Milk Bath
(*apologizes to my cousin in advance who will probably get really mad at me for writing this. But it’s funny an educational! Don’t kill me. *)
“My back is killing me,” my cousin said as she placed her baby into the stroller.
“Eh, you’ll feel better after you get in the hot tub,” I replied. We had already spent a full day at Bible Camp and were looking forward to the solitude of “Adult Swim,” an hour long open hot tub and swimming pool session for adults-only.
“That sounds pretty good. But wait…is it safe to go into the hot tub? I’m still breastfeeding.”
“What could go wrong?”
“I know this sounds stupid, but I don’t want to get into super-hot-tub and have my milk supply go bad somehow. Not just from the heat, but there’s all kinds of bacteria in the water that can get into your milk duct and cause an infection.”
“The things they don’t tell you about pregnancy in health class…”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Well, you’re the first person with a baby that I’ve ever hung out with, so I don’t know squat. But I have a fancy cellphone with a data plan and I’m sure the internet has an answer for this.”
I typed in: “Is it safe to go into hot tub while still breastfeeding?” and inexplicably went to Yahoo Answers, the world’s “finest” source of information. I read the answers out-loud in complete disbelief:
If you use a hot tub while breastfeeding make sure you keep the baby’s head above water. And also they really shouldn’t go in the water until half an hour AFTER they eat
“WHAT?”
“Wait, wait, scroll down, maybe the second answer will be better…”
As long as you keep baby’s face out of the water, it’s fine…I really have nursed my baby in a hot tub. If baby’s in with you, keep the temperature below 100, but if baby’s not, then go with your comfort.
My cousin shook her head, “WHO would bring their NEW BABY into a HOT TUB?”
I sighed. “In way, I’m happy that there was no internet when we were kids. We probably would have cooked to death if our parents read this misinformation.”
“This coming from a person whose parents locked all the windows in the middle of August to avoid robbers, were afraid of oscillating fans because of pneumonia, and got tied down with blankets every night? You ALWAYS had heat rash….”
“Point taken. My insides are probably medium-well by now. I’m gonna go cook in the hot tub.”
“Okay, you do that, I’m going to keep looking for information about curdled breast milk.”
“Um. Make sure you turn the Safe Search on. I don’t want to end up on some weird…fetish list.”
(Note to Curious Mommies: After some research we discovered that it is safe to go into a hot tub while breastfeeding, and it’s supposed to actually make your very sore boobies feel better. But clean your boobies before feeding Baby. And nobody puts Baby in the hot tub.)
