found this in the paper and couldn’t help chuckling.

and yes, i DO think you should, even at bus stops! :D

the sight of the Breastography portrait exhibition greeted us at the entrance of the BreastFest 06.

twas very tastefully done, and we put our hats off to the lady who bared all for THAT shot! :)

see some familiar faces? hee.

bigger view

we arrived late at the breastfest and missed the simultaneous b/feeding event, but registered ourselves for the record anyway.

there were talks by celeb mums, one of whom was conspicuously absent, and later we find out that she had just given birth (yes, we’re talking about mrs fandi here).

some shopping was done…

some socks went loose…

some winks were caught…

some shoulders were rubbed. lol!

some prizes were given out for the blog-on-breast competition, and i have to admit it was with some bias that i’d submitted the names of my fellow b/feeding friends to win. ah well, they WERE very well-written pieces after all! :)

the first-prize winner, and my bosom buddy, was caught in surprise at the mention of her name. i think the tempur pillow she won will be quite useful. eh, not cheap leh that thing!

am glad to have been a part of this, albeit in small support, and who knows when else i will get the opportunity to do this again?

happy world breastfeeding week once again!

mornings before the little one’s shipped off to mum’s, i’d pick him up from his cot, bleary-eyed and zombie-like (me and him), and he’d feed on one side while i pump on the other. a little practice in coordination and juggling, but proven to be doable. the boobs are fullest (and hardest!) in the morning after accumulating milk the whole night, so it’d be a waste (and uncomfortable later) if i don’t express in the morning. and that makes up one feed for the day, which i send off together with the little one.

pump session no. 2: lunch time. some food will be wolfed down first by this famished cow, then it’s down to business.

essential items:

1) pump and bottles / milk bags

my goal per session at this point would be between 260 – 280ml (one medium-sized avent bottle). pump session no. 3 happens before work ends (or when i reach home, depending), which makes up another 260 – 280 ml bottle. crazy? you can call it an obsession.

i used to store the EBM in milk bags, but after a while, i realise it’s more economical to just store them in bottles since they’ll be used up the next day. those i store in milk bags are for freezing. a little note on frozen vs chilled EBM: from discussions with other mums, i found that giving the baby fresh EBM chilled in the fridge is better than frozen EBM, since freezing it would remove some of the nutrients. so my frozen stash is more for back-up, and the more recent ones get used up first.

2) ice pack and cooler bag

as you can see, they’re ratty hand-me-downs from my SIL, just like my pumps. nothing fancy coz b/feeding is about being fuss-free and economical after all, no? (well, ok, cheapskate too, hee.) thankfully we have a fridge in the office, so i leave it there till the end of the day, which means the ratty cooler bag is just for the journey home. occasionally, if i have to be out on field work, i’d even lug a small ice-box i got for free, you know, the kind you carry to picnics, camping or fishing trips? very unglamourous. :D

3) liquid cleanser and lotsa tissue

hauling an entire steriliser to the office is out of the question, so washing and soaking the used pump with hot water is the next best thing for me. some people just leave the pump unwashed in the fridge and continue using it for the next session, which is convenient too.

4) plastic container

i got this tip from observing the other expressing mums in the nursing room. a tupperware or any container deep enough to soak the pump in and let dry for the next session. oh, and one more thing: ziplock bags! cheap and clean to keep your pump in. :)

i didn’t take any supplements though i did try the herb fenugreek for a while, but i stopped taking it because it didn’t seem to work on me PLUS it gave me the most unbearable body odour! phooey~ in any case, Green Life fenugreek comes in capsule form, is vegetarian and contains no gelatin, available at most pharmacies, even mustaffa.

and the most important bit about expressing: there’s this technique i learnt from a colleague which worked incredibly well for me and others.

(*caution: may cause “ewww!” reaction.)

while pumping on one side, what you do is you twiddle the nippie on the other breast with your thumb and finger to simulate the baby’s tongue, and you may just get a quicker let-down! when the flow pumped on one side has slowed down, you change sides and twiddle with the other nippie for another let-down. from my experimenting, i need about four let-downs per session, which i don’t even get when i’m feeding the baby, hehe. (again, call me crazy. or obsessed.)

they say you could try looking at your baby’s photo, or sniff on your baby’s clothes for let-downs, as the brain is tricked into thinking your baby is suckling.

well, if all else fails and you’re in desperate need of that let-down, there IS one more thing…

watch a porn video! (hey, it WORKS ok. i’m just not saying how i based this information on… LOL!)

i asked a few people if advocating TBF (total breastfeeding) in this day and age is a lost cause.

one reply i got was, that it puts a lot of pressure on mums-to-be.

fair enough. i hope, in my personal quest to promote TBF, that i never offend or put to shame anyone who has gone the FM (formula milk) way. it IS, after all, a very personal choice, just like all other aspects of raising a child. there simply isn’t a right or wrong answer, is there?

but perhaps, if we’re all just that little bit more enlightened, and given that little bit more encouragement and support, and put in just that little bit more effort… maybe, just maybe, more mums will give it a go and not give up too soon, or too easily.

having only done this for eight months and being a newbie in this business of baby-rearing, i may not be the ‘expert’, or have the ‘credentials’, and i certainly will not know for sure how it’ll benefit my baby in the future when he’s all grown up. after all, who’s to say how healthy or how bright or how close to me he will be, just because of my TBF efforts now?

