I love glass baby bottles

Oh the joy of a breastfed baby who will accept bottles! After my experience with my first baby, I was that close to just not bothering with bottles at all this time round. Having seen Little Squish accepting a dummy with my own eyes, however, I warily decided to buy a couple of bottles and let her have a go. Wow, what a difference it makes! Cup feeding and spoon-feeding EBM are all very well, but they are messy and slow. Being able to leave baby for several hours at a time without worrying is just so liberating. Thank you, Little Squish. It's very very much appreciated.

When buying bottles, I unhesitatingly chose glass, same as the first time round--and it seems that glass has been coming back into fashion, because our regular baby store had both plastic and glass options, produced by the most popular mainstream baby bottle brand in Japan (Pigeon, in case you are wondering. They do breast pumps as well). My mother was not keen on the idea ("What happens when she starts grabbing them from you and chucking them on the floor?") but then, she is of the generation that grew up during the era of old-school glass bottles which probably broke as soon as you look at them, and was no doubt very grateful to switch to plastic. These days, glass bottles are practical, and I think they are by far the nicer choice.

Glass bottles look, smell, taste, feel and even sound nicer (yes, really--glass items make nice clinky noises when you get them in and out of the fridge or lift them with sterilizer tongs. I care about this. Doesn't everyone? No? Okay, maybe it's just me). Pumping milk is one hell of a pain; it's easier to feel motivated if you have beautiful, gleaming, sparkly-clear glass bottles to line up rather than crappy blurry-looking plastic ones. I hate the way plastic bottles look after they've been washed and sterilized several times--they get all beat up and cloudy looking, with little scratches all over them, and if they've ever accidentally been washed with dinner items they sometimes get those lovely orangey tints that we see on old plastic tupperware containers. Doesn't look pretty or hygienic, and you wonder about contaminants getting into your precious milk. 

As for formula (I have been making use of some formula this time round, but that will be the subject of a future post): Nowadays, "The Powers That Be" decree that carers must use hot water (70 degrees or so) when making up formula, to kill any Enterobacter sakazakii that could be lurking in the non-sterile milk powder. I am not particularly woo-woo, but even I don't particularly like the idea of preparing a hot drink in a plastic container--even one that's BPA-free. Come to think of it, I don't like the idea of drinking out of plastic containers myself. I use stainless steel water bottles and glass tumblers. I think babies deserve the same sort of containers when they drink stuff. Most baby bottles have been free from BPA since around 2010-ish, but just because a bottle is BPA-free does not mean that it is free from everything that might be concerning when combined with hot liquids, and you do kind of wonder what "they" (plastic manufacturers etc.) have put in there to replace the BPA. By the way, the cloudiness that appears on plastic bottles that have been washed a few times (especially if they have been through the dishwasher) is something new: old-school Bad Plastics containing BPA used to stay clear and transparent, and that was actually the whole reason why BPA used to be added to baby-bottle plastics. Now it's been removed and everyone has dull cloudy-looking bottles. So the change that made plastic baby bottles safer has actually made them look dodgier, strangely enough.  

Glass bottles are not as fragile as some people seem to imagine. The glass is special extra-tough shatter-proof stuff; I've dropped my glass bottles a few times and never shattered or chipped a single one--and we have hardwood floors. I mean, if you (or more likely, your child) well and truly slammed one against a wall, it might break; the fact that glass bottles are a bit more fragile and the fact that they are heavier, do make it harder for babies to hold their own bottles or may make you more reluctant to encourage them to do so. Then again, not everyone is bothered about this, and certainly there is no evidence that bottle-holding is some sort of essential "milestone" or important for development in any way. Indeed, there is actually a school of thought which suggests that babies should not be encouraged to get independent with bottles by holding them, as this encourages habits like wandering around with a bottle; the idea is that if a baby has to lie passively and get bottle-nursed, this means that as they get older and more mobile, their growing sense of independence will cause them to naturally lose interest in the bottle and bottle-wean themselves. I suspect this argument is overkill, but it's probably a good general rule that bottle usage should be gradually restricted anyway as babies get older and grabbier, and having more fragile bottles might be a simple way of ensuring that this happens.

