La Leche League: Nursing Your Child

In the 1950s there was a very low rate of breastfeeding in the United States. Then, because of growing interest in nursing children, La Leche League started as a small organization and later became La Leche League International. I joined La Leche League during the 1980s in Washington State after reading their published book, "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" and not doing well with breastfeeding my first child in the late 1970s. I first joined in order to watch and learn how to breastfeed my infant that I was expecting to be delivered in several months. Historically, this group was a supportive group to the new mother trying to properly breastfeed and nurture her children. It still serves as a contemporary support for new moms, but in the group I belonged to we took turns at having meetings at different mom's homes and socialized as well as sought help with breastfeeding.
I recommend you read their book while attending a few meetings of the La Leche League in your area in order to learn more and become familiar with their technique. You can watch the way the moms currently breastfeeding do it. If you can't find a group, your doctor should know a nurse who might be able to get you in touch with one. Otherwise, the book and the telephone book and a good search engine might be helpful. Also, contact your hospital to see if they have a contact for the group.

The process of nurturing your infant by breastfeeding is a wonderful bonding process whereby the baby demands to be fed and the mom learns how to set up the infant in the best position to latch on to her nipple so that she can suck the milk and thrive. The infant comes to expect this feeding and usually doesn't seem to cry much if taken care of properly. My daughter did not fuss much after I kept company with the other La Leche League mothers, and we adjusted well. What's also great about nursing your children is that you don't need to fuss with bottles and sterilizing them!

The La Leche League, at the time that I belonged to it, recommended you nurse the infant for as long as your health and schedule allows you. They recommend expressing your milk if you have to go somewhere without the infant and perhaps need to leave her with her dad.

With the help of the group's leader, I was able to nurse my daughter for two-and-a-half years, totally weaning her by age three. The mother's milk passes immunities on to the infant, and usually the infant will not get sick as much as she would if she were bottlefed. The mother takes in extra calories and extra fluids so that her body can make more milk. My daughter didn't get sick for about ten months after she was born, and it was something called Roseola, which the doctor said they don't do anything for, and it just passes. He said it's a contagious disease. Later when I was trying to wean her, she caught whooping cough, which is common in that part of the country, but both times she got over it very quickly.

It's very important that the mother keep her diet very healthy because what she eats is what the baby gets just like when she was pregnant, and the baby depended on the diet of her mom to thrive. It's very important to drink plenty of water and fluids in general since this will keep the mother's milk flowing well. The bonding between my daughter and me was extremely rewarding too! You too can successfully nurse your children!