World Breastfeeding Week is the first week of August. Here is a resource to help new moms with breastfeeding an infant with Down syndrome.
The National Center for Prenatal & Postnatal Down Syndrome Resources (where I serve as the bioethics specialist) has as one of its member organizations, downsyndromepregnancy.org. That organization offers: Welcoming a Newborn with Down Syndrome: A New Parent’s Guide to the First Month. The same co-authors as Diagnosis to Delivery have written this resource specifically for new parents and the first month of having a child with Down syndrome.
The National Center provides written resources for pretest counseling, when a prenatal test result is delivered, when a mother chooses to continue her pregnancy, and, Welcoming a Newborn, for those parents who may not have known for certain (or at all) that their new baby had Down syndrome until their baby was born. Welcoming a Newborn with Down syndrome collects the wisdom gained from mothers, medical professionals, genetic counselors, and support organizations about common issues and questions new parents have.
One of these common questions is whether a newborn with Down syndrome can breastfeed. Many can (my own daughter did). But, unfortunately, some parents are still told pre- and post-natally that children with Down syndrome cannot breastfeed. While that may be true for some, children who do not have Down syndrome also may not be able to breastfeed. For those moms wondering about breastfeeding their baby with Down syndrome, the book has an entire chapter devoted to breastfeeding with additional resources cited. The downsyndromepregnancy.org website further has an article on breastfeeding with links to additional resources.
The resource Welcoming a Newborn with Down syndrome is available for download as a .pdf or for purchase as a high quality publication. If you are, or you know of, a new parent of a child with Down syndrome, Welcoming a Newborn with Down syndrome will help new parents get a good start and will help those moms wanting to breastfeed their baby.
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