but some of you, like me, can’t help but have that gut feeling, that says, THIS is what’s best for our little ones. THIS is what our bodies are made for. THIS is Something Very Good. and THIS is a privilege that we’ll only get to do for a very short time in our entire life. (unless of course, you intend to pop out 10 children or more in your lifetime.)

and with that little bit of enlightenment, that little bit of encouragement and support, and that little bit of effort, we’ve proven to the naysayers that we CAN do this. maybe through sheer luck coz our babies are natural guzzlers, but if even the mother of the smallest of premies can do it (as well as the mother with the smallest of boobs!), why not everyone else?

and with that unbridled belief and massive conviction i have in every mum-to-be out there, i say, go on, i dare you to take up this challenge too. never be afraid to ask for help. never think it’s too hard. never think it’s not enough.

never think you CAN’T.

happy World Breastfeeding Week… and see you at the BreastFest on 13 Aug!

leading up to the World Breastfeeding Week and BreastFest, O had roped in a few of us for a photo exhibition featuring moms, what else, breastfeeding. :)

nursing tops by Mothers En Vogue, makeup by Norehan Fong, photography by The Pond.

models playing…

and resting before shoot.

primping and propping.

giggling and guzzling.

we were given a choice whether to show our faces, our boobs, etc. i’m not bothered about our faces, but well, you gotta admit, i ain’t got much boob to show in the first place, lol!

i do think, however, that one or two more daring ones went ‘freestyle’, so that should be interesting. ;)

was phone-interviewed by RSI Melayu the other day, but didn’t manage to catch the full thing on radio itself. which was just as well coz i hate listening to my own horrid voice on air, plus i was having a sore throat, and speaking in full malay is just… “janggal” to me! :D

there’s no transcript of the interview though, just this:

Khasiat susu badan baik bagi ibu dan anak

thanks to illydea for the opportunity. :)

among the various excuses i’ve heard for not b/feeding is how “inconvenient” it is, especially when you’re outside.

but i cannot disagree more with this. there is nothing more convenient to me than whipping out your boob on demand.

less baggage, less downtime, less fussing!

clothing-wise, it isn’t much of a hassle either. i think i have maybe three or four b/feeding shirts in all, but like maternity clothes, they’re pretty cool and nice to have, especially with all the neat little ’secret’ folds built in for that extra bit of discretion, but i’ve learnt to do without them.

the real secret lies in: layering!

thin, stretchy lycra spaghetti tops are great fashion inventions. they don’t cost much, they don’t go out of shape, and they come in a colorful array to match your clothes and mood. be it from metro or mango, they’re my wardrobe staple for now.

due to my rather smallish, ahem, ‘anthills’, i sometimes even eliminate altogether the formidable nursing bra (these also, not cheap and not exactly victoria secret sexy, lol!). hello, tollyjoy breastpads! (they’re the cheapest and have the most surface coverage, by the way.) (ok, you would have gathered by now what a cheapskate i can be.)

so, all you need to do is put them over your normal everyday top, and during feeds, pull the top layer upwards and the bottom layer downwards – voila! no bare skin is exposed, modesty is intact, baby is happy.

yeah, not exactly rocket science, i know. lol!

***

and here’s something i got off the net. :)

You Can Breastfeed Anywhere
by Laurie Coker

You may breastfeed in a store,
on the floor,
in a roar.
You may breastfeed in a jam,
eating fried green eggs and ham.
You may breastfeed on the stair.
You may breastfeed anywhere!

Your baby can latch on in a swing,
on the wing,
in a ring.
He can latch on in a car,
where you are,
at the barre.
She can latch on in a storm,
on the farm:
that’s her charm.
She can latch on in a train,
on a plane,
without pain.
They can latch on to a rhyme.
They can latch on any time.

You can nurse Jane or Joe.
You can nurse Clyde or Moe.
you can nurse Betty or Sallie.
you can nurse at a political rally.
You can nurse any time, anywhere.
You can nurse clothed or bare.
You can nurse unshaved of hair.
You can nurse Tim, Tony or Tom.
Who can nurse? Any mom!

would you like vanilla or banana flavour today, sir?

depending on what i’ve been eating prior to expressing, i’ll get a slight variation in milk colour.

most of the time it’s white, sometimes it’s a little yellowish. and oilier. i think that’s from fish or you know, other oily foods.

i wonder if there’s a difference in taste too…

but generally, BM is SWEET. and how do i know? haha! well, even my (ahem) bedfellow told me so. ;)

on hindsight, i think tasting the variety of ‘flavours’ that found its way into my breastmilk has made the little one more accepting of the adult foods that we eat daily. like spicy dishes – he takes it without flinching, coz well, i indiscriminately eat spicy food while breastfeeding.

yet another fabulous plus to BFing. :)

after years of working here, only NOW i discover we have a baby diaper-changing facility in the building! gee.

wellll, not that i intend to bring the baby to my workplace for any reason. eek, no thanks.

but it’s another perfect hide-out for my pumping sessions, seeing that hardly anyone else uses it. plus point is the hot water dispenser and sink, convenient for me to wash up the pumps and go.

AND, a good place for me to have a quiet lunch too! :)

what’s in this bag, aunty nana?