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Nursing Mother, Working Mother
The Essential Guide for Breastfeeding and Staying Close to Your Baby After You Return to Work
By Gale Pryor
Breastfeeding is designed by nature to ensure maternal-infant interaction and closeness. If done without schedules or other restrictions, breastfeeding guarantees that you and your baby will be in close physical contact 8 to 18 times in every 24 hours. In fact, nursing mothers tend to be with their infants altogether more than other mothers. In the first 10 days after birth, nursing mothers hold their babies more than bottle-feeding mothers, even when they are not nursing. They rock their babies more, speak to their babies more, and are more likely to sleep with their babies. In Western society many women never hold a newborn until they give birth to their own, yet this frequent skin-to-skin contact and interaction soon make up for even a complete lack of familiarity with babies. The mother who immerses herself in her newborn, breastfeeding frequently and without restrictions, quickly learns to read her baby's cues and to trust her own instincts. She extends the gentle give-and-take, the empathy, and the commitment of breastfeeding into the rest of her mothering. Nursing her baby provides her with a blueprint for sensitive parenting in the years to come.