One of the best experiences of my life, without a doubt, has been breastfeeding. We managed to feed my two daughters exclusively during the first six months (one of them being premature and weighing less than two kilos), and with the other we extended it to almost two years. During all those days and nights of breastfeeding on demand, I felt that your environment can make a big difference in the way you feel and therefore in the success of one of the most beautiful and sacrificial parts of parenting.
If you have noticed, I started the post in the plural because it was a team effort: I was lucky that my little warriors were hooked from the beginning, and my husband was there to support me and serve as a bastion during the hardest moments. Because although breastfeeding should not hurt, there are, and sometimes the pain of cracks or mastitis (I had both), can lead you to think about leaving it and succumbing to the bottle.
Yet your family is there . In our case we have raised our girls without outside help, so my strongest support has been him. He realized from the first moment that just one word, accompanying me during the night or with a glass of water at the perfect moment, filled me with energy, so yes, the four of us did it .
Pediatricians, midwives and midwives: the other key piece in breastfeeding
After my two experiences I can affirm, without fear of being wrong, that toilets play another fundamental role in achieving successful breastfeeding, especially when you are a first time . No matter how many preparations you make for childbirth, the moment of breastfeeding for the first time is something so unknown, that at the slightest stumble (and mainly due to ignorance), you can see yourself giving a bottle to your baby at the suggestion of the people who accompany you in the maternity wards.
I experienced the two opposite cases and I was lucky that in the first one I ran into a pro-lactation midwife: he seemed like a training general, but all the time he encouraged me to continue. I remember that I had a rise in milk while I was still in the hospital and it was a bit hard (I had a fever), but he was there, always waiting to see that I was well, that he constantly suckled her and corrected her posture . When I left the hospital I had milk to spare … so much so that on the first visit they made to the hospital (because I was premature), they saw that I already had the weight of a full-term baby.
However, with my second daughter, the opposite happened: I was pro-lactation and the midwives were determined to feed the bottle because my baby did not suckle very strongly. It can be very frustrating when you know that you are doing the right thing, when you see that you can achieve it, but the people who are supposed to guide and encourage you do the opposite. From that hospital (it was a different one from the first one), I don’t have a good memory regarding the support for breastfeeding and I think that if I had come across them in my first delivery, I would not be writing this post.
Breastfeeding and work: a combination that can push you to the limit
Although I am fortunate enough to work from home, I have witnessed how difficult it can be to continue breastfeeding when you rejoin after maternity leave . Several close friends decided to leave after noting that taking time off to express milk or go out earlier (as allowed by breastfeeding leave) was a nuisance for the bosses and could jeopardize their job.
However, I also witnessed the opposite side in my previous work. Our boss had been through the experience of five miscarriages and the death of one of his twins within hours of birth. That only surviving child was exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months, so he was a person who knew first-hand the benefits of breastfeeding for both the baby and his mother . When my partner rejoined, she personally took care that she had the necessary time to continue breastfeeding, and when she had to use the breast pump, she would leave her office so that she would be comfortable. Her breastfeeding lasted until the past year of her baby’s life.
Breastfeeding in public: the perfect description of “getting out of your comfort zone”
The question can get a little more twisted when you leave the house and your baby needs to feed : you come across inquisitive looks, angry faces and even scandal … to see a mother feeding her baby! If any of those people who had that attitude during the more than two years that I breastfed knew the frustration and even the shame that they can cause, they would be more cautious in their expressions, I’m sure.
If mothers who breastfeed know that we have “safe places” to go to eat, buy something, or simply have a coffee and we will have no problem feeding our babies, we will go there for sure. Feeding a little person with your own body empowers, and even more so if your environment values and understands that what you do is the best gift you are giving your child. If the feedback is opposite, it can do a lot of damage on a psychological level because the mental loads that you have at that moment of your life are so many that another one makes the backpack too heavy.
I think a lot of education is needed at all levels, a lot more [empathy] (More empathy in breastfeeding: some parents consider that it can be a cause of postpartum depression) (even from the same family nucleus), and more respect towards an act which is completely natural. However, I see that little by little we are realizing that breastfeeding is everyone’s business and that we are very late in normalizing breastfeeding our children, as many times as they need, in the way we feel better and wherever we are.
In Babies and More | Half of women give up breastfeeding at three months of the baby
