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Some Unconventional World Breastfeeding Week Thoughts
I’ve always “celebrated” (posted once on social media) World Breastfeeding Week, which takes place the first week in August. I’ve done it because I happen to love breastfeeding, and because I’ve done it for so many months over the last seven years the genetic counselor I met with about my breast cancer risk declared I won the award for most months breastfeeding out of any patient she’d ever seen.
I love breastfeeding for a few reasons: It lowers my risk of breast cancer (which is why I was asked about it by a genetic counselor). I don’t have to buy formula. I don’t have to wash bottles. I don’t need to have a big bag of tricks to soothe a baby. I don’t have to pack anything in a bag if we go out for a few hours, which makes traveling a breeze. But it’s also hard and painful, and I’m proud that we (both me and babies) were able to pull it off.
Before I go into my thoughts about the breastfeeding world, I first want to explain my own breastfeeding journey.
#1: It was extremely painful and difficult to nurse her the first few weeks, and the pain rivaled natural labor. With the help of a wonderful lactation consultant and a shield to help my body heal, we were able to nurse for over three years.
#2: I nursed him for 20 months, and the first year of that was tandem nursing with his older sister (I don’t have a lot of hard-and-fast advice for new mothers, but not tandem nursing is now probably the thing I recommend most strongly.) He had a bottle of formula a day as a supplement for a few weeks while we tried to figure out why he wasn’t nursing effectively, and after he had his lip and tongue tie clipped, we were able to immediately cut off the formula feed.
With him, I was shamed intensely by a few people who are generally intensely unpleasant women anyway for formula feeding him. I was told “You can feed him formula if you don’t care about breastfeeding.” More on that, later.
#3: He hated nursing. At around four months old, he started losing weight because he had places to go and things to do, and never wanted to stick around long enough to actually nurse. He also had a tongue and a lip tie, and had them cut as well, but it wasn’t enough to get him nursing as efficiently as he could with a bottle. He could suck down a bottle in a minute flat, and that’s what he wanted to do. He ended up getting between 60-80% of his nutrition from formula from around 4 months until 12 months, at which point he was weaned from both breast and bottle and went onto drinking whole cow’s milk.
#4: She is 13 months old and still nursing, although just before naps and bedtime now. She’s fairly apathetic about nursing (unlike her first two siblings, who loved it). I’m not sure when I’ll wean her, but it’ll probably be pretty soon. She’s never had formula (not for a lack of trying, I would’ve liked to leave the house her first nine months, but she wouldn’t take a bottle.
Now, back to World Breastfeeding Week. Since my third child especially, but also with my second, I’ve become aware of the intense shame that can result in feeding babies. Most breastfeeding advocates will tell you it comes with nursing in public, which I have done for the last seven years almost without a break between babies. Perhaps it’s by virtue of where I live and have traveled, but the only shaming I’ve ever experienced around feeding my babies was when I took out a formula bottle; I have never been anything but encouraged when I’ve breastfed in public.
My childbirth educator made a pretty controversial statement today that I wanted to applaud publicly:
I am so thankful that my third child was not my first when it comes to breastfeeding. By the third time, I knew that I could breastfeed totally, but that didn’t mean that it was the right decision for us (mom and baby). I am thankful that I had already had over a year and a half of breastfeeding under my belt before I was shamed by people very close to our family for feeding my son formula, who was screaming in hunger in front of us.
The industry around breastfeeding is one that is one that is built on a deep amount of woman-shaming. Far from supporting women, it pushes them to a breaking point emotionally and physically in order to achieve the goal of breastfeeding a baby 100% of the time for the first six months of their life… and for what? The science on the vital importance of breastmilk quite simply isn’t there (more on this in my review of Emily Oster’s data-based book on parenting). Far from being pro-woman and feminist, as they claim (breastfeeding activists are largely on the left side of the aisle), the vast majority of lactation consultants and LaLecheLeague leaders want women to have no control over their bodies, and instead demand of them what is, for many, physically and/or emotionally impossible.
The militancy of breastfeeding advocates is yet another way those who claim the mantle of feminism fall short of their mark by a mile. They demand women give their bodies and their sanity for the sake of an ideal that they have set for every woman, without any consideration for the toll that this universal demand can have on individual women.
This year for World Breastfeeding Week, I would like to figure out how to strike a different note: To sing the praises of why I love breastfeeding, but without any of the shame that “lactivists” (lactation activists) attribute to the practice.
Published in General
On another post I opined that in a Patriarchy is is the man’s duty to lead, and I was proud and humbled to do it.
It falls upon the woman to, among other things, breastfeed. This is a thing of colossal importance to everyone concerned, and I thank you ladies for enduring it. And especially, thanks Mom!
That having been said, this post was waaaaay TMI for me. Thanks again, though!
“Pull it off” and breastfeeding sounds… painful.
Congratulations, I guess. None of our kids had success with it. Mama… uh… pulled the plug on it after two and didn’t try again. (The Marine was a biter.)
There’s something about the phrase “militant” breastfeeders that makes me want to laugh. Let’s just say the idea of crossed bandoliers in a Photoshop could end my employment very quickly.
I breastfed my kid during a time when the baby ethos was sort of switching from mostly pro-formula to mostly pro-breast. As with you Bethany, I just thought it was a
hell ofa lot easier to breastfeed. Luckily my kid agreed and didn’t have any problems. My d-i-law breastfeeds but also makes sure the kids learn how to suck on a water bottle fairly early on. I wish I had done that. As with finishing high school, getting married before you have kids, and breastfeeding, I hope we would all choose to role model and support those who are doing their best. More humility, less shaming.I’m among those who tried to breastfeed, but really couldn’t. I’m not sure why. Having two out of my three kids have to remain in the hospital for the first 3 weeks or so of their lives didn’t help the situation. (They were born 6 1/2 weeks and 5 weeks early.) But I was never really successful with the child that got to come home with me either. I suspect it was a combination of physically not being able to produce enough milk and not having the temperament for it. Whatever the reason, formula helped make sure they survived, and they don’t seem the worse for it. :)
This was an interesting post and very informative. You have a sane attitude.
But it reminded me of something that happened years ago. The secretary of a doctor friend was commenting about the fact that one of his nurses was still breast-feeding her 4-year-old son. The secretary was an older woman who had grown up in the country. She looked at me and said, “If he’s old enough to ask for it, he’s too old to git it.”
Yes! I nursed my daughter for 13 months until I became pregnant with my son. I decided my body need to focus on the baby forming in the womb rather than the one who could have milk and cereal outside of it. My son was a premie and we never got the nursing thing going – he was too weak at first and then the hospital nursing bottles had made him too lazy to latch on. I pumped for 4 months to make sure he got breast milk in his bottle. I quit pumping and switched my son to formula. You would have thought I switched him to Dr. Pepper!! The comments and the looks from the La Leche brigade!! Moms are insecure enough and the judgment of others has an outsized impact on many moms.
I breastfed #1 fairly easily for her first year after the painful first week or so. It was so convenient. Second daughter arrived 12 years later and it was a different story. I wasn’t producing enough milk and had to pump. What had been peaceful feedings with older daughter became painful and humiliating experiences with second daughter. I stopped after 3 months and switched to formula. Both girls are bright, lovely, and healthy. I’m blessed.
There one thing formula can never do is vary the balance of nutrition during the feeding.
So maybe all this focus on celebrating breastfeeding is all a solution in search of a problem?
I love this. Thank you.