Given
the social climate that shames mothers who choose not to breastfeed,
very few admit that choice openly. Instead, they will say that they will
“try,” but then don’t seek help when they come across problems. The
same social climate, however, is what drives many women to avoid
breastfeeding in the first place. It is viewed as elitist, as “best,”
rather than simply normal. Breastfeeding “in public” is rarely seen and
is hotly debated in the media. Many women feel so uncomfortable with
breastfeeding in front of anyone beyond their immediate family that they
wear a nursing cover or feed their baby with a bottle in public places.
Our
society is deeply based on a belief in scarcity, and the
globally-recent belief in “spoiling” a child has led many mothers, even
today, to refuse to let their children nurse at night, to prefer
carrying them in a car seat rather than in arms, and to avoid
co-sleeping. Current rhetoric demonizing co-sleeping and bed-sharing
leads many parents to lie and never admit that they do practice those
very normal sleep situations, and the resulting silence and fear
surrounding it lead mothers to prefer cribs in other rooms for their
babies which makes it very difficult for the baby and the mother in the
breastfeeding relationship. Not only is the mother driven to sleep
deprivation by waking fully and rising to attend to her baby’s nighttime
needs, the baby then finds it more difficult to cue the mother when he
needs to feed at night, at prime milk-making hours. I believe this leads
to many of the oft-quoted situations in which mother simply “did not
make enough milk.” I speak to mother after mother who is shocked or
disbelieving when I say that 2 months or 5 months (or heck! 2 years!) is
too early for a baby to be safely sleeping “through the night,” though
she’s been making that her goal for those months.
Some
mothers choose not to breastfeed or make choices that undermine
breastfeeding. Other mothers simply face odds stacked high against them.
The postpartum time is a very sensitive period, when familial and
societal support is needed more than any other time. And at that very
time, a mother may be facing family members who are ignorant of what a
breastfed baby needs and a partner who may not be supportive. She may
have to go back to work after an excruciatingly short six-week maternity
leave and then face employers and co-workers whose reactions to her new
needs for pumping breaks vary from ignorance to outright harassment.
On
top of all of that, there are many issues that come up after the
immediate postpartum period that a mother will never know about unless
she has peer support from other breastfeeding mothers. Often, at three
weeks old, six weeks old, and six months old (and sometime other times
as well), a baby will suddenly nurse much more frequently while mother’s
breasts become soft and don’t feel full. These growth spurts are
normal, but many mothers suddenly fear that they’ve lost their milk and
begin the downward spiral of supplementation with breastmilk
substitutes. Often, a mother will suffer from oversupply, which I
believe is often misdiagnosed as reflux, and could be more easily solved
by educated breastfeeding support -- education that we all would
naturally have in a society in which breastfeeding is viewed as normal.
When a mother has never seen another mother-baby pair breastfeeding, she
may not be able to see if she and her baby have a proper latch, which
can allow many problems to develop, from soreness and nipple damage for
the mother to slow weight gain and, later, biting on the part of the
baby. Sometimes, at around nine months to one year old, a baby will
suddenly stop nursing (what we call a “nursing strike”). Mothers who
feel societal pressure to wean an “older” baby will take this with
relief as a sign that her baby is a very independent little fellow and
“weaned himself,” and lose the immense benefits of nursing a toddler.
