Lactation support helped my babies
I want to thank Jennifer Eliot so much for helping me with lacation support for both of my children. Each time she was wonderful, and I wondered if we would ever have been successful without her.
I gave birth to my first son, Garrett, at Emerson in 2001 and he was five weeks early. The nurses tried to help get him to nurse successfully, but we weren't having much luck. I still remember the day Jennifer came in and spent over an hour with us, showing me techniques to rub down the sides of his body to get him to wake enough to nurse. She also introduced us to the Haberman bottle, which worked wonders. She came back the next day to see how we were doing. I ended up nursing him until he was 2 1/2.
When my second baby, Ethan, came eight weeks early, we were rushed down to a well-known Boston hospital for delivery. During the six weeks we were there we struggled with breastfeeding, which I was suprised at since I nursed so long with my first son. Even though I had lots of milk, Ethan was unable to latch on well enough to get a belly-full. I spent lots of time talking with the nurses and even a couple of their lactation consultants with no progress. Since Ethan was so early, it was even more important to me to be successful breastfeeding so he could get the antibodies from my milk. Ethan came home at six-weeks-old, and we continued to struggle for two more weeks before I called Jennifer. Again, she was wonderful. She scheduled us for an appointment quickly and spent lots of time with us. Again, she recommended the Haberman bottle (which I had asked about at the Boston Hospital and they didn't use them) Within 24 hours, Ethan was doing great with the Haberman and had a noticable improvement nursing. It was amazing.
Ethan is now 10 months old, and we are still happily nursing. Not only am I able to provide breastmilk for him, but I continue to pump the excess and have shipped over five gallons to the International Breast Milk Project, http://www.breastmilkproject.org/, which pasturizes the milk and sends it to orphaned babies in Africa. These babies are six times more likely to survive on breastmilk.
So, because of Jennifer I'm happy to report that she not only helped my babies but many more since I continued lactating and have been able to donate.
Thanks so much!
Debbi Mallinson
April 2007