It was a hot day like today when I was last at the famous Zen Rock Garden of the Ryoan-ji Temple  in Kyoto, Japan.   It was a very still and peaceful place, save for the other tourist moving about and inserting herself into my photo.

I sat at the edge and contemplated my breath while gazing  at the gently raked rock garden gleaming brightly in the heat of the day.

I am often reminded of this feeling when I am in the presence of a Conscious Breastfeeding mother and baby.  There is a stillness that descends upon the nursing couple.  A rhythmic sound of breathing and soft swallowing comes from the baby while it is feeding.  The mom looks serene and comfortable as she is very much in the moment.

In this fast paced world in which we live, each breastfeeding session offers an opportunity to become centered and quiet.  A mother can connect deeply with her baby, both literally and figuratively.  She is sharing her physical and emotional space, as well as her milk, with him or her during this time. 

The sales pitch for breastfeeding is that it can be done on the go- anytime, anywhere.  Although this may be true, I strongly encourage moms to explore the benefits of  a more zen experience.

A Conscious Breastfeeding mom creates a sacred space in her home where she is able to focus fully on breastfeeding her baby.  Ideally she will be using a high-backed chair.   Seated with both shoulders resting against the chair, she will draw her baby deeply onto her breast for a pain-free latch.  A secondary benefit of  her good  posture is that she will be facilitatating a sense of comfort and calm in both herself and her baby.  Feedings done this way become a form of zazen, or sitting meditation.  

In Zen Begin, Live Your Life the Zen Way, this Zen-Meditation is explained… 

Zen is all about focus. Meditation or zazen is an exercise in creating a one- pointedness of mind. The comparison with muddy water is often made. In calm water the mud sinks to the bottom and the water becomes clear.

A Conscious Breastfeeding mom puts her baby to her breast in an intentional manner; she maintains a calm pose and deep rhythmic breathing throughout each feeding session.   As a result, she and her baby come away feeling rested and fortified.  The baby will be in quiet alert and receptive to socialization and interaction with her and other family members; mom’s mind will be more clear and focused.

This mother and child statue was at the edge of hot spring in the Japanese Alps.   May she inspire you to embrace the the Zen of Conscious Breastfeeding.

What has been your experience of this special breastfeeding time with your baby?

I am one of the Kodak generation.  In large families, the  number of photos taken of you were often a function  of where you fell in the line of children.  The moments of our babyhood were not nearly as well catalogued as those of modern babies. Thanks to the digital revolution, the potential exists that every detail of their lives will be captured in vivid detail.

A hard-copy memoir of your time as a breastfeeding mother should be part of the time capsule of your baby’s life.  It will give them insight and understanding into your life as a mother, wife, partner,worker and of their development as a unique individual.

It is remarkably revealing to read my mother’s letters written, in her own hand, to my father before they were married.  Those were the days when people really wrote letters.  Separated by an ocean and without the luxury of cheap phone calls, those missives were their only means of communication.  There, in my mother’s handwriting, I am able to read of how much she was looking forward to having her first baby.  She hoped it would be a girl and was right; I was born the following year.  I wish that the trail didn’t end there.  I would love to know how she felt in those early days as a wife and mother raising me in a new country.

We have all heard of how having a baby seems to alter our ability to remember things.  Your journal will ensure that those precious memories will never fade.

Although it could be kept in a digital form. I recommend that mothers do this the old-fashioned way. 

On the most practical level, you will observe the patterns of your babies life.  You will be looking at feedings and how the breastfeeding is unfolding.  Knowing when and how well feedings are going will give you information to help you optimize your breastfeeding experience.

1. Pick a notebook, album, scrapbook that is beautiful and durable.  You will be filling this with your memories of this time in your life.  It will be a window into how you were growing and feeling as a mother and of the changes you observed in your breastfeeding baby.

2. It might be a great practice to begin writing a note or letter to your baby on a regular basis.  The art of writing can connect us more deeply with our creative, authentic selves.   

3. Take tons of photos of course.  Print some and include them in the pages.  Cut out photos that appeal to you in magazines and periodicals.   You will be creating a sort of vision board for your life as a mother as you document the memories of  breastfeeding your baby .

4. Include inspirational quotes and what you are grateful for on a daily basis.  You will be able to expand upon these ideas as your child grows up.

