Lactation Blog

There is an excellent article by Adriano Cattaneo in Breastfeeding Review on infant and  child feeding1 – where, how, by whom and why. Mr. Cattaneo is attached to the unit for health services research and international health of the Institute for Maternal and Child Health. Mr. Cattaneo makes some very important points: “We are mammals…

Confusion about what is normal can lead to unrealistic expectations. All parents tend to struggle with questions of how much should their baby be sleeping. Some recent research shows the following: An international baby’s sleep study showed that there are biological and cultural factors that influence young children’s sleep. “Night- time sleep is a key…

One of the concerns that breastfeeding families have is will my baby take a bottle? Or more worrisome, what happens if they won’t take a bottle. This is especially true when the breastfeeding parent is returning to work. When parents find that their little one will not take a bottle they often berate themselves for…

The question arises from the contradiction between what parents hear from the hospital staff and what the lactation consultant may say- Who are the parents to believe? A preliminary Google search shows 565,000 hits in .09 seconds! Many of these sites are authored by medical personnel. Starting at the beginning – what is burping? Wikipedia…

Newborns have very sharp fingernails, which seems odd considering they have spent 9 + months in fluid! Mothers worry that their babies will scratch their faces and get scars. The solution would appear to be to cover their hands with very cute mittens. Unfortunately, your little ones need to have their hands free in order…

The three (3) most commonly used medications for pupil dilation are: Phenylephrine HCL – 2.5% solution Phenylephrine is the agent used most commonly in decongestants. When used ophthalmically ”the maternal dose of the medication would be very low and it is not likely to pose a problem for a breastfeeding infant. Due to phenylephrine poor…