Recently two breastfeeding stories have gone viral online.
A mother was nursing her 16 day old baby at a rec center, and asked by a staff member to leave. The confrontation was caught on camera, and the mom had to invoke her legal right to breastfeeding to get the staff member off her back.
The second is an image of 21-year-old Elicia Binman breastfeeding her daughter in front of an Enfamil booth at a baby fair in Minnesota. Some praised her for shedding light on an alternative to formula, while others felt she was being arrogant and combative.
I am a full supporter breastfeeding. I did it and I definitely felt the benefits, but I have to say — the prevalence of these two stories makes me sad. Because I feel that breastfeeding is coming to shape the conversation on motherhood in a way that is very narrow.
When I was pregnant, I was consumed by a desire to breastfeed. My mother had done it and my childbirth instructor, who was a very strong advocate of attachment parenting and natural birth, discussed it constantly. As she talked, I could feel my Type A competitiveness getting revved up. I started to see breastfeeding as a personal goal that I would achieve — as I would completing a term paper, or losing 10 pounds. I wasn’t thinking of breastfeeding primarily in terms of my son. I was thinking of it primarily as a reflection of myself.
Things went smoothly at the hospital after I gave birth. Noah latched on immediately and I was thrilled. On our last day at the hospital, the nurse came into our room and offered us a large container of Enfamil. She might as well have been handing me a vial of arsenic.
“Um, I won’t be needing that,” I said.
“We can’t let you leave without it,” she said “You can do whatever you want with it after you go.”
I haltingly accepted the container and whispered to my husband about the ‘evil formula industry’ after the nurse left the room.
But in the weeks after Noah’s birth, it became apparent that I had supply issues.
Having never heard from my childbirth instructor that supply issues — while uncommon — are not unusual, I felt that I was doing something wrong.
And so it began — Mother’s Milk Tea, oatmeal, drinking lots of water, getting as much sleep as I could, pumping in between feedings — anything to increase supply.
But when Noah went in for his 4 week checkup, he was in a lower weight percentage than he’d been when he was born. And since he was a late-term premie my doctor was concerned.
He suggested formula. Stubbornly I told him that I would keep breastfeeding exclusively. After all my chilbirth instructor had taught me that introducing babies to formula was a slippery slope. It started with an ounce here and there, and ended up replacing breast milk.
By week 6 I felt as though I was on the brink of collapse. My supply issues hadn’t improved and I was frequently coming up just a few ounces of shy of satiating Noah fully. I kept one step ahead by pumping furiously on the days my supply was higher.
Then came the day that it all caught up with me. I had just breastfed Noah, and he was still hungry. I pulled two ounces of pumped breast milk from the fridge. My stomach tightened as I handed my husband the bottle. It was my ‘headstart’ milk for the next day. Noah drank hungrily, and started crying again. He was still hungry. I put him on my breast. He sucked for a few moments, then started wailing. I pulled out my breast pump.
“Leila,” my husband said, “We have to give him the formula.”
I could feel the hot tears pooling behind my eyes. “No, wait! I can get it going,” I said.
“He’s hungry. He needs it.”
My husband went to the nursery and pulled the Enfamil out of the closet, it was buried in the back, like a dirty secret.
We began supplementing with formula, but I was still determined to provide Noah as much breast milk as possible. My goal was to make it to the 12 month mark, but I think deep down I knew that — between my supply issues and being a work-from-home mother — this would be damn near impossible.
I was pumping in the day time to make it easier for me to work and nursing at night, but every time I missed a pumping session — which wasn’t often — my supply dipped precipitously. I scoured the internet, praying that in some corner of the world wide web, someone had discovered a supply-boosting secret I hadn’t already tried.
And then I found it! A woman who had used non-FDA approved drugs, available in Canada, to get her supply back up.
The next morning I excitedly told my husband, “There’s this drug I can use, to get my supply back up. The side effect is depression, but I think I’ll be okay.”
As I looked into my husband’s stunned face, I could see what I’d become — a woman obsessed. A crazed and frazzled new mother who needed to accept that she had done all she could. It was over. As my supply dwindled I didn’t continue to fight it. By 6 and a half months, Noah was on formula exclusively.
After I let go of nursing, I started to see life from the “other side” and it became more evident to me that breastfeeding is just one of a myriad of ways that I could ensure Noah was healthy and well. There was making sure he had adequate space to play and explore, that he felt an important and loved member of our family, that we taught him the concept of boundaries and “no”, that he slept comfortably and well. In my maniacal quest to breastfeed exclusively for 12 months, these things had been obscured.
And this is why it troubles me that the discussion on motherhood has largely become a discussion on breastfeeding. They are not synonymous. One is a tiny subset of the other.
I believe in breastfeeding 100%. I plan to do it with my next child, and as hell-ish as my breastfeeding experience was, I learned some invaluable lessons that will help me next time around.
But I now understand that breastfeeding needs to be relegated to its appropriate place — a practice that is important, but should not be consuming, or a marker of how well a baby will turn out.
Breastfeeding is only relevant in the first few months or years of a child’s life. But whether we teaching them to be confident, independent, thoughtful and moral individuals will affect them forever. And I think the conversation on motherhood should focus a bit more on the latter than the former.
What are your thoughts ladies?
I love sharing about my life experiences, but I would really love to hear yours! I am always looking for mommies to feature. Consider introducing us to your children in our Baby Love feature, sharing your little one’s hair routine or submitting an essay or reflection. Email [email protected] for more details.
