Guest Post: Breastfeeding and Working

Thanks to commenter Ariela for sharing her experience and recommendations. And as usual, don't miss the comments.

Working and Breastfeeding on AMotherInIsrael.com

Michael Pollan on food marketing sheds light on baby formula discussion

An interview on Alternet with best-selling author Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food) ties in to our recent discussion on breastfeeding and formula marketing. Emphasis mine:

Michael Pollan (MP): I remember my mother dutifully giving us all margarine instead of butter. She would say, "Some day they're going to figure out that butter is actually better for you than margarine," and we thought she was nuts. In fact, it turned out that margarine was lethal and butter is fine.

Alternet's Terence McNally (TMN): She was still feeding it to you suspecting that would happen...?

MP: The authority of mothers was essentially destroyed by the food industry. The $32 billion a year in marketing muscle out there has undercut culture's role in determining what we eat, and culture is a fancy word for your mom.

TMN: Just to emphasize that number, that's not the food industry, that's the food marketing industry.

MP: That's advertising, studying us, packaging, figuring out how to get us to eat more.

TMN: Food industry folks say, "We don't think we should regulate this sort of thing because Americans believe in individualism and free choice, but we're all for public education." So maybe we'll throw $100 million of education up against that $32 billion of marketing.

MP: $100 million is one snack food's annual budget. The entire USDA/FDA effort to educate people about food equals one chip. [laughs] There's no contest. They control the information about food.

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Guest Post: Miracles of Motherhood

I've "known" Barbara for years, as the only other Jew on a message board we frequented. I didn't realize she had been reading this blog until she left a comment on the pizzeria post. I knew she had an interesting story, so I asked her to share. It's not only miraculous. It shows how a proactive and informed mother can cooperate with medical professionals to override standard procedures and policies and ensure optimal care.

It’s true what they say: all children are miracles-- just watch PBS’s NOVA that depicts the amazing process of pregnancy and birth. There are, however, stories that transcend the definition of miracle. I would like to share my two stories with you.

"What would you want to do THAT for?"
At age 29, I made the drastic decision to lift “the girls” up off my waist and put them back where they belong--in other words, breast reduction surgery. At the initial surgical consultation, the surgeon asked about children and breastfeeding, I told him that I didn’t think I’d ever have kids, but if I did, I wished to preserve my ability to breastfeed if I could. My mother, who had accompanied me, was dumbfounded. "What on earth would I want to do THAT for?" she asked. I ignored her, and the surgeon agreed to do the best he could. A little over a pound was removed from each breast. The surgery went well, and I was thrilled with my new lightweight, perky friends.

The first miracle
At 32 I (finally) got married, and three years later my husband and I decided to try and get pregnant. Two years’ worth of trying later, we found ourselves gearing up for a round of IVF when we got a call from the clinic. “Sorry, we’re going to have to cancel this round. You only have two small follicles, and that’s not enough for us to harvest.” Fed up with the nonsense (Clomid, 3 IUI’s, and now IVF) I declared, “That’s it…I quit…we’re just going to have a really good life without kids!” My husband agreed, and we decided not to go back for another round of IVF.

A couple of months later I went to my annual OB/GYN visit. I mentioned that I hadn’t had a period in a while (a problem I’d had intermittently since going off birth control several years earlier). The doctor offered to give me a prescription medication to “force a period” if I wanted. I told him no, but asked if he’d mind doing a couple of tests “just in case." So you remember what I said about children being miracles, right? It turns out that one of those “small follicles” that weren’t good enough for IVF harvesting got fertilized the old-fashioned way! My daughter, who apparently likes surprises and chaos, arrived a month early via c-section. She weighed only 5 lbs. 14 oz., healthy except for jaundice.

