Many say that breastfeeding is natural yet most health professionals teach mothers to practise responsive, baby-led feeding using a set of predetermined, latching instructions. This book describes a new, proactive, mother-led approach called biological nurturing. Biological nurturing research highlights that, under certain conditions, mothers have an inborn breastfeeding capacity aiding them to nourish and nurture their babies. However, tapping into this instinctual heritage is diametrically opposed to the thinking involved in a skills-teaching approach.
Biological nurturing is quick and easy to do. Maternal comfort is a priority and the laid-back breastfeeding postures optimise baby gazing and eye-to-eye contact. Spontaneity and reciprocity are the watchwords and once comfortable, most mothers and babies discover what works through the hit and miss of the experience.
The challenge for health professionals lies with promoting an oxytocin-friendly environment, understanding breastfeeding releasing mechanisms, and learning when not to intervene. This book restores confidence in nature’s biological design and in mothers’ innate capacity to breastfeed.
2nd revised and updated edition.
Dr. Suzanne Colson is a midwife and a nurse. Her thesis introduced a new breastfeeding paradigm called biological nurturing and won the prestigious English Royal College of Nursing Inaugural Akinsanya Award for originality and scholarship in doctoral studies. Suzanne is an Ankinsanya scholar 2007 and a visiting principal research fellow at Canterbury Christ Church University. She is an honorary member and a founding mother/leader of La Leche League France. She is also on the professional advisory board of La Leche League of Great Britain.
Suzanne has more than 40 years clinical experience supporting breastfeeding mothers in both hospital and community settings. She worked in Pithiviers, France as a lactation consultant with Dr. Michel Odent and as a caseload midwife and a baby feeding advisor in the NHS. Passionate about research, she worked on the Williams, Hawdon and DeRooy team examining the effects of supplementation on metabolic adaptation and breastfeeding and studied a subset of mother-baby pairs for her MSc.
Suzanne is the author of numerous articles, research papers, a book translated into 4 languages and three DVDs. Retired from active midwifery practice, she has been interviewed on BBC radio, appeared on breakfast TV and presented the biological nurturing research in 21 countries across the world. She currently organises 5-day biological nurturing certification workshops and remains available for clinical consultation.
"A timely message about human nature: That’s quite a challenge! Through the term “biological nurturing”, Suzanne will convince anyone that the concept of a universal human nature is not obsolete. We are pushed towards a new way of thinking, at the very time when it is commonplace to underline that human beings have colonised the whole planet thanks to their deep-rooted diversity and limitless adaptability. With the authority of a highly experienced mother, Suzanne found a way to provide a book that is relevant among cultural milieus as diverse as, for example, the exclusively carnivorous circumpolar peoples who can spend weeks in the dark and some traditionally vegetarian Indian groups adapted to tropical day and light rhythm. What a timely and eloquent message about universal aspects of human nature!" Michel Odent
