Confessions of a Failed Breastfeeder (The Breastfeeding Debate)

Member Name: ladybahnsidhe

Product:	The Breastfeeding Debate
Date:	04/03/01 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Health and bonding benefits to both mom and baby

Disadvantages: Inconvenience, possible health complications

Breast is best. It was my marching mantra when I was a young mom -- I joined La Leche League, bought my breast pump, read up on all the tricks and trials. I went into it girded and ready to grit it out and stick it out and give my newborn the best possible start in life. And it was -- easy.

Really. Easy. At least, I thought so. No bottles to remember to make, no need to worry about cash for formula, no sterilizing, no messy mixing. While my friends were toting bags and bags of stuff to feed their bottle babies, couldn't think of taking a ride on a lark, I could pick up my munchkin, stick a spare diaper in the purse and be on my way. No muss, no fuss.

Oh, there was the fact that I couldn't leave my precious bundle with anyone else for months, not even dad. Now, granted, this isn't a problem for everyone. But *my* little munchkin refused to take anything from a rubber nipple till she was near to four months old. Even then, it had to be sugar water or juice. If I tried to feed her expressed breast milk that way, she just gave me this 'who are you trying to kid?' look.

And then there was the pain -- again, not something that happens to everyone, but my little love had a strong, persistent suck and somewhere around the tenth day, my nipples were so chapped that I gritted my teeth and tensed all my muscles in preparation for her latching on. It was only those few seconds between her latching on and my milk letting down, and then blessed relief, but 17 years later, I can still recall the dread as feeding time neared.

But oh! the rewards! From the very first time I put my daughter to my breast, I knew there was no other way to do this. She was less than an hour old, and all the baby gurus will tell you that at that age, they cannot see, they cannot focus, they are not aware.. but she looked straight into my eyes as she started to nurse, and I fell irrevocably, forever in love. There is no way to describe the bond betw
een a nursing pair without sounding saccharine and ooey-gooey romantic. I won't even try. Nor will I try to tell you it is any more than that between a mother and child who do not share that special relationship. I won't rhapsodize about the wonder and the beauty of it, about the closeness, or the way your heart melts when a tiny hand clutches your finger as her mouth gropes for your breast. There are plenty of other places you can read about how fulfilling it is to give of yourself so completely -- I won't do it here. It just was -- right.

And the bond is real, I kid you not. More than once, hours from her, my breasts would suddenly tingle, and my milk let down -- and I'd call home to learn that she'd just woken from her nap. I never needed to be awakened at night to nurse her -- it seemed my body was so attuned to her needs that I woke minutes before she stirred and started snuffling around.

And I was insufferably smug about it. It was all so *easy*, I couldn't understand why any mother would deny her child this.. because like it or not, the scientific evidence *does* point out that breastfeeding is healthier and better for the baby in so many ways -- from better immunities, transferred by mom through her breast milk -- to the closeness and emotional bond. Breastfed babies are less prone to ear infection, less likely to show early tooth decay, less likely to suffer from allergies and less likely to be obese. Knowing all that, why would anyone choose NOT to breastfeed if they possibly could?

Armed with my wonderful first experience (so there were a few inconveniences? So what? It was still wonderful..), I did it again. And a third time. Things were, if anything, easier. I knew what to expect. I remembered to drink lots of fluids. I made a point of eating healthy and avoiding foods that would disagree with baby's delicate system. I learned to do things while nursing -- read, knit, vacuum, fix a snack, cuddle t
he older sibling.. it was every bit as wonderful, but somewhere along the line my smugness had evaporated a bit. Perhaps it was experience, or an awakening consciousness of personal choice. Whatever, I found myself far more likely to shrug and say, "It's your choice" to the mother who tried to justify her choice not to breastfeed her child, though in my heart of hearts, I thought any woman who did not at least try was being selfish.

Then came Jared. From the start, Jared was different. He slept, for one thing. Hours at a time. I actually had to wake him and coax him to nurse every few hours. When I did, he nursed eagerly enough, but dropped back to sleep within fifteen or twenty minutes, only to wake again in half an hour crying to be fed. This went on the better part of a week. Then on his fifth day, I finished nursing him, put him down to sleep and went to do dishes -- only to decide, for no apparent reason, to go finish my coffee with my feet up instead. I returned to the living room to find him blue and not breathing. Picking him up and calling his name revived him so quickly, I was half convinced I'd only seen a trick of the light and my own paranoia had enhanced it, but we rushed to the emergency room anyhow. By the time we got there, he had stopped breathing again. Jared was hospitalized a total of 19 days, most of it on a respirator. The nurses on the pedi ICU were wonderful. They all understood that I wanted to breastfeed him, and prodded me during the days when he was being fed by iv and naso-gastric tube to pump my milk every two hours. No nurse ever passed his bed without reminding me to eat and drink, or bringing me a cup of water or juice -- 'to keep up your milk supply'. The hospital even lent me a breast pump to take home so I could continue to pump my milk at home throughout the evening and night. Jared's eventual diagnosis was sleep apnea -- a rather severe and nasty case. He came home on medication to keep hi
m from sleeping too deeply, and a monitor to alert us if he stopped breathing despite it.

We settled back into a routine at home, with a visiting aide to make sure that all went well. And at first things seemed to. Jared nursed often, but as before, he would drop off to sleep soon after my milk let down, and seldom took both breasts at a feeding. Friends suggested I give him formula as a stopgap -- to be sure he was getting enough -- but I was determined, and knowledgeable enough to know that any formula he took was that much less breastmilk he would have. So we persevered. For the first time since my first child, I suffered from chapped and dried nipples that made nursing so painful I clenched my teeth to get through the first few minutes. He seemed to get the hang of things, but he was a poor nurser with a weak suck, and he frequently fell asleep within minutes of beginning feeding.

Then, when he was just short of four months old, Jared was hospitalized again -- this time suffering from dehydration and 'failure to thrive'. During the ten hours he was on an iv drip, I was able to produce only 2 ounces of breast milk through pumping. Guilt-stricken, I had to deal with the fact that my determination to do things the 'right' way had nearly resulted in my starving my child. I had done everything the 'right' way. Plenty of rest. Plenty of fluids. No supplements. Frequent nursing. I even made a point of expressing breast milk *after* his feeding to pump up the milk supply for next time. But for whatever reason, my body did not produce enough milk to nourish my child.

So, in the end, where do I come down in the breastfeeding debate? Well, when my fifth child came along, I breastfed him. If a mother to be asks my advice, I strongly support breastfeeding. But I am not the smug, rabid pro-breast advocate I once was. I no longer secretly feel any woman who chooses not to breast-feed her child is being selfish. Your body is
your body. Your child is your child. In the end, you have to do what's right for you both, without letting others' opinions push you in either direction.

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