Breast-feeding advocates hail Dallas mom's video series
By ANNETTE NEVINS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning
News
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
When Stephanie Scholz Neurohr was about to have her seventh
child, a camera crew stood ready in her hospital room.
Stephanie Scholz Neurohr , who has produced the Mother
of 7 Birth and Breastfeeding Video Series, has seven children
with husband Hunt, a Dallas plastic surgeon. Mrs. Neurohr credits
breast-feeding with helping their youngest, 6-year-old Autumn
(in her mom's lap), overcome severe medical problems at birth.
The former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader with a film degree from
Southern Methodist University was making a video about birth
and breast-feeding, calling upon her 14 years of experience
nursing her six other children, including twins.
Little did she know that her seventh child, Autumn, would
be born with a rare medical condition in which the upper part
of her esophagus formed a pouch, the lower part of her esophagus
and trachea joined together, and the left vocal cord was paralyzed.
The baby could not breast-feed, or even swallow.
Still, the cameras rolled, following Autumn through heart-wrenching
surgeries and struggles in a hospital neonatal intensive care
unit. There she received breast milk through feeding tubes
for four months before she grew strong enough to breast-feed.
The resulting Autumn's Story , a 45-minute documentary
that has aired on the Discovery Health Channel, is now one
in a series of four videos produced by Mrs. Neurohr on the
benefits of breast-feeding for mother and child.
The Mother of 7 Birth and Breastfeeding Video Series also
includes Breastfeeding Basics (20 minutes), Breastfeeding
Intensive (45 minutes) and Breastfeeding Comprehensive (130
minutes). Released this year, they're for sale at Mrs. Neurohr's
Web site, www.motherof7.com.
Autumn, now 6 and entering first grade in the fall, traveled
the world as her mother interviewed experts and breastfeeding
mothers.
Mrs. Neurohr and husband Hunt, a Dallas plastic surgeon, thought
the cause was so important that they financed the project themselves.
"Breast milk made a difference in Autumn's survival and in
mine," says Mrs. Neurohr, 46, who lives in North Dallas.
"Breast-feeding is my gift to my children, and their health
and happiness is their gift to me," she says. "I want to
help everyone realize those gifts, one mother at a time."
In her videos, which include scenes of Mrs. Neurohr breast-feeding
Autumn, mothers from Africa, Costa Rica, France and elsewhere
tout the convenience of breast-feeding as they snuggle babies
in a hammock, under a colorful wrap or on a park bench.
Lactation consultants walk mothers through positions and technique
with the aid of 3-D animation, and child-care experts stress
the many benefits.
Katy
Lebbing, manager of La Leche International's Center of Breastfeeding
Information in Schaumburg, Ill., one of the largest breast-feeding
resource centers in the world, calls the videos "a
blockbuster that is going to change the lactation world."
"She definitely has done her homework to create the most breathtaking,
beautiful, accurate, updated videos I've seen on breast-feeding," Ms.
Lebbing says.
Mrs. Neurohr says she made the videos to teach women how to
breast-feed because many never learned from their mothers or
grandmothers.
She also wants to educate others about the compelling advantages
of breast milk for baby, mother, family and society.
"Breast-feeding is a beautiful way to bond with and nourish
and nurture your child," she says. "Virtually any woman,
even those with special circumstances, can do it, but it
takes education, practice and patience to master the art."
Like most women growing up in the 1960s, Mrs. Neurohr, one
of a family of three girls from Lubbock, never saw her mother
breast-feed. Pharmaceutical companies marketed formula as the
modern way to go as more women returned to the workforce.
There has been a revival in recent years. In 2004, according
to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, about 70 percent of
new mothers initiated breast-feeding. The figure for Texas
was 74.5 percent.
But far fewer mothers persevere. When the babies were 6 months
old, the CDC said, only 36 percent were still breast-feeding,
and just 14 percent breast-fed exclusively.
"That's a shame for a developed country like ourselves," says
Dr. Miriam Labbok, director of the Center for Infant and
Young Child Feeding and Care at the University of North Carolina
School of Public Health.
"Breast-feeding
is the single most effective intervention for saving children's
lives."
She says breast-fed children have stronger immune systems.
Recent studies indicate the risk of becoming obese later in
life is reduced by about 30 percent in babies who are breast-fed
for at least six months. Mothers lose weight by burning up
to 1,000 calories daily.
In underdeveloped countries, breast-feeding is crucial to
infant nutrition, and many babies' lives are endangered when
powdered formula is mixed with unsafe water sources.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends nursing exclusively
for six months and continuing in combination with other food
for at least one year. If women cannot breast-feed because
of health problems or personal circumstances, infant formula
can provide necessary nutrients, according to the National
Women's Health Information Center.
Dr. Labbok is concerned that breast-feeding is slipping in
this country, and suggests possible reasons.
"Maternity wards send mothers home with a bag of free formula
samples with little instruction on how to breast-feed," she
says.
As more mothers choose the convenience of unnecessary Caesareans
and other medically assisted births, she says, they are less
likely to breast-feed.
They can usually breast-feed, Dr. Labbok says, but natural
labor more quickly triggers hormones necessary to nurse.
Dr. Neurohr says his wife's experience with breast-feeding
has drawn him closer to his family. The plastic surgeon also
says he stopped doing breast implants about 10 years ago.
"We've lost the true nature of the maternal breast as a life-giving
source," Dr. Neurohr says. "Stephanie has knitted together
a story of maternal beauty with function."
To follow up her breast-feeding videos, Mrs. Neurohr is working
on a series of videos on birth, emphasizing natural methods.
Autumn still deals with some medical problems, but is thriving.
As the girl plays under the painted rainbow in her room, Mrs.
Neurohr focuses on the mission that her daughter's life has
inspired.
"Research shows that breast milk cannot be scientifically
formulated or duplicated," she says. "Two generations of
breast-feeding have been lost. It is society's responsibility
to make it the norm again."
Annette Nevins is a Plano-based freelance writer.
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