The Pope is a great example of the idea that cruelty is actually dumb and that kindness and openness come from intelligence. A great juxtaposition to the (techno)fascists of our time. It takes a mind to create a better world, it takes zero to destroy it.
@teetertooters nursing strikes are hard! mine had a stint at around 4 months then again at 9 months. if you can stay the course , it may only be a quick strike- we’re still going at 23 months
The happiest moms I know put their baby to bed on their own for the first 4-5 hours and then the baby comes into bed with the parents around midnight when the parents go to sleep
"Daily caloric intakes were assessed by 24-hour recall in 13 healthy women while breastfeeding between 4 and 38 weeks postpartum and in the subsequent nonlactating state.
9 mothers were lactating adequately; i.e., no complementary feeds were given. 4 mothers had an inadequate milk supply, as complementary bottles had to be given at 2 or more feeds/day. All the babies were healthy. The weight of 1 baby fell between the 3rd and 10th percentile, 4 between the 10th and 25th, 7 between the 25th-75th, and 1 between the 75th-90th. The younger babies, under 4 months, were receiving little or no solid food, and the major part of the older babies' fluid intake was breastmilk.
Results shown tabularly indicate that caloric intakes of the 9 successfully breastfeeding mothers was considerably higher than that of the 4 mothers who were unsuccessful. This was particularly striking in the mothers who were not losing weight. The intake of the unsuccessful mothers was only little more than in the nonlactating state, whereas the successful mothers were eating up to 50% more than normal. 1 unsuccessful mother, consuming 1950 kcal increased her intake to 3910 kcal/day. Her milk supply increased quickly and complementary feeds were no longer necessary. Furthermore, 3 successful mothers who tried to diet to lose weight more rapidly found an immediate reduction in milk supply with subsequent irritability and failure of their babies to gain weight. On reverting to demand feeding, the babies became satisfied and resumed their normal weight gain patterns.
None of the mothers were aware of the extra caloric requirements of the body during nursing although the Department of Health and Social Security and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recommend increases of 500 and 1000 kcal/day. The present findings are in agreement with those of Thomson, Hytten, and Billewicz who found that successfully lactating women, most of whom are losing weight, had an average daily intake of 690 kcal/day nore than bottlefeeding mothers.
Insufficient milk is a commonly reported cause for breastfeeding failure and the usual clinic advice to mothers to drink more fluid to increase their supply has been ineffective. Since the present preliminary results indicate that the calorie content of a mother's diet may be critical in her ability to produce an adequate milk supply, mothers should be informed of their extra caloric requirements, and advised to eat more if in doubt about their milk supply."
I love how milk is so alive it’s almost schizophrenic. Put some cultures in and it yogurtfies. Add some acid, you’ve got cheese. Hundred of types of cheese based on just waiting times. Insane. Cook it and it caramelizes into thick nectar. Steam it and a cappuccino is born.
Ice cream. Sweetened condensed. Goat milk. Sour cream. Heavy cream. Raw. Buttermilk. Powdered milk. Milk chocolate.
We love milk so much we speak about percentages of it, like gold carats.
Milk is foundational. Biblical. Something maternal and natural and feminine about it. Milk is alive
That pregnancy is an opportunity to practice joy in suffering and self-sacrifice. If you fail it will make it more difficult to properly surrender in motherhood.
“Witches call it spells. Religious people call it prayer. Spiritualists call it manifestation. Atheists call it the placebo effect. Scientists call it quantum physics. Everyone's arguing over it's name, but no one is denying it's existence”