Page 4508 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 31 October 2018
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Then, the day before the surgery, when I was admitted to the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children, I went upstairs to the nursery. I was able to have the milk put in the freezer for use by the baby after she was born. I am not saying it was something they had encountered very many times before, but they were very accommodating because I had been able to label it, freeze it and date it in the way that I had learned from previous births. But many mums would not know about that.
The nurses were quite impressed, I must say, that I had gone to so much effort and was able to follow current guidelines. My milk was then used to feed her while I was still in the operating theatre, which I was in for seven hours, and over the next couple of days. It did take a bit of negotiating and work with the hospital systems to get it to happen and it was good that I knew about how the systems worked because even frozen breastmilk does have a limited life. As you can see, it is not a very simple business, and there is more that can be done in the Centenary hospital to make such options more normalised.
To many people who have not fed a baby, the whole breastfeeding concept is a bit of a mystery, with no details. I know I was once asked why you cannot do more expressing at night time instead of during the day at work, not realising that if that was the case the supply may decrease or the breasts may become engorged, which can easily lead to blocked milk ducts and mastitis, both of which are very painful conditions—I am sure the mums in this place know—and only prevented by regular emptying of the breast.
As Ms Cheyne’s motion notes, there are various reasons why some women have issues with establishing feeding, from delayed lactation, as in the milk does not come in for a long time, to insufficient milk supply. And some babies are really hard to feed, either due to disability like tongue-tie or simply because they are born with very, very small mouths. Some premature babies have not learnt to suck. They do not have the sucking instinct yet, or, as in my case, because I was separated from the baby for some time after the birth, while I was in the ICU.
In the same way that some women have an undersupply of milk, others are blessed with a lot of milk. I remember a friend of mine saying she had enough milk to feed a small nation. And for those women expressing for a milk bank, it may in fact be a relief because, as I mentioned before, there is a level of health danger as well as discomfort if the breast is not regularly drained of its milk.
I am sure there are some very great women in Canberra who would love to donate to a milk bank and I hope that, as the motion calls on government to investigate this possibility, it actually comes to fruition. It is a really good idea. Canberrans are community people. We like to give what we have for those in need, as has been proven many times in the history of this great city. Our giving is not ostentatious; it is quiet. But if there is a chance for women to donate their milk, I am sure there will be plenty of volunteers to such a scheme. It is also something I am sure many mums of premature babies or who do not have enough of a supply of milk would take advantage of. There would also be a hell of a lot of mums who would love to have access to human milk for babies even as they get a little older.
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