July 2007

Ginna Wall: Twenty Years, 10,000 Nursing Families
UW Breastfeeding Expert Honored for her Service to Mothers

By Cheryl Murfin Bond

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said.

My nipples were cracked and bleeding. I was tired. It was late. And, at a month postpartum, I was done with this breastfeeding business. Breast may be best, but breastfeeding was just too hard, I moaned.

Then I called Ginna Wall.

“This is hard, but you are doing an amazing job,” Wall told me, her voice warm and supporting despite the late hour of my call. “You will get through this hard part, and you and your baby will love breastfeeding! Look how she’s already thriving.” I looked at my daughter, round and radiant as she gnawed on that cracked nipple. I knew I had to keep going. For her.

There is no doubt in my mind today that Wall, founder of the University of Washington Medical Center’s lactation program, kept me nursing my daughter, and later my son, for nearly two years. Her nurturing approach and her confidence in my ability to move through my current feeding crisis gave me hope.

This quiet, gentle mother of two was recently recognized for her support of 10,000 nursing mothers like me and her 20 years of breastfeeding advocacy with the Nancy Danoff, M.D., Spirit of Service Award. The award is given annually by the Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington, a program of WithinReach (formerly Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies). It recognizes Wall’s “dedication, volunteerism, commitment and leadership in promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding as a vital part of the health and development of children and families.”

“Ginna’s leadership in breastfeeding promotion and education go far beyond Washington State,” says Kimberly Radtke, Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington program coordinator.

Wall, Radtke adds, has “contributed significantly to shaping policy development, educating hundreds of physicians, medical residents, nursing students and others as well as providing support and encouragement to families for many years.”

Wall, a pediatric nurse, was one of the first International Board Certified Lactation Consultants in Washington State. Besides founding the lactation program at the UW, she has trained hundreds of health professionals on issues in lactation. She is on faculty at the university, Bastyr University and Seattle Midwifery School. In 2005, she received the Distinguished Nurse of the Year Award from the March of Dimes Washington Chapter.

In a recent interview, I asked Wall to share what she’s learned in more than two decades of service to nursing women. Here are her responses:

Why is breastfeeding important? Isn’t a bottle just as good?

I compile information from breastfeeding research about the effects of breastfeeding on the baby, the mother and society. This document has grown over the years to 50 pages, and you need only to glance at the research to know the answer to your question: bottle-feeding is not “just as good.”

Sometimes I play a game when I am educating the new nursing and medical staff. I ask them to “stump me” by naming an infection or illness or disease process and I’ll tell them how it’s linked to formula feeding. My favorite is inguinal hernia. Did you know that human milk contains biologically active hormones that dictate when and how the baby’s body continues to develop outside the womb? There is a hormone called gonadotropin that is present in relatively high levels in human milk, and it helps develop the inguinal canal so that the baby is less likely to get a hernia.

Gonadotropin also plays a role in the descent of the testicles. If a baby gets cow’s milk or soy milk in the form of “formula,” he misses all these important hormones that are critical for growth and development.

Does breastfeeding benefit the mother as well as the baby?

Clearly the baby is the most important recipient of the benefits of breast milk. If I had to pick the “most important benefit,” I’d say the immunoglobulins. These are present in human milk in huge quantities and they bind with germs so the baby doesn’t get sick.

For the mother, it’s tempting to say that protection against a too-soon pregnancy is important, or the reduced risk of many different kinds of cancer is important, or some other physical benefit. But I’d have to say that the best thing breastfeeding does for mothers is make them good mothers. The hormones of breastfeeding make women relax, get more sleep, worry less about the world at large, and simply enjoy being with and caring for this marvelous new creature on the planet!

Why did you choose lactation support as a career?

I felt called to help breastfeeding mothers and babies from the beginning of my career as a pediatric nurse. I witnessed then the joy breastfeeding can bring to mothers and the power of mother-to-mother support.

I intuitively felt that the way hospitals cared for babies, putting them in nurseries and bringing them out to their mothers only every four hours for feedings, was inherently wrong. I loved scraping up information from the very few books and research articles that were available in the late 1970s to early 1980s. I loved putting together information that would be useful and reassuring to mothers struggling to figure it all out.

And then I had my own first baby and we weren’t very adept at nursing! This surprised me because I thought I knew a lot about breastfeeding! I treasure the help I got from Nancy Miller, who happened to be the La Leche League leader who picked up the phone when I called. If it weren’t for Nancy, I would not have succeeded at nursing my baby. Again I realized how critically important it is to help new mothers with words and encouragement and skillful suggestions.

What has been most challenging about your work?

I am happy to report that the challenging part – dealing with others who disagree that breastfeeding is important – has finally faded into the past. Nowadays, no one argues that bottle-feeding formula is “just as good” as breastfeeding. And, of course, the most fulfilling part is being with new families, helping them, sharing their happiness and joy.

The Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington, in conjunction with WithinReach, provides breastfeeding education materials as well as a free newsletter called Breastfeeding Matters at www.withinreachwa.org/forprof/BCW/education_materials.htm. Ginna Wall provides up-to-date compilations on breastfeeding research and benefits on her La Leche League International Web site at www.llli.org/cbi/Biospec.htm .

Cheryl Murfin Bond is a Seattle-area writer and former breastfeeding mother of two.

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