Woman looks to promote breast-feeding

By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer | Monday, March 14, 2005

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RAPID CITY -- For Candice Brings Plenty, affirmation that she had made the right choice for her daughter Breana's feeding care came from a sign.

Driving to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, she saw one of Healthy Start Program's road signs that read "Breastfeeding Saves Lives."

"I love that sign," she said.

Brings Plenty, 24, and B.J. Brave Heart, 25, both of Rapid City, are the parents of two daughters, Helina, 17 months, and Breana, three months. While pregnant with Breana, Brings Plenty wanted to learn more about breast-feeding, a traditional method of child-rearing that she grew up with in her family.

In her first pregnancy, Brings Plenty had wanted to breast-feed. But an epidural for pain after more than 24 hours of labor forced Brings Plenty to reconsider her options. The pain medication had coursed through her body, her daughter and her milk.

Three lactation consultants were available at Rapid City Regional Hospital, but after she left the hospital, Brings Plenty was on her own.

"I ended up switching Helina to the bottle," Brings Plenty said.

In her second pregnancy, she joined her friends Amy Loud Hawk, Jolene Buckman and Jessie Chretien once a month for dinner to talk about their children and to share information about breast-feeding.

Rapid City's Le Leche League disbanded in 2003. The Lakota mother looked for another support group to help her start breast-feeding her next baby.

Brings Plenty said she didn't know how to properly attach her baby to her breast. But by watching her friends feed their babies, she soon discovered what she hadn't been able to understand described in brochures or pamphlets.

"It's not automatic. If I had never seen it done, I would have never known how to do it," she said.

This lack of information prompted Jacqueline Left Hand Bull, Northern Plains Healthy Start Program project director, to bring in her staff for training and support.

"We want to promote healthy breast-feeding," Left Hand Bull said.

Staff from Indian Health Services and Women, Infants and Children programs attended the workshop to advocate for breast-feeding, sponsored by Healthy Start.

"They all will have the same kind of training to help mothers initiating or starting to initiate breast-feeding," Left Hand Bull said.

Only 15 percent of American Indian women breast-feed their children, but about 50 percent of the general population breast-feeds. Some reasons why young Indian mothers don't breast-feed include fear of not producing enough milk, lack of information, lack of support and bottle-feeding promotion by formula companies, she said.

Left Hand Bull hopes to combat those misunderstadings. She said that a newborn baby's stomach is about the size of a marble and at one week, the baby's stomach grows to the size of a ping-pong ball. Also, most women produce more milk than the baby will need, she said.

Plus, there are many advantages to breast-feeding, she said.

"A clinical study shows babies who were breast-fed scored an average of nine to 11 points higher on IQ tests than formula-fed babies," she said.

But other benefits for the baby include fewer incidences of earaches, ear infections, stomach upset, diarrhea and indigestion. The mothers also benefit by not relying on expensive formulas. The benefits also include fewer incidences of tightening of the uterus, reduced risk of urinary tract infections, breast cancer and cervical cancers.

Like her baby, Brings Plenty, an intern at Northern Plains Healthy Start Program and an Oglala Lakota College student, was a breast-fed baby.

When her mother worked away from home, a relative breast-fed Brings Plenty during the day. Brings Plenty said that sharing breast-feeding duties was also practiced by her stepmother and aunt when raising their children.

"It was how it was done traditionally," Brings Plenty said.

Gerry Goes In Center was a strong advocate for Brings Plenty to breast-feed, giving her books and pamphlets to read. But it was her friends doing what came naturally that made the biggest impact.

"I thought I had one advocate. I didn't open my eyes wide enough to see that I had an entire support group," she said.

For information on breast-feeding, call Jacqueline Left Hand Bull at 721-1922.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com