So it’s #worldbreastfeedingweek and tonight Channel 4’s
#Dispatches is airing a documentary into the pressures, pains and stigmas of
breastfeeding.
I have heard so many opinions in the last few days as to
what is best etc etc and I wanted to share my own thoughts too.
Whilst I categorically do not deny for one moment that #breastisbest,
I hated breastfeeding. Absolutely hated it and gave up after a few days. Cue
the lynch mob!
I fully understand why the NHS are encouraged to help
mothers choose breast over bottle but if it wasn’t for me ringing the bell for
one of the nurses on the ward in the night telling them my few-days-old daughter was starving
and they HAD to give her some formula rather than them forcing me to try and achieve
what little milk my body was producing again, the consequences just don’t bare thinking
about.
Not only was I in incredible pain in my left boob (long
story – benign large tumour removed at 23, loads of scar tissue, blah blah) but
my right boob didn’t seem to want to play game either. I ended up with a breast
feeding expert lying by my side in bed like a new lover trying to milk me like
a cow, achieving only a teardrop of milk each time. It got to the point where,
as I say, my daughter screamed the house down, no doubt ruddy starving, and
where I had to put my foot (and two boobs) down and said (in much nicer words),
“Formula now please, or else!” Even then they resisted a little. I showed them
my unhappy face and they whisked my baby away, fed her 30ml of formula and we both
got the best night’s sleep we’d had since she was born!
I did keep trying but it just wasn’t working. I was ‘released’
from hospital after four days and as soon I was home, I tried the ‘milking
machine’ I had bought. It was official. I definitely was not a milk producer! I
gave up there and then and immediately from that moment it was a case of happy
mum, happy baby which I am a MASSIVE advocate of across the board.
Over the coming weeks, various heath visitors, midwives and
breastfeeding support ladies came by and whilst I personally didn’t feel any
pressure - I had decided from the outset that I would do what was right by my
baby my way – not in a cocky I know best kind of way but in a I know me, I know
my baby kind of way, but it did make me worry for people less confident and more
vulnerable than myself who really would feel the pressure and in turn would put
too much pressure on themselves.
Having a baby is a bloody whirlwind for all manner
of reasons where every mum and dad just wing it from each day to the next. No added
pressure is required! I absolutely commend the NHS and the incredible support on
offer to us very lucky ladies completely free of charge but the look of
disapproval I received when I said, “No, sorry, I’ll be going onto a bottle” after
her showing me every single breastfeeding position under the sun (‘the rugby
position’, ‘the sideways position’ – Christ, it was like the Kama Sutra of
breastfeeding without the fun!), all of which were to no avail was not
commended nor appreciated. She couldn't add me as a 'breastfeeding lady - tick', 'target not met' and off she went.
I don’t doubt the health benefits from breastfeeding and yes,
I do get a pang of guilt for that which is why I am a health mad obsessive when
it comes to my little girl’s diet now. But it’s not just about physical health,
there is also the mental health side to consider which doesn’t seem to be
talked about as much. Had I have continued to breastfeed, I would have cracked
up and my baby certainly wouldn’t have been in great health either. I immediately
relaxed the moment I switched to formula and my baby was a content little soul
with it.
OK, I did become a bit of a control freak as my midwife jokingly
called me one day having told her that I set my alarm every two hours to feed
her to prepare her next bottle – waking her
with a feed rather than her waking me
and then having to traipse downstairs and sort it all out with a screaming baby
in tow. I feel this meant she became a content little girl as I was always
right there with a bottle before she even knew she needed it 😉
Again, whilst I think her “control freak”
comment was meant a little more seriously than her tone implied, I didn’t feel the
need to take her comments personally or to heart because it just goes to show
that you must do whatever works for you, whatever makes you, and in turn your
baby, happy.
I can’t comment on the ‘breastfeeding in public’ argument
that is also covered in tonight’s show because the most public I ever got with
it was wopping my boobs out on the ward in front of my poor dad who, bless him,
just said, “aw.” I do feel that it should be less of a stigma however. I laugh
at the time my poor husband felt he had to stare at the floor when my best
friend took out her (fantastic) boobs to feed her first child in her living
room and empathise with my poor friend who felt she had to spend most of another
friend’s wedding in the ladies loos breastfeeding her daughter when the Hand
Jive was on.
I hope that had breastfeeding worked out for me that I would be
laughing in the face of adversity and feeding my child wherever I needed to but, realistically, looking at the hopeful selection of breastfeeding tops (that soon became defunct
pyjama tops) that I'd bought before having my baby – tops that were so ruddy confusing
with wraparound this and tug at and knot that, I know I would have become
a breastfeeding recluse who just sat breastfeeding topless in her own living
room. I would never have been one of those fabulously demure mums who just
fling a beautiful silk scarf over them and baby and make it look easy. But
maybe that’s just it. There IS a breastfeeding stigma out there and it needs to
change. Yes breast is best but it can also be a bloody pest! Mother Nature was
clearly a man 😉
