Celestial Birth Doula Services

12/24/2023

Happy holidays from Celestial Birth, friends! 🎄✨⭐️
⛸️ And if anyone knows the provenance of this photo or the history of this adorable ice-skating family please share! ❄️

08/31/2023

08/14/2023

💯💯

This is an important visual. With Tyler-James I followed ’books’ and fed every 3 or so hours thinking ‘well he won’t be hungry he was just fed 2hours ago’ our feeding journey only lasted 5-6 months 😓 with Everleigh and Theo I feed on demand from birth, day and night and they have absolutely thrived! Our baby’s aren’t robots and trying to train them into western schedules from birth is so upsetting and stressful for both mum and baby. I’d love a world where we all fall back into a closer to nature lifestyle with our little ones ❤️

In the hospital they usually tell mums to try to breastfeed every 2-3 hours. Wake baby to nurse every 2-3 hours. That way you can make sure to nourish baby and bring in a good milk supply.

Unfortunately this isn’t exactly how it works🙄 this visual was shared in a post from a friend that I shared a couple years ago and it’s incredibly accurate.

It’s basic math that they use in the hospital to give you the “ideal” feeding schedule. This “ideal schedule” equals about 8-12 nursing sessions in 24 hours which means baby would only have to nurse every 2-3 hours.

This is their way of saying that baby needs to eat often, but this isn’t exactly how it works for mom and baby in real life. Which can cause a mom to really struggle when her baby wants to nurse more often than every 2-3 hours! Nothing like setting new moms up to fail🤦‍♀️

Because they push this so heavily, I’ve noticed that parents seem to think breastfeeding is going to be super simple and perfectly spaced out feedings like the cereal picture. It also makes it look as though all feedings should be the same size so they should be nursing for the same amount of time each time. Which also is NOT accurate.

THIS IS NOT THE REALITY. In reality, baby will have big/long feeds sometimes. Or little/short feeds. Or feeding sessions while they are still mostly asleep. Or feeding sessions that aren’t so great. Or anything in between! They are not guaranteed to sleep better just because their feedings are all spaced out perfectly and done for the same length of time.

Instead of watching the clock and timing sessions, let baby lead! Watch for feeding cues from your little one and go from there😊

I also wanted to say that I love the blueberries portion of this visual. It shows more of a reality for how nursing sessions go. Some are bigger. Some are smaller. Sometimes there’s a longer amount of time in between. And in counting the berries, there are STILL the correct number of nursing sessions for the day.

Amazing, right?! Our bodies and our babies know what they are doing. Let them lead

07/06/2023

Another pretty summer walk home from a postpartum visit. At least the bees are enjoying this heat. 🐝

06/25/2023

Something parents are told when their baby isn't gaining weight well, is to make sure the baby stays on the same breast for a long time. Also, to put baby back on the same breast for the next feed (or several).
Unfortunately, this actually has the opposite effect from what we're after. I'll explain.

Babies are driven by milk flow.
When milk is flowing well, and they're latched effectively, they feed much more enthusiastically and actively. This is when they take in the most milk. You can often see or hear it, and when it's going well they swallow with every 1 to 2 sucks.
When the flow subsides, as it naturally does, they don't take as much volume of milk and tend to feed less effectively. This is especially true in a baby that isn't gaining weight well who are often seen doing a larger amount of sucks between swallows than expected.

To leave them on at this point in the hope of getting some higher fat milk doesn't make sense.(Especially as the milk at this point may not even be higher in fat, more on that another time)
It is much more effective to switch breasts and get another good flow of milk to stimulate the baby into drinking well.
They will take far more milk on board, and far more fat quantity than if they'd be left only having a very occasional swallow.

For similar reasons, it's important not to keep going back to the same breast if/when the baby wakes for a further feed. But also, because this leaves the second breast unstimulated and actually sends the message to your body to reduce milk production. The very last thing we want for a baby that isn't gaining well.

It is overall volume of milk that determines weight gain. We should be watching for, and encouraging the baby to actively drink, to maximise the amount of milk taken and stimulate milk supply.
Effective latch, breast compressions, and switching sides are really useful.

05/15/2023

Happy Mother’s Day from Boston!
I love being able to walk home from postpartum visits and see the earth coming alive again in spring!