Milk or Life: Why I refused to breastfeed
RECENTLY AUSTRALIAN CARD LEADING Maddy Wright told about the refusal to breastfeed; her post caused heated debates - many accused the woman of selfishness. A nursing mother finds herself between two fires: on the one hand, she is invited to stay at home, because it’s "indecent" to breastfeed on the street, in the subway, in a shop, in a museum. On the other hand, to stop breastfeeding means to confess one’s own “inconsistency” as a mother and not being ready to devote oneself to the child for one hundred percent. It is not about the merits of mother's milk or that artificial feeding is better (this is not so), but about the right to choose. After all, what the mother herself wants and how she feels herself - few people care about.
Being a mother of a baby is not easy, and it's not only in sleepless nights. For someone in this mode, there is nothing terrible; in the end, many people are accustomed to go to bed late and have a desperate fun all weekend, arranging these most sleepless nights on purpose. But the pressure from others, the desire to teach and give advice, passive aggression, reproaches - this is what irritates at best, and at worst makes you feel guilty. For some reason, when it comes to breastfeeding, even strangers on the street are in a hurry to convey to the mother even strangers.
On all sides, women agitate to breastfeed, without explaining how to stop this feeding. Theoretically, the child's need for milk should gradually decrease, up to complete failure, but the key word here is "theoretically." While a child’s body after a certain age doesn’t really need breast milk, there are frequent cases of psychological attachment to the breast, when a child, having already learned to speak, consciously asks for it and is offended if it is refused. Questions about how to wean a two, three, or four-year-old child again and again appear on many forums for moms.
On the other hand, many simply cannot afford several years of breastfeeding. Paid maternity leave in various countries of the world often lasts three to four months; in the USA, for example, it is generally not guaranteed by law and depends on the goodwill of a particular company. A huge number of women are forced to work soon after childbirth, because otherwise they will lose their place at best, at worst - the family will have nothing to eat.
If you make a list of the most important things that parents can do for their children, breastfeeding will not even enter the top ten.
Those who are particularly ardently advocating for breastfeeding and against artificial, call themselves lativists. Public consensus is in their favor, so often a woman using mixtures feels guilty for such a “vicious” choice. Courtney Jang, the author of the book "Laktivizm" (as it is not difficult to guess about lactation activists), says that in reality, if you make a list of the most important things that parents can do for their children, breastfeeding will not even enter the top ten. But lactivists stand their ground, explaining the significance of breastfeeding by its naturalness. They are not interested in the well-being of the mother, her state of health and, in fact, the ability to feed: even after learning that the woman had undergone a double mastectomy, they insist that they should “try”.
I breastfed my son for two months. I admit, I was lucky, and there were no difficulties with feeding in public. I live in Barcelona, and here on the street you can meet characters more interesting than a woman with a naked breast and a baby (where I am to a completely naked cyclist, who has a panty tattoo on the pope). I had to breastfeed Christopher in the clinic, the bank, the halls of hotels, bars and cafes, on the street and in the Russian Orthodox Church, and no one made any comments. The problem was different - to breastfeed I was terribly uncomfortable. It was necessary to choose clothes carefully - so that you unbutton your coat, pick up a sweater, pull off a T-shirt, unbutton a bra valve and not get confused in all this. I was constantly hot with hormone levels; I didn't get enough sleep, because it was scary to sleep on my side next to the baby who was sucking my breasts, it seemed to me that I could injure him. My shoulder joints hurt, because for feeding at night, lying in bed, I had to raise my arm unnaturally, then one, then the other.
Worst of all, the child did not get enough. He could suck on his chest for two hours, and then cry from hunger. I read articles, asked nurses, went to consultations on lactation, and everyone said the same thing: "Milk is not enough." They explained to me that the child will surely stimulate the production of milk in the required quantity, you just need to be patient, and they said that probably I didn’t put it on the breast correctly and it doesn’t take the nipple well enough. I constantly felt guilty because I was actually inspired that I was doing something wrong. Not fed up in an hour and a half - not patient enough, feed longer. Agitators for breastfeeding literally repeated the same wording: "wrong grip", "the child takes his", "really little milk happens in very rare cases." It never occurred to anyone that such a "rare case" could happen to me, although in one of the population studies every eighth woman could not breastfeed for more than a month and a half.
Christopher kept crying and stopped gaining weight. And then I was lucky: at the next examination, the pediatric nurse said that once the child sucks the breast for an hour and a half, then there seems to be not enough milk, and advised me to try giving him milk. There was no condemnation in her tone; She explained that, of course, breastfeeding is considered preferable because there are valuable immunoglobulins in the mother's milk and in general it is as compatible as possible with the child’s body. But after all, the main task of any food is to provide a person with energy and nutrients, and if they are not enough, then it is better to feed from a bottle than to dwell on immunoglobulins (besides, vaccination starts in two months and the child becomes protected from dangerous infections).
When I realized that my son was not getting enough of my milk at all, I decided not to breastfeed at all. I consider it one of the most important for the well-being of my family, since it became better for all three. Christopher began to get better, sleep well and cry less. His dad had enough opportunities to do it, because the child stopped hanging on his chest for hours. My hands were untied: you could go to the gym for a couple of hours or go for a manicure, and drink some good wine as much as you want. I began to sleep for eight hours in a row, because at night my father was feeding my son.
I began to write women who fed babies with milk formula, while no one had seen, and experienced a tremendous sense of guilt.
However, when I told about it in social networks, a real wave of discontent arose. Well-wishers actively suggested to me “to help establish the GV,” the aggressors accused of selfishness. There were mothers who tried to shift the responsibility to the child and explained that I was just lucky, and their children would not let them stop breastfeeding (which means “would not give”, no one explained). I began to write women who dreamed of giving up breastfeeding and did not do this solely because of the pressure of relatives and others; the women who literally fed the babies with milk formula until no one saw this, and experienced a tremendous sense of guilt because of this. Even in publications in the spirit of "I am not breastfeeding and do not regret it," the authors seem to justify themselves and try to explain that they really could not do it physically.
In one of his books, American author Jody Pikolt describes the moment when an employee of the maternity hospital visits a mother with a child for a month and a half to make sure that everything is in order: "" If you give him a bottle ... anything can happen. " what could happen? "- I thought, but said nothing. In the worst case, Max could have given up her breasts. I would have lost my milk, and I would finally lose twelve pounds, firmly settled on my waist and hips, which would allow me to climb into my old clothes. I didn't understand why a hundred No noise. In the end, I was fed only with mixtures from the moment of birth. In the sixties, everyone did it. And nothing, we grew up as normal people. "
Mother's milk is often presented as a panacea for the baby, and for the mother, who protects from both infections and the risk of diabetes or malignant tumors. Indeed, WHO and other guidelines recommend breastfeeding for at least 6 months, since many studies have shown the obvious benefits of breast milk. However, studies do not always give reproducible results, and, according to other data, breast milk is only slightly better than the mixture; when comparing siblings, one of which received breast milk and the other milk formula, the results were the same for 10 out of 11 measured parameters. Of course, breastfeeding can bring the mother closer to the baby and be comfortable, and it is also free. Still, the decision should be made by the woman and her family, so that none of them would stop being happy and contented with life. I want to come a time when women will not be condemned for refusing to breastfeed, and explain it can be simple "I do not want."
Cover: karandaev - stock.adobe.com
