On Breast Feeding and Zealotry

Anne Marie, who writes A Mama's Rant had a link to an article in a Colorado newspaper about Massachusetts hospitals being no longer allowed to give new moms gift bags with baby formula samples and formula coupons. They are, of course, supplied by the formula companies themselves. 

The idea behind this? That giving moms the bag and the formula discourages breastfeeding.Take away the sample cans and the coupons and the idea of using formula goes out the door.

Oh,yeah, that's what made me put SC on the bottle!

It wasn't the fact that I was having trouble getting her to "latch on".  It wasn't the fact that my milk just never wanted to come in, pump as I would, stay in bed with her as I did.

It wasn't because I was in pain from a c-section, exhausted from dealing with a baby who SCREAMED every time I tried to put her down, tired out of my gourd!

It wasn't the frustration of trying to feed her with a syringe sort of device because she was losing weight  and the doctors said she needed formula,but the doula who was SUPPOSED to be helping me told me giving her ANY bottles would cause "nipple confusion".

It wasn't because I hadn't read TONS of material on nursing, that I didn't know that "breast is best", that formula just can't provide some of the benefits of nursing.

Yup. It was that CUTE little Peter Rabbit bag and the tiny can of FREE formula and the coupons that convinced me to bottle feed.

I guess I'm just one of those horrible shiftless mothers. I mean, oh my gosh--I actually went BACK TO WORK and put my child in DAYCARE for the silly reason that I didn't have any more paid time to take off and the Man's salary was half of mine and we needed to do silly things, like pay the rent and buy diapers for the baby.

And formula of course!

If Massachusetts and other states want more mothers to nurse, I have a few CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions:

1)Make sure that all mothers have adequate pre-natal and ante-natal care, and that care includes as much time as is needed with lactation consultants.

And by that I mean professionals, NOT LaLeche folk. Sorry, LaLeche fans, but I've seen and heard too much from this group. They are at the forefront of the zealot pack, particularly when it comes to working mothers.

2)Our mothers stayed in the hospital for a WEEK after a lot of us were born. And then women who could afford it had a "baby nurse" to help get things started at home. If not, more often or not a relative could help.  Nowadays a lot of us live far from friends and relatives, and baby nurse and doula services are incredibly expensive.

 While a healthy mother MAY be able to leave the hospital a day or two after the baby is born, it can take a long time to recover from the birth.  And contrary to popular propoganda, though breastfeeding may be a "natural" process, many women need help learning HOW! Every mom should have regular visits from a nurse/lactation consultant to try to help her succeed at breastfeeding, and to support her in the early days of baby care. All medical insurance should cover this, and there should be funding to cover it for women who don't HAVE medical insurance.

3)Working mothers need to have PAID leave--enough time to recover from childbirth and to establish breastfeeding. The Family and Medical Leave Act is a crock--it says you can take 12 weeks off to have a baby, but it says nothing about your employer paying you for the time. And if you have to leave work because of health issues before the birth (as I did with JR), you may not end up with much post-natal time at home. 

4)Make it easier for women to succeed at breastfeeding. While I am in the "please nurse discretely" camp, public places need comfortable spots where women can breastfeed. If moms DO have to go back to work, all jobs need to allow time for pumping and a safe,sanitary, place to do it.  Saying women can use rest rooms for pumping and nursing is not enough--do you want to have your lunch prepared in a bathroom? Would you want to eat lunch in a bathroom?

5) We need lots and lots of PR advocating breastfeeding. Make it not FASHIONABLE (ugh!) to breastfeed, but the normal status quo, so that a mom nursing is not looked at as being an exhibitionist, but simply a mother caring for her child.

There are moms who seem to need to display to the world what they are doing. (What that same article wittily describes as "I am woman--watch me breastfeed") But if we make discrete breastfeeding the norm--and over the years at the library, I've seen dozens of moms do it in such a manner--the exhibitionist side of it will disappear!

And last, not for the states, but for all parents:

Encourage other mothers to try breast feeding. Support them in every way possible. But when circumstances make it difficult or downright impossible for a mother to breastfeed, don't make her feel like a bad parent.

Look, let's toss all the "nursing is natural and simple" propaganda out the window. Breastfeeding is no more natural and simple for some of us than childbirth. While there are women who could give birth without medical help of any kind and go back to work the next day, there are those of us (hello!) who needed everything that Western medicine has to offer in order to give birth safely and to have healthy babies.

Learning to breastfeed comes easily to some women. Others struggle and succeed. And others struggle, fail, and then often deal with the guilt of "failure" put upon them by the zealots whose cry is "you could have, you just had to keep trying".

Because I tried and didn't succeed with SC and I felt guilty about it.

How many women, discouraged and disheartened by their "failure" with the first baby, might try again--and succeed with their second or third child, if TRULY encouraged and not made to feel that in giving bottles to that first baby, they had done wrong?

When JR came along and needed to go on bottles (because of jaundice at birth), I KNEW she would be okay on formula, and I didn't agonize about it.

And you know what? I WAS able to nurse her. Not totally--I just couldn't seem to produce enough milk, and she still needed formula. But she got breastmilk and I felt good about that!

You know what else?  I look at my two beautiful daughters and I KNOW I did my best for both of them when they were babies.

Isn't that how we want ALL moms to feel? Isn't that the point of parenthood?

Or do we have zealots who want to feel that THEIR ways are better than everyone else's? Is their motive not a future generation of healthy children, but one-upping other parents?

That's sad. In fact, it's pathetic.

I hope I'm wrong.

And I hope by the time (all things willing) that MY daughters are having babies, that this nonsense has disappeared, and that they are able to do what they need to do for their children without any of the guilt.....................................

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