Mama plus Baby

 

Birth rates in Sacramento vary by ethnicity. Caucasians are at the lowest, next is African American, then Asian, and finally Hispanic has the highest birth rate.

This is a good opportunity to take a look at how doulas can best serve the populations with the higher birth rates.

These are groups that may be underserved by the medical community at large. They may be more likely to receive unnecessary interventions or poorer outcomes. They may be treated less fairness compared to Caucasians, and there may be cultural or language barriers in some cases.

How can doulas reach out to these populations?

The first step might be making an effort to become more culturally aware. Being mindful of one’s own assumptions or stereotypes can help reduce the tendency to label certain individuals based on their ethnic background.  Spending time getting to know people of other ethnicities, and learning a foreign language can both be useful tools in gaining understanding of those that are of different ethnicities.

Outreach can be another way in which doulas can make themselves more available to minority populations in the Sacramento area. The first step would be to find out what would best serve these populations.

Some ideas for outreach include:

• free classes offered at locations where mothers may frequent
• low cost doula care/sliding scale
• community involvement

These are just a few ideas, there is much more that can be done to better serve a variety of populations.  What can you think of?

When I was pregnant with my first I remember my childbirth educator telling us that Baby will need to nurse every two to three hours. She had a us look at a clock and picture how we would integrate that breastfeeding schedule into our daily routine.

Moms are inundated with numbers when it comes to pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Numbers of hours for pushing, numbers to represent progress with cervical dilation, numbers of wet diapers to watch for, and also numbers of times Baby will need to breastfeed in 24 hours. Unfortunately, a common number dished out regarding frequency of nursing is 8-12 times in 24 hours. That would more accurately describe an older infant, but when told to the mother of a newborn, that one makes me cringe.

Every baby is different, and every breast has it’s own unique breast storage capacity. Only rarely would a newborn, if given almost constant access to the breast, nurse 8 times in 24 hours. Many moms will admit that a more accurate number would be 12+. Personally, I like 12-16+. Because the reality is that newborns have a very high sucking need, and in the first days, if this need is fulfilled at the breast, milk production down the road will be much higher.

Telling moms of newborns that baby should nurse 8-12 times in 24 hours is a little misleading because some babies will nurse much more frequently than that for part of the day. For the healthy full-term newborn baby, this frequent nursing is not indicative of a problem.

I work with moms and a common concern is that Baby wants to nurse “all the time”. Educating moms early on of the normalcy of this is a great step in avoiding confusion in the early weeks. One of my favorite pieces of advice: Watch your baby, not the clock!

If you live in the Sacramento area and would like information about my Breastfeeding Basics class, check out Gentle Birthway.

Welcome to my cozy room on the internet.  Here we will celebrate and discuss the amazing journey that a mother takes with her children.

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