The breastfeeding miracle
The big question was: Would my artificially perky pals work? I had read as much as I could about BFAR (breastfeeding after reduction), but the bottom line was that I wouldn’t know until I tried. So I nursed. And I pumped (although I never got much using a pump). And I took Fenugreek. At her pediatrician’s insistence, we supplemented my daughter with formula, but I hated every moment of it. We kept up this crazy schedule for six weeks. Once she was past her jaundice issues and she had begun to put on weight I insisted on exclusive breastfeeding to see if it would work. The doctor was skeptical and thought it would be a huge failure (after all, the baby was taking the formula supplements, wasn’t she?), but after a nerve-wracking week that convinced me she was both starving and dehydrated, we discovered that she was perfectly fine and had gained weight. Breastfeeding worked! We never looked back and nursed for 18 months until my daughter quit on her own.

At her first birthday, I became convinced that my daughter needed a sibling. After a long anovulatory cycle, I was able to get pregnant again on my own. The baby was due around my daughter’s second birthday, but I assumed it would be a month early, just like the first. If only.

Another miracle: 500 grams
My second daughter was born via emergency c-section at 26 weeks – slightly more than three months early because of PPROM (pre-term premature rupture of the membranes). She weighed 500 grams (1 lb., 2 ozs.) and was only 11 inches long. Her head was the size of a peach, and she looked like a wrinkled old lady. Our family entered acronym hell: NICU, IUGR, PDA, ROP, PIP/PEEP, ETT, CLD, BPD and NG, to name a few. We were told that the NICU experience is like a roller coaster. Our experience was more like a very long climb up a steep mountain. We made progress, but with twisty trails and peril always at hand.

Micro-preemies are born without the ability to nurse. Even if they could, they wouldn’t have the energy. When they’re stable and ready to begin feedings, they’re given a nasal gavage (NG) tube that goes directly from their nose to their stomach and food is pushed through. (Prior to that, they receive TPN or Total Parenteral Nutrition through an IV line). Breastmilk is critical for micro-preemies because of their immature systems, so I expressed milk from the moment my daughter was born. I remember squeezing out colostrum drop by drop into a glass container while my aunt and cousin visited – I really didn’t care if it bothered them, my daughter needed liquid gold! I already knew my breasts were capable of supporting the nutritional needs of an infant, but I stunk at pumping.

I remembered reading about the drug Domperidone on a BFAR support board, so I ordered it from a pharmacy in New Zealand. The drug is not available in the US, and the FDA has actually issued a warning about it, but for me it was a lifesaver. With the help of the Medela Symphony pump, the NICU’s lactation consultants, and Domperidone, I was able to pump enough to meet my daughter’s base nutritional needs in the NICU. Because my daughter was so small, my breastmilk was fortified to increase its calorie content and help her put on weight. Infant formula, corn oil and polycose powder (a sugar) were added to bring the per-ounce calorie count to 32 kcal. My daughter never lost weight during her time in the NICU (truly amazing), and almost always gained weight. But I hated the fact that she had to have all these supplements.

So why is breastmilk so crucial to micro-preemies if they’re just going to add formula to it anyway? Well, according to these articles, (http://crystalblue.tripod.com/papers/nec-1.html#Massoni), (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/02/1083436476738.html), breastmilk adapts to the needs of the premature infant. Preemies have delicate, immature intestinal systems and are prone to a deadly condition called necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Breastfeeding does not totally eliminate the risk of NEC, but it greatly reduces the incidence. In addition, breastmilk may help prevent sepsis, a deadly infection.

My daughter spent 3.5 months in the NICU. Thanks to a wonderful nurse, her first exposure was to my breast, not a bottle. She licked and was done, but the stage was set. Each time I visited and she was awake I put her to the breast until one day she actually gave a little suck. Slowly but surely she learned how to nurse, despite the fact that she was also learning how to bottle-feed (micro-preemies must be able to bottle 100% of their feeds without negative incidents before being released). After her release we had to continue with the high-calorie supplements, but she still nursed once a day and I continued pumping. Because she was gaining weight beautifully I was able to convince her pediatrician that we needed to start dropping the supplementation. One by one, each of the offending supplements (oil, sugar, and formula) were dropped from her diet until I found myself nursing her exclusively and we never looked back.