Finally, glass bottles are better for the environment. They can be recycled properly at the end of their life, or even gifted to another person since they stay clean and fresh no matter how many times they are used (Pigeon sells separate teats, which is handy). All in all, glass looks like the right choice for baby bottles, and I suspect they will become the norm over the next few years, especially with the negative connotations that the word "plastic" has developed in this age of environmental concerns.

When manual pumps are best

Because Baby Seal for a very very long time was going to be an only child, I went ahead and gave away most of the baby stuff (I hate clutter--if there is a medical word for the opposite of a hoarder, then that's me. I throw stuff away almost compulsively). This means that when I got pregnant again, I had to start again with different things...well, except for the cases where I got some old stuff back from the friend I'd gifted it to...

This is annoying, but in some ways it can be quite nice to start afresh and discover stuff that's different and better. I love having a proper newborn pram that faces me, for example (and feel quite guilty for making Baby Seal face away from me in that crappy sit-up-and-beg rattler....). And then there is the breast pump. With my first, I--in a spirit of "nothing but the best for my baby!!!"--invested in a Medela double-electric breast pump; I had of course read all those online articles assuring me that, as a mother on maternity leave, I could "get by" with a manual pump, but who wants to "get by"? Surely it stood to reason that a double electric pump must be better. After all, it costs more. This time round, however, I got gifted an unused manual pump, and reluctantly decided to use this until I had the time and energy to purchase something better.

In fact, I've ended up sticking to the manual one, and I honestly think that manual pumps are sometimes the best solution if you are staying at home or on maternity leave. 

My abiding memory of that bulky double-electric showboat that I had first time round, was the perennial puzzle of "...but when do I pump? I am taking care of this baby all day long and feeding her constantly."

With a small manual pump, the problem largely solved itself. Because it was so simple to sterilize and set up, doing so didn't feel like a burdensome task and I was motivated to get it set up every day. As for fitting in a pumping session? Feed the baby at one side, then switch her to the other while pumping the first, then switch back and pump the second breast. A small single-side pump makes this much more practical. Because a single manual pump is small and light and you are not tethered to one spot, you can also hold the pump and express with one hand while you walk around taking care of stuff in the house--many's the morning when I have basically pottered around the room working the breastpump with one hand while making beds and rinsing crockery with the other. (No, I am not convinced by the new Elvie-type contraptions which fit into your bra and supposedly allow you to pump hands-free and move about at the same time; the online reviews I have seen mostly confirm my suspicion that such devices neither pump efficiently nor allow much freedom of movement.)

Also, when you get overly full at night due to a baby who sleeps through unexpectedly or nods off during a nighttime feed after only finishing one side, pumping will help you stay comfortable while also allowing you to sock some milk away, and I personally have found a manual pump to be way better--quieter and less disruptive of sleep. With my first I used to hand-express into a towel, but why throw that milk away if it can be saved?

Finally, strange though it may sound, some women actually respond better to manual pumps, and I think I may be one of them. I have absolutely no idea why. Perhaps it's psychological, perhaps it's because the rhythm of hand-pumping is closer to the way a baby feeds at the breast, or perhaps it's because with manual pumping you are more likely to "get your hands in there" and use compressions and so on to help out, rather than relying on the machine to do all the work for you. But there you go.

No doubt this is one of those Your Mileage May Vary thing, and I know that many women struggle with aching hands when using a manual pump. But to anyone who is at home for the first few months of their baby's life, it may be worth starting out with a manual pump only, and then switching to an electric model if and when desired, rather than investing in an expensive pump that you may not end up using all that much. 

Well, I'm back at last!

Well, I had assumed that the blog was pretty much done and dusted--been there, done that, no longer breastfeeding. Don't get me wrong, breastfeeding is a fascinating subject, but when you are no longer in the trenches (the long watches in the night, the mornings spent making beds with one hand and pumping milk with the other etc. etc.), other concerns tend to take over--like children's education, your own career, the state of the world in general and so on.

