Breastfeeding in Netherlands

Written by Beth

I come from a place where having a baby in the hospital is standard procedure. It was quite a surprise to learn about the Dutch home birthing policy. But the more I learned about it, the more it made sense. The Dutch don’t think of being pregnant and giving birth as an illness that you need to be treated for in a hospital environment. To them, it is the most natural part of life. Having your baby at home, in familiar surroundings where you feel safe and relaxed contributes to the desired outcome–an easy and successful birthing process.

Those Initial Moments - Child Birth and Heading Home

Although it did not quite pan out that way for me, as I was rushed to the hospital after 24 hours of labor, weak with pain and nausea, the birth was as natural as it could be under the circumstances. My baby arrived happy and healthy, almost two weeks overdue. Happy to finally hold her in my arms, we set about getting our postnatal lives in order. 

I had never felt so alone in my life as that first day when we brought our daughter home from the hospital. My mother and sister both live thousands of kilometers away. 

Surprising Aspects of New Motherhood and Overwhelm

It’s funny thinking back on it now, how little we knew about what needed to be done but how much we thought we had prepared for it. There were so many details that we had just overlooked or were not even aware of. I didn’t know that during the day a baby needs to be put to sleep. I had just assumed that babies sleep whenever they are tired. I didn’t realize how much effort it would take to put my daughter to sleep every two hours. No one told me she would need to be rocked to sleep, lullabies and all, every time she was due for a regular nap!

Enter The Kraamzorg or Maternal Care Nurse

The best part about having a baby in the Netherlands, which goes hand in hand with their very naturalistic approach to early motherhood, is the enormous support when it comes to breastfeeding. 

This is not well known, but it should be. The immense help new mothers receive in the Netherlands in the first few days of the baby’s arrival is not the norm in the developed world.

Coming home exhausted with the brand new human in our arms, we didn’t know what to do first! In walks the infallible Kraamzorg to save the day! (Kraamzorg is a service in the Netherlands and Belgium where postnatal care is provided to a new mother and her baby in the initial eight to 10 days immediately after birth. Kraamzorg literally translates to maternity care in English.) The kraamzorg nurse is trained to check your recovery and your baby’s development on a daily basis. She teaches you and your partner about basic childcare and even does most of the housework to let you bond with your baby in peace. And what saved the day for me was the fact that she is also an expert in breastfeeding.

The Wisdom of Breastfeeding is Alive and Well in The Netherlands

I was told that the kraamzorg nurse is a phenomenon unique to the Netherlands, but I have heard of similar practices in Japan. It is based on the age-old wisdom of learning how to care for your baby from those women who have been through it and have so much wisdom and experience to pass on.

I don’t know how my husband and I would have survived without our kraamzorg!

She would come in for a few hours each day and help me care for our daughter. As she is a trained professional who specializes in baby care and looking after mothers straight after birth, her care and guidance especially when it came to breastfeeding my daughter were invaluable. 

For several hours each day, she came to help with the basic household chores so that I could focus on my baby. A friend of mine who has a two-year-old said that her kraamzorg helped her look after her toddler as well, which was an enormous help during those first days after a difficult birth.

She was just wonderful; she showed me how to hold my daughter, how to help her latch, how to massage my breast to stimulate the flow, and how to soothe my nipples with sheep wool which is customary in the Netherlands. She shared countless helpful tips to ease me into my breastfeeding journey. She was very good at observing the whole process and would then help me by offering personalized advice on what I could do differently to make it easier for me and my baby.  It wasn’t a critique but more like gentle guidance which is so needed in those first few days. She was there to listen to my worries and incessant questions and guide me by not only giving me helpful advice but helping me realize that I can really do this.

She gave me back my confidence.