My daughter weaned herself when she was 2.5 years old. At 5.5 she’s experienced numerous health challenges (multiple pneumonias, RSV, immune deficiencies, vision and ear difficulties), but all her doctors agree that she’s done amazingly well. One huge hurdle remains: she has been diagnosed with autism, but as each day passes we see more and more progress. She’s smart, sweet, strong, and solid. She and her older sister are truly my miracles.
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Breastfeeding and Judaism: Why Moses' Mother Didn't Put Bottles into the Ark of Bulrushes

Below is the first post in my series on breastfeeding for the Israeli environmental blog Green Prophet.

The Torah doesn’t talk much about breastfeeding, as it was taken for granted in ancient times. Moses’ mother doesn’t put bottles into the ark of bulrushes she sends down the Nile to save him from Pharaoh’s evil decree (Exodus 2).

According to the midrashic commentary Moses refused to nurse from an Egyptian nursemaid, so the biblical text has Pharaoh’s daughter sending for a Jewish one. The nursemaid turns out to be none other than Yocheved, Moses’ own mother.

If the Torah and Midrash saw breastfeeding as merely a feeding method, Moses would have nursed from an Egyptian woman and the story would have ended. The rabbis recognized that without the early influence of Yocheved, Moses could not grow up to become the modest, compassionate, and dedicated leader who rescued the Jews from slavery and turned them into a nation that rejected Egyptian immorality.

An emotional bond

Mothers (and all who care for the baby), do not only tend to a baby’s physical needs. By comforting her baby in distress, a mother models empathy. A baby learns language, tone, and communication while hearing her mother’s voice. Resting in his mother’s arms, a baby gauges her emotional state as she responds to what is going on around her. As babies grow, they observe their mothers at their daily tasks and begin to imitate them. Breastfed babies must stay near their mothers, and this closeness ensures that they receive regular, if not constant, contact and interaction that all humans crave.

In our generation anyone can mix powder and water to feed a baby. One reason this option has become dominant is that our culture values independence for both adults and children. Diane Wiessinger, an American breastfeeding advocate who recently lectured in Israel, pointed out that in the media babies are often depicted alone, an unnatural condition for babies.

When my friend’s daughter told her teacher that her mother couldn’t come to a school party alone because she is nursing the daughter’s 2-month-old brother, the teacher suggested “leaving the baby with a bottle of Materna (the Israeli brand of formula).” With this kind of cultural attitude, adjusting to and accepting a baby’s intense dependence can be difficult for new parents.

The Talmud also emphasizes the importance of breastfeeding. A mother is considered a “meineket,” or nursing mother, until her child reaches 24 months. Even if a baby has weaned, he or she can return to nurse at any time until the age of two. Between the ages of two and four years, or five if the baby is unhealthy, a child who has weaned for longer than 72 hours may not return to the breast, and age five is considered the limit for nursing in Jewish law. The mother is advised to begin on the left side, “close to the heart.”

A difference of opinions

Rabbis differ about whether the laws relating to a meineket still apply today, when babies are usually not dependent on breastfeeding for survival. Some rabbis grant an exemption from fasting on minor fast days to all mothers with children under two, whether or not the mothers are currently nursing.

According to the Talmud, widows or divorcees with nursing babies under two may not remarry. The concern is that the husband will naturally want his new wife to bear his child, and the new pregnancy could lower the mother’s milk supply and potentially harm the existing child. One friend who lives in a haredi community told me that her husband’s rabbi advises all of his students to practice birth control until their children have turned two. And the rabbi of another haredi friend does not permit women in their community to wean earlier without a medical reason.

Future posts will discuss practical aspects of successful breastfeeding, Israeli government and hospital policies, and how to support breastfeeding mothers.

Reprinted with permission from Green Prophet.

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Diane Wiessinger in Israel

Diane Wiessinger is a La Leche League Leader in Albany, New York, and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). In her classic essay Watch Your Language, she explains how we undermine breastfeeding by speaking about its "advantages." She is also known for her creativity in explaining correct latch-on to breastfeeding educators and new mothers.