And then one surprise pregnancy took me hurtling back into the world of lactation. With Little Seal now almost 8 years old, it's quite an odd feeling to be back here, once again, nursing away. And how much things have changed over the past near-decade! Some of the gadgets are new and people are arguing about different things online--Perfect Prep machines, hands-free breast pumps that let you express milk on the expressway itself, and of course the ubiquitous apps for keeping track of feeds and naps (in "my day" we used to just stick a rubber band on our wrists. I feel old). Some of the weaning advice has changed a bit too.

With all these new ideas come new bits of nonsense to explode and explore. For my own satisfaction, and to stop myself going round the bend after spending the evening holding Little Squish to my breast on one side while assisting with Little Seal's maths homework on the other, I will be taking a look at some of these things. Let the bullshit-blasting commence....!

The white gold rush: Why Chinese shoppers are going all-out for foreign formula

I'm lucky enough to live in a neighborhood that is attractive and interesting enough for people to actually pay to come and visit it (i.e. Tourist Central). Japan has seen almost uninterrupted growth in its tourist trade in recent years, especially Chinese visitors. Chinese tourists tend to be quite serious shoppers and the tills are ringing from dawn till dusk in the massive Don Quixote (*1) store that was built here last year in anticipation of growing numbers of tourists. Don Quixote is a.... well, rather quixotic store selling consumer goods of all kind and designed to look like a kind of shopping jungle; very much a store that says Buy Buy Buy! Except, interestingly, in the case of baby goods: the shelves of nappies and formula have signs saying "One pack only per shopper," and the tins of formula now have little security beepers sealed in with tough plastic which the checkout assistant has to remove with a Stanley knife.

Middle-class Chinese families have been going out of their way to avoid Chinese-made formula ever since the melamine scandal of 2008, in which some babies were killed and many more hospitalized after a shady manufacturer decided to doctor its formula mix with melamine to disguise the low protein levels. The fact that Chinese tourists are eager to buy Japanese formula in spite of worries a few years back about radioactive contamination in the wake of the 3/11 earthquake tells you something about just how bad the reputation of Chinese formula is. Meanwhile, many middle-class women prefer not to breastfeed or find it difficult; they may want to get back to to work as soon as possible to fund their children's education, and there is a lack of provision for pumping in most Chinese workplaces. Hence the development of a sizable "grey market" in which Chinese students, tourists and ad hoc entrepreneurs sweep the shelves for formula in places like Hong Kong, Australia and Japan, and then sell the tins in China for several times the price originally paid for them; at the more informal level, many visiting Chinese like to pick up formula as a gift for friends who have babies.

The thing about China is that the sheer, steamroller-like volume of people we are talking about means that a shortage of pretty much anything in that country (whether it's brides or baby milk) is likely to have repercussions for the rest of the world, and parents in Australia, New Zealand and Europe have been taking to social media to vent about being confronted with empty formula shelves and Chinese shoppers toting baskets crammed with tins and tins to take back to China. Chinese parents' desperation to acquire any formula that isn't Chinese is understandable; so, however, is the frustration of parents in countries which have done a better job at ensuring food safety. Last year in Japan, a punch-up developed in an Akachan Hompo between two groups of Chinese tourists who were trying to buy up as many diapers as possible (*2), while other Japanese stores are now rationing formula/nappies and even interrogating foreign-looking women at the till ("What are you buying these diapers for?"). In Australia and Europe, women of East Asian background are increasingly reporting hostile reactions from shop assistants if they try to buy several tins of formula at a time. Tensions are running high.

My first thought upon hearing of this trade was "Why don't the manufacturers just export formula to China?" However, it appears that there is a distinct ranking in terms of formula desirability: formula purchased overseas is top, followed by imported foreign formula purchased at an import store in China, and then, finally, formula manufactured in China by a foreign-affiliated company. Given the extremely high prices that are being charged for foreign formula and China's perennial issues with fake stuff, I suspect there are concerns that someone somewhere may have just slapped a foreign label onto a can of Chinese formula, while China's very serious pollution problems make many Chinese feel that even formula manufactured within a foreign-owned factory located in China is risky. Plus, when it comes to gifts I suppose there is a special value in receiving something that you know someone has dragged through customs and carried back home in a suitcase on a bouncing bus: "This is special and limited in supply, and I made the effort just for you." In any case, I guess that Australian or Japanese formula manufacturers have to limit the amount they export if they do not want to face a social media backlash from parents frustrated at shortages in their local supermarkets.

