Tuesday, September 21, 1999
Mother of twins wrote the book on it
BY CINDY KRANZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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IF YOU GO
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Scheduled signings for Karen Kerkhoff Gromada's book:
• Sept. 22, 6 p.m. Borders Books & Music, Springdale.
• Oct. 16, 3:30 p.m. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Norwood.
• Oct. 18, 7 p.m. Borders Books & Music, Northgate.
• Oct. 23, TBA, Barnes & Noble, Deerfield Township.
• Nov. 4, 7:30 p.m. Borders Books & Music, Eastgate.
• Nov. 13, 1 p.m. Barnes & Noble, Kenwood.
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More than 20 years ago, when Karen Kerkhoff Gromada was pregnant with twins, she found scant information about mothering multiples.
“I don't think there was one book on the shelf about how to be a parent to twins or what kind of things were common ... I started from scratch. No new mother should do this. This is not right.”
She changed all that by writing a book. Now, the 49-year-old East Walnut Hills woman has updated the book with new information. The revised edition of Mothering Multiples: Breastfeeding & Caring for Twins or More (La Leche League; $14.95) includes pregnancy information, practical breastfeeding hints, tips and options, and issues dealing with older infants and toddlers.
“The thought of two or three or more can, at times, be overwhelming. You vacillate between excitement and being scared to death,” Ms. Gromada says.
But mothers of multiples have to make sure they don't get breastfeeding issues mixed up with twins and triplets issues, she says. Women's bodies were made to breastfeed.
“Breastfeeding is much easier once you work through the initial glitches. There's nothing to clean, nothing to prepare, no real worries about allergies,” she says.
“Some people find full breastfeeding is not possible. Partial is OK. Nobody should feel locked into "it's all or nothing.' It doesn't have to be all or nothing.”
Ms. Gromada became a La Leche League leader in 1975. After her twins were born in 1977 she founded a La Leche group for mothers of multiples.
She has been a nurse in maternal-child health care for almost 30 years, and she's a lactation consultant and owner of The Breastfeeding Answer Center. Although her five children now range in age from 16-27, she remains committed to promoting breastfeeding because she's seen the physical and emotional benefits for babies and mothers.
“There is nothing I have ever done in my life that has given back as much as breastfeeding my children. There's the closeness it engenders. I can't pass the baby off even if I want to. In order to keep the system working well, I have to keep my baby close. People say "It ties me down.' No, it ties me to my babies. It helped me realize they are persons and individuals.”
Ms. Gromada says she hears too many parents of multiples talking about feedings and changings as tasks. These are people who have as many needs as any single child.
“Breastfeeding forces you into a relationship many times a day if you're going to maintain supply or even if you're going to pump,” she says. “I'm not saying you can't do that with a bottle, but I think you've got to work at it more.”
Fifty-five to 60 percent of new mothers of single and multiple children initiate breastfeeding. Although the benefits to babies are widely known, the practice is still not sufficiently supported by society, Ms. Gromada says. She says she finds more hangups about it in the '90s than in the '70s when she started breastfeeding.
“We didn't get thrown out of Wal-Marts and different places. We just nursed.”
She's intrigued why people watch scantily clad characters on TV shows full of sexual innuendo, yet they are put off by breastfeeding. A lot of people equate breastfeeding with sex, she says, but in many cultures, breasts are not sexual.
As a breastfeeding mother she would do whatever necessary to feed her baby. “I'm not going to put it into a bottle to make you comfortable, but I will be discreet. Of course, it's a little harder to be discreet with multiples.”
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