Hi, my name is Wintergreen and I’m a Trustee to Common Knowledge Trust that produces the Pink Kit Method for Birthing Better … {NOW KNOWN AS BIRTHINGBETTER}
Everyone knows that after pregnancy you have a baby. In the next series of talks, I’m gonna talk about learning to read the language of a newborn baby up to three days and then from three days to ten days and from ten days to six weeks. These are markers of development up until the time a baby really smile.
These next few talks will be on the first 72 hours, then I’ll talk about 72 hours to ten days and then from ten days to six or seven weeks. Often you hear first time parents exclaim after the baby is born, ‘Oh my baby’s so good, he or she doesn’t cry’ and all of us who have more than one child knows that the first 72 hours after the birth very few babies cry, they sleep all the time, the reason they sleep all the time is they were just born, it’s a lot of work to be born, in fact it’s a lot of work for us to give birth so we’re often tired.
We may be very energized but we also need the time to recover so the first 72 hours after birth is a time when everybody chills and that’s important. Baby needs to rest and so do we, we have to recover from the birth and we also have to let our body prepare for the next phase which is breast feeding and parenting.
Now in no traditional culture in the world is there any documentation that says that if anyone nurses cholesterum, this is a new modern day decision, in fact traditional people thought colostrum was related to the pregnancy and was considered to be dirty milk and they felt that it caused upset stomachs in the baby and sore nipples in the mother. Colostrum is very good for babies and it’s in the breast milk once it comes in.
You can choose whether you nurse colostrum and a baby will decide whether it’s eager for the breast, some babies latch right on right after birth and others don’t, in fact they won’t latch on until they can smell the milk, so you have to make a choice, if you want to breastfeed colostrum before the milk comes in, then go ahead and breastfeed. There are strong evidence from women that when you nurse a baby on a dry breast, that you’re more likely to have dry and cracked nipples.
This is caused by over sucking, if there’s no milk a baby doesn’t fill up so it just continues to suck. Nursing colstrum doesn’t help bring your milk in because if you lose a baby at six months your milk will come in, the milk will just come in and you have to decide whether you want to nurse right after birth.
If your baby eagerly latches on and your breasts don’t get sore, then you’re going to feel great about nursing after birth, however if your baby is reluctant to attach itself and you get frustrated, then you’re creating an aversion to your breasts and you don’t want to do that and if you’re breasts are very sore they’re going to get sorer so you don’t want to do that either.
If you find that your baby doesn’t latch on or your breasts get sore or you choose not to nurse cholesterum and you wait for your milk to come in, then it’s really important to find out if your baby is dehydrated or not and give the baby something to hydrate itself.
Either way a baby doesn’t get a lot of fluid until the milk comes in and to find out whether your baby is dehydrated, just slightly stroke the belly of the baby or take a look and see if it’s flaky. If the belly feels dry to you, the baby needs fluid. You can decide what fluid to give. Traditional communities give many things, the Tibetans give ghee (clarified butter) and in another traditional community they traditionally gave the sting of a scorpion and a wasp to immunize children.
Other cultures have wet nurses, so if during the first 72 hours you decide to wait until your milk comes in, it is important to make certain your baby is hydrated and cleans the meconium out of its system. I know that there’s a very strong breast feeding culture that says never give the baby anything else and nurse cholesterum and start as soon as the baby’s born.
However we also know that there’s a very low breast feeding rate and part of the reason is because many babies are naturally reluctant to feed. Mum’s and babies get frustrated and women can get very sore nipples from babies who over suck because they don’t fill up.