Help Your Partner Breastfeed

There are so many reasons to breastfeed. The health benefits to mom and baby are enormous.

But that doesn't mean it's easy.

New dads need to do everything they can to support their partners and encourage breastfeeding.

You can:

1) Bring her water when she's nursing.

2) Make sure there is a bowl of fruit and nuts by her favorite nursing spot and replenish it often.

3) Help her get enough sleep by taking the baby out during the day so she can nap.

4) Encourage her to learn to nurse lying down in bed so night nursing is easier.

5) Do more than your share of the housework so she can enjoy the baby and not stress about dishes. Being relaxed and bonded with a baby helps facilitate successful breastfeeding.

6) Encourage her to breastfeed as long as she and the baby are both happy doing so.

7) Forget about the twins being your favorite horizontal toy. While your partner is nursing she probably won't want you touching them a lot during sex.

Need another reason to breastfeed? A new study shows that formula feeding increases the risk of leukemia.

As reported by Charles Bankhead, a staff writer for MedPage Today, the longer a baby's on formula, the higher the leukemia risk.

According to the MedPage Today article:

Action Points

• Prolonged formula feeding may increase the odds for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
• Note that each additional month of delaying solid food increased risk by 14%.
• Breastfeeding exclusively for at least six months is the best health insurance policy for infants and their mom."Prolonged formula feeding may increase the odds for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), investigators in a case-control study concluded.

"Each additional month of formula feeding was associated with a 16% increase in the relative risk of ALL compared with a control group. Every additional month of delay in the start of solid foods increased the odds by 14%.

"The findings might reflect the recognized association between breastfeeding and development of an infant's immune system, Jeremy Schraw reported at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting in Anaheim, Calif.

"One explanation for this co-risk may be that it's the same effect being picked up twice," Schraw, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement. "Children being given solid foods later may be receiving formula longer."

"ALL is the most common malignancy in children, and several studies have suggested interaction between feeding practices and its development. Some of the evidence suggests interaction among diet, normal immune-system development, and levels of insulin-like growth factor, said Schraw."

Stop, Drop, and Blog

Firemom at Stop, Drop, and Blog wrote about the book today as part of the blog book tour. You can find the full post here.

Here's an excerpt the review:

The book features different chapters for the basic things of parenting that new dads may not know or may be fearful to try on their own. It covers everything from diapering to sleep to taking the baby out on his own and just about everything in between. The best part of each chapter is that the laughs abound. The humor is, no doubt, meant to keep dads engaged in the book but moms will get a good laugh as well.

Some of my favorite parts? First of all, the author suggests dads consider babywearing. Any man that suggests any form of babywearing to another man is okay in my book. Kudos, kudos! Furthermore, breastfeeding is not discussed as an annoying possibility but is talked about as the norm for feeding infants. His tips to help the new mom during breastfeeding (bring water and snacks without being asked) made me smile. Furthermore, the author didn’t go against the current recommendations of holding off on solids and even went so far as to point out that it is normal for some kids to drink nothing but milk for a full year. I wanted to jump for joy. The lactivist in me wants to send this guy a thank you card.

Other favorites include the reminder to read to your child and to make sure to snap photographs not only of special times but everyday life. (Though I did have to laugh when he suggested that dads aren’t in the pictures because they are the ones manning the camera. Not so in this FireHouse. There are lots of pictures of FireDad with the boys but very few of me with the kids because I’m the photographer in the family.)

The book ends, before the epilogue, with an idea for dads to write to their babies. I got all weepy with the idea and the letter that he included. Of course, I get weepy at the drop of a hat so I’m not sure that should be a true judgment of weep-inducement but, alas, it made me weepy.

Another added bonus to this book is the glorious photography. BigBrother routinely stole the book from me (when he wasn’t trying to draw on LittleBrother with markers) to look at the pictures of dads and babies. If BigBrother approves, they must be good shots. He’s my little Photo Bug.

All in all, I would absolutely recommend this as a gift for a brand new dad or a dad-to-be.