The Dreaded B Word
Let's talk about breast-feed-ing. Let's talk about baby and me. Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. Let's talk abooouuut breastfeeding.
The hard-hitting, controversial song I'm ripping off here is from the early '90s. Back when sex was a bit more taboo as a straight-up song subject. Not really the case any more. Maybe I can write a hard-hitting, controversial blog entry and work the same “magic” on breastfeeding as a topic as Salt N' Pepa did on sex. Maybe ease the taboo a bit so we can have intelligent conversations regarding breastfeeding without the offense cloud hanging over our heads. Slight roadblock: I may be mistaken, but I as far as I know I lack the star power of early '90s Salt N' Pepa. Unfortunate.
We can't even say breastfeeding without wincing. Everyone resorts to saying "nursing" to save any tender ears in our midst. Let's parade every new twenty-year old starlet's barely-clad breasts all over tv and magazines, but please, please don't make me think about breasts as performing any actual function, least of all the one they were actually made to perform.
So, why does everyone seem to know so much about breastfeeding? The thing about getting breastfeeding going is it happens to coincide with a somewhat unsteady state for the new mother. Just given birth, adjusting to getting no more than two or three hours of sleep in a row if lucky, adjusting to the little ball of cuteness' effect on the marital relationship, having your house in a constant state of ruin because there is literally no time to do anything about it. Then let's pile on top of that demands of breastfeeding.
I've had many people - equal parts women who have breastfed, if not for a decade or two, and those who have never breastfed in their lives - try to account for the ups and downs I experienced in getting breastfeeding established. This, by the way, often takes up to two months – another dirty secret no one tells you until you are knee deep in the mire of it all. Is your milk supply okay? Is your milk any good? Should she really be nursing for that long each time? She can't be hungry again, she just ate fifteen minutes ago.
Where do I start?
I can't really tell you if my supply is okay. Mine didn't come with a fuel gage.
How on earth would I know if my milk was “any good”? I could try leaving a customer satisfaction card on the nursing pillow after each session I suppose.
The problem is all these questions, though perhaps asked innocently, perhaps not, really just served to undermine any sense of “I'm doing okay at this new mom thing. No one's an expert off the bat and it's okay.” Experiencing the worst sleep deprivation you've ever had in the midst of having your world turned upside down is not conducive to making use of solid reasoning skills. So now I can look back and say “Bah, what did they know? They were just going on the little misinformation they've picked up here and there. I have done way more research and know way more than they do about breastfeeding.” But then, in the beginning, I was lost. Felt every bit of inquiry as a tiny pin prick in what little confidence balloon I may have had.
Some interesting facts:
1. It is completely normal for breastfed newborns to feed every one to two hours from start to start of feeding sessions. Also, every baby nurses differently – some take ten minutes, others take 45. So, doing the math here, it is completely within the realm of normalcy for an infant to want to eat as soon as fifteen minutes after his/her last feast. One hundred percent normal. And yet, no one but lactation consultants seem to know this. Not even women who breastfed their babies.
2. Breastfeeding is painful at first. Full stop. No ifs, ands or buts. I'm not clear on why breastfeeding advocates and support organizations maintain that breastfeeding should not hurt at first and if so, something is wrong. I suspect it's a way of dealing with the delicate sensibilities of pregnant women. Oh dear, they are awoken three, sometimes even four times a night to dash to the washroom. They are a bit tired, they're nervous about giving birth, their emotions a little haywire. We don't want to add to that. Plus, if these ming vases were to hear that breastfeeding actually hurts at first, we'd have no breastfeeding mothers. It would be a travesty. We cannot have it. Therefore, for the the greater good, we must lie to them. Problem is, I figure this whole schmozzle deters more women than it encourages. When it's painful at first, and we are constantly told it shouldn't hurt, and it does...well, it must just not be working. "I guess I should switch to formula..."
