Two Moms Breastfeed Baby.....Read and see what you think

Heidi Olson nurses Sequoia while Mary Ellen sits beside her. 

Three-week-old Sequoia is one lucky baby: She is breastfed by not one, but two women, her mothers Heidi and Mary Ellen Olson. The married couple from Santa Cruz, Calif. engage in a practice called “co-nursing,” in which they share breastfeeding duties.

“Our friends are fascinated by the fact that my wife and I both breastfeed our daughter,” Heidi, 26, a nanny and the baby’s birth mom, tells Yahoo Parenting. “We get a lot of, ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ and ‘I didn’t know that was possible!’”

Induced lactation is indeed possible through dedicated nipple stimulation — either by putting baby to breast or with the aid of a breast pump — and is sometimes used by moms (and, very rarely,men) with adopted or surrogate children who want to breastfeed. Mary Ellen has opted for something called the Newman-Goldfarb protocol, a physician-developed approach that combines pumping with the taking of a drug called domperidone. 

Heidi, who lactates on her own, gave birth to Sequoia at the couple’s home after a year-long struggle with endometriosis which included laparoscopic surgery to remove her ovarian cysts. She became pregnant through an intrauterine insemination (IUI), a process in which donor semen is implanted in the uterus with the help of a physician. 

While there aren’t many statistics on the prevalence of co-nursing, according to New York City based lactation consultant Sara Chana, its health benefits as a result of using domperidome are unknown. “A new mom’s breast milk is designed for and evolves to suit the specific needs of her infant at every stage,” Chana tells Yahoo Parenting. “So it’s tough to say how drug-induced milk would benefit a baby who is already breastfeeding from her natural mother.” Although Chana doesn’t personally work with women who co-nurse, her clients include mother-daughter pairs who nurse each other’s babies, and sisters who “nurse the other’s baby if one is stuck in traffic, for example.” 

Mary Ellen breastfeeds Sequoia.

Heidi and Mary Ellen decided to co-nurse so Mary Ellen could reap the health and bonding benefits of breastfeeding. Babies who nurse are better able to fight off bacteria and viruses, for example, while women who nurse are at less risk for breast and ovarian cancers. Plus, the eye contact and skin-to-skin contact during nursing sessions boosts the mother-baby connection. “I wanted to experience that closeness with my daughter, especially since I didn’t give birth,” Mary Ellen, 25, a graduate student, tells Yahoo Parenting. “It didn’t occur to us that we could also help each other out when we’re exhausted.”
When Heidi was five months pregnant, Mary Ellen heard about domperidone, a dopamine-receptor blocker that has a surprising side effect of boosting a woman’s breastmilk supply by triggering the release of the hormone prolactin. Although women have been taking the drug for decades — and Australian doctors recently urged the medical community to reconsider prescribing it for off-label use to aid lactation — it’s been called into question by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for causing cardiac problems and unknown risks for infants. Still, while the drug is not FDA approved, it’s commonly prescribed in Europe and Canada; some American lactation coaches and physicians encourage its use, although many refuse to prescribe it.
“My doctor wouldn’t give it to me so I had to order it through an online Canadian pharmacy,” says Mary Ellen. “I did lots of research and got the green light from my midwife.” Now Mary Ellen takes 12 pills per day, along with capsules made with fenugreek, an herb that encourages lactation. She also drinks an herbal formula called More Milk, and pumps once a day, all of which allows her to produce three to four ounces of breast milk per session.  

The women don’t have a set routine for who nurses Sequoia. “It’s more, ‘I’m doing dishes and she’s about to wake up — can you nurse her?’” says Olson. “Women have told us that they wouldn’t dream of sharing the breastfeeding experience, but we don’t have any jealousy issues. Everyone wins here.”
During the first week of Sequoia’s life, Olson primarily breastfed on the advice of her midwife to kickstart her supply, but now both women share responsibilities.
And, just like other moms, the couple refrigerates and freezes their breast milk, often mixing it all up in one bottle. “In that case, it’s possible that the baby could be getting double the immunity boost from the milk,” says Chana. “Breast milk is always better than no breast milk.”


HERE ARE SOME OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY READERS:

JAMES                                     

This is more than selfish. The child will be paying the price. Does a husband breast feed? NO!! So why should the other partner feel they have to here just so they can satisfy their own needs, not thinking of the child. A lot of women cannot breast feed, so they bottle feed instead, what are these women thinking ?? !! No one should be taking a drug that is meant for another purpose with a side effect of lactation. Why not have the woman who did not give birth to the child give birth to their 2nd child, that would make a lot more sense than what they are doing.

 AMS...

How selfish people can be? They don't care if the drug induced milk of the woman that did not give birth to the baby can cause the baby any harm (nobody knows the effects of the drug to the milk and, as consequence, to the baby. Mary Ellen only cares about herself being able to perform a natural function of a woman that gave birth. She is lucky that technology allows this to happen, but who cares for the baby as long as she can do what she wants.

Pat   
           What is clearly obvious here is the safety of the child is of no importance compared to

            the selfish needs of a woman/husband.

 Just Saying                    
     
          This is ONE BIG EGO trip- for the 2 mothers!
          Clearly their own needs take precedence over the baby's.
          The whole scenario is pathetic.
          There is nothing NATURAL about any of this