with nourishment, as there’s hardly any milk there now - it’s solely to do with her normal emotional attachment to breastfeeding.  But, being pg and tired, I’ve been saying ‘no’ an awful lot in the day time, and only letting her feed for a few seconds etc.  So today I’ve been letting her feed whenever she wants and for however long she wants in the hope that she tops up enough on her breastfeeding during the day that she doesn’t need to spend so much time doing it at night!  However, the downside is the braxton hicks contractions!  They’re so strong now, particularly when she’s been feeding for a while, and they last for ages too.  And I’ve got another 9 weeks+ of them getting stronger as I get more pg!  I suppose it’ll be very good practice for my yoga breathing if they actually start to hurt rather than just be very uncomfortable things they are at the moment.

Well I think we can safely say Flopsy has a good grasp of how counting works - she’s just worked her way up to 49 with no help whatsoever, then gone onto 100 with me saying which ‘ten’ comes next ie. she needed me to say ‘fifty’, ’sixty’, ’seventy’, ‘eighty’, ‘ninety’ and ‘a hundred’ - she then had a go at 101-110 but has just decided that it’s too much of a mouthful to say ‘a hundred and eleven’ and stopped.  What a clever little bunny she is :-)  Mopsy can count to 7 although only confidently if she’s doing it with someone else.  I love, love, love watching them learn!

Well all the kind messages and positive vibes seem to have done the trick as last night went really well. I came away feeling very elated. My tutor said she was happy and, more importantly, the parents feedback suggested they were too!

Firstly I did an ice-breaker - your name and something good about bfing, not necessarily a proven benefit, just a good point. I was concerned people might run out of things to say (10 parents there!), but they seemed to manage ok and we got some really good intrinsic motivation type answers: cheap/lose weight quicker/closer bonding - which was what I really was hoping for.

Then I did the attachment and positioning bit - I did an exercise with straws and orange quarters first of all - this shows how a baby doesn’t suck at the breast like it does on a bottle, but needs a wide open mouth, a good mouthful of breast/orange and not to have his chin on his chest or his head turned to one side. The exercise worked really well, which was lucky!  I was dreading them not ‘getting’ it or managing to get loads of juice through the straw or something like that!  I then showed them my knitted breast and talked about hard/soft palates and where the nipple should be in baby’s mouth - they all seemed to get that too and afterwards a few of them said they’d had no idea that it was so important. Thankfully one of the mums brought up mastitis so I got to really impress on them all the reasons that a&p is so important. Then I got the dads to have a go at positioning with the dolls as I talked them through it, and then I went over it a second time while the mums had a go and I showed them the baby eleanor photos (a sequence of photos of a well latched breastfeed).

I wanted to do a quick energiser next, but I wasn’t happy with it, and neither was one of the parents! I just wanted to get them moving and will have to think of a more ‘useful’ one to use next time I think - maybe a more bf specific one. Last night I did ‘get yourselves in a line in order of your dates of birth and then in order of your baby’s due dates’.

I asked for specific feedback for the baby visualisation exercise I devised, which I did after the energiser, and it seemed to go down really well. I did it in 8 stages, talking the parents through the early parts of a baby’s life and asking after each stage what they thought the baby might be feeling. Some of the parents thought that fewer, longer stages might be better and I am tending to agree with them, so will be changing the script for my second class which is in November. The feedback from the parents has made me decide that I’ll definitely keep using it and working on it - no exercise will ever please everyone and I’m really happy with the percentage of parents who said it did help them. It stimulated a lot of discussion afterwards about bed-sharing and whether going to a crying baby spoils it or not.

Then we had a break during which I asked them to choose cards from a table with closed questions on them. The questions were all designed so that we would definitely cover everything they’d asked for as well as salient points I wanted to re-iterate myself. Some of them were re-capping what we’d already talked about. I let/encouraged them to discuss each one in turn and choose what answer they wanted (yes, no or maybe), interjecting bits of relevant info here and there myself. The discussion it stimulated was brilliant and I didn’t have to say very much at all, except for clearing up uncertainties etc.

The timing was fine (surprisingly as I kept forgetting to look at my watch and there was no clock there!), and the order of the exercises seemed to work well too - by the final discussion, they were all focussing on feelings a huge amount and had really ‘got’ the idea that what they do with their babies is down to them, not the experts. Right at the end, one Dad said ‘There’s one question we haven’t covered - up until what age should you bfeed a baby?’ - my heart sank. I smiled and said ‘You’re asking this question now, with only five minutes to go???’ - everyone laughed so I thought they seemed amenable and put the question to the group as suggested at our workshop. Guess what three of the mums and one dad said straight away??? “When you feel ready to stop”!!! It really made my day, I can tell you. I mentioned the natural age of toddlers self-weaning and also the LLL statement (which I love) that bfing is beneficial as long as mum *and* baby are both happy with it.

I wish I’d done the class the evening before DH’s day off as I really want to get on with writing the essay now while it’s all fresh in my mind, but the girls are both clamouring for attention so no chance of that happening! 

My tutor is coming to collect me in two hours (as a friend, for a favour - the way I wrote it makes it sound like she’s coming to get me from my cell to take me to the gallows!) and at 7.30pm, the class begins.  Feeling quite het-up now - I really am going to try to hide upstairs for half an hour to do some yoga.  It calms me down so much so hopefully it will set me up for the evening ahead.

yay!  Mopsy wants a feed - I can’t get on with my work while she’s feeding!

I’m nearly completely ready for the big night tonight, but there are a few loose ends I need to tie up and I keep finding other things to do!  What’s the matter with me?

1. Make up packs of handouts - one for each couple

2. Panic

3. Cut up oranges for my ‘best way to get milk out of a breast (or orange quarter)’ exercise

4. Yoga to prevent panicking 

5. Make sure that the girls haven’t depleted my straws stash too much and that I still have enough for the above exercise

6. Panic some more 

7. Print off 12 feedback forms for the parents to fill in after the class

8. Call Antenatal Teacher to reassure her that I have got a set of dolls for demonstrating attachment and positioning

9. Panic again - do some more yoga

10. Make sure I’ve got enough pens for all the parents

11. Write down a quick crib-sheet so I remember all the house-keeping & ground rules stuff to say at the beginning

 Ok, so I’m not panicking quite as much as I’m making out here - I think the procrastinating is my way of not getting to that stage ie. if I don’t ever get ready it’ll never happen!  I just have to remind myself of three things:

1. The most important thing that they take away from the class is that they think I’m approachable and they know how to contact me and other support when they need it

2. The second important thing that they take away is that they have an idea of the principles of good positioning and attachment so that they have some chance of not getting sore in the early days if it doesn’t come naturally to them

3. That they will remember not much else unless it comes from their frame of reference so focussing on them, their feelings, and the facts that are important to them is what I need to do - less scary than thinking of all the things I might forget to mention!

These are my excuses for not getting on with things so far:

1. Need the loo - done

2. Need to order birth pool - done (yippee! - very excited about that one!)

3. Need the loo again (justified as I am 6.5m pg!) - done

4. Can’t possibly justify needing the loo again…

5. Write a blog post - done twice now!

6. Oh no!  I can’t think of anything else justifiable (reading Heat magazine doesn’t really count as a necessary chore!)!  Ok, on with the work…