Breastfeeding Works !
Understanding and Managing Allergies in a Breastfeeding Context
The New Age of Allergies
A vital resource for anyone working with breastfeeding women and their babies
My Second Book
Robyn Noble
Lactation Consultant, Educator and Author
Education
Robyn has a Bachelor Degree in Medical Science and an Associate Diploma in Medical Laboratory Technology. She has held a Postgraduate Certification in Lactation Consultancy from the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners since 1990.
Expertise
Amongst the many rewarding highlights of her career was representing her country on the International Board of Lactation Consultants Examination Committee in Washington, D.C., in 1996.
Experience
Robyn Noble ran Bayside Breastfeeding Clinic, Australia’s first private breastfeeding clinic. In her role as Lactation Consultant, Robyn offered quality breastfeeding care and support for mothers for 33 years. She has always been passionate about breastfeeding education for healthcare providers, specialising in more comprehensive training and problem- solving. She is considered by her peers to be an expert in many aspects of breastfeeding management, including food allergy issues.
Excellence
With a wealth of knowledge and experience acquired over a career that has spanned almost 50 years, Robyn always strived for full resolution of problems and improved understanding of difficulties often faced unnecessarily by women who want to breastfeed their babies. She has been a well-known speaker at workshops and conferences around the nation.
Manifesto
Breastfeeding is a surprisingly emotive subject.
Even amongst health professionals, she has sometimes found that it would be easier to discuss sex than breastfeeding.
Research confirms that in most Western countries, we typically grow up knowing almost nothing about breastfeeding.
What little we think we know is strongly influenced by more than a hundred years of very successful commercial efforts to normalise ‘formula’ feeding and to cast as much doubt as possible on its competitor.
Most of us have never seen a baby breastfeeding until we have our own.
Health professionals grow up in the same community as everyone else, so understandably need a comprehensive education to correct this general communal lack of knowledge – and to build their confidence in breastfeeding.
Surprisingly, health professionals working with mothers and babies can usually expect little depth to whatever breastfeeding education they may receive.
So breastfeeding remains an area of mystery to most Westerners, whether health professionals or not.
If there is very little about it in health professionals’ education, the message is that breastfeeding is not important, and secondly, that there is not much to know about it!
It leaves an education vacuum that commercial infant feeding interests have recognised as an opportunity to exploit. For instance, doctors receive regular visits from sales reps, extolling the supposed virtues of formulas.
The World Health Organisation and UNICEF have been documenting their activities for decades. It does not make pleasant reading.
From the hospital experience onwards, new parents consistently report problems with conflicting, confusing advice about breastfeeding. They are bewildered by the experience. This has been the subject of a large body of research, yet has not been satisfactorily acknowledged and dealt with.
Health professionals need to work together to fix this problem and to confound the formula industry’s ongoing efforts to seduce health care providers into becoming unpaid sales reps for a product originally intended to be just an emergency food for babies. For over a century, the formula industry has successfully and unashamedly promoted it as the everyday means of feeding babies. It is ‘fast food’ for babies, undercutting their health both in the short- and long-term.
There are also potential emotional and social consequences for them and their families. How can the rest of the community understand the truth of the current situation if health professions do not lead the way?
Research constantly reinforces the message that we are what we eat throughout our lives. Human milk sets up the best possible foundations for human babies’ health and optimal development for life.
With the emergence of the modern allergy epidemic, it has become even more vital that mothers are given the right information and help to breastfeed their babies for as long as possible.
Testimonials
“ I was beyond desperate when I found “Breastfeeding Works! Even with Allergies”. And the only reason I thought it might be relevant for me was that we have a family history of allergies and I'd tried all kinds of other advice from everyone I thought should know something about why I was still in SO much pain with breastfeeding three months after my baby was born! Nothing had worked! I read the whole book the night I got it and the revelation for me was that babies like mine with sloppy, gassy poo often have gut pain and it can change the way the baby feeds, so it can feel like the baby is biting the mother all through the feed! So I took dairy, soy and orange juice out of my diet after reading about what I might need to do about it. Just three days later, the pain was so much less that I could almost look forward to the next breastfeed. A week later, I was completely pain-free! I was so thrilled, I contacted Robyn Noble because I wanted to know WHY none of the many health professionals I'd seen hadn't talked to me about my diet. She told me that it's because they simply don't know! So please spread the word, fellow mamas - it's time they know about this book! “
“Thank you for writing this book! My baby was just chronically miserable, crying a lot and often quite difficult to feed. I'd so looked forward to breastfeeding my baby, expecting it to be a lovely relaxing, peaceful experience for both of us. But so many of our feeds were getting worse over time. Everyone said it would all get better as he got older, but he was eight months old and I was truly wondering how much longer we could last! Then a friend whose baby had been very colicky told me she had bought Robyn Noble's book, “Breastfeeding Works! Even with Allergies” and it meant she had turned everything around. This book has changed my life and my baby's into what I'd dreamed it should be! “
“After being advised by my paediatrician that my diet didn't have anything to do with my breastfed baby's severe eczema, I did not consider it a possibility until one day when I'd had a lot more dairy food than normal. I noticed by the end of that day that my allergy symptoms were unusually bad and my baby was so unhappy that I could not put her down and we had to sleep together and breastfeed all night. She wasn't much better for the rest of the week. It got me thinking so I started looking for more information and found “Breastfeeding Works! Even with Allergies”. We are now seeing her eczema steadily clearing and she is smiling all the time! I wish I had found this book months ago, but I'm so grateful to have it now! “
“I love the detail in both of Robyn Noble's books. They are written very clearly and are lavishly illustrated with coloured photos and diagrams. This makes both “Breastfeeding Works!” books easy to read and kept my interest all the way through. These books have opened my eyes to many aspects of breastfeeding issues that I had not understood so well or had simply not known about before. These books will certainly expand my work with breastfeeding women into an even happier place! “
“I had been to see doctors, community health nurses, lactation consultants and breastfeeding counsellors. They were all lovely and understanding about my unhappy breastfed baby but didn't know what I could do. Even worse, some of these people implied that it was all because I am a first-time mother! And some people told me I should just put the baby onto formula. Breastfeeding means a lot to me and finally finding “Breastfeeding Works! Even with Allergies” gave me the answers I was looking for. I am so thankful for this book! “