nursing notes

 

August is breastfeeding month in the United States and it’s a topic that is close to my heart. Pun intended. 

Thanks to decades of public health outreach and promotion, nursing is once again is a routine practice this country.  However, I absolutely believe it needs all of the organized and legal and social support it can get, because although it is the most natural thing in the world, it is at odds with a lot of values and practices in our culture, including our paradoxical modesty and the demands of the workforce.  That said, the word that it is good for babies and moms is out, so I’ll step off my soapbox for the rest of this post and share some of the most fascinating things I have learned about nursing.

• Nursing makes kids’ teeth align better.  Okay, so the studies mentioned here [http://news.health.com/2015/06/15/breast-feeding-may-have-dental-benefits-study-suggests/, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4017283.stm] show significant correlation, not actual causation, but it makes a lot of sense.  The belief is that because the latch on a breast is different than on a bottle, the jaw and palate develop differently.
• Breast milk contains stem cells with “variable expression of pluripotency genes normally found in human embryonic stem cells” unlike other stem cells found in adults.   This kind of makes me wish I hadn’t thrown out the leftover frozen milk I had in the freezer in case I someday get cancer.
• From the abstract of http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22865647 - These findings provide evidence that breast milk represents a novel and noninvasive source of patient-specific stem cells with multilineage potential and establish a method for expansion of these cells in culture. They also highlight the potential of these cells to be used as novel models to understand adult stem cell plasticity and breast cancer, with potential use in bioengineering and tissue regeneration.
• The immune benefits are fascinating but tricky to study.  There is evidence and speculation [https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/growth-curve/backwash-nursing-babies-may-trigger-infection-fighters] that nursing babies’ saliva is backwashed and absorbed by the mother so that her immune system can create leukocytes to combat specific infections.  Inhabiting the same germy environment also contributes, of course.
• In fact, all of the purported benefits are complicated to study.  This article [http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/] on a statics blog Jack and I read really set me off.  It legitimately, but glibly, highlights just how difficult it is to study breastfeeding in real populations where it is unethical to assign mothers to groups and all kinds of factors affect how a particular baby is fed.  It upset me that this review assumes that breast milk and formula are equal until proven otherwise.  The assumption should be the reverse.  I believe it is healthier, even if we haven’t been able to rigorously prove it. 

I estimate that I spent over 2500 hours (10*90+4*270+2*300+1*60) nursing or pumping over the course of D’s first two years.  It was a wonderful, convenient, inconvenient, pleasant, painful and irreplaceable series of experiences that gave me a lot of time to read and reflect on the subject.   In fact, those of you who read all the way to this point should consider congratulating me on keeping this post so brief.