Diane,
Congratulations! It's always best to consult your pregnancy care provider
with these sorts of questions. However, I would think calcium
supplementation during pregnancy wouldn't harm your developing baby. Tums
is considered a safe product (relatively, since some folks can overdo it) to
take for those of us who suffer from heartburn during pregnancy.

Milk supply can be a challenge during pregnancy, partly because you may
begin to nurse a little less for a variety of reasons. In early pregnancy,
changing hormones make you exhausted (you know this already, I'm sure) and
tend to make the breasts incredibly sensitive and tender. Make sure you
allow yourself to rest a little more (ha, easy in a house with three
youngsters, right?) and take extra care with your diet. There are websites
out there devoted to encouraging mothers to continue nursing through
pregnancy. It's not always an easy road but there are benefits, especially
when your nursling is under one year old.

Your nursling might begin to notice a change in the quality of your milk
during the course of the pregnancy, which *could* cause him or her to start
weaning, or maybe not. :-) Like you, I've had a few children spaced pretty
closely (18 and 19 months apart for kids 4, 5, and 6), but these children
didn't wean during the subsequent pregnancies and I actually tandem nursed 4
and 5 (something I *never* intended to do, LOL). There are plenty of folks
out there who nurse through pregnancies and go on to tandem nurse, plenty
whose nursling winds up self-weaning before the baby is born, and plenty who
choose to wean their nursling. Go with your gut feeling on what is right.

One anecdote I will share, when I was pregnant again after #3 (she was 9
months old), I decided to wean her. A month after she was fully weaned, I
had a miscarriage (17 weeks), and I *really* regretted weaning and
desperately missed the closeness I had with my nursling. I tried to
re-establish nursing, but by that point she had other interests and pretty
much "forgot" how to latch on. I decided after that experience that I would
*never* wean such a young nursling just because I was pregnant again. I've
gone on to have four more children and one other late miscarriage since that
time, and I'm glad I kept that nursing relationship going.

I know this wasn't your actual question (whether to continue nursing or
not), but I wanted to share to let you know there is support out there to
continue nursing in a world that very often sends us the opposite message,
especially when you find yourself expecting again. :-)

God bless,
Valerie
mom to 7 on earth (ages 13 to 5 months) and 3 saints in heaven


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