It doesn't exactly help that everyone - even medical professionals - has a different view on breastfeeding. Some say you should schedule your baby, usually saying to only feed every three or four hours. I'm not sure why this could possibly be, except to make the mother's life easier. Yes, let's deny our baby food when s/he is clearly very hungry because mommy just can't bear to do it more often than every four hours. This gives newborns entirely too much credit: they simply cannot knowingly manipulate you.
Some, well most, say you should feed on demand. Whenever your baby wants it. This makes sense to me. Here's a crazy bit of inside intel: I am off work for a year not to get some "much-needed" me time, not to be a perfect housewife, not for any reason but to care for my daughter. Feeding her whenever she needs it is part of this.
Some say you need to be extremely careful about what you eat and drink while breastfeeding, others say you don't really need to worry. After wading through the first few months I have come to trust two sources for my information only: the lactation consultant at my local publicly funded child centre and Dr. Jack Newman, a doctor extremely knowledgeable in the breastfeeding forum. That's it. Even my own family doctor told me flat out: "You know, I'm not the one you should be talking to for breastfeeding help." This was actually refreshing to hear. Someone being really honest about what they don't know. I should mention that he is very supportive of my choice to breastfeed and then told me to whom I should be talking. Unfortunately I happened to have tears in my eyes as he said this (this is Big - see my post on "Becoming a Little More Me") because I was so distraught about whether breastfeeding was going well. But, I sought out that lactation consultant and all was well.
This brings up a challenging aspect of breastfeeding. It is in no way a science. I do not pump (therefore no bottles) so there is no way for me to know how much my daughter is actually eating. This was very hard for me to deal with in the beginning. Especially because she was eating so often and everyone around me - except my husband - constantly asked why she would need to be doing so. So I worried a lot at first. Frequent trips to the child centre to have her weighed helped to ease my mind. This process was one of the first ways I had to learn to trust myself as a mother. Pick a route based on all of the available information (I will ignore everyone else and know my daughter is okay by how much weight she gains, and by the nature of her diapers - yes, this is important stuff) and stick to it.
So there we go. I've done it. Broached this oddly taboo subject via blog. I don't know what I expect to happen from here. I just had to get some things out into the virtual air because, not at all surprisingly, not many people seem to want to talk about it.
The hard-hitting, controversial song I'm ripping off here is from the early '90s. Back when sex was a bit more taboo as a straight-up song subject. Not really the case any more. Maybe I can write a hard-hitting, controversial blog entry and work the same “magic” on breastfeeding as a topic as Salt N' Pepa did on sex. Maybe ease the taboo a bit so we can have intelligent conversations regarding breastfeeding without the offense cloud hanging over our heads. Slight roadblock: I may be mistaken, but I as far as I know I lack the star power of early '90s Salt N' Pepa. Unfortunate.
We can't even say breastfeeding without wincing. Everyone resorts to saying "nursing" to save any tender ears in our midst. Let's parade every new twenty-year old starlet's barely-clad breasts all over tv and magazines, but please, please don't make me think about breasts as performing any actual function, least of all the one they were actually made to perform.
So, why does everyone seem to know so much about breastfeeding? The thing about getting breastfeeding going is it happens to coincide with a somewhat unsteady state for the new mother. Just given birth, adjusting to getting no more than two or three hours of sleep in a row if lucky, adjusting to the little ball of cuteness' effect on the marital relationship, having your house in a constant state of ruin because there is literally no time to do anything about it. Then let's pile on top of that demands of breastfeeding.
I've had many people - equal parts women who have breastfed, if not for a decade or two, and those who have never breastfed in their lives - try to account for the ups and downs I experienced in getting breastfeeding established. This, by the way, often takes up to two months – another dirty secret no one tells you until you are knee deep in the mire of it all. Is your milk supply okay? Is your milk any good? Should she really be nursing for that long each time? She can't be hungry again, she just ate fifteen minutes ago.
Where do I start?
I can't really tell you if my supply is okay. Mine didn't come with a fuel gage.
How on earth would I know if my milk was “any good”? I could try leaving a customer satisfaction card on the nursing pillow after each session I suppose.