While Wiessinger is visiting Israel, I plan to combine two of my loves, blogging and breastfeeding, by reporting about her talks. Topics scheduled for tomorrow include "Changing Paradigms in Infant Latch" and "Words Create Reality--Making Breastfeeding the Norm." (See this site for details.) In her third talk, "Lactation Consultation: Art or Science?," Wiessinger will talk about different approaches toward a nursing dyad experiencing difficulties, and how to become a "breasteeding detective."

Here's my report from the Jack Newman conference in 2006.

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Young and old in Ramat Gan

Haveil Havalim #181  is hosted at Tzipiyah. 

Now that my little one entered gan we are free on Fridays, the first day of the Israeli weekend. We decided to go out for breakfast, using the coupon my husband received as a birthday present from work. It's not easy to get out of the house for a morning alone; his birthday is in May, and we used the coupon from 2007.

The list of participating restaurants included two in Ramat Gan. The first one, in the lobby of a mall, featured deafening music.  I snapped a few shots as we walked to the second one. 

The sign below reads that King David Park is named after David, King of Israel, father of the House of David dynasty, 1004-964 B.C.E. You can read the English graffiti yourself; I don't sanitize this blog (much).

Ramat Gan has many elderly residents, but a complex of kindergartens neighbors the King David park. These ads were posted everywhere:

The formula companies have gotten creative, because they are not supposed to market formula to new mothers. So instead they sponsor "educational" events directed at parents of young children. This ad promotes a "babycollege" seminar at Tel Aviv University (!) about "aktiviut" (activeness? activity? exercise?) among young children, aged 0-3. If you want to learn how to raise a healthy child, don't go to a formula company. 

We ate at "Hablintzes shel Shoshana." (For those who care, it was a standard Israeli breakfast of rolls, eggs, cheese and salad.) According to the sign Uri, not Shoshana, manages the restaurant, which advertises itself as heimish (traditional Jewish). It was also quiet. We had a choice of tables on arrival but the restaurant quickly filled with secular, elderly customers. The couple nearest us spoke in Yiddish.

A sign in the restaurant informed customers that fish and dairy products are not cooked together. This is a chumrah (stringency) apparently based on an error--a mixup between the words "fat" and "milk" which are similar in Hebrew. Another sign at the kosher McDonald's, located in the same complex, notes that the ice cream served at this counter is dairy. You have to order the ice-cream from the main counter, though. 

Our usual view of Ramat Gan comes from busy Jabotinsky Street, but this section was lovely. The shaded walks are set so far back from the street, we wondered where the residents parked.

Sderot Hayeled

Continuation of Elimelech St. (?)

I'm having trouble coming up with pithy post endings. That's it.

Phillipines Implements Buses with Separate Seating for Women

Breastfeeding women, that is.

This is in order to counter the Phillipines' abysmal breastfeeding rates.

Davao buses now breastfeeding-friendly

By Mai Gevera

Davao City (7 August) -- About 50 units of Metro Shuttle buses servicing the different cities in the region now have reserved seats for breastfeeding mothers.

. . . World Health Organization representative Dr. Howard Sobel joined the launching of the first-ever breastfeeding-friendly bus as well as the inauguration of the breastfeeding room stationed in the Davao City Overland Transport Terminal (DCOTT).

. . . He cited that about 82,000 Filipino children before their fifth birthday and about 16,000 die because of sub-optimal feeding habits.[I wrote the webmaster to find out the missing words.]

"Our country ranks worst among the 56 countries that were studied on their breastfeeding mothers," he said.

The study showed that only 16 percent of the 4 months old in the country are breastfed while about 15 percent have never even tasted a drop of breast milk.

An 85% initiation dropping to 16% at age four months? I wonder if separate seating will make a difference.

Blog notes

I want to thank Leora for including me as one of seven favorite bloggers in her blog challenge. Leora will be hosting KCC this month so please send her your food-related posts.

Welcome back to Shifra and Juggling Frogs. We missed you. Check out JF's original new blog carnival.

Mazal tov to Jacob Da Jew on the birth of a baby boy.

Frumhouse wrings out the Dirty Laundry Edition of Haveil Havalim.

