Mind Body & Birth

27/06/2024

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Babies in hot weather

Hot wather can be quite difficult to manage with a young baby. It can change feeding and sleep patterns. Babies often wake more when its hot (adults do too!) and often like to feed more frequently Here are some tips!

Keep the bedroom cool by keeping the curtains drawn. Windows close on the hottest part of the day open when cooler. Try to get a through draft between rooms.
(For those of you outside the UK, yes its true, we don't often have air conditioning here as its hot for about 2 weeks a year!)

If baby has a bath, keep the water cool.

Keep clothing and bedding light and cotton is best. Layers are good so you can add something in the early hours of the morning if the temperature cools a little.

Use a fan to keep the air circulating, but don't point it directly at the baby.

Avoid direct sunlight, keep babies in the shade as much as you can.

Remember babies will probably need to feed more often in the hot weather to keep themselves hydrated. Or sometimes they just sleep and make up for it later!

Breastfed babies don't need any extra water if they're under 6 months. They will feed little and often and the milk will be more watery to keep them hydrated.

Formula fed babies may need a little water but can also have more milk.

For combination fed babies, try to have set times for formula feeds and then breastfeed responsively in between so baby can stay hydrated, there's no need for water.

All babies over 6 mths can have a little water with solids.

It can get very hot and sticky when feeding and cuddling babies in hot weather. Putting a muslin square between your skin and baby's will help. But believe it or not, skin to skin will actually cool baby down.

Don't cover the buggy, it makes the temperature much hotter

When baby wearing have baby in one thin cotton layer or just a nappy. A layer of fabric between you and baby will stop you getting too sticky

03/01/2024

Reckitt has taken the precautionary step of recalling Nutramigen LGG stage 1 and stage 2 Hypoallergenic Formula powders because of the possible presence of Cronobacter sakazakii. Both products are foods used for special medical purposes for infants. The products are mainly prescribed but are also av...

11/12/2023

Have you heard of "Christmastitis"?

Mastitis can sneak up on you during the times of change, disruption or celebration - like Christmas! That's why it's more common to see around December.

Here are some reasons:
💜Change in routine leading to longer times between feeds
💜Busy! There might be a lot going on and you lose track
💜Visitors! You pass the baby around and everyone wants a cuddle meaning longer between feeds
💜 Outfit that is difficult to feed in or, where you wear a bra that presses on your breast tissue
💜Travel where your baby is asleep in their car seat and misses feeds or there’s a tight seat belt over your breast
💜Maybe you don’t want to feed around visitors so you wait until they leave
💜 Unhelpful comments making you doubt yourself or reduce feed time/frequency

So what can help?
💚Try to take it easy. Maybe say no to some visits or spread them out over a longer period
💚Feel free to move to a quieter space regularly to feed quietly (and have a break!)
💚Schedule in a few stops on journeys so you can feed.
💚It’s OK to prioritise you and your baby.
💚Make sure your supporters know what you and your little one need so they can remind you and help make it happen
💚Keep feeding responsively - you may find babies want to feed EVEN MORE because new lights/people/noise can be a bit unsettling
💚 Come to a group and get support with navigating changes to routine, or positioning and attachment

Want to read more about mastitis? Check out this leaflet:
https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/breastfeeding-information/mastitis-breastfeeding/

[ID: a photo of a woman wrapped in a blanket snuggling a newborn, lots of Christmas lights are hung all around]

23/11/2022

A really fabulous aquanatal class.💙💙 https://www.facebook.com/BunkersHillSwimming

Bunkers Hill Swimming is a thriving teaching pool run by a family who are truly passionate about wha

14/10/2021

Short version, for most people...forget about it!

15/08/2021

I’ve just read something yet again about breastfeeding promoted as being easy … and I have to say I disagree and here’s why:

One of the traps public health promotion can fall into is being so keen to promote breastfeeding that any challenges get glossed over, through fear that it’ll put us off. Instead breastfeeding gets painted as some kind of idyllic, simple, miracle cure for all ills.

Of course, many hugely value breastfeeding, but any approach that takes this stance is doing both women and breastfeeding a huge injustice.

Breastfeeding is not easy. It requires time & investment and can be a steep learning curve.

However, that’s in no way to say the alternative is any easier. Many women find once they get through the early weeks of breastfeeding they actually find it much easier than bottle feeding.

But that still doesn’t make it easy. And that’s OK.

What in life worth doing is easy? We put ourselves through challenges all the time. We work hard for exams. We train for races. We do it because we think it’s worth it, not because it’s easy. And we expect others to support us. Imagine our outrage if we were training for a race and everyone suggested it wasn’t worth it as it wasn’t easy.

Calling breastfeeding easy is an injustice to the time & often effort it takes. You may want to breastfeed, enjoy it, believe it is worth it – but that doesn’t make it easy.