"Well, why not just produce more formula?" is the obvious response to all this. Long-run, I think that is the plan, and dairy industries in Australia and other countries have been enthusiastically gearing themselves up for expansion over the next couple of decades to meet Chinese demand for high-end milk products.

In the short-run however, it's not quite as simple as that. Formula is not just plain old cow's milk and contains an ever-increasing number of complex ingredients, which must be sourced according to rigid and complicated guidelines. The rules governing infant formula production are (not surprisingly) very strict indeed, and a producer would have to be pretty daft to risk cutting corners; the lesson of China's infant formula debacle is that for formula manufacturers, if you slip up even once, you will probably never win parents' trust again. Finally, cow's milk-based formula production requires specialist equipment, such as spray dryers (to dry the milk into powder). Australia's stray dryers are working at maximum capacity and constructing new ones requires huge amounts of investment. Meanwhile, Japan's dairy industry is in no situation to increase output; we can't even guarantee domestic butter supplies. The crux of the problem lies in the extremely high standards that parents (understandably) have for the milk they feed to their babies; these standards lead Chinese parents to do whatever they can to avoid Chinese formula, but they also make it hard to greatly increase the formula supply in a hurry. This article here has more.

Ultimately, the answer is for China to clear up its pollution issues, lack of pumping rights in the workplace and food safety frameworks so that a) Chinese families are able to trust Chinese-made formula again, and b) more babies can be fed breastmilk for longer, which will help to take the edge off China's exploding demand for foreign-made formula. In the meantime, let's hope that the dairy industries of Australia, Japan and elsewhere succeed in ramping up supply so that parents in these countries do not face empty shelves when they go to the store for milk to feed to their babies.

(*1) Do try Don Quixote if you ever come to Japan--it's crazy, tremendously fun and the products and customer service are top-notch. And the signs are all hand-made. The shop is deliberately designed to display all sorts of things at random, kind of bursting out of every corner--novelty penknives next to cosplay costumes etcKitKats, that kind of thing.
. It is also a good place to pick up snacks with weird flavors, like green tea caramels and peach-flavored
http://japandaily.in/don-quixote-you-can-obtain-practically-everything-if-you-go-there
http://japan-magazine.jnto.go.jp/en/1112sp_ranking.html

(*2) As someone who has used Japanese nappies, I can confirm that they are very, very good indeed, especially Merries which are apparently the most sought-after brand among the Chinese. Chinese nappies are said to be pretty dire, and there are worries about dodgy chemicals reacting with the skin on babies' behinds (Alternatively, maybe the parents are sensitive to Sino-Japanese political tensions and are enjoying the idea of Japan getting crapped on... who knows?).

Offering a breast across the species barrier

Another one of my occasional forays into what might loosely be termed "weird stuff" (nursing from extra breasts, nursing by males etc.) This time, a look at the odd world of human women who choose to breastfeed other animals.

My recent search for "Amazon" (yup, it's Christmas shopping time again!) brought up a quirky news items about an indigenous group called the Awa in Brazil where the women often adopt wild animals and breastfeed them like babies. ("It highlights how far we have come from where we were. They are so close to nature. In fact, it is not even close--they are part of nature," goes the spiel.)

This bit of news was presented as a new and unique finding, but in fact cross-species nursing is a well-attested anthropological fact. Hawaiian women used to nurse puppies along with their children, as did Australian Aboriginal women with their beloved dingoes. Ainu women in Japan used to suckle bear cubs, bears being sacred to their culture. Indigenous women in the Americas breastfed bear cubs, monkeys, oppossum rats and deer. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), women still sometimes continue their traditional custom of adopting and nursing piglets, especially in the Highlands region, though I did not see this during my own travels in PNG many years ago.