5. Include calendars and and document important occasions that were experienced during this time.   

6. Include locks of hair, etc. as the mood strikes.  Audio and video (cd/dvd) can be added to supplement the written word. 

Your breastfeeding journal can be so much more than just a way of managing and gaining  insight into your breastfeeding experience.   It can be an opportunity to engage in a creative expression of your life with your baby.  It will capture your  unique handwriting, thoughts and memories for posterity. 

It will serve as a legacy- a time capsule item to share with  future generations of your family. 

Such provenance is priceless!

Today is the first day of the feast of St. Fermin, the patron of the festival which runs annually from 7.7-7.14 in Pamplona, Spain.

Pamplona Memories flood back to me.  I vividly remember cheering for Holland with the legions of orange clad fans that followed their matches in the local pubs.  Now, 12 years later, the Dutch have made it into the finals of the World Cup.  Spain plays Germany in the semi-finals on this auspicious Spanish feast day for the other slot.  This 2010 World Cup will be an all Europe final falling within the week of ‘the Running of the Bulls’.

Leather wine flasks, Botas, were being used by many of the festival goers.  My teaching mind saw an immediate and workable analogy between the human breast and those popular items of the festival of St. Fermin.  It occurred to me that the breast also expands and contracts with the volume of milk within it.  Both a wine sack and the breast are never really empty, but will always have some residual left at the bottom once filled with liquid.  To new moms who might be tempted to think of their breasts in terms of being full or empty this new frame of reference makes much better sense and alleviates much unnecessary anxiety.

As you may have noticed in the video above, the assembled crowds all got the memo and were unified in wearing a garb of white and red.  It was difficult to distinguish ourselves among the sea of people dressed the same way.  People were assembled from all over the world.  We were all part of one big family, more alike than different.  A unity that should also apply to breastfeeding.

The notion of solidarity by costume or color is not new.  Pink is for Breast Cancer awareness.  Purple is worn by those who support research for Alzheimers.  The lactation consulting world has made efforts to make Gold be the color of breastfeeding promotion to represent the liquid gold of human milk as the gold standard of infant feeding.

I watched from the sidelines while my brothers joined the ranks of those actually running with the bulls. I may have been a mere observer for those runs, but the same thing cannot be said about my participation in breastfeeding promotion.  I am steadfast in my efforts to inspire, educate, support and empower mothers to revel in the grandeur of their bodies which are so perfectly designed to nurture their babies for 9 months and beyond through the miracle of breastfeeding.

I envision the day, in the not too distant future, when the same fervor I witnessed for the running of the bulls of Pamplona will be expended on being bullish for breastfeeding.

Won’t you join me?  Be part of the change we want to see…Be Bullish for Breastfeeding!

1.full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing.  2. belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance.

There is a familiar catchphrase.  ‘Fake it until you make it’.   Such attempts at  imitating confidence to produce success often fall short for breastfeeding mothers.   

• They worry about how the experience will be for them, and whether or not they will be successful. 
• There is no margin for error when it comes to feeding and nurturing their babies.

Jerry Stocking was interviewed on the subject of confidence.  If you have time, please check out his blog   where you can read and/or listen to his wonderful perspective on this subject.   He believes that confidence is  more of a process than a thing.  I agree with him, especially when discussing it in relation to breastfeeding. 

The kernels of wisdom from his interview are as follows:

• We want it all without the risk.
• We run into problems when we get caught up in the why’s.
• We should not opt for structure over possibility.
• Confidence and Competence should leap frog for best results.

Conscious breastfeeding is not a no-brainer.   It is a skill that is learned by the mother and taught to her baby.  In reality, there is a process that we must go through to learn any skill.  In his blog post, Learning = Change, Rowan Manahan discusses movement through the steps of lthe learning curve (photo) below. 

1. Unconscious Competence:  A mother acknowledges that breastfeeding is a skill to be learned.  She becomes pro-active in the learning process.  To move to the next level, she may need an intervention to assist her in learning the latch.
2. Conscious Incompetence:  The Aha moment comes when she realizes she must make a decision. Her choice is whether to change a sub-optimal latch, grin and bear the pain or abandon breastfeeding altogether.  This stage of learning can be as short as 3 weeks.  The key is not to give up because of  physical discomfort or mental frustration or exhaustion. 
3. Conscious Competence:  Modifications are learned and made which make the latch consistent and pain-free.
4. Unconscious Competence:  Breastfeeding is operating well without conscious thought.  It is ingrained in the body memory.  The skill has been mastered.

