Breastfeeding and Cavities -- AAP says no correlation

I found this a couple weeks ago and thought that it might be useful for others. One of my BG friends said her doc told her to stop night nursing to prevent cavities... but the AAP report didn't find a correlation...

Association Between Infant Breastfeeding and Early Childhood Caries in the United States
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/120/4/e944



quote:

Conclusions
These data provide no evidence that breastfeeding or its duration are independently associated with an increased risk for ECC, S-ECC, or a greater number of decayed or filled tooth surfaces among children ages 2 to 5 years in the United States. In contrast, they corroborate that children living in poverty and Mexican American children are at increased risk for poor oral health in the early years, and they indicate that maternal smoking is another such potential risk factor. Clearly, there is a need for more research to identify specific characteristics of poverty and Mexican American ethnicity that contribute to or cause ECC, and the same applies to children prenatally or postnatally exposed to cigarette smoke. Despite the need for more understanding of how these factors may be causally related to ECC, the findings reported do not indicate any reason to delay action to improve the oral health of children. Rather, they highlight the need to target children living in poverty, those who are Mexican American, and those whose mothers smoke or smoked during pregnancy for timely caries risk assessment and regular preventive dental visits.

I've been super busy with work lately and I'm super run down. My partner and I are trying to figure out how to get me some down time as I'm absolutely bleary eyed.

Part of it is Jonah too. He's been going through some serious separation anxiety, only wanting mama and that has been making it hard for me to take a break and take care of myself. He's also thoroughly off pottying at the moment which is adding to the fun. I'm guessing its a bunch of things that aren't working for him but I'm not sure how much I can accomodate his needs right now due to work demands. I'm doing my best. He does get to nurse during the day and still sleeps with me so it isn't like he is being deprived.

Breech Delivery Notes

I saw on the Business of Being Born Facebook group that Gina was having a rough time of it with her doctor about her baby being breech at 37 weeks.

I was reminded of Coyote Medicine, Lewis Mehl-Madrona's book where he talks about breech delivery and how it requires a lot of patience but there is no reason it can't be successful much of the time.

http://www.midwiferytoday.com/enews/enews0106.asp

Last night Jonah couldn't get to sleep so finally at 10pm, just as the fireworks were about to get started (they start late here in Seattle due to it being lighter at night at our higher latitude), we decided to just go with the flow and took him to the park down the street to see his first fireworks. He had on his pajamas, slippers and a wool sweater. He snacked on cereal while we watched the exposions and kept signing "more". They were far enough away that the loug bangs didn't scare him. Finally we got him to bed at 11pm.

Here are some of his latest accomplishments:

* getting in and out of his little car by himself (facing the correct way)
* sitting on the bottom step of the stairs to have his shoes put on (he's liking sitting on anything his height right now)
* turning around in circles
* giving hugs to us and his stuffed animals, he's also started giving kisses again (he had stopped for a good long while)
* putting keys into keyholes -- he will go into our downstairs bathroom and close the door and practice putting a key into the keyhole (no chance of him locking himself in, the keyhold is huge and old and the key he is using is short and small)
* walking backwards

That's all that I can think of right now. He's becoming a total little kid now.

He's been off pottying a bit since being sick for a few weeks. If I'm able to give him more attention then I can potty him around 5 times a day. I've been way too busy to do so lately though, catching up after all that illness.

I've been super swamped at work and before that Jonah and I (and my partner) were sick for a few weeks. I just learned on Friday that we likely had Adenovirus. We are recovered finally.

The funny thing is that since he has been feeling better Jonah seems to have grown a bit and his appetite is up as well. He is working on his canines and first molars at the same time right now. I think he has gotten one little bit of one of the molars broken through. He hasn't had any new teeth in since February when he got his 8th tooth. I'm thinking in the next few weeks there should be a lot more.

I feel like I can barely keep up as I've been having to work so much and the work just keeps piling on. Jonah has just started getting into that stage where he is dragging stuff all over the house so it feels cluttered at home -- on top of any housework that needs tending to as well. I told my partner that we will just have to live with it for a few more weeks as we are smack in the middle of our busy season and we are also moving into a new office next weekend.

Sick, sick, sick

My nose is dripping as I write this. Baby and I have the flu. We had a cold last weekend and the week before that I had a sinus infection. This is no fun. I think we caught the flu from my partner who thought he had our cold but this is definately a little flu-like bug and we only had a head cold before.

Poor baby has been really feeling poorly. Diarrhea, a cough, and a bit lethargic today with a running nose. At the end of last week he had a fever that lasted a few days as well, along with vomiting and diarrhea. I'm thinking that it is just a mish-mash of viruses. I asked our sitter and she confirmed that she had not been washing his hands after they went to the park so that might be one way that we are all getting exposed. It seems as though there are a series of bugs working their way through Seattle at the moment.

