Yes, that's what my kraamhulp said. He's quite consistently at 7 feeds a
day, the time between feeds varies between 2,5 and 5 hours. I think I
will get him weighed on wednesday but judging by the amount of wet and
poopy diapers he produces I'm not worried :-).

I don't know if there have been studies on the relation between
kraamhulp and PPD but it's a very interesting thought. As just about
everybody in the Netherlands gets it (over 90% of the people have health
insurance) there should in that case be less instances of PPD in the
Netherlands. I don't know if there have been comparative studies.
I think one of the reasons for having this system is so people can be
discharged from hospital sooner, thus saving costs (one day extra in
hospital is about as expensive as one week of kraamhulp). And the baby
and mother are monitored closely in the first week by a pro, this should
help spot potential health problems sooner I suppose.

Cath
Mom to Fenna 07/05/03
and Jens 08/10/05


Chookie wrote:

In article ,
(Cath) wrote:

Some background on the Dutch system - as you usually give birth at home
or in the 'short stay' dept of the hospital (in hospital but with your
midwife, and you're discharged right away), you get a sort of doula for
the first week to help you with the baby and the household, and make
sure you rest enough, and take care of the other kids etc. We call it
'kraamhulp', I have no translation but will refer to her as Marina, that
was her name. Normally they arrive during labour to assist the midwife,
but because I was already at 9 cm when the midwife arrived Marina
arrived a bit late, just as I was pushing out the head at 2pm.

Jens is doing really well so far, nurses really well, on day 6 he was
already over his birthweight! He want to nurse every three hours or so
which comes as a bit of a shock to me as DD wanted to nurse every other
minute :-). But as he's already over his birthweight he seems to know
what he's doing...

Congratulations on the birth of Jens! I think larger babies might feed less
often -- at least, DS2 was 4130g at birth and has fewer feeds than DS1 did
(DS1 was a 'mere' 3765g!). DS2 has almost doubled his birth weight and is not
yet 3 months old!

The kraamhulp sounds like a great idea; I especially like the way they are
present at delivery and continue care of the mother afterwards. Is
post-partum depression reduced in the Netherlands as a result? What other
benefits has it had?