The Rebbetzin's Husband found a website that rates blogs based on objectionable content. I'm proud to report that yours truly received an R rating. Just wait until you see my upcoming interview with an Orthodox sex therapist. (I interview her and not the other way around--what did you think?)

Lion of Zion posted about supplementation of breastfed babies with Vitamin D.

And here's a bonus: Nadneyda, a new Israeli blogger.

Fasting on Tisha B'Av for pregnant and breastfeeding women

The 9th of the Jewish month of Av, known as Tisha B'Av, commemorates the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. On this most mournful day of the year, Jews are required to fast from sunset until nightfall the following day (August 9-10, 2008).

(On a side note, most rabbinic opinions exempt pregnant and nursing women from fasting on the four minor fast days. My husband was surprised to learn that his colleague's wife, nursing a young baby, was fasting on the 17th of Tammuz.)

Click here to continue reading.

The "Cringe" Factor

In response to my post on the Modiin Mall story, Frumhouse described how she has handled nursing in public. Therapy Doc left the following comment:

The problem is the cringe factor, and ignoring that is ignoring anything that makes people cringe. If you know you're making someone cringe, whaddaya do? Make 'em suffer? Hit 'em over the head with your ideas? Or move away. You can say that
nobody's forcing anyone to watch, but face it, the baby's the draw. Maybe a sign over the breast that says, Look away if this (arrow down) makes you uncomfortable?

My response to TD got too long, so I decided to post it here.

It disturbs me to see nursing associated with "hitting someone over the head" or causing suffering. Breastfeeding is a fundamentally nurturing activity. The comment implies that nursing a baby in public is some kind of political statement. While unfortunately this attitude contains a grain of truth in today's culture, it's beside the point.

As a new mother I was concerned about how others viewed my nursing in public. Admittedly, I never completely got over it. But the day came, on line in the grocery store, when I realized that the needs of my baby must come ahead of someone else's possible discomfort. What about the need for an overwhelmed mother on an outing not to have to move herself, her fussy baby, her gear, and possibly a toddler?

Frankly, it *is* easier for the "cringer" to look or move away. A nursing mother isn't a pariah and shouldn't have to act like one.

For some women, having to put the discomfort of others above the needs of their own babies will be enough to cause them to reconsider nursing altogether. One mother told me, "My older child nursed every three hours, so I could complete errands in time to feed him. But my second has an irregular schedule, so we stopped nursing after a few weeks." Let us make no mistake. The fuss over nursing in public harms mothers and babies.

Links on tzniut, teenage maturity, nursing in public

Coming soon to this blog, bli neder: (Mis)adventures in International Travel.

In the meantime:

Have you ever felt untzniusdik when wearing a stunning Shabbat or Yom Tov outfit on the street? Wolfish Musings and Parsha Blog have the solution.

Follow-up (Hebrew) to the Modiin Azrieli Mall "nursing in public" fiasco. The management changed its policy and claims to be reeducating staff on the subject. I don't know why the article mentions that the mother making the complaint was religious. Hat tip: Nursing in the Negev.

Can you spot a nursing mother in this picture?

Lion of Zion refers to my post on the jailed teenagers, in the context of early marriage among Jews. He writes, "As an aside, I would like to know where all the Israeli/Jewish human rights advocates were while the (minor) settlerettes sat in jail." I believe that Yitzchak Kadman, Israel's best-known child advocate, did speak out on the subject at the time.

Modiin mom told to nurse in the changing room

Yiska visited a mall in Modiin with her young baby. Here is her story:

I was at the mall this morning with my 3-week-old daughter. While modestly nursing her, a security guard approached me and told me I shouldn't nurse in public, and that there is a changing room which I should use, "so everyone will feel more comfortable." I nodded and said OK, and just left it at that.

An hour later, in a different spot, the same thing happened. This time it was one of the cleaning men. I told him I was perfectly comfortable where I was.
It seems to me they were told by the management to ask women not to nurse in public.

It's pretty ridiculous. It's fine for women to walk around half naked, but feeding your child modestly is unacceptable.

