Ep. 29: What is the relationship between feeding and sleep in infancy?

06/24/21 • 66 min

"You must breastfeed!" says the medical professional. "Don't you dare sleep with your baby!" says the same medical professional. The tension between how we feed our babies and how we sleep with them is a real problem for many new families. As primates, we are expected to stay close to our young, and that includes nighttime, and this has profound implications for our feeding journey. As we discussed last week, breast or chestfeeding grief is real and many families struggle with it, but some of this comes from advice that may be well-intentioned but harms that feeding relationship. This week I got to talk to the expert herself - Dr. Helen Ball - researcher of the effects of sleep location on feeding and vice versa about this very issue. She also happens to be one of my favourite people to talk so this episode was an absolute joy for me. If you think that how you sleep doesn't affect how you feed your baby or how you feed your baby doesn't affect how you sleep, you're likely in for a bit of a surprise. Dr. Helen Ball: https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/directory/staff/?id=121 Durham Infancy and Sleep Centre: https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/durham-infancy-sleep-centre/ BASIS Website: www.basisonline.org BASIS Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BabySleepInfoSource/ BASIS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/basis_babysleepinfosource/ Articles of Interest (a small selection of many): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1523-536X.2003.00243.x https://adc.bmj.com/content/89/12/1106.abstract https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0264683021000033147 https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1999.101.1.143 https://adc.bmj.com/content/91/12/1005.short https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/icd.519 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helen-Ball/publication/30053712_Breastfeeding_and_mother-infant_sleep_proximity_implications_for_infant_care/links/0fcfd50c45a22d9d36000000/Breastfeeding-and-mother-infant-sleep-proximity-implications-for-infant-care.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10995-015-1798-7

Previous Episode

Ep. 28: Why should breastfeeding grief and trauma matter?

Although not every parent chooses to, many report wanting to breastfeed or chestfeed their child. Our Western society likes to promote this with slogans and ideas that "breast is best", but most of that isn't backed up with the type of support that parents need to make this a reality. From inadequate leave to advice that counters the promotion of breastfeeding to a lack of instrumental and social support for new parents, breast and chestfeeding are an uphill battle, to say the least. Unfortunately this means many parents fail to reach their own goals and this can lead to intense grief about this. Too often, they are told it doesn't matter or just to suck it up, neither of which is supportive or helpful for parents experiencing this grief. This week I was privileged to talk to Dr. Amy Brown about this issue, one she has researched and written on for her book, "Why breastfeeding grief and trauma matter". Whether you were successful in your breast or chestfeeding goals or not, or even if that just wasn't your choice to even embark on, this episode is a critical listen for all of us who engage with new parents. Dr. Amy Brown: https://professoramybrown.co.uk/about-me Twitter: https://twitter.com/Prof_AmyBrown Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prof_amybrown/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breastfeedinguncovered Why Breastfeeding Grief and Trauma Matter: https://www.bookdepository.com/Why-Breastfeeding-Grief-Trauma-Matter-Amy-Brown/9781780666150 To learn more about the Evolutionary Parenting Podcast visit https://evolutionaryparenting.com/evolutionary-parenting-podcast-2/

Next Episode

Ep. 30: How do we navigate our parenting decisions within our cultural framework?

From the moment a family is expecting their first child, decisions are made about how that relationship is going to work, decisions that don't always match reality. The addition of a new person to the family - and a rather helpless one at that - changes everything. Here we have a baby who needs and expects certain things. Food. Warmth. Care. We also have parents who often live in cultures that tell them what to expect from their baby. And as I talked about last week with Dr. Helen Ball, often the messages parents get are incongruent with their realities. This week the discussion continues with Dr. Cecilia Tomori who has spent a career doing in-depth, ethnographic work on how families navigate and negotiate the tensions that affect parenting decisions, particularly from a moral framework of how we make the decisions we do. From colonialism to convenience, you may be surprised at all the ways parenting decisions are influenced. Dr. Cecilia Tomori: https://nursing.jhu.edu/faculty_research/faculty/faculty-directory/cecilia-tomori and https://www.ceciliatomori.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrTomori Books by Dr. Tomori: Breastfeeding: New Anthropological Approaches: https://www.routledge.com/Breastfeeding-New-Anthropological-Approaches/Tomori-Palmquist-Quinn/p/book/9781138502871 Nighttime Breastfeeding: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/tomorinighttime Relevant Articles: https://dro.dur.ac.uk/28335/ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/24694452.2018.1558628?journalCode=raag21 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953616305135