Breastfeeding went pretty well for me from the start. It’s because of my amazing secret to breastfeeding success. Drum roll please…
PURE LUCK.
I took a birthing class through the Cleveland Clinic and there was one day where we spent about 30 minutes talking about breastfeeding topics like getting your baby to latch, avoiding nipple injuries, breastfeeding positions. It only took that 30 minutes for me to realize that this stuff was way more complex and difficult than I had initially imagined. I decided right then that I would give it my best shot, but I would forgive myself if it didn’t work out for me.
We watched a video in that class in which a newborn baby does the breast crawl, which is an unbelievable thing where a newborn baby (who cannot even hold their own head up and has no awareness of their major appendages) is able to crawl the whole way across the mom’s body in order to start breastfeeding. Go look it up if you are fascinated or don’t believe me. The teacher of the class, who was a labor and delivery nurse, told us that though this breast crawl is possible, she had never actually seen it in real life. In all probability, we would require the assistance of a nurse and maybe even a lactation consultant to get our babies to latch properly.
Fast forward to the hour after I gave birth when my 5 pound, 15 ounce, extremely determined baby actually did the breast crawl thing! She started feeding without any prompting, encouragement, or even me moving her at all. She latched right away. It was all her effort and none of my own. The nurse nearby said, “Wow. I’ve never actually seen that.” From then on, things mostly went smoothly. There were those anxious first days going for weigh-ins and waiting for my milk to come in, but it eventually did and then my milk supply was good. There was some pain, but it was minor and only lasted for the first month. My daughter is 20 months and I’m still nursing her a few times a day (Actually, if anyone can tell me how to wean her off over the next few months, send me an email. I actually don’t know.)
Comedian Ali Wong has a hilarious set about breastfeeding in her 2018 Netflix special Hard Knock Wife in which she calls breastfeeding “chronic physical torture” and says the pain of childbirth “ain’t nothing compared to breastfeeding.” When I watched the special, I laughed really hard because she is hilarious, but I also can’t help thinking how different her experience is from my own. Her experience sounds truly awful and mine wasn’t. Just another anecdote that shows how vastly different our experiences can be. In my conversations with other new moms, I have heard countless horror stories about how difficult, painful, and miserable breastfeeding is for some women.
Moms, if your experience of breastfeeding is that it’s chronic physical torture, even just jokingly, I think you should feel absolutely free to stop. Seriously. I think you should ignore the advice. Ignore any judgmental moms who act self-righteous about their breastfeeding decisions. Chances are there were so many elements of pure luck in their story just like mine. Chances are they didn’t have some of your struggles or feelings or limitations or experiences. Chances are they are trying to avoid the cognitive dissonance that would come from believing their sacrifices were not for an extremely important cause.
If you are struggling with breastfeeding, you must go read chapter 4 of the book “Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool” by Emily Oster. Emily Oster is an economist who analyzes and breaks down all the research and data on early parenting decisions from the objective standpoint of a expert on research methods. Her chapter on breastfeeding is probably the most eye-opening in the book, as she shows that while there are some proven benefits to breastfeeding, they are extremely overstated. Many of the commonly stated benefits of breastfeeding that you see all over posters in delivery wards and elsewhere are completely unfounded or even disproven by research. Seriously, go read it. After all the breastfeeding info I was inundated with throughout pregnancy and new motherhood, it shocked me.
The language used by doctors and lactation consultants and pediatricians around breastfeeding can be shaming and even downright abusive, even if it doesn’t seem so from the outside. There is something so vulnerable about those first days as a mom, and something so anxiety-producing about your first decisions in those early, sleep-deprived days and months. There are so many complicated issues and problems and factors that can make breastfeeding more challenging for some women than others. It is cruel to look at a new mom who is struggling with breastfeeding and imply that if she really cares about her baby, she will breastfeed. In my opinion, there are many things wrong with modern parenting advice, and I would hold up breastfeeding rhetoric as the worst offender.
You matter. Your feelings matter. Your experience matter, and your preferences around breastfeeding are important. If you hate breastfeeding for any reason, that is an important factor in your decision that most medical professionals (in my experience) don’t seem to care about. Nobody will say this to you, but like so many other decisions, it’s simply a cost/benefit analysis. There are proven benefits to breastfeeding, but the benefits can be overstated and the costs can be much greater than people realize.
In my first two months as a mom, I attended a weekly breastfeeding support group (because even if it goes well for you, a support group is necessary.) I met women with experiences similar to mine. I also met moms who were absolutely suffering in an attempt to keep breastfeeding through some really crazy challenges. These women seemed depressed over the fact that they had to supplement with formula. They would sit there and cry as their babies screamed and refused to latch and the lactation consultant handed them more information and nipple guards and hooked them up to tubes and encouraged them to never “give up,” no matter what. I think about these poor women all the time. We are living in a dystopian time when shaming struggling moms seems completely acceptable, when small benefits to the baby seem to justify harming moms and letting them suffer. It is good to encourage and support moms in breastfeeding, but there is a difference between encouragement and creating guilt.
In this post, I’m not trying to downplay the hard work it takes to breastfeed. It definitely did take hard work and sacrifice. There were lots of nights when my husband could have taken a shift if we had been formula feeding and I could have gotten more sleep. I had to learn to deal with things like plugged ducts and milk blisters and engorgement. I also don’t want to discount the efforts of moms who fought through major challenges and managed to breastfeed in order to get the benefits for their baby. That stuff is so hard, physically and emotionally. Good for you.
I guess I’m just saying that let’s be kind to each other. Let’s be more humble and admit that so much of it is out of our control. Let’s stop shaming people. Let’s work to change the rhetoric around breastfeeding because it causes so much unnecessary harm.
I’m trying to create a space on the Internet that makes moms feel better, not worse. If you’d like to read more stuff like this, subscribe below or visit us at LightUpMoms.com.
Light Up Moms 