Breastfeeding:
the easiest, most natural thing in the world. It’s good for baby, good for you.
Your breast milk contains important nutrients that infant formula simply can’t
replicate. It’s vital for the bonding process. It’s convenient- no mixing, no
sterilising, just pull your top down and bob’s your uncle. It helps you to lose
weight and get back into those size 8 jeans. It helps to avoid the risk of
SIDS, allergies, obesity and oh, about a million other things. It helps your
baby’s brain development- you don’t want him to be in bottom set for maths, do
you? If you get mastitis, don’t worry,
just pop a cabbage leaf in your bra. Baby won’t latch on? Give your NCT
counsellor a call and they’ll sort it. These are some of the things that I was
told in my antenatal class and by various health professionals while I was
pregnant. My only thought was, why would anyone not breastfeed?
I wanted to
breastfeed. I bought shirt dresses, wrap tops and nursing bras in every colour.
I bought two breastfeeding pillows, one for the sitting room and one for the
bedroom. I bought a breast pump so that I could express if I was invited to a
party. My cupboards brimmed with breast pads and Lansinoh cream. I read every
book and leaflet I could lay my hands on (“Every Baby Deserves Breast Milk” was
the legend emblazoned across some of them). I went to the NCT breastfeeding
lesson as well as the free one at my local Sure Start. No-one could have been more prepared. Everything
was going fine, until an actual baby was added to the mix.
The first
night in hospital after the birth was horrendous. I was exhausted, traumatised
and- once family hours were over- terrifyingly alone. I was trying to feed a
baby that would neither latch on nor quit crying. She slept in short snatches
and I lay stiffly beside her, terrified of waking her up. I counted every hour
of that dark night. Miraculously, when morning came, I managed to give Amelia a
full feed, and the midwife let me go home. But little did I know that that
night had set a pattern which would continue for the next few weeks.
Back home, I
was faced with the realisation that I was already failing. Amelia screamed
constantly and never slept for more than 45 minutes. All the milk I could give
didn’t seem to be enough for her. She was rarely satisfied and cried just as
much after feeding as she did before. I couldn’t pick her up without being
scratched and kicked as she screamed for more milk; I was heartbroken that I
couldn’t just have a cuddle. Perhaps because I wasn’t getting much of a break
between feeds, the pain was intense- a toe-curling, fist-clenching,
teeth-gritting sort of pain. But it was the exhaustion more than anything else
that was tipping me over the edge.
I grew increasingly
desperate. I remember the night that Jon suggested giving Millie a bottle feed before
bed. We already had some formula in stock for “emergencies”, so it was simply a
case of making up a bottle. I couldn’t watch, and sat crying on the bottom stair
as Jon gave Millie the feed. That night, something amazing happened. Amelia
slept for over two hours, and when she awoke, she was just making snuffly
noises rather than screaming. This was such a dramatic contrast to what usually
happened, that I had no choice but to concede that the best thing would be for
Amelia to have a bottle every night… and maybe one in the day too…
From there
on, she had more and more formula, and less and less breast milk, as she became
frustrated and impatient at the breast when the milk came less quickly than from
the bottle. The nightmare was far from over, as Amelia had full-blown colic for
the next three months, but gradually the pain in my breasts began to subside
and I started to catch up on some sleep.
A week went by with virtually no breastfeeding at all.
Then one
night, I woke up having a huge panic attack, convinced that I had made a
terrible mistake. Everything I had read about breast milk came flooding (no pun
intended) back to me, and I was suddenly convinced that Amelia wouldn’t develop
properly without it. I Googled “restarting breastfeeding”- apparently, it was
perfectly possible.
I knew
Amelia wouldn’t breastfeed now, but I could still express. Over the next few
days, I sat for hours hooked up to a breast pump, but never got more than a few
drops. I gave up hope. The breast milk that was meant for my daughter had
disappeared, and I could never get it back.
It’s hard
for me, now, to look back at that time- how wretched, useless and helpless I
felt. I had let my daughter down. I had fallen at the first hurdle. I was
selfish. I hadn’t tried hard enough. Et cetera.
Eventually,
I got over it, but not for a while, and never completely. It takes a long time
to gain perspective on a situation like that, and to look back and ask yourself
honestly where you went wrong, and how things could have been different. Even now, when I see someone breastfeeding a
baby, I feel a surge of something that is part jealousy, part despair. How do
they make it look so easy? Why couldn’t I just do that? And the one persistent
question that’s been going round and round my head since Amelia was born, no,
since she was conceived:
What is wrong with me?
And the
answer is, probably nothing. There is probably nothing wrong with me. Because,
unless they are exceptionally lucky, most people struggle with breastfeeding at
some point, in some way. It’s not the easy option that some health
professionals- and the media- make it out to be. Sorry, but it’s not easier
than sterilising bottles. It’s really not.
So why are
we persistently told that breastfeeding is easy, painless and convenient? The
objective may be to encourage new mothers to breastfeed- and it works. But it
doesn’t encourage anyone to continue breastfeeding.
Because when you think that you’re the only one who has a problem- that you’re
producing too much milk/not producing enough milk/ have deformed nipples
(delete as appropriate)- then you’re much more likely to quit. It’s not very
encouraging, for example, to be told that breastfeeding “shouldn’t” hurt when
you’re in complete agony. If we were warned about the potential pitfalls and
difficulties from the start- if we were mentally prepared for them- then more
new mothers might persevere, knowing that the problem is surmountable (if,
indeed, it is).
Perhaps,
then, the breastfeeding slogan should not be Every Baby Deserves Breast Milk, but Every Mother Deserves the Truth. We can handle it. And it might
just make us more determined to breastfeed.
What are your experiences of
breastfeeding? Did you ever feel under pressure to breastfeed? Did you change
your mind about breastfeeding after you’d had your baby? What problems (if any)
did you encounter? How long did you breastfeed for? Would you do anything
differently next time (if there is a next time!)? I’d love to know…! X
