Wet Nursing and The Today Show

[thejenn]

The Today Show did their 15 minute segment this morning on wet nursing and cross nursing. It actually had a very positive spin to it, which surprised me. I want to thank the members here that responded to help me find some guests for them.

Anyway, I just finished watching it and got a pretty comprehensive post up about the interview. If anyone is interested (not sure when the transcript will show up on the NCB site) you can read it here:

http://thelactivist.blogspot.com/200...oday-show.html

Warmly,
Jennifer Laycock
The Lactivist Blog
http://thelactivist.blogspot.com

[Caden's Mom]

Bummer! I missed it. I look for the transcript later.

[laurdsed]

Here's the link to the transcript:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18313552/

There's also a section for comments!

Laurel

[thejenn]

laurdsed, just to note, that's not the transcript, it's the article version of the news story. It's missing plenty of quotes and statements.

The producer told me that the video should be up by the end of the day.

[treehugginmama]

I watched it. I was pleasantly surprised. I wish they didn't cut the Dr. off though, I was looking forward to her story...it seemed like she was going to talk about a time she wet nursed or someone wet nursed her child.

[gypsypoet]

Meredith continued the story

Meredith actually continued for the doctor after the commercial break, usurping Al's check of the weather

She said that about 15 years ago.. she had a friend that called her at home...

Her friend was at work and the husband had called to say that her baby was upset and could not be soothed. So the friend called wondering if she could go over and nurse baby to sleep.She did!!!!

I also loved the comment about pastuerization killing vital nutrients in breast milk

[intorainbowz]

One part that made me sad is they did the "breastfeeding is hard and timeconsuming" thing over and over... I was very happy when Meredith pointed out that that means people don't have enough time to feed their babies.

[purplepaisleymama]

I would say that I thought that the story was for the most part positive, although I would have liked to hear something about reason why a mother may not be able to nurse, either because of medical reasons( the mother is ill in the hospital, an urgent situation) or adoption. A very good friend was hsopitalized when her daughter was 4 months old, the baby screamed for 12 hours and would not eat from a bottle(she had never used one) and her parents asked me to nurse her, I did. She and her almost two year old sister stayed with our family, 4 children the yongest a nursing 1 year old. The mother would nurse her in the hospital when the father brought the children in to visit and I would nurse her the rest of the time. I would keep her with me at night and nurse her to sleep and then nurse my youngest. He didn't much like having to share but she was younger and he would either just tandem nurse or go play. This was for two weeks until the motehr discharged from the hospital. I have also nursed another friend's baby when she was hospitalized for surgery. I pumped and nursed for a family who adopted a baby who was 6 days older than my child, for about three months.
When my 7yo daughter was born, a very close friend had a daughter two weeks later, I pumped milk and brought it from Rhode Island to New Hampshire every weekend for over two months.
I can say that it was a wonderful feeling to know that I was helping a baby and their family, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I so feel that I bonded with these babies but, in all cases it has never become uncomfortable with either the mothers or the children. It is sometimes reminisced about, always with fondness. Because of the story, I have spoken to two of the mothers today, and they both encouraged me to talk about the experience...
laura

[guest9921]

Purple -
Sounds fantastic, what an incredible loving gesture.
Hopefully more mothers have women like you in their lives.

Next baby (December,) I plan on pumping a large amount and donating it to a local mother, if I can find one.

[minkajane]

While I never actually nursed another woman's child, I did pump a bottle of milk for my friend's FF baby who had surgery. It was the first thing he ate after he woke up. She wanted him to have the antibodies to help him recover, plus since he could drink BM instead of water or Pedialite, it would help him get his strength back faster. We had two nurses come in THREE times to hassle us about giving him my milk, even though his mother wanted it (and was there to tell them so!). They said that we weren't allowed to do it because they couldn't be responsible for what he was ingesting since I wasn't his mother. :

He recovered very well from the surgery and his mom is convinced that the milk helped in that recovery.

[EmsMom]

I thought the today show was positive about bf in general. All of those loving pictures of women nursing babies! Just to see that on network t.v. was a great moment!

[SaraFR]

Is this the show?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18313552/

[Debora]

where can I turn to help

Hi, I am new to this community and after watching the NBC show I wanted to know where I could help. I have a medical conditon where I have too much protactin in my system due to a tumor on my pituitary glad, I looked into donating my milk but through research I have found they won't take my milk because I haven't been pregnant to produce the milk... but for random knowledge if you have these levels of prolactin your body thinks you are pregnant and won't let you get pregnant... So if anyone has any suguestions of where I can turn to help I would be so appreciative.

[UberMama]

Originally Posted by Debora

Hi, I am new to this community and after watching the NBC show I wanted to know where I could help. I have a medical conditon where I have too much protactin in my system due to a tumor on my pituitary glad, I looked into donating my milk but through research I have found they won't take my milk because I haven't been pregnant to produce the milk... but for random knowledge if you have these levels of prolactin your body thinks you are pregnant and won't let you get pregnant... So if anyone has any suguestions of where I can turn to help I would be so appreciative.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/MilkShare/

Also check out: http://milkshare.birthingforlife.com/

[MoonJelly]

Originally Posted by purplepaisleymama

I would say that I thought that the story was for the most part positive, although I would have liked to hear something about reason why a mother may not be able to nurse, either because of medical reasons( the mother is ill in the hospital, an urgent situation) or adoption. A very good friend was hsopitalized when her daughter was 4 months old, the baby screamed for 12 hours and would not eat from a bottle(she had never used one) and her parents asked me to nurse her, I did. She and her almost two year old sister stayed with our family, 4 children the yongest a nursing 1 year old. The mother would nurse her in the hospital when the father brought the children in to visit and I would nurse her the rest of the time. I would keep her with me at night and nurse her to sleep and then nurse my youngest. He didn't much like having to share but she was younger and he would either just tandem nurse or go play. This was for two weeks until the motehr discharged from the hospital. I have also nursed another friend's baby when she was hospitalized for surgery. I pumped and nursed for a family who adopted a baby who was 6 days older than my child, for about three months.
When my 7yo daughter was born, a very close friend had a daughter two weeks later, I pumped milk and brought it from Rhode Island to New Hampshire every weekend for over two months.
I can say that it was a wonderful feeling to know that I was helping a baby and their family, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I so feel that I bonded with these babies but, in all cases it has never become uncomfortable with either the mothers or the children. It is sometimes reminisced about, always with fondness. Because of the story, I have spoken to two of the mothers today, and they both encouraged me to talk about the experience...
laura

That is awesome! This is the kind of story that needs to be told. How can anyone have a problem with any of that? I am so thankful for open-minded people like you and those mothers.