The good thing is that with the continued nursing I can help my little baby both stay hydrated and fed even when he isn't really hungry for solid food. Nursing also provides him with extra cuddles and comfort when he isn't feeling good. I really see the value in nursing past a year. Honestly, my whole take on babyhood is that infancy lasts through at least the first two years.

The other thing that I think about is how the American Academy of Pediatrics says to nurse for at least a year -- that's at the minimum. The World Health Organization, not known for being a really progressive organization, advocates nursing for at least the first two years. Still so many women abandon nursing after one calendar year feeling like they put their time in. We are mammals though and isn't that what mammals do -- nurse their young? It seems crazy to me that gorillas and bears take better, more instinctive care of their young than we do as humans.

We were watching a program on cable this evening, about gorillas in captivity in comparison to the wild. The zoologists have been spending a lot of time trying to help support nature behavior and development in their captive populations. Makes me wonder what a human habitat would look like. Not our post-modern industrial homes but something that would support our natural behavior and development. I guess I would start by looking to what more simplistic societies do. Then maybe take a cue from camping. It sure as heck wouldn't involve including cribs for the babies.

References to Fertility while Breastfeeding

I was reading a bit of this book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers at my BIL's while away last weekend and came across a section about fertility while breast feeding.

Apparently researchers studying hunter/gatherer groups of humans noticed 3-4 years child-spacing for mothers. At first they thought it was due to poor diet but that wasn't true. Finally they realized it was due to the extended, readily available, nursing on demand, done by the mothers of their babies until about 3yrs. It talked more about how prolactin works to prohibit progesterone from functioning properly during the LP which inhibits implantation. It also mentions that the reason BF as contraception fails for some is that Western moms try to feed on a schedule rather than on-demand which compromises the effect of the hormones released during nursing.

Makes me think I might be in for a little bit longer ride if I'm not going to wean....

That said, Jonah is almost 16 months now and recently he has shifted his nursing behavior some. He has cut back a bit and while he will reach for the girls if he wants to nurse he will equally pull my shirt down when he is finished and say "alllll done! allllll done1"


Also, another gal in a group I'm on came across a reference to a greater chance of twins for conceptions while nursing. Something like 12 times more likely to have twins. Evidently it is partly the effect of lower blood calcium levels in nursing moms as well as a higher level of FSH also due to nursing.

(The higher FSH must be our brains yelling at our ovaries over the sound of the prolactin.)

Share Your Co-sleeping Story

I came across this on the Ovusoft.com forums tonight. It seems interesting to try to counter negative comments and attitudes towards co-sleeping. I wish it was a little more scientific in its approach but it was nice to read the affirmative comments from the participants.

Fertility While Nursing

I found this a couple weeks ago and it explains rather reasonably how fertility returns post-partum, while breastfeeding:

The greatest level of suppression is not ovulating, but as your prolactin levels go up, your fertility will gradually return. First you will ovulate, but not have the proper hormone levels for fertilization; then you will ovulate and fertilization may occur, but you still may not have the proper hormone levels for implantation; finally, you may ovulate, be fertilized, and implant, but not have the proper hormone levels for continuing the pregnancy, so you have a very early miscarriage, probably along the lines of minutes or hours after implantation, so you wouldn't know you had been pregnant. It is also possible to ovulate without having the right hormonal levels in the right combinations for the uterus to have been preparing for implantation, so yes, it is possible to ovulate without menstruating. For all of these stages, there seems to be incredible individual variation between women. Some women get pregnant again the first time they ovulate, with no intervening menstrual periods. I knew a woman in Indiana years ago who had three children in six years with no menstrual periods! Her doctor couldn't figure out when to predict her due date
From: http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detfert.html

The author, Kathy Dettwyler, has studied a lot of different aspect of nursing. Her site is pretty interesting to poke around:
http://www.kathydettwyler.org/

I found her mentions about the natural ages of weaning amongst other large mammals to be affirming of what I have been observing with my little one.

I love E.C.

This morning I was getting dressed and I heard the baby walk down the hall from his room. I called to him to see where he was and then found him holding onto the toilet seat. He looked up at me and signed for "more" and then I got him undressed and set him on his seat reducer and he proceeded to have a big poop. Yeah for no poopy diapers! Yeah for baby!

The no poopy diapers is pretty commonplace but the baby initiated trips to the bathroom are still relatively new. We invested in a second toilet seat reducer and a foldable seat for use when we are out. The foldable seat has come in handy and the second seat means that we are totally ready whenever he is.

We have a sitter come help care for the baby a few afternoons a week now as I need to get more work done and baby is ready for more than just hanging with mom and dad at the office. He will potty for her as well which is super and great for her as well as no one likes to change a poopy diaper.