---------

I haven't heard from the management yet, so I'm not sure that this is the mall's policy, it just sounded like it.

In January I heard a lecture on breastfeeding rights in Israel, by a lawyer who had researched the subject. She said that unlike in most US states, no Israeli law protects breastfeeding mothers. Assuming the mall is privately owned, the management is within its rights to ask a mother to leave the premises.

The lawyer stressed that in order to be effective, laws should not relate to issues of obscenity or sex discrimination. In Ohio, a breastfeeding mother sued Wal-Mart for sex discrimination and lost. The judge ruled that there was no sex discrimination because if a man were breastfeeding, he would also be asked to leave:

Title VII forbids gender discrimination in employment, but gender discrimination by definition consists of favoring men while disadvantaging women or vice versa. The drawing of distinctions among persons of one gender on the basis of criteria that are immaterial to the other, while in given cases perhaps deplorable, is not the sort of behavior covered by Title VII.

As for obscenity, there is no connection between the two. And we don't want the courts deciding how much breast can be visible. When laws on public breastfeeding come up for debate in state legislatures, formula companies have been known to lobby for including a clause about nursing "discreetly" or limiting the age of the nursing baby. This opens up a can of worms and sends a negative message about breastfeeding.

The lawyer explained that supporting nursing in public for health reasons also creates a risk. The medical profession promotes breastfeeding, yet you still find doctors who argue that the differences between breastfeeding and bottle-feeding are insignificant. If the pendulum were to swing back in favor of formula, we would want the rights of breastfeeding mothers and babies to remain protected.

The lawyer insisted that any discussion of public breastfeeding must hinge on the right of the nursing mother to participate fully in society. You can read more of my views on this matter in my post "Nursing in the Ezrat Nashim."

I don't understand why an Israeli mall would harass breastfeeding mothers. Such mothers tend to be more affluent, and have more disposable income from money saved on formula and bottles. They have more time to spend in the mall because they don't have to shlep formula or worry that it will spoil. And Israelis don't bat an eye when they see a nursing mother. In my experience, they're more likely to compliment her.

I think the mall thought that if they had a room for mothers and babies, nursing mothers would naturally want to sit there. This is despite the fact that they call it a changing room and not a nursing room--do you really want to watch everyone changing diapers while your baby is eating? Breastfeeding rooms are great for mothers who want rest or privacy, but they send a subtle message that breastfeeding mothers should stay out of sight. I see women breastfeeding in public every time I visit my local mall, despite the existence of a nursing/changing room.

Notice that Yiska's three-week-old baby needed to nurse twice within an hour. That's a lot of time for someone to spend in the changing room. What if a woman comes with her husband or friend? Are they supposed to wait for her outside? It's time to stop equating nursing with going to the bathroom.

The mall might be concerned about their haredi clientele, which is ironic because haredi women nurse too. And as Yiska implied, the mall doesn't have a dress code, so there are more "offensive" sights than a nursing mother sitting on a bench. If a haredi clientele is the issue, I wonder whether the mall limits provocative advertising.

I hope the management in Modiin will wise up and allow Israeli mothers to shop freely with their nursing babies.

Trusting our children

One of the most valuable lessons I learned as a mother was about relinquishing control.

"Training" my children to do things before they were developmentally ready wasted time and emotional energy. How I regret those power struggles.

Eventually I realized that there were many things I didn't need to teach my children. I could trust them to meet certain milestones without incentives, threats, or persuasion. These milestones included:

• Sleeping through the night.
• Learning to use the bathroom i.e. toilet train
• Weaning from breastfeeding.
• Getting onto a "schedule" for meals and naps. Babies generally fall into a routine after a few weeks or months.
  
• Eating enough to grow and thrive, if offered a variety of nutritional food, a fork and a spoon.
• Separating from me without a fuss.
• Dressing themselves.
  

