Rarely does a week go by when I don’t get a call from a friend asking me a question about a health issue, and usually it’s about kids. And, why not? I am a doctor, specializing in family medicine. My professional life rides on how much I know about health and how well I convey that information. So, it’s a part of my life that has become quite normal. The amount of questions I got rose sharply though after my friends started having kids, no surprise. And it reminds of why I went into medicine in the first place…
We were all about 12 years old, hanging out, and my girlfriends and I were having a grand time. My friend’s younger sister ran into the room crying with a scraped knee. Most of the girls would have rather run in the other direction, and did. Dealing with blood is not high on the list of a young girl’s fun activity list. But I relished in the chance to comfort, clean and apply the necessary band-aid to the wound. No life saving feat, but fun in my book. It was one of my first public shows of a desire to help and has, in part, translated itself into me connecting to you through Titi.
At Titi, we want you to be nourished. Let me help guide you through the maze of information out there, and hopefully give you some understanding and peace when it comes to the health of moms and children. Nourish yourself with some great information while online with Titi!
I will also alert you to the best resources I know of on particular health topics so that you don’t have to be Google freaked out when you put that search word in and don’t know which link to muddle trough first.
Let’s start out with what I think is the fundamental question about feeding our children in those early months and years. “How should I feed my baby?” For healthy children, this seems almost too fundamental to discuss: nipple, of some form, with milk behind it, into mouth of baby. But this seemingly simple “how” has become the topic of much writing and discussion. Breastfeeding, at least for a year, is what the American Academy of Pediatric supports. This leads many breastfeeding moms to ask: “How often?, How do I know my baby is getting enough?, What about the pain I sometimes feel?”. For others, this goal is practically, physically, mentally, or emotionally just not possible. So then we turn to formula, and we are introduced to more questions: “which one, how often, and how much?”
Thankfully, there are some simple and sound resources to help us answer these questions. Check out the links below for some great answers to these questions. In the coming months, I will help translate this information for you as well. But here’s what I think is the real bottom line to many of our feeding questions for our children: RELAX. I know, this is much easier said than done when a sensitive infant is in our care. But I have found this to be fundamental to most of the conversations I have with my patients and friends on the topic. Here are the key notions that will help you relax:
1. Your baby will tell you when she is hungry, usually by being upset.
2. Your baby will tell you when she is done eating, usually by turning away from the food source.
3. Unless advised by your doctor for treatment of a problem, do not push your baby to finish her food.
4. If your baby is gaining weight, urinating transparent urine and having regular non-bloody bowel movements, your baby is likely getting enough to eat.
5. Do not use food as a reward or punishment. This will also increase the chances that your baby will develop an unhealthy relationship with food.
What’s the point of this simple advice? I have seen it forgotten over and over again. The point is to create a healthy experience with nourishment, weather the source be breast or bottle or both. Your baby learns how to manage its needs for nourishment by how you respond to her feeding time. If it is full of force and stress, and she cannot dictate when she should start and stop, she may be on the road to having an unhealthy relationship with food.
So let’s start this relationship between our baby and food out to be a healthy one. Look for my blogs every few weeks on the Titi website to help guide you. Together, let’s tend to the scrapped knees of motherhood, both our children’s and our own!
For information on breastfeeding, check out:
1. Familydoctor.org by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
2. The Nursing Mother's Companion by Cathleen Huggins
3. La Leche League
For information of feeding with formula, check out:
1. familydoctor.org
2. Also, I just read a great article: Infant Formula, by Dr. Nina R. O’Conner published in the April 1st issue of the American Family Physician. Unfortunately, right now, it’s only available by subscription, but it will be available for free in about a year. And, you can likely read it at a university or medical library near you. Either way, I look forward to digesting and sharing with you some pearls of information from this article and other late breaking articles like this one in the blogs to come.
Dr. Diana Farid
(originally posted July 2, 2009 on www.titicollection.com)