Live and Learn

I've been going through my posts from 2005, the time between my myo and TTC again and then my second miscarriage. In there I found a reference I made to having headaches in my luteal phase, and for some reason I made the connection to them being related to prolactin levels. The reason this seems so odd to me is that in the middle of my past luteal phase I also had a killer headache, and since I'm nursing prolactin is easily related, though I'm not sure. That was the cycle I tried Vitex and while a little helped a lot, more didn't help at all, it rather delayed my ovulation.

Now that I'm TTC while nursing my cycles are a little more unpredicatable. I was loosely charting the start of my period since I first got my first post-partum AF in September. I've just started using Ovusoft's Taking Charge of Your Fertility software again to track it in a little more finer detail. I'm just tracking symptoms but not yet have I delved into basel temp taking. I know my little guy would be fascinated by the beeping of the thermometer and want to take it out of my mouth so I don't know that it would be a practical thing to do while co-sleeping. I also pulled out my fertility monitor from the back of the closet and took a look at it again. It might come in handy though now my thought is of all those little plastic sticks and their foil envelopes and the impact on the environment.

I'm trying to be diligent about taking my prenatal vitamins as you are supposed to do while nursing. I try to eat a balanced diet, eating a good 3-4 meals a day plus snacks to keep my calorie count up for nursing. The baby is growing well and my energy level has been good so I think we are doing okay in that regard. My partner is back taking Acetyl-l-Carnetine and Arginine again, plus his daily vitamin. We held off on grape seed extract for now and we have talked about getting some more Preseed again, that's the really expensive lube that doesn't hurt the sperm. I think one of the cheapest places to get that is through Ovusoft

Trailer for The Business of Being Born

Trying Not to Relive the Past...

I recently switched to the newer version of Blogger and I'm trying to help improve access to my earlier blog postings by adding in tags. I started at the oldest posts and was working my way forward but I hit the ones around my first pregnancy -- which is now 4 years later (amazing that it is so far behind me now) -- and I feel like it is going to be tough to categorize those really well. I think I'm going to have to just quickly tag and move on those loss posts and not get too particular about what I'm writing about in the individual ones -- it is a little too sensitive for me to read through them again.

Possible Signs of Pending Ovulation
* Slightly more "in the mood"
* About that time based on past cycles
* Nipples start to hurt while nursing
* Slightly irritable
* Hair and skin start to get oily, chance of a pimple or two
* Feeling a little more damp than usual (CM)
* Feeling a little softened up during BD

Signs that Ovulation Might Have Occured
* Feeling slightly more irritable
* Even more oily hair and skin
* More pimples showing up
* Can't find a thing to wear that I like

* Headache mid-LP
* Not "in the mood" really
* Slightly drier
* Possibly having odd waves of CM (damp/not so damp)
* Nipples hurt slightly less
* It is about that time based on past cycle
* AF shows up

New Mom's - Watch Out for "Mommy Thumb" (deQuervain's Tendonitis)

You can put yourself at risk of developing repetitive stress injuries if you don't pick up your baby properly.

deQuervain's Tendonitis

New mothers are especially prone to this type of tendonitis: caring for an infant often creates awkward hand positioning, and hormonal fluctuations associated with pregnancy and nursing further contribute to its occurrence.

Last April (my baby was 2.5 months old) I recall seeing a discussion about someone's thumbs hurting and the next day it happened to me. In the space of one day I developed deQuervain's Tendonitis in both my wrists/thumbs. I had to go for physical therapy, take ibuprofen, ice my wrists, try to get my partner to give me wrist massages, wear hand braces and it severely limited what I was able to do.

It can evidently emerge slowly or all at once so you need to try to prevent it if you can. I don't know how common it is but it was very painful -- my thumbs felt like they were going to fall off for a bit that was how weak they were, small movements in the wrong direction would give me shriekingly bad pains running down into my hands, even while sleeping. I almost dropped him on the floor a couple times because it was so bad. It took about 6 months before my hands were significantly improved and that largely was related to my baby learning how to crawl.

Prevention Tips

* When picking up your baby try not to hook your hands under their arms to lift
* If you have to pick the baby up under the arms then bear the weight more on your hand and less on your thumb
* Try not to lift up your baby from lying down to upright using that hold as it increases the likelihood of injury (said my physical therapist)
* Lift your baby by cradling their head and butt with your forearms and lift that way.
* Try to limit how much you have to move the baby around -- don't go to the changing table if you can just do the diaper change where you are.

I had to severely limit how much I moved the baby around so diaper changes were whereever we were -- on the floor, on the bed, etc. I had to bail on handwashing dishes and I would have to have my partner assist with getting the baby into and out of the bath. I also started cosleeping full-time as it really helped cut down on the amount of carrying I had to do.