Cross-species nursing does seem to be commoner in cultures which have historically faced population pressures (PNG and the Pacific region being just two examples), and my hunch is that this may not be a coincidence. Population growth has long been a problem for the New Guinea Highlands due to the salubrious climate afforded by its high altitude, and especially since the arrival of the sweet potato in the 18th century which caused a big increase in population. The lack of large fauna and the low protein content of the sweet potato and other local crops result in chronic protein deficiency. Limiting births has therefore been a major concern for this part of the world, and is believed to be a key reason for some of the more unusual aspects of traditional Highland culture--the superstitions that required men to eat, work and sleep more-or-less separately from their wives in men's longhouses, the foregoing of sex for up to two years following childbirth (the mysterious process of birth, like menstruation, was believed to be polluting and dangerous to men), as well as abortion and the abandonment of newborns, which caused mothers terrible grief.

I suspect that adopting and breastfeeding pet animals could have evolved as yet another way of limiting births; in women who work physically hard much of the day and eat meager diets, frequent suckling at the breast substantially reduces the chances of conception, thus spacing out pregnancies. Most people in developed countries have a "yuck" reaction of the sight of a woman allowing an animal to suck on her breast, and Christian missionaries have done their best to stamp out the practice along with many other Highland customs. But perhaps we could also see PNG women's cross-species nursing as rather a smart strategy by women who were doing their best to make their own lives easier and safer, and ensure better nourishment for their existing children. And let's face it, a piglet is a lot easier to take care of than a baby!

In addition to preventing the appearance of additional mouths requiring feeding, you can of course go one better by actually eating the animal itself. Although the Awa apparently refrain from eating animals that have ever been nursed by a woman, PNG villages are often not so solicitous and it is normal for breastfed pigs to be slaughtered and eaten at some stage; given that protein shortages in this part of the world were historically so severe that cannibalism of dead human relatives or enemies was commonplace, this is perhaps not surprising. Islands in the Clouds by Isabella Tree (a fascinating book, if you are interested in this part of the world) describes the slaughter of a pig thus nurtured in a Highland village, the ceremony being punctuated by cries of grief from the woman who was losing her "baby."

Pet-keeping is often seen as being exclusively a product of developed societies, but the affection that the women of PNG and elsewhere lavish on their beloved "fur-babies" is real and moving. That basic impulse--"It's so cute--I want to look after it!" ensures that isolated cases of cross-species nursing continue to crop up even in societies where such practices are no longer the norm, as we see in the occasional "well-who'd-have-thought-it" news feature on a pet-owner or wildlife-worker who has chosen to save the life of a baby animal by offering a breast across the species barrier. Breastfeeding animals may be a bit weird, but the stories and motivations that lie behind it are both interesting and touching.

No-BS Book Reviews: "Work. Pump. Repeat" by Jessica Shortall

There are a lot of breastfeeding books out there, and quite a few that I wouldn't recommend to anyone who has to work outside the home in their baby's first year. So it's refreshing to come across a nursing-while-working book which I feel I could actually give to a new mother without worrying that I am going to send her off into a tailspin of anxiety and depression. The book is "Work. Pump. Repeat" by Jessica Shortall, and I got an advance preview of it shortly before its recent release.

The most striking thing about the book is its briskly efficient use of floor-space. As the author tells us, she is not going to tell us about the football hold or lactation cookies, because there are about 2,500 breastfeeding books that do that already. Nor does she waste time on giving us reasons to breastfeed--if we've bought the book, we've probably made our decision by now. 

As a result, almost the entire book is freed up for the most fantastically detailed, practical advice--real stuff, hands-on, mum-tested. The sort of stuff you hear on your favorite forums and Facebook groups, yet somehow never get round to actually copying and pasting into a single place so that you will have all the tips when you need them; it's all here, digested, sorted and put into readable form. Are you looking for advice on how to speed things up if your company has assigned a pumping room in another building? It's here. Practical hints on the best type of clothing to disguise milk leaks? Look no further. What to do if you have no alternative other than to pump in a toilet cubicle? Sorry you had to look for it, but there's detailed advice about that too (did you know that keeping some Post-it notes in your handbag can come in handy for this situation? If you are wondering why, read the book). 

