Taking care of yourself

To become a mother means to get and take responsibility for the care of another person. But women who become mothers are taking care for themselves as well. Pregnancy, childbirth and lactation are health increasing factors in a woman’s life. Women who birth children and breastfeed lower their chances of developing several kinds of potentially life threatening illnesses. Stuebe et al (2005) found that women who had breastfed had a lower risks for diabetes type II up to their middle age years. In their analysis of 1 very large cohort studies (totaling over 150,000 women) they found that in women who reported at least 1 live birth in the last 15 years each subsequent year of breastfeeding lowered their diabetes risk with 15%. Not having children and no breastfeeding is a bad health choice for women. Schwartz c.s. (2009) compared the lifestyle and health data of almost 130,000 post-menopausal women who had birthed at least 1 live child. They found that women who reported a lifetime history of more than 12 months of lactation were less likely to have hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, or cardiovascular disease than women who never breast-fed, but they were not less likely to be obese. With such positive outcomes, one would presume all mothers would want to take could care of herself and every health care professional to support her in doing so. Indeed, over 80% of Dutch women indicate the wish to breastfeed, less than 80% actually do so and within a month half of them quit. The numbers of mothers exclusively breastfeeding for 6 months are so low they don’t even show up in the latest official national records. One of many possible actors for these low numbers for incidence and duration of breastfeeding may be found in the childbirth and maternity care are carried out. Women who give birth in a hospital setting hardly get a minute of rest a day. Morrison et al counted all disturbances in a standard single maternity room between 8:00 and 20:00h. Recorded interruptions totaled 1,555, yielding a mean of 54 interruptions each averaging 17 minutes in length. Half of the 24 episodes of time alone per dyad were less than or equal to 9 minutes; most commonly only 1 minute long. This does not enhance a good start wih breastfeeding and thus not for mother taking good care of herself and her baby.
Stuebe AM, Rich-Edwards JW, Willett WC, Manson JE, Michels KB: Duration of Lactation and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes. JAMA. 2005;294(20):2601-2610.
Schwarz EB, Ray RM, Stuebe AM, Allison MA, Ness RB, Freiberg MS, Cauley JA: Duration of lactation and risk factors for maternal cardiovascular disease. Obstet Gynecol. 2009 May;113(5):974-82.
Morrison, B., Ludington-Hoe, S. and Anderson, G. C. (2006), Interruptions to Breastfeeding Dyads on Postpartum Day 1 in a University Hospital. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing, 35: 709–716.