Here are some shots of my wrist brace, I got two but found I only needed to really wear it on my left wrist which was the more badly injured. The braces are totally worth it as the normal sleeping position of most people involves curling your hands in, a position that actually aggravates the condition. The braces help protect the inflamed and swollen area of the wrist and hold your hands in a neutral position. Ace bandages actually add pressure and contribute to more pain.



Oh, and I wanted to add that the doctor I consulted with, a hand specialist, said that they usually see this emerge in mothers of older infants/toddlers. My baby grew really fast though and I think that contributed to it -- my body couldn't adapt fast enough to the weight I was lifting.
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Note: My health insurance didn't cover the physical therapy, plus it was just one more thing to try to manage to fit in with the baby that I could have done without. Do try to protect yourself and avoid developing this condition -- you will thank yourself later.

On a pottying kick

Jonah's been on a pottying kick since the weekend. It seems as though now that he's mastered walking he can now devote a little more energy to communicating about when he needs to go. I broke out the training pants as I was getting tired of taking his prefold and cover off and on so much. He's been holding for long periods of time, communicating about when he needs to go, and staying fairly dry. Lots of trips to the bathroom and he love washing his hands so much that mine are soooo dry. We are still diapering him but I'm trying to make it easier when I'm able to focus on helping with the pottying.

The Diaperaps Training pants in 2T fit perfectly and are way easier off and on. I've been using them with Babylegs when we are just around the house.

Ack, moodiness

The longer I go post-partum the more my body gets its cycle hormones back into gear and the more I start to feel the affects again. Blah. I'm just sitting here minding my own business after ovulating on Monday and a wave of despair just passed right over me.

I've been grateful for the break that being pregnant and nursing has given me from my awful PMS. Having these alternate hormonal realities really points out to me how it is likely our species, the female of our species, weren't really intended to go on having period after period after period for 22+ years straight. No wonder my hormones were over the top. Whether we like it or not I think our bodies were intended to switch into pregnancy and nursing and get a break from all the mood swings that come with menstruation.

We did give it a good try for this cycle and then I went in for an acupuncture visit on Tuesday. She was only able to tonify as we had tried but it was good to get that going again. If this cycle doesn't work out for us then I'll go back for regular treatment to see about helping get my body more baby ready for #2. Still there's a part of me that wonders what we are in for -- an easier time? more of the same (miscarriages, infertility)? It is hard to say how I will feel if we start to revisit some of the sadder places in TTC land.

Reflections on Co-sleeping

It has been interesting for me to watch as my baby developed in so many ways from the unique vantage point of co-sleeping, especially coupled with our part-time EC.

I learned that just when things were getting to me at night that a few weeks later things would change. That between 3-6 months he was pretty disturbed from his sleep by his elimination but that around 7 months sleep trumped middle of the night diaper changes.

Or how big developmental changes, like learning how to crawl, would really get him going to such a degree that he would be trying to crawl across the bed in his sleep.

At three months you are entering into the window of developing hand control as I recall. I travelled with my little guy last year around that time so it's kinda fixed in my mind as well about how much he was up and down all night long. That was particularly rough since I was alone, without my partner.

A mom of twins I know, who co-slept through the first 18 months or so, said something that for me really helped me put things in perspective -- that her really bad days were ones when she had lists. She realized that setting her expectations too high for what they could get done in a given day would just set her up for conflict, frustration and aggravation. Better to go with the flow.

I also found that when I would consult my baby advice books about what my baby was supposed to be doing that it often set me up for conflict with my little one as well. It's reasonable to test out certain theories and then back off of course, such as my recent try as dropping one feeding during the night with my 14 MO. While no one said it would be easy I realized that it also was majorly disrupting both of our sleep, and my baby sleeps pretty well other than night nursing, so why mess with that.

For you, there could possibly be other causes that you might rule out such as food sensitivities, physical changes, perhaps medical issues like reflux. But it might just be a passing thing.

Co-sleeping can be a challenge at times, and it doesn't work for everyone -- parents, family or baby. Still, it is such a sweet thing to be able to hold your baby near you at night, to be right there to help comfort them and then to watch as they grow in your arms over so many days and months.

PPAF While Nursing - Return to Fertility

I've just gotten my fifth PPAF at 14 months PP and finally its a little more normal, indicating that my body was able to put up a reasonable lining. My cycles have evened out to be about 5 weeks long, though the time between when I and when arrives is pretty consistently 2 weeks now.

We are wanting to start to TTC for #2 soon so it was rather worrying to me that my lining was so thin. Nothing's really changed in terms of how much I am feeding him I don't think. Perhaps my body is just getting back fully into the swing of things.