I believe that my job is to provide a secure emotional base and a reasonable level of encouragement. I had faith (at least in those areas) that my children's inborn mechanisms and a natural desire to mature would kick in eventually. Unfortunately, in our culture, this isn't simple. Dozens of instruction books help parents train children to do what they would eventually do anyway. It's so frustrating to find out that your child is abnormal; i.e. he is not doing what the books say he should be doing. Until you realize that the problem is the book, not the child.

Not all babies sleep through the night at six weeks, or six months. And it's normal for children to nurse for a few years; both the Talmud and the World Health Organization consider two years a minimum. Kids will sleep all night by the time they are bar or bat mitzvah. And (hopefully) when it's time for them to get married, no one will ask when they got out of diapers.

Yes, there are exceptions. Sometimes a child who develops later than average needs an evaluation. Sometimes we have to speed things along, like when we wean a child from diapers in preparation for preschool, or leave a baby with a sitter. But most children will do what they need to do if we take for granted that they can.

I've listed some behaviors that I don't believe parents need to worry much about. The question that interests me now, and which I hope to explore in a future post, is what *do* we need to actively teach our children?

Crawling: A Father’s First Year Blog Tour

Mom Central invited me to participate in a Blogtour for Elisha Cooper's book Crawling: A Father’s First Year.

Elisha Cooper (no, he’s not Jewish) is an artist and children’s author living with his wife Elise in Berkeley, California. Elisha documents his journey through the first year of fatherhood after the birth of daughter Zoë.

We have all the usual milestones: The initial shock of being solely responsible for another human being, the first time alone with a baby who won't take a bottle, the first trip to the emergency room. But he moves from humorously casting himself as a clueless father to examining his ever-changing emotions. He admits how inadequate he feels next to his wife who seems to know instinctively how to calm and care for the baby. He describes his jealousy of Zoë’s and Elise’s intense feelings for each other.

What makes the book special is how he comes to terms with these feelings and refuses to let them interfere in his relationship with his growing family. Toward the end of the year when he is caring for Zoë full-time, he writes (p. 144) "I will never replace Elise. The intensity of the look she and Zoë share when they see each other at the end of the day is not replicable. But I'm needed." He never stops trying to find unique ways to connect and interact with his daughter, and develop his relationship with his wife as they adapt to their new roles.

Another thing I liked is that certain "controversial" aspects of parenting were presented as a given. Elise nurses, with never a thought of formula (Cooper even uses breastmilk in his coffee). When Elise travels, there's no thought of leaving baby with dad. They take Zoë to restaurants regularly, and even attend weekly "baby night" at the neighborhood movie theater. In a funny scene Cooper describes a dating couple who accidentally turn up on the wrong night. Why didn't anyone in Israel ever think of welcoming babies to a movie showing?

As a mother, I felt uncomfortable with what seemed to be a cry-it-out episode when Zoë is one month old (!).

Sometimes Cooper's writing is a little crass. And even if he believes passersby who say that Zoë is the cutest baby in the world, he should have the good taste to play it down.

At first I found it disconcerting that Zoë's age is rarely mentioned; I kept wanting to check how old she was at any given point. But as I often say to mothers struggling with breastfeeding, “Watch your baby, not the clock.” Cooper focuses on his own feelings, without comparing his family and their decisions to those of others.

Crawling: A Father's First Year is attractive and well designed with short chapters. New parents will enjoy flipping through it during those late night feedings.

In which all is revealed. . .

Well, not really. But check out Frugal Journey's interview with yours truly.

Interview: A Mother in Israel

A Radical Ruling: Breastfeeding and Fasting on Yom Kippur

Our rabbi made an amazing statement this past Shabbat: Pregnant women and nursing mothers whose babies are solely dependent on their mothers' milk (including babies who take a small amount of solids, generally until 8 or 9 months) must not fast on Yom Kippur. Nursing mothers (and presumably pregnant women; I didn't hear that part of the speech), , should eat and drink in shiurim starting Yom Kippur morning, and not wait until they have symptoms or see signs of distress in the baby. He said that he based his opinion on a ruling by the Hazon Ish.

Click here to continue reading this post and get suggestions for fasting and breastfeeding.

New blog posts can be found at A Mother in Israel.

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