About
My name is Stephanie Casemore. If you'd asked me six years ago what I would be doing today, my answer would not have included many of the activities that now fill my days. Becoming a mother can do that to you; take you on an unbelievable journey that is far more interesting than that which you could have planned yourself. My Breastfeeding ExperienceThe birth of my first child is the catalyst for much of my new passion. Graeme was born a tiny 3 pounds 2 ounces at just 31 weeks of gestation. I developed sudden and severe preeclampsia just 30 weeks into my pregnancy and was induced exactly one week after the symptoms began. This began a long journey into the NICU, breast pumps, feeding tubes, developmental follow-up programs, pediatric ophthalmologists, dieticians, and so on. While my goal was always to breastfeed my baby, this became a difficult goal to reach. Instead, I ended up exclusively pumping breast milk for Graeme for just over a year. This experience led me to write my book, Exclusively Pumping Breast Milk: A guide to providing expressed breast milk for your baby and establishing my website www.exclusivelypumping.com to assist other mothers to express breast milk for their babies when they are unable to breastfeed directly. While this experience was challenging to say the least, it led me into researching lactation and breastfeeding at an advanced level. In order to express breast milk successfully, it is important to understand the processes of lactation at play. This information is also important when breastfeeding. In the past, girls learned how to breastfeed by watching their mothers and other female relatives nurse their children. This skill was passed on from generation to generation and young mothers would always have an older relative, experienced with breastfeeding, near to assist with any challenges that may arise after the birth of their own babies. Today, most young women have not had this opportunity to learn from the women in their families or communities. Breastfeeding is a skill that has not been passed on and one that has instead been left to the medical establishment. Unfortunately, many of the medical practices now surrounding labour and birth interfere with the normal process of lactation and create even more challenges for new mothers. We are also led away from our intuitions and instincts and instead inundated with advice and information that, again, leads us away from the normal continuation of nurturing our babies once they have left our bodies. So when I became pregnant with our second child, I was determined to take the information I knew about lactation, research more about normal birth experiences and understand how the two combine for a normal outcome: the successful initiation of breastfeeding. I was determined to have a normal birth experience and allow my baby the opportunity to initiate breastfeeding in a normal way. For me, this meant the freedom to move around during labour- no IVs and no epidural, the freedom to birth in a position that I was comfortable in and that would ease my baby's delivery, having my baby on my chest from the moment she was born and delaying any and all interventions that are so routinely completed on a newborn including vitamin K injections, eye ointments, weighing, bathing, dressing, ID banding, and blood glucose heel pricks. My baby was placed on me skin-to-skin the second she was born and was allowed to self-attach for her first feed at her own pace. We spent much of that first day just cuddling and resting and getting to know each other. Pregnancy, labour and delivery, and breastfeeding the second time around was a much different experience; one I greatly cherish. Yet even with my knowledge of breastfeeding and the positive start that we got to our breastfeeding relationship, I recognized that I still had doubts about my ability to nurse my baby. I still had all those nagging doubts that haunt so many new mothers: is she getting enough milk, is she crying because I'm not feeding her enough or because of something in my milk, is there something I'm doing wrong!? These concerns and feelings are not isolated to breastfeeding moms who are having difficulties, but are instead something that haunt most new moms regardless of how things are going and regardless of how the baby is being fed- having a newborn is difficult! When breastfeeding though, we get so many mixed messages from family and friends, books and magazines, and, unfortunately, from baby formula manufacturers (who obviously have a great bias in providing feeding information), that we start to question what should be instinctual and natural. I realized that even with knowledge, support is absolutely crucial. This was the seed for this business, Nursed and Nurtured. My goal is to provide support, or to facilitate, breastfeeding and positive parenting; to provide new moms (and dads) with a place to get sound, evidence-based information which will allow them to make the best choice possible for their children; and to provide that source of learning and support within the community that we missed out on as young girls . I am not a board certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) and do not want to represent myself as such. Any difficulties that are beyond the normal process of lactation and breastfeeding will be referred an IBCLC. BabywearingWhen my son was born, I was definitely interested in babywearing. I bought a closed tail padded ring sling and a simple pouch, but the pouch was too big and the sling never seemed to work for me. There was such limited information available about babywearing and with a fussy baby to care for who was suffering with severe reflux, not to mention the fact that I was pumping as many as 8 times a day, I just gave up my hopes of using these carriers in favour of using a Baby Bjorn. The Bjorn worked well until my son hit about 18 lbs. and then it was just too uncomfortable. So after about a year, I was unable to wear him any longer. The Bjorn also wasn't really comfortable enough for long walks, so the stroller got a lot of use! And in hind sight, I realize that the Bjorn isn't the best for baby's development. Before my daughter was born, I again started to research the idea of babywearing and discovered that there had been an explosion of information available through all types of media since the birth of my son three years before. While I still had a Bjorn, I branched out and bought my first German-style woven wrap (a wonderful soft and supportive linen indio Didymos). I also made a couple mei tais out of some scrap fabric and a pair of old curtains and made a pouch. With the birth of my daughter, I was hooked! And thank goodness, because right from the start she was a motion junky! She was only happy when moving (thanks to Harvey Karp and The Happiest Baby on the Block, I didn't think that was too unusual). She loved the pouch and I wore her everywhere. She also enjoyed snuggling in a wrap or the mei tai. Once she hit about four months of age, wraps became our carrier of choice. While it takes a little longer to wrap your baby, the level of comfort is so superior the additional time is well worth it! Babywearing has been such a wonderful experience- one that I hope continues for another year or more. It has allowed me to deal with a very needy baby and still get housework done and play with my older child. I only wish that every new mother knew just how comfortable wearing a baby can be when you choose a carrier that is right for you and your baby! Experience, Education, and CertificationMy qualifications are varied and combine to make me capable of offering support and education:
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