Pump choice, pump usage, bottles, freezers and getting your baby ready for taking breastmilk at daycare are discussed, followed by discussion on practical clothing choices, your rights at work, and how to handle your boss and coworkers. All sections are full of concrete, non-judgmental advice that has a "been there, done that" feel to it. The workplace section is really, really pragmatic. Shortall's research for the book included talking to large numbers of HR /management people, trying to work out what are the best tactics for the average Jane who does want to pump at work but cannot afford to antagonize her boss and lose her job/damage her career prospects with a "These are my rights!" attitude. And the book also gives practical tips on "guerrilla pumping"--how to get by at work as best you can if no proper accommodation is made for your needs. The book puts a lot of emphasis on the everyday realities of breastfeeding, with the workplace plan-of-action broken down in detail to include things like how and how often to wash pump parts, dealing with special and unusual pumping situations, flying with breastmilk, and how to approach HR to suggest improvements for pumping facilities. 

Things I would have liked to have seen? I would have preferred slightly more specific info on the freezer storage times/nutritional value question, including differentiation between chest freezers versus regular freezers. I also think that the discussion on lipase/funky-tasting frozen milk would have been better placed closer to the beginning rather than in the troubleshooting section at the end; given the number of women who end up wasting hours and hours producing freezers full of undrinkable milk, every woman who is going to store serious amounts of the stuff should consider testing for lipase before she gets going. One final point is that I would have attached a brief health warning before advising mothers to read books like The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding and The Nursing Mother's Companion. Not that they aren't potentially useful resources too, but a working mother would be well advised to take some of their advice and philosophies with a pinch of salt, especially since some of it (like advising mothers to leave bottle introduction really late) could potentially sabotage one's ability to return to work and stay sane. Lactation consultants as a group perhaps need a health warning as well, for similar reasons.

Sometimes the book made me feel sad. Because when you're reading a section which gives hints about how to get your pump parts clean at work without anyone seeing them, or how to multitask while pumping to deflect criticism from coworkers about your constant "breaks," part of you thinks "Oh, that's a clever idea," and the other part of you thinks "This is so depressing. Because you have all these women working full time with tiny babies, driving themselves nuts trying to pump and store their babies food all day long, waking up all night long, and then having to hide their pump parts from coworkers because God forbid anyone should suffer the disgusting situation of glimpsing a clean breast pump." And it's just all so sad. But given that this is the crappy reality that US mothers face, I am glad that at least writers like Shortall are doing their bit to try and make things a bit easier for mums.

The other thing that makes the book a standout (other than the level of detail) is the emotional care that the author shows towards her fellow WOH breastfeeders. When she says that "this is a judgment-free zone" she really is not kidding. It is rare and refreshing to see a breastfeeding book that talks about formula choice, preparation and supplementation simply as another option, rather than as some kind of existential failure on a mother's behalf. Shortall also describes her own personal journey from exclusive-breastfeeding obsession to a more pragmatic approach with her second child, and it's clear that is part of the reason why she urges mothers to safeguard their mental health--advice that is not confined to an occasional vague disclaimer about "not judging people," but rather is something that is built into the very structure of the book, influencing all the advice it gives.

In short? Without a doubt, the best and most practical book for WOH nursing mothers that I've encountered, and an excellent buy or gift.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the book. Enjoy.


Pumping School

Welcome to School
Pumping makes many women feel like farm animals. For me, it is everything actual nursing is not: sanitized, cold (sometimes literally, if you’ve just washed the parts or tend to keep them in the fridge at work in between sessions), and industrial. It was also totally and completely foreign to me, up until the first time I tried doing it, which is where Pumping School comes in.

Unless they make you pump in the hospital (which can happen), you might find yourself at home, with a baby and a very porn-star-esque pair of boobs, wondering who the hell is going to show you how to use this thing.

I needed someone who could see me with my shirt off to show me how to do it. So my best friend took me to Pumping School.

How to Get Taught
Between weeks three and six of your baby’s life, invite to your home a mother with recent experience with pumping breastmilk. This should be a woman with whom you are comfortable seeing both of your newly gigantic boobs. 

Tell her that she is coming over to teach you how to use a breast pump. You should have your pump and its basic parts, breastmilk storage bags, and a Sharpie or other permanent marker. Time this date so your friend comes by just before the first morning feeding (or during, if she has a key or you have someone else to open the front door for her while you have a baby attached to you). If she has a toddler, suggest that she leave this lovely small person at home. 
You’re going to feed your baby as normal, then pump immediately after the feeding. I recognize how silly and arbitrary a term like “first morning feeding” is. Just pretend that any feeding at or after 6:00 A.M. is the first one of the day, even if it isn’t and it makes you want to throw this book against the wall.

