1511cf66_all_To_Action_on_Breastfeeding__Topic
[ID] 328 [Interest Areas] Breastfeeding Coalition Representative Community Organizer Concerned Citizen [Comment] Our country's breastfeeding success rate is severely impacted by the climbing cesarean section rate - now at 32%. By encouraging healthy, low-risk women to seek primary maternity care from a nurse-midwife (CNM) or certified professional midwife (CPM), we will come a long ways toward increasing breastfeeding success rates simply by decreasing surgical births. Birth by surgery is an independent risk factor for breastfeeding failure for several reasons: 1) the delicate hormonal/physiological design of birth has been disturbed, 2) mother's body is exhausted and recovering from surgery which hampers her ability to establish a full milk supply, and 3) baby is often separated from mother in the first hours of life. If breastfeeding is not accomplished in that first hour of life, it is statistically very unlikely that the mother/baby will ever be able to exclusively breastfeed. In a recent large-scale study published in the British Medical Journal, 96% of women who delivered with a CPM both avoided a C-section and were still breastfeeding at 6 weeks. *96%* Here is a link to that study from the National Institutes of Health database: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15961814 Unlike routine protocol in typical hospital labor/delivery units, Certified Professional Midwives encourage natural births by providing continuous one-on-one support during the entire labor. They encourage the mother to labor and deliver in vertical positions, because laying down restricts the contractions of the uterus, narrows the birth canal, and makes labor more painful. By following vertical birthing techniques, the need for medical intervention and the request for pain relief is minimized -- thus, the chance that labor/delivery flow smoothly in a normal, natural, healthy way is maximized. Thus, that bonding hour after birth critical to successful breastfeeding initiation is protected. The mother/baby are free from external disruptions to their body's natural hormonal balancing system, and the stage is set for instinctual nurturing at the breast. During the following days, mother should be educated on safe co-sleeping arrangements according to the research of Dr James McKenna and Dr William Sears. Mothers who have had natural births free from tearing or surgeries are free to focus energy and attention on breastfeeding during the postpartum weeks, rather than on fresh, painful wounds that make even picking up baby a difficulty. Any program to encourage breastfeeding will fall short of potential success without addressing the physiological design of hormones that accompany the natural birthing and bonding process. Conclusions of the literature on positive implications for breastfeeding by the use of CPMs and CNMs as primary maternity care providers are quite invariable, as supported by Cochrane reviews: http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab004667.html Currently, only ten states provide CPMs reimbursement for taking on Medicaid clients, so entire sections of the less-fortunate population are unable to afford access to professional maternity care support that maximizes their chances of avoiding surgery and successfully breastfeeding. [Topic] 
Maternal and Infant Care Practices: Prenatal, Hospital, and Post-Delivery Care
Call To Action on Breastfeeding
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