The New Motherly art of Conscious Breastfeeding.

• Author: Dean, Carolyn
• Position: Book review

The Chronicle Library Sheff

THE NEW MOTHERLY ART OF CONSCIOUS BREASTFEEDING

By Maire Clements RN, IBCLC

The Breastfeeding Salon LLC., New York, 2009

pp. 137, $97

Women today lead very different lives from their ancestors and are very influenced by the prevailing culture when it comes to breastfeeding. For many, breastfeeding seems to be a matter of opinion rather than a necessity for their child. Success or failure at breastfeeding will vary based on their preconceived notions.

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As a Maternal-Child health nurse, and a full-time lactation consultant for over two decades, Maire Clements embraces an holistic and objective understanding of the process of breastfeeding. She calls it Conscious Breastfeeding. She shares this simple, but powerful approach to breastfeeding success in a new multi-media ebook "The New Motherly Art of Conscious Breastfeeding".

Her book gives us the historical perspective on how we have arrived at the current notion of breastfeeding as a choice (and not a requirement) and that it must be led by the baby. Breastfeeding needs to work in the cultural context where it is being done or it unfortunately will not be the choice made by many expectant mothers. Ms. Clements notes that the profession of lactation consulting grew out of an understanding that a baby may actually need to learn how to breastfeed. This seems counter-intuitive, because aren't all babies born with the sucking and suckling reflex? But the signals from a mother who doesn't know how to breastfeed can be picked up by the baby and lead to a major disconnection. Ms. Clements explains that in much the same way that birth has been forced into a medical model that puts emphasis on external measurements and conformity, breastfeeding has increasingly become more about weight and measurements, pumping...