Breastfeeding Class

Yesterday marked the 2nd in a series of educational events designed to make us fit parents -- yesterday's edition was devoted to breastfeeding. It may sound a bit creepy but I promise every pregnant woman in the room brought her spouse, save for one. I did not feel strange at all. The class was held at the Pump Station, which is truly a great store. (For you Angelenos reading, the Santa Monica store is bigger and warmer, but there is a smaller Hollywood store that carries the same merchandise).

The class was led by a veteran breastfeeder (BFer) named Corky Harvey, who is also a registered nurse and lactation consultant. What I liked about the class was that she offered practical advice about BF that wasn't judgemental and wasn't too militant (read: La Leche League or LLL) either. For example, she shared the suggested guidelines for BF a baby (6 months exclusively; 12 months of breast-milk (in addition to solid foods) at a minimum). In today's world, this isn't necessarily very common and who knows what Jamie will end up doing. However, I liked that contrary to LLL's opinion, she believes strongly in introducing the breast pump early on, particularly for working moms. This was refreshing to hear.

Here are a few highlights of the class:

• No live demonstrations, but there was a great video which felt almost as "real" as a live demo


• We learned a lot about how most women can make BF work even if it's initially a struggle at first. Only 2% of woman can truly not produce enough milk


• Babies are born with enough "food" on board for 7 days -- so if it takes a few days for a mother's milk to "come in," your baby will not starve


• We learned about how to store breast milk and freeze it (I'm already envisioning an assembly line of sorts for this)

In reviewing this post, it makes me a bit uncomfortable. . .I hope our readers don't think it's creepy that I wrote this post. I'm excited about the process and excited about learning more about child-rearing in general.

-Jonathan