The first few weeks of our first child's life were spent
nursing... continuously, almost non-stop. I awoke in the
morning with my baby beside me in bed, and immediately she
would start to cry. While my husband held and tried to soothe
her, I would dash about, using the bathroom, getting dressed,
putting some food in a bowl. Within fifteen minutes, I was
ready to hold her and settle down for the morning routine of
sitting in the red rocking chair, nursing my darling, eating
breakfast with one hand and supporting her head with the
other. There we would stay, a specially bonded duo, for hours
every day. I would read and rock and she would never tire of
her suckling. I had no prior experience with which to compare
what was normal, and I was completely committed to full-time
nursing.
My husband went off to learn in yeshiva for the day. He would
call at lunch time to check in, and we were still there where
he'd left us. When I would try to pry her off so I could
attend to other things, like the dishes, the laundry,
errands, making dinner, she would cry. So I would just hold
her and nurse her. As long as she was attached, she never
cried. She seemed blissfully content to remain in my arms all
day.
Leah'le was our long-awaited gift after four years of
marriage. My immense gratitude to Hashem for her entrance
into our lives overshadowed any `inconvenience' I might have
felt for her insistence on such a strenuous feeding
schedule.
Her diapers did not need much changing. Her bowel movements
were very infrequent, and the dark meconium usually excreted
in the first day or two took over ten days to be eliminated.
She also slept through the night from eleven p.m. until six
in the morning. More experienced friends reassured me. "Oh,
how lucky for you that she sleeps soundly!" "Wow, you hardly
have to change diapers!" When I wondered if she nursed too
much, a friend suggested that maybe she had strong sucking
needs and really wasn't nursing for nourishment. She thought
I should try giving her a pacifier.
But I was against any possibility of causing `confusion'
through pacifiers and bottles. So we continued to sit in the
rocking chair for hours.
My sister, with her seven-month-old, and my parents, had come
to Israel to celebrate Leah'le's arrival. When Leah'le was
two weeks old, and they were all departing, my sister told me
that soon my baby would sleep beautifully after a feed, start
smiling and I would be able to get back to taking care of
other things as well.
But another week passed with no change in our pattern.
Concerned, I invited a lactation consultant, an expert on the
challenges of nursing, to visit us and check to see if
everything was okay. Since I hadn't been in the hospital, I
figured that maybe I could use the guidance of a specialist
to make sure we were doing things right.
Batya David showed up for our appointment and found
everything in order. Leah'le was latching on just fine, and I
seemed to have milk. She checked the diaper pail and said the
diapers looked very wet. "Yes, they've been soaking in
detergent so how can you tell?" I asked anxiously.
Batya frowned. She said I should take my daughter to a doctor
to be weighed. I had recently weighed her on a scale in the
grocery store. She was 3.33 kilo, down from the 3.45 kilo
when she was born. "Shouldn't she have regained her birth
weight by now?" I asked.
"Well, scales differ, to begin with, and every baby gains
weight differently, some more slowly. But you really should
take her to a pediatrician."
"Yeah, but they all push formula!"
Batya told me the names of two `pro-nursing' doctors she
recommended and said they were both very supportive. But I
didn't go. I didn't want to hear lectures about weigh-ins,
growth charts, and vaccinations.
More weeks went by. Our daughter never napped. "Oh, she's so
alert! She must be very intelligent," a neighbor crooned. By
the end of the day, we both passed out and slept soundly. I
didn't realize that she just didn't have any energy to awaken
for a night feeding. The only rest I had during the day was
when I put her in a snugli and went for a walk. The rocking
movement of my stride always knocked her out.
When I went for my six week checkup, I mentioned my concerns
to my midwife. She thought Leah'le looked petite but I, on
the other hand, looked exhausted, uptight and strung out.
"Are you eating and drinking enough?" she asked.
I assured her that nutrition was very important to me and I
was consuming everything that anyone anywhere had ever
written was good for nursing: plenty of whole grains,
proteins, lots of liquids, special herbs, teas, seeds and
nuts.
"And I'm nursing ALL the time!" I emphasized.
Finally, a week later, I read in one of our baby books that a
two-month-old is a whir of activity. When you try to change
their diaper, they are a wiggling, jiggling jitter of arms
and legs waving and kicking. That day, when Leah'le lay on
the changing table, she didn't move at all. Her eyes just
stared at me very seriously and something inside of me
snapped.
We hadn't been taking any baby pictures for at least a month,
I realized suddenly, because she looked so... so... scrawny,
so `woe-is-me.' Not plump and happy. She continued to stare
at me and I gazed back in shock, as though seeing her for the
first time.
"Oh, my goodness!" I started to sob. I picked her up and ran
to the phone to call Batya.
"What were the names and phone numbers of those doctors you
told me about? There is definitely something very, very
wrong!" I cried.
It was a Friday morning in July. I called the number of the
closest doctor and wailed into the phone. He made an
appointment to see us as soon as possible that morning.
Sitting in the examination room, looking at Leah'le lying on
the table without any clothes on, I saw her with the
objectivity that I usually lacked. She looked pathetic.
Dr. Matar was very kind. He asked all kinds of questions
about the pregnancy and birth and was surprised at how
affirmatively I responded. I loved pregnancy. I loved giving
birth. I loved my baby. What was wrong? I gave him all the
details of my medical history, including my concern that
radiation treatment to my chest ten years earlier for cancer
treatment could have destroyed milk-production cells. The
doctor raised his eyes and shook his head. He'd never
encountered anything in the medical literature about such a
connection but it sounded feasible.