The reason you’d shoot for the first morning feeding for pumping is that your body is making more milk at this time of day. Also, it can help trick your body into making a bit more milk throughout the day. If for some reason you just can’t do this time of day, it is not the end of the world. 

Once you’ve nursed, your friend will set you up with the pump—placing the parts onto your boobs if need be—and have you pump for the first time. She will show you how most pumps have an initial “letdown” setting, which pumps quickly and with less suction, to simulate the way your baby sucks when she is first on your breast. Your friend will show you how it then switches over to the general setting, resulting in slower and deeper suction cycles, again to simulate what your baby does once the milk starts flowing. 

Break for Questions 
Here’s what you might worry about in this process:
1. If I pump after I feed the baby, will I have enough milk for the next feeding? Yes, you’ll be fine. Your breasts are always making milk and you don’t need to “fill up.” In fact, you will probably produce more milk that day because of the increased demand.
2. Will there be any milk to pump since my baby just finished eating? Maybe. Maybe not. This first time around is just for practice, so don’t sweat it if all you see is a few drops.
3. Am I really going to do this several times a day when I go back to work? Um, yes. That’s why you bought this book, honey. If you want to breastfeed after you’re back at work, you are probably going to pump a lot at work. It’s not fun, but it is doable. 
4. Who is going to hold the baby while I do Pumping School? Options: your Pumping School teacher, your spouse, a baby swing or chair, or the floor.

Back to School
During the first fifteen minutes or so (which aren’t going to feel awesome), you might produce a couple of drops, or you might produce 4 ounces and feel awesome. There is no definition of success, other than learning how to do it so it stops seeming so foreign and weird. (Note: It will never completely stop seeming foreign and weird.)

You are going to see, for example, that your nipples are stretching to a greater length than you thought possible (a friend described seeing his wife pumping for the first time as “two thumbs in a garden hose”). 

You are going to wonder what will happen to your sex life if/when (it’s a “when,” trust me) your partner sees this process. It will be awkward, but you’ll both survive it.

You might be surprised to see what your breastmilk looks like. It can be thin and watery or thick and creamy. It can be white, yellowish, bluish, or greenish. In fact, it will be all of the above (which is normal) at different times of the day and over time.

Congratulations. You’ve just joined the most exhausted, most multitasking, most ass-kicking club of women in the world. 

Fat vaginas and shrinking newborns in Japan

When I got pregnant I weighed 53 kilos at 170cm (118 pounds, 5’8); I gained 13 kilos or 28 pounds over my pregnancy. My daughter was born at just 2.6 kilos (5 pounds 11 ounces). By British or US criteria my gain was fine, and indeed I found myself wondering if I should have gained a bit more, judging by my baby’s rather modest size. Yet by Japanese standards I had gained an excessive amount. Welcome to the insane world of the incredible shrinking Japanese pregnancy.

Official guidelines in Japan recommend that women gain 7-12 kilos if they are normal weight, and 9-12 kilos if they are underweight—significantly lower than the guidelines of the UK and US. However, these figures mask the reality that is going on in clinics and hospitals where doctors routinely pressure women to gain even less than the official limits. “My doctor told me I should stop eating all fruit and carbohydrates,” complains one mum (whose weight gain was picture perfect according to the US guidelines). “I was scolded by the nurses every time I went in; they said I wouldn’t be able to push the baby out,” says another. Others reveal stories of doctors telling them they should be losing rather than gaining weight during pregnancy, or informing them that they would get a “fat vagina” unless they drastically restricted their calorie intake. No, I don’t know what a fat vagina looks like either.

What are the trends in newborn weight?

Perhaps part of the anxiety about gaining too much weight comes from the widespread misconception in Japan that average the average newborn is getting heavier. In fact, birthweights did rise through the 1960s and 1970s in Japan, but from about 1980 the trend went into reverse, with birth weights falling by 125g in the past 25 years. It seems that previous decades' anxieties about “babies getting too big” may have lingered on into the present, distorting doctors’ and the public’s perceptions.

