BAMS on Sale for 25% off in September

Because so many have asked me how to get a discount on my book Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple: A Guide for Helping Mothers, I wanted to let you know that during the month of September, Hale Publishing has lowered its price by $20.  Usually $79.95, until the end of the month BAMS' sale price is $59.95, which is 25% off.  This applies to orders of individual copies, eliminating the need to wait for a conference or coordinate large orders for a quantity discount.  To take advantage of this sale price, call 806-376-9900 or click here for the Hale Publishing "Specials" webpage. 

BAMS 15% Off

Many people have asked me how to get a discount on my book Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple: A Guide for Helping Mothers. If you’ve been waiting for a better price, now is the time.  During the month of March, Hale Publishing has lowered its price by $12.  Usually $79.95, until the end of the month BAMS' sale price is $67.95, or 15% off.  This applies to orders of individual copies, eliminating the need to wait for a conference or coordinate large orders for a quantity discount.  To take advantage of this sale price, call 806-376-9900 or click here for the Hale Publishing "Specials" webpage.

When Is a Book Like a Baby?

Authors often say that writing a book is like giving birth.  This act of creation can produce powerful brain contractions that feel as intense as labor and delivery.

During the two years I spent writing my latest book, I experienced all the usual moaning, groaning, and self-doubts, but in one sense it was even more like the real thing.  On July 21, when I held Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple (BAMS) in my hands for the first time, I discovered that at 6.3 pounds, it was as heavy as a full-term newborn.

It happened during the festive first evening of the International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA) conference in San Antonio, Texas where we celebrated ILCA’s 25^th anniversary and the silver anniversary of our profession.  As the exhibit hall opened, I rushed to the ILCA bookstore.  Would it arrive on time?  How would it look?  When I got my first glimpse, it seemed impossible that I had given birth to this.  It was enormous!  How would I manage?  Could I even fit it into my suitcase?

As I sat down to take a closer look at its nearly 1,000 pages, many friends and colleagues stopped by to say hello, congratulate me, and admire my gigantic tome.  Many despaired with me about getting it home without going over luggage weight limits.  Yet somehow it all worked out.  Thankfully, baby and I made it home safely.  And all of us are doing just fine.

 Photos:  Upper left, Catherine Watson Genna, Nancy, and Kat Shealy from the CDC; Lower left: Rene Fisher and Nancy; Right: Tom Hale (BAMS publisher), Nancy, and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett (BAMS editor)



My new book debuts: Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple

My latest book, Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple: A Guide for Helping Mothers is scheduled to debut on July 20 from Hale Publishing (for order information, see http://www.ibreastfeeding.com/catalog/p240/Breastfeeding-Answers-Made-Simple/product_info.html). This project has been a real labor of love for me.  Eight years have passed since I finished the third edition of The Breastfeeding Answer Book (BAB), and the amazing leaps forward in breastfeeding demanded an update.  My goal was to start from scratch and create a comprehensive, research-based counseling guide with updated answers to virtually every breastfeeding question. 

I also wanted to keep what everyone loved most about the BAB: its easy-to-use two-column format.  Organized in a similar format, this new hardcover book (which I call BAMS for short) features an outer “Main Idea” column that allows you to quickly scan a chapter when helping mothers by phone.  Once you find the point you’re looking for, the inner “Details” column provides you with all the latest information on that topic.  While not spiral-bound like the BAB, Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple's binding lays flat when open for easy reference.  It has also been professionally indexed to make the information you need even easier to find.

Because so much new breastfeeding research had been published since 2002, it took me just over two years to write this new book and the end result added up to 886 pages (not including index).  In it I describe both the cutting-edge and classic breastfeeding research that should inform our practice.  The international studies featured in Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple include those on all aspects of breastfeeding and weaning: skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding positions and feeding dynamics, making milk, new studies on galactogogues, as well as a wide range of unusual situations.  Each chapter also includes effective strategies for solving breastfeeding problems and insights into the emotional dynamics at work while helping mothers. 

