A Day of Learning, Sharing, and Missing My Family

Yesterday I attended the Breastfeeding and Parenting Conference for La Leche League of MA/RI/VT. What a great day of learning and sharing. I am not sure how many Mothers, Fathers, children, grandparents, etc. were in attendance, but it seemed like maybe a couple hundred. Workshops ranged from parenting/loving guidance for all ages to homeopathic remedies to vaccines, and so much more. There were two highlights for me: 1) a workshop on Kangaroo Mother Care, and 2) a general session by Robert Sears, MD, FAAP, highlighting his book Vaccines: Making an Educated Decision for Your Children.

First, the session on Kangaroo Mother Care: it was so amazing to see mothers caring for their premature newborns, holding them skin-to-skin, meeting the baby's needs, and watching a newborn wriggle and squirm to get into position to latch on, with no assistance from Mom!!!! How instinctive human babies are, if we would just allow them to do what they already know how to do!!!

Second, the general session with Dr. Sears: this one was attended by everyone at the conference. Dr. Sears had the challenge of presenting his lecture after lunch, but through his conversational style lecture and his own humor, had no difficulty in keeping everyone's attention. He presented an overview of his new book mentioned above. Basically he went through typical vaccination schedules and offered an alternative schedule for those parents who may want to delay some or all vaccines. I appreciated his approach in that he offered the information as a tool for parents to decide how to use it and how to collaborate with his/her own health care provider.

Along with these highlights, I met Mothers from other La Leche League Groups, we talked about things that our respective Groups were doing, and even saw a few old friends. Other features of the conference are a kid's play station, a silent auction of wonderful items donated by some LLL Groups and local businesses, (here is the messenger bag that I donated)


and a bookstore that highlights several LLLI-approved books on breastfeeding, parenting, weaning, nutrition, and children's books. I was able to pick up two children's books for the kids, they stayed home with Dad. Yes, he tended to all 3 from 7am to 7pm, and did a wonderful job. I arrived home to find all of the children fed, one bathed and dressed, one in the tub, and one patiently waiting her turn.

It was a great day, but I sure did miss my family. I missed The First Born's Irish Step Dance class, going to get doughnuts afterwards, and nursing Bundle of Energy for his nap. He made up for it when I got home!!!