Easy belittles the many hours we spend breastfeeding, the challenges we overcome, the sacrifices we make because we think it’s worth it.

When we gloss over the realities of breastfeeding, we feel unprepared for what it’s really like. If we tell people to expect easy, and they hit a hurdle, they may think they’re doing something wrong.

Normal (but not easy to handle) baby behaviour (such as feeding lots, not wanting to be put down) gets perceived as something wrong, & that formula will solve it (it won’t).

Women then end up depressed, blaming themselves, thinking they didn’t try hard enough because after all, isn’t breastfeeding easy?

Rather than calling breastfeeding easy, we need to think about how we as a society can make breastfeeding easier.

05/08/2021

Why isn’t there a week for people who couldn’t breastfeed?

There is. It’s World Breastfeeding Week.

World breastfeeding week starts tomorrow so I’m posting this today to preemptively make my point, before the flood of critical posts starts.

World Breastfeeding Week is not just for mothers who met their breastfeeding goals. It is also for every mother who ever wanted to breastfeed for a day, a week, a month, a year and wasn’t able to do so.

I know this week is incredibly painful if you weren’t able to meet your breastfeeding goals. I know it feels like the universe is conspiring against you to re-open old wounds and pour salt into them. I’m not going to minimize that. I’m not going to tell you to get over it. I’m not going to tell you that your feelings don’t matter.

You matter. Your feelings matter.

Not only are your feelings valid, they are important. I would argue that those feelings of pain, and loss and grief are one of the most important parts of World Breastfeeding Week.

It is nothing short of cruel that we, as a society, inform mothers of all the benefits of breastfeeding, and then fail to provide adequate help and support for mothers to meet their breastfeeding goals. 80% of mothers who stop breastfeeding in the early days say they would've liked to continue, and felt they could've continued with better support (according to Public Health England). It is nothing short of a travesty that hundreds of thousands of mothers are being let down. Given the very real grief many mothers feel at having to stop breastfeeding, and the fact that the leading cause of death in women in the first 12 months after giving birth is su***de I believe it is fair to say that it is a travesty that is harming, and possibly even killing women.

One of the most damaging results of a lack of breastfeeding support is that mothers are left with no emotional support when breastfeeding doesn't go to plan. There is no one there to give them a hug, a cup of tea, a piece of cake, to reassure them that they have nothing to feel guilty about. To tell them that if they can look themselves in the eye and know they are doing the best they can with their circumstances, then that is all anyone can ever do and it it makes them a truly wonderful mother. No-one is there to tell them to be kind to themselves, to give themselves time to grieve. To tell them that if they want to curl up on the sofa with chocolate and Netflix for a few days they should do that. They are expected to just move on, get over it, it's not like it mattered anyway. So that pain, and that loss, and that grief never truly gets a chance to heal.

And that's exactly why this week is important. Because every mother who ever wanted to breastfeed her baby, for an hour, a week, a month, a year or longer deserves adequate help and support to meet that goal. And for the mothers who don't meet that goal for whatever reason, they have the right to adequate emotional support to heal from that. And I know it hurts this week when you didn't get the support that you deserved, but the aim of this week, the reason we bang our drums, and and get on our soap boxes is so every mother gets the practical end emotional support she deserves. So no other mother ever has to go through this pain.

01/08/2021

World Breastfeeding Week was designed to protect and support breastfeeding. To highlight why we need to invest in our new mothers, babies and the future.

Yet for many mums, this week sends a chill straight through their core. It makes them want to shout and throw things because breastfeeding certainly isn’t something to celebrate for them.

For far too many women, any mention of breastfeeding reminds them of pain, anxiety and a lack of support. It reminds them of their determination to do what had been promised to them as simple, enjoyable and the right way to feed their baby. Determination which slowly turned to desperation when it didn’t work for them.

It reminds mothers of the heartbreak they felt as they stopped breastfeeding before they were anywhere near ready – it wasn’t just about the promised health benefits but the feeling that their body wasn’t doing what it was meant to do, and the fact they just really wanted to do it.

But all this pain is actually the reason we continue. This week is not about telling everyone they should breastfeed... but more about insisting that those with power step up and actually do something about investing in making a better future for the next generation of women.

At the moment, rather than protecting breastfeeding, the government doesn’t invest properly in the services, support and expertise that would actually enable mothers to breastfeed – despite reports finding it could actually save the NHS money.

Instead, cuts to services take away essential volunteer groups and funding of breastfeeding specialists. What should be an easily fixable issue can turn turned into months of physical pain - and often a lifetime of continued emotional pain.

The simple truth is that we set women up to fail. Most breastfeeding problems are created by a society that is not breastfeeding friendly: the actions of others are responsible for poor breastfeeding rates and the trauma of mothers.

This week is about recognising that hurt and calling for change. I really wish we didn't have to have it. I certainly wish that not so many women and families were hurt by it.