Breastfeeding Help in Thailand

I have been so busy with my midwifery training that I've been letting my lactation counselor certification get pushed back and back. I decided back in October of 2008 to do the training with CBI.

So today I looked up what I had left to do. I finished up the book reviews today... I realized I had read about 20 birth/breastfeeding books over the last couple years and had plenty that I could submit. Submitted a survey of breastfeeding help options in my area (more on that in a minute), and then looked at what is left. I have 6 breastfeeding scenarios that I need to research and write up action plans for. Then I have to do 30 hours of supporting at least 8 women or 4 hours of that teaching breastfeeding. I just need to go back through all of my records over the last year or so and log many of those mothers/babies. I'm sure that I've done at least 30 hours in the last year alone!

So what else is new with breastfeeding options for women in Thailand?

1) K. Meena at the pro-natural birth hospital. She is very busy with the hospital and IBCLC meetings. She works with training other nurses/staff on breastfeeding. I would like to go with her to the next national meeting and see what is going on. I am not happy with how much training is going on when really trainings do nothing if the OBs, pediatricians, and hospital administration is not on board.

2) La Leche League. There has never been one in Thailand until this past year. A leader from the USA moved here and she is now running a group and does free home visits to help women.

3) Bumps and Babies. A pregnancy and breastfeeding group for expecting and new mothers. They have special speakers and usually there is someone there that can help with breastfeeding. Next year when the twins are in school, I can volunteer there occasionally.

4) The Breastfeeding Cafe. This is held at a knitting/yarn shop in the center of town that has opened up its meeting room to anyone doing birth/pregnancy/breastfeeding meetings. Women can meet there on certain days of the month and ask their breastfeeding questions.

5) The Parent Vine. This is a new website/forum specifically for mothers, mother-to-be, and families. The site owner is extremely breastfeeding friendly and advertises all breastfeeding help for mothers.

6) My new Thai friend. I discovered Khun Bee on Facebook. She and I were both posting on KellyMom and I found out that she runs the "Nom Mae" (mother's milk) Thai breastfeeding group on Facebook. She is also heavily involved with a wonderful Thai breastfeeding website. She and some of her friends are doing a grassroots initiative together working on legislation and to help fight the formula companies that are illegally advertising and pushing formula on new mothers at offices, hospitals, and government offices!

7) ME. I'm averaging about 1 home visit a week to help new mothers with breastfeeding or other baby questions. Once the construction in our apartment is done, I hope to have a nice office area for breastfeeding appointments!

Women struggle here as they learn to breastfeed. Hospital policies go against breastfeeding, and formula companies are waiting to exploit that. With the few above resources though, more and more women are having success!

Busy January

From Dec 21-Jan 9 my family and I were back in Indonesia for me to do more birthwork.

I attended 8 births and also finished my primary skills checkoffs with my preceptor. I was hoping that I would be able to see another CPM there at the time to do the secondary checkoffs but none were going to be there when I was there this time or in June-July when we go back. I did loads of prenatals, especially with women due late-May through early August, so that I can see them again when I'm back and also get more continuity of care births. I did a lot of initial prenatals/physical exams with women, especially any English speaking moms. A mom expecting triplets came through and my preceptor told her that I was the multiples expert. Pretty high praise coming from a preceptor that has 1000s of births under her belt!

My preceptor and I - photography by my 7 year old!

The twins try out the newly donated wheelchair.

Grace joins in with the prenatal yoga class!

Novi and her new baby girl - beautiful waterbirth!!! - permission given to share

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner at my preceptors house along with over 100 other people. New Year's Eve was the most exciting because Michael Franti came to the village and did a huge concert and fund raiser for the clinic. I got to hold down the fort at the clinic with one of the other midwives while the rest went to the concert. It rained so much that I was getting texts back that it was more like Woodstock with all of the mud. The only clinic excitement that night was drunks coming through needing stitches.

Christmas morning stockings in our big bamboo house

Michael Franti popped in for Christmas dinner and sang a couple songs!

Our house this time was in another village across the river from the clinic's village. We were right on the edge of a cliff that went down to the river and it was nice to hear the river at night or after big rains, and there were lots of big rains! Whenever I needed to go to the clinic I would call one of the maids or gardeners for the housing compound they would motorbike me over. The walk was 25 minutes and not the safest so we payed a guy in the village to drive us where we needed to go. Our house was completely bamboo and we had all kinds of creatures in our house: geckos (big and small), spiders, ants (4 kinds), termites, praying mantis, big flying Japanese beetles, wasps, squirrels, mosquitoes (of course!), bats, and other unidentifiable creatures! We were very thankful for mosquito nets at night due to Dengue fever going around. Outside there was all kinds of stuff for the kids to explore and they spent most of their time around a rabbit hutch trying to make friends with the bunnies.

Our big bamboo house - we had weeds growing up through the floor and a visit by monkeys late one night

Our kitchen - my husband kept the kids entertained and fed for me.

I've put a deposit down for a house for June/July becausing housing is so difficult to find. It will be a 1 minute walk from the clinic! Can't wait to go back and FINISH my apprenticeship!

When we got back in mid-January, I had a lot of breastfeeding visits lined up. I've done a lot of counseling and assistance and feel so much more confident each time. Towards the end of January I started up another childbirth class series, teaching it from a more "trust birth" perspective. (I just finished the class 3 days ago and they loved it!) I'm also working with 3 other women due over the next few months.

I found out at the end of January that a CPM was coming to the country for sure for her sister's birth in ChiangMai. She met all of the requirements for the secondary skills checkoffs! So I flew to ChiangMai (northern Thailand) the first week of February and did the checkoffs for physical exam, prenatal (28+ weeks) exam, sterile technique, drawing/injecting meds, and oxygen setup. I will go back around the first week of March after the CPMs neice/nephew is born to do the checkoffs for postpartum exam and newborn exam. I was mostly ready for the checkoffs but did a few days of review and practiced with another midwifery student in town.

So busy busy winter (if you could call it that here!), and now I'm prepping for some private childbirth classes, a doula birth in April, prepping for final stuff in Indonesia, and trying to get as much midwifery school studying in as possible. I'm focusing on the school assignements/projects that will help prepare me most for sitting for the NARM exam, hopefully in fall of 2012.

As for future blog posts, I'm going to focus a bit on topics that people are googling, etc that send them to my blog. Topics such as dopplers, missionary midwifery, birth in other countries, and much more!