Written for all levels of expertise, from beginners to advanced practitioners, BAMS was also written for all settings: hospitals, clinics, medical practices, public health offices and clinics, peer-counselor programs, and community-based practices and organizations such as La Leche League. 

New chapters include “Making Milk,” “Challenges at the Breast,” “Breastfeeding Rhythms” (which covers all breastfeeding ages and stages), “Basic Dynamics,” and a new appendix featuring the WHO Growth charts based on exclusively breastfed babies.  Some of the new areas covered include:

• the four types of tongue tie (with photos of each)
• how to transition preterm babies to the breast at much younger ages
• gigantomastia
• torticollis
• baby-led solids
• breastfeeding after gastric by-pass surgery
• helping mothers with a history of childhood abuse
• MRSA
• Group B strep
• postpartum thyroiditis, and much, much more.  

Also included are sections on how cultural beliefs can contribute to early weaning and effective strategies that can help delay premature weaning in these settings.

Every chapter was reviewed by world-class experts in the field, including Nils Bergman (who also wrote the book’s Foreword), Catherine Watson Genna, Diane Wiessinger, Diana West, Lisa Marasco, Barbara Wilson-Clay, Miriam Labbok, Lawrence Gartner, Suzanne Colson, Gill Rapley, Laurie Nommsen-Rivers, Kirsten Berggren, Susan Burger, Karleen Gribble, Carol Wagner, Cheryl Lovelady, Kerstin Hedberg Nyqvist, Marsha Walker, and Christina Smillie.  One of my chapter reviewers was also my editor (and my coauthor on Breastfeeding Made Simple), Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, whose paradigm-changing insights into inflammation and depression are also explained in its pages. 

My hope is to provide you with a book that includes everything you need to help mothers and their babies achieve a serene and satisfying breastfeeding relationship. 



An excerpt from the Introduction of my new book

I had my initial encounter with breastfeeding help in June of 1980 when I attended my first La Leche League meeting.  I was five months pregnant with my oldest child, and I arrived feeling curious about motherhood and wondering if I would be able to make breastfeeding work.   

That was also the night I fell in love with breastfeeding.  It happened as I watched a mother and her 3-week-old baby interact at the breast.  In my mind’s eye, I can still see her stroking, smiling, and talking to her newborn girl while they stared into each other’s eyes.  I was stunned by how alive that tiny baby was to her mother’s overtures!  Others had told me that newborns were incapable of real interaction, but that mother and baby proved them wrong.  Although I didn’t know it then, what I witnessed that night was the “right-brain connection” described in Chapter 1, and after that experience, I would never be the same.  I don’t remember a word that mother said to the group, but the impression she left on me was indelible.  I knew immediately this was the kind of intimacy I wanted with my own baby.  When I left that meeting, I was confident that with this group’s help I would be able to breastfeed, and I felt even more excited about becoming a mother.

After that meeting and many more, I went on to breastfeed my three sons and threw my heart and soul into helping other mothers....

An important point to keep in mind as we promote breastfeeding and offer our help is that what initially drew many of us to breastfeeding was not the wonders of human milk (which are considerable and also described in these pages) but the miraculous way breastfeeding deepens the bond between mother and baby.  Breastfeeding’s real power and draw lies in the profound intimacy I witnessed between that mother and her newborn at my first La Leche League meeting.  Experiencing that—even second-hand—created a hunger in me for that intimacy with my own newborn.  Experiencing it myself was my main motivation for helping other mothers feel that same amazing magic.

 Let us keep our eye on that prize.  Approaching breastfeeding help with intimacy and attachment as a focus enables us to better reinforce mothers’ instincts and leave them feeling empowered rather than incompetent.  My hope is that Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple will give you the tools you need to both help mothers breastfeed and enhance their bond with their baby.  Many of the new insights in these pages take us back to our roots but this time with a greater understanding of the underlying forces at work.  We are entering an exciting time in breastfeeding.  The best is definitely yet to come, both for us and for the mothers we help.