So there were two possibilities: One was that there was
something inadequate about the quantity or the quality of my
milk. The more serious possibility was that there was
something wrong with our daughter's digestive system. I felt
close to being hysterical. The doctor didn't condemn me for
not showing up sooner, or for rejecting Tipat Chalav, the
well-baby clinic weigh-in and check-ups and the standard
vaccinations she would have been subjected to there. He was
very understanding and sympathetic. The point right then was
to determine what was going on with our baby and not argue
about our somewhat radical view towards standard medical
establishment practices.
"Look, you have to give her a supplement for one week, just
to determine if her system can digest food," he gently
explained.
"No cow formula! My whole family is allergic to milk!" I
protested. So he wrote down the names of three soy formulas
instead. He also gave me a slip for getting my milk analyzed
by an expert at Shaarei Zedek Hospital.
When we left, I headed into town to find a pharmacy that sold
not only formula, but something I recalled hearing about from
a friend who had had twins. A nursing supplement
system. This is some kind of a bottle that you can hang
around your neck and use to supply supplement WHILE you
nurse. Three pharmacies told me they never heard of it. In
tears of frustration, I stopped in a store to use the phone
and call my friend.
As soon as I heard Chaya's voice, the dam holding back my
strong emotions finally burst. I started sobbing as I told
her that the doctor said my baby was starving!
"I have to find a nursing supplement. Where did you get
yours?" As I held the line, Chaya ran to search for the phone
number of the woman who sold the product.
Relieved, I called Mrs. Podulsky and explained what I needed.
She told me the cost and then I realized she was selling a
protein powder for me to eat to increase my milk supply.
I quickly called Chaya back and reexplained more coherently
what I needed.
"Oh, Raizel! I have that special bottle in my house and I
don't need it any more. You can borrow it! I'm coming right
over to you."
I hung up the phone, thanked the store owner, and anxiously
ran to our apartment two blocks away. Chaya arrived within
moments of me. She mixed the formula while I took Leah'le out
of the snugli and settled us into our red rocking chair.
Chaya only told me much later how nervous she had been lest
Leah'le throw up and have to be hospitalized, but she
prepared the special nursing supplement system and showed me
how to adjust the string around my neck. Instead of a nipple,
the bottle was designed with two very fine thin tubes that
slipped unnoticed into the baby's mouth while she was latched
onto me. In this way, Leah'le could continue to stimulate my
body to produce milk, while getting some soy formula at the
same time.
The moment of truth arrived and within fifteen minutes,
Leah'le finished the entire 500 cc.'s of supplement. And then
she did an amazing thing. She laughed!
Chaya and I both heard her and together we started crying
with relief. Leah'le laughed!!
And then she did another amazing thing. She fell asleep and
slept soundly for two hours straight!
My relief was so enormous it is hard to describe in writing.
She didn't have any negative reactions. She didn't throw up.
Her digestive system was working fine! She slept. she woke
up. She ate more. She slept. And she SMILED!
A whole week went by and then we returned to the doctor. I
undressed Leah'le and Dr. Matar put her on the scale. She had
gained 500 grams in seven days! What rejoicing! Within
another week she gained an entire kilo! The doctor thought we
were doing great. He wasn't worried any more. The lab
analysis of my milk was fine; there just obviously wasn't
enough quantity. But Leah'le was handling the soy formula
just fine. He told me that the reason my baby had become so
listless was so that her body could conserve its energy.
Whatever nutrition she had managed to get from me had all
gone to nourish her brain. Therefore, he was sure that
Leah'le had not, G-d forbid, suffered any permanent brain
damage.
And I learned a tremendous lesson in humility from this
close call. How vividly I remember attending a seminar when I
was pregnant with Leah'le and watching one woman with disdain
as she bottle-fed her baby. I sat there feeling sorry for the
poor kid whose mother wasn't nursing him. Young, naive and
idealistic, it did not occur to me that a woman might not
always have the option to nurse.
We never discovered the reason why my body did not produce
enough milk for our baby to grow, but I did discover a
lifesaving product produced by a commendable company called
Medela. The SNS -- the Supplemental Nursing System -- a small
bottle that hangs upside down around your neck, like a
necklace, has enabled me to nurse all of my children, seven
of them so far (bli ayin hara), some for six months,
some for two years. I always need to supplement, but I never
wait seven weeks to find out if I should. I start right
away.
Most women I know never seem to hear about this admirable
little invention, which is one of the reasons I wanted to
share this story. All the advantages of that special nursing
bond are available even to the woman with an inadequate milk
supply. May that bond serve to help us well in the years
ahead, through all the challenges of child raising.
NOTE: The SNS can help mothers of premies, twins and even
adoptive mothers establish an adequate milk supply to nurse
their babies. It can be ordered from a Medela supplier in
Herzlya (tel. 09-972-7600) but it is best to consult with an
expert before deciding this is what is right for you and your
baby. My traumatic story with a happy ending occurred years
ago. Since then, Batya David has opened a lactation
consultant clinic in Jerusalem. For her valuable guidance and
advice, she can be reached at 02-532-5383.
[Other mothers with personal stories whose experience can
benefit the public, as this one, are urged to write them and
send them in to Weinbach, Panim Meirot 1, Jerusalem, or FAX
to 02-5387998. Handwritten, legible entries are accepted,
too.]
