Getting ready to be a mother

by Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom

Fig. 27.—Indian binder for supporting heavy breasts, used at The Montreal Maternity Hospital. The tapering ends tie in a knot in front.

The care of the nipples practically resolves itself into keeping them clean in order to avoid infection. Notice that I say keeping them clean, for merely bathing them, no matter how regularly, is not enough. The nurse will probably bathe your nipples with boracic acid solution and sterile cotton pledgets before and after each time that the baby nurses, and keep them covered, during the intervals, with sterile gauze or cotton.

Fig. 28.—Sterile gauze held in place over nipples by means of tapes and adhesive strips.

Here again you may undo all of the nurse’s careful precautions against infection, which might cause an abscess, if you touch your nipples with your fingers or anything else that is not sterile, except the baby’s mouth. The gauze squares or sponges or the cotton pledgets that you sterilized will serve excellently to protect your nipples between nursings. These may be held in place by a binder or by tapes tied through the ends of narrow strips of adhesive plaster, four being applied to each breast as shown in Fig. [28]. Strips of adhesive plaster about five inches long are folded back at one end so that two adhesive surfaces stick together for about an inch. Through a hole cut in this folded end a narrow tape or bobbin is tied, and the strips are applied to the breast, beginning at the margin of the darkened area and extending outward. The free ends of the tapes are tied over pads of gauze or cotton between nursings, and untied to expose the nipple at nursing time.

Lead shields are sometimes used to protect the nipples, being held in place by means of a binder. These shields should be scoured and boiled daily.

Method of Nursing. One important reason for all of this scrupulous care is that it favors the baby’s nursing satisfactorily and without interruption, so now you will want to know about the actual details of nursing him.

The baby is usually put to the breast for the first time, between eight and twelve hours after he is born. This gives the mother an opportunity to rest, and the baby too profits by being quiet and undisturbed during this interval. His need for food is not great as yet, nor is there much if any nourishment available for him. There is no hard and fast rule for the mother’s position in bed, while nursing her baby, beyond the fact that both she and the infant should be in a relation that makes the nursing easy. One very natural and satisfactory method is for her to turn slightly to one side, and hold the baby in the curve of her arm so that he may easily grasp the nipple on that side. If you take this position you should hold your breast from the baby’s face with your free hand by placing the thumb above and the fingers below the nipple, thus leaving his nose uncovered to permit free breathing, as shown in Fig. [29]. You and the baby should lie in such positions that both will be comfortable and relaxed and the baby will be able to take into his mouth, not only the nipple but much of the dark circle as well, so as to compress the base of the nipple with his jaws and extract the milk by suction.

The comfort of this position is sometimes increased by laying the baby on a small pillow placed close to the mother’s side, thus raising his body to the level of his head as it rests upon her arm.

You and the nurse may have to resort to a number of expedients in persuading the baby to begin to nurse, for he does not always take the breast eagerly at first. He must be kept awake, first and foremost, and sometimes suckling will be encouraged by patting or stroking his cheek or chin or lightly spanking his buttocks. If his head is drawn away from the breast a little, as he holds the nipple in his mouth, he will sometimes take a firmer hold and begin to nurse. Moistening the nipple by expressing a few drops of colostrum or with sweetened water may whet the baby’s appetite and thus prompt him to nurse.