The problem is all these questions, though perhaps asked innocently, perhaps not, really just served to undermine any sense of “I'm doing okay at this new mom thing. No one's an expert off the bat and it's okay.” Experiencing the worst sleep deprivation you've ever had in the midst of having your world turned upside down is not conducive to making use of solid reasoning skills. So now I can look back and say “Bah, what did they know? They were just going on the little misinformation they've picked up here and there. I have done way more research and know way more than they do about breastfeeding.” But then, in the beginning, I was lost. Felt every bit of inquiry as a tiny pin prick in what little confidence balloon I may have had.
Some interesting facts:
1. It is completely normal for breastfed newborns to feed every one to two hours from start to start of feeding sessions. Also, every baby nurses differently – some take ten minutes, others take 45. So, doing the math here, it is completely within the realm of normalcy for an infant to want to eat as soon as fifteen minutes after his/her last feast. One hundred percent normal. And yet, no one but lactation consultants seem to know this. Not even women who breastfed their babies.
2. Breastfeeding is painful at first. Full stop. No ifs, ands or buts. I'm not clear on why breastfeeding advocates and support organizations maintain that breastfeeding should not hurt at first and if so, something is wrong. I suspect it's a way of dealing with the delicate sensibilities of pregnant women. Oh dear, they are awoken three, sometimes even four times a night to dash to the washroom. They are a bit tired, they're nervous about giving birth, their emotions a little haywire. We don't want to add to that. Plus, if these ming vases were to hear that breastfeeding actually hurts at first, we'd have no breastfeeding mothers. It would be a travesty. We cannot have it. Therefore, for the the greater good, we must lie to them. Problem is, I figure this whole schmozzle deters more women than it encourages. When it's painful at first, and we are constantly told it shouldn't hurt, and it does...well, it must just not be working. "I guess I should switch to formula..."
It doesn't exactly help that everyone - even medical professionals - has a different view on breastfeeding. Some say you should schedule your baby, usually saying to only feed every three or four hours. I'm not sure why this could possibly be, except to make the mother's life easier. Yes, let's deny our baby food when s/he is clearly very hungry because mommy just can't bear to do it more often than every four hours. This gives newborns entirely too much credit: they simply cannot knowingly manipulate you.
Some, well most, say you should feed on demand. Whenever your baby wants it. This makes sense to me. Here's a crazy bit of inside intel: I am off work for a year not to get some "much-needed" me time, not to be a perfect housewife, not for any reason but to care for my daughter. Feeding her whenever she needs it is part of this.
Some say you need to be extremely careful about what you eat and drink while breastfeeding, others say you don't really need to worry. After wading through the first few months I have come to trust two sources for my information only: the lactation consultant at my local publicly funded child centre and Dr. Jack Newman, a doctor extremely knowledgeable in the breastfeeding forum. That's it. Even my own family doctor told me flat out: "You know, I'm not the one you should be talking to for breastfeeding help." This was actually refreshing to hear. Someone being really honest about what they don't know. I should mention that he is very supportive of my choice to breastfeed and then told me to whom I should be talking. Unfortunately I happened to have tears in my eyes as he said this (this is Big - see my post on "Becoming a Little More Me") because I was so distraught about whether breastfeeding was going well. But, I sought out that lactation consultant and all was well.
This brings up a challenging aspect of breastfeeding. It is in no way a science. I do not pump (therefore no bottles) so there is no way for me to know how much my daughter is actually eating. This was very hard for me to deal with in the beginning. Especially because she was eating so often and everyone around me - except my husband - constantly asked why she would need to be doing so. So I worried a lot at first. Frequent trips to the child centre to have her weighed helped to ease my mind. This process was one of the first ways I had to learn to trust myself as a mother. Pick a route based on all of the available information (I will ignore everyone else and know my daughter is okay by how much weight she gains, and by the nature of her diapers - yes, this is important stuff) and stick to it.
So there we go. I've done it. Broached this oddly taboo subject via blog. I don't know what I expect to happen from here. I just had to get some things out into the virtual air because, not at all surprisingly, not many people seem to want to talk about it.
Comments