Confidence is a way to play with with the unknown, to learn.  It is present in the first steps of the learning curve as we pay more attention.  With the acquisition of skills, confidence becomes grounded in competence.  Ultimately, it becomes second nature, leaving us with a sense of mastery.  

Confidence can open us up to a much larger game.  The secret is to not become afraid of change.  The balance is struck when we maintain an on-going dance between having faith (confidence) and developing the ability to do something (competence). 

Conscious Breastfeeding mothers put their full attention on optimizing their experience. This is the ultimate confidence game for mothers.

It is not a very accurate scientific analysis when any amount of breastfeeding is weighted equally across the board. There are definite differences between exclusive breastfeeding, breastfeeding with occasional supplements of expressed breast milk and breastfeeding with formula supplements.

The types of milk offered, the delivery methods and styles of feeding can significantly impact any evaluation of breastfeeding success.

Milk:

• Human milk, being lighter and easier to digest, does not make the baby go into a heavy sleep for the entire interval between feedings.
• Formula, being heavier and more difficult to digest, and usually given in larger amounts by the bottle, seems to make the baby sleep much of the time, especially in the beginning.

Delivery Method:

Breastfeeding with a decent latch eliminates intake of additional air.

• The flow rate of milk directly from the breast is slower being delivered in a fine spray that can be more easily handled by the baby. This reduces the need for much burping post feeds.

Bottles, no matter what the manufacturers may claim, always have additional air in the system which can add to the sense of fullness experienced by the baby.

•  They tend to deliver the milk much more quickly than does the breast; the baby may gag and pull away or develop techniques to pinch off the nipple with its tongue to stem the flow. Obviously this action would not be pleasant if it was then applied to the human nipple.

Feeding Styles:

Exclusive Breastfeeding can vary a great deal from one nursing couple to the next. Much depends upon who is running the show.

Baby-led, or what I call free-style breastfeeding, tends to be more frequent and assessment of intake or quality of each feeding can be somewhat unclear to the mother, especially in the beginning of the breastfeeding relationship.

Conscious Breastfeeding, the term I coined to describe the mother putting the baby on with intention to ensure a qualitative feed, will lead to more defined patterns of feeding that can be optimized over time. NB. This does not mean a schedule, but rather a definite feeding rhythm.

Breastfeeding with Expressed Milk Supplements:

• The lighter, species specific nature of human milk causes much less digestive upset in the baby.
• Expressed milk given by a bottle is a pooled sample of milk and the ratio of water, fats, proteins, etc. may vary from one serving to the next.
• Nonetheless, it will be clear that all growth is taking place solely due to the nutritional value and calorie content of human milk whether taken directly from the breast or via the bottle.
• Additional air in a bottle of expressed breast milk may make the baby feel more full than when it feeds directly at the breast. This is one possible reason that premature babies only given human milk in a bottle, for days or even weeks prior to discharge, seem unsatisfied initially when switched to exclusive breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding with Formula Supplements:

Several variables are in play with this approach. The breast milk and formula are inherently different as has already been discussed.

• Caregivers tend to be very generous with the readily available, heavier formula when feeding by bottle. There is a belief that the baby will sleep longer.
• When formula is given there is usually an unlimited supply compared to the output that results from the mother’s pumping.
• Since formula is harder to digest, breastfeeding more frequently will not be as productive. The baby needs to be alert and truly hungry to breastfeed well. Otherwise, it will snack on the breast and wait for the bottle.
• The mom will think she is breastfeeding, but she is quickly becoming the aperitif rather than the main course.

Babies who have been on expressed breast milk and/or formula via bottles for a period of time are often difficult to transition back to the breast:

• They have developed a taste for the method (firm bottle nipple) and speed of the delivery system (fast flow bottle).
• The more bottles, the greater will be their discontent while breastfeeding.
• Their mother who has become accustomed to measuring volumes of milk being given via the bottle will soon become insecure and worry that she doesn’t have enough milk in her breasts.

Babies react differently when breastfed only or breastfed and given bottles of breast milk and/or formula. For this reason it is essential that the utmost effort be made to optimize the baseline of direct breastfeeding.

Judicious use of supplements, preferably of human milk whenever possible, will foster a less complicated analysis and more enjoyable breastfeeding experience.