I am spending the weekend at a Lactation Education Training through CAPPA. I am down in Oceanside in a hotel enjoying the quiet and taking the time to update my blog. For 3 days I am learning about breastfeeding. My first day was great. The instructor is very engaging and we are doing a lot of interactive things and I have learned a lot already.
My favorite thing is that we are not nesters. Some mammals leave their babies places, go off and find food and then come back. These are animals that tend to need big muscles, think dogs, deer, cows. So their breastmilk has a LOT of protein and fat to build muscles. Deer will leave their babies 5-15 hours at a time, but one momma deer stays behind to wet nurse any baby deer that gets hungry. Dogs will leave for up to 4 hours.
We are primates and are meant to have our babies on us and feed them frequently. Our main thing we are growing when we are babies is our brains. So our breastmilk is high in lactose, which helps build up brain matter. We don’t have as much fat and protein so our babies need to eat more often. Hence we shouldn’t be nesters, leaving our babies in a “nest” (swing, car seat, crib) we should be carrying our babies more.
Earlier in the week I was talking to my big boys about my upcoming weekend and breastfeeding. They wondered why they use cow milk for formula. My oldest son wanted to know why they don’t use chimpanzee milk to make baby formula as we are more similar to them than cows. I thought it was a great idea, but then we talked about how hard it would be to milk Chimps and they are too smart to put up with being milked for human use! Again, brains versus muscle.
I love being a doula and CBE and I am excited to have more information to share with my students and clients.
This was very interesting and it all makes sense. And LOL to milking chimps! I’ve always used soy-based formula with my girls. Cow milk proteins are too hard on baby tummies!!!
Oh. My. God. I am still giggling uncontrollably at the thought of trying to milk a chimp. It really WOULD make more sense, nutritionally, than cow’s milk, that’s the crazy thing.
I just did my postpartum doula training, and we also talked a bit about this. The book “Breastfeeding Made Simple” goes into the differences between various types of mammals, too – carry mammals, nest mammals, cache mammals, follow mammals. It’s so fascinating to see how in each case, the milk adapts to the species’ needs. Like so: http://breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com/2009/07/what-kind-of-mammal-are-we.html
I love this book, too. I’ve been trying to find a breastfeeding book I really love for a while – I LIKE “Womanly Art” okay, and Jack Newman’s is good. I wasn’t wild about “Bestfeeding” or the Nursing Mother’s Companion. They’re okay, and CERTAINLY better than nothing, but “Breastfeeding made Simple” is far and away the best yet!
Sounds like a great training – congrats! I hope to get more solid training in this area myself.
That is my favorite book too! The training was AWESOME, I feel so much more capable of supporting breastfeeding moms and I am going to start teaching a class too!