To a certain extent it is understandable that Japanese medical authorities became worried by fact that babies and mothers were growing a bit heavier during the 1960s and 1970s. If a woman genuinely does gain too much during pregnancy, it does indeed increase the risk of difficult births, and this may be particularly true for Asian women. Asian women who gain too much are significantly more likely to develop gestational diabetes than other ethnicities. Big babies may be more likely to wreak havoc on an Asian mother’s body, as there is also some evidence that women of Asian ethnicity are more likely to sustain serious perineal tears in childbirth. Nobody is quite sure why—perhaps it is because Asian babies are proportionally larger compared to their relatively small mothers. In most developed/middle income Asian countries, this problem is increasingly being circumvented through very high cesarean rates (40-50% in countries like China and Vietnam). But the Japanese remain emotionally and culturally committed to the idea of natural childbirth; not surprisingly, a “Keep ’em small at all costs” mentality has tended to develop. 

I suppose there is a sort of “sunk-cost fallacy” in such matters—if you have spent the last decade or two telling women to severely restrict their weight, the possibility that this advice may have been harming babies may be too painful to confront. Easier to keep telling yourself that your advice is correct and always has been. It’s not like Japanese healthcare providers are exactly great at accepting questioning at the best of time.

Oh, and it’s very, very hard to get an epidural in Japan, due to a critical shortage of anesthesiologists and the cultural belief that mothers are “supposed” to suffer in childbirth, and this has probably also encouraged doctors and midwives (all of whom will have watched women suffering in long, hard labors) to encourage mothers to keep their bellies and babies small. In fact, a small baby does not always equal an easy birth--I know women who’ve torn badly pushing out five-pounders--but when you are staring down the barrel of a completely unmedicated labor with absolutely no way out of it, you are naturally going to clutch at whatever straws are available to you which might, maybe, just make things a bit easier. Add in standards of beauty which demand insect-like thinness in women even before pregnancy, and you have a perfect storm for extreme weight restriction in pregnant women. 

The consequences

Slowly, however, awareness is growing in Japan about the risks of too little weight gain in pregnancy. Japanese midwives are still heard to express enthusiasm about the idea of keeping fetuses small and then feeding them up after delivery, but as the doctor quoted in the Bloomberg article puts it, “Being born small and growing big is the worst possible scenario for risk of disease." Babies undernourished in the womb and born small may be at elevated risk of problems such as obesity and hypertension later in life,  possibly because such undernourishment sends out signals that cause the fetus's body to prepare for famine conditions in the outside world (an extreme form of this was seen in the babies born after the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-45, who have proven to be more prone to problems such as cardiovascular disease as adults).  

A need for balance

It’s not that we need a complete free-for-all either. Most women I know who gave birth in the UK report that they were never weighed or given any advice on weight gain, a fact which is almost certainly connected with the fact that the percentage of deliveries assisted by forceps has doubled over the last 10 years as mothers start their pregnancies heavier, gain more and have bigger babies. It’s completely reasonable for healthcare providers to be honest with patients about the fact that excessive weight gain increases the risk of difficult births, not to mention the fact that (in my own experience) women who gain huge amounts are more likely to feel uncomfortable during pregnancy and have an difficult psychological transition to motherhood afterwards. 

Nevertheless, there is mounting evidence that excessively strict weight guidelines in Japan are putting the health of babies at risk, and making pregnancy--which is supposed to be one of the happiest times in a mother's life--into a period of unnecessary anxiety, guilt and embarrassment for women. While a certain amount of caution regarding weight gain is probably advisable for Japanese women in particular, given ethnic factors relating to gestational diabetes and the problem of perineal trauma, the advice to restrict weight in pregnancy seems to have become unnecessarily extreme and to have taken on a life of its own. For mothers' and babies' sake, it's time for Japanese healthcare providers to swallow their pride and review their policies on gestational weight gain.

Further reading:

Diets by Pregnant Women Spur More Underweight Babies in Japan (Bloomberg)

Babies born in Japan getting smaller (Asahi)

Problems of Underweight in Young Females and Pregnant Women in Japan