The (Un) Natural Truth About Breast Feeding or Pump Wars

You don't want to deny your child anything within your reach to give him/her even while also not wanting to spoil them rotten. Early on in parenting, you realize that the choices of what you can give and what it costs often make seemingly cut and dried decisions much more difficult. And this includes the milk that your body could potentially produce. The milk that is full of antibodies and other things that could protect your child in his/her early years.

"The World Health Organization says you should breastfeed for two years," someone said to me.

"You should be feeding 10-12 times a day," the doctor who delivered my son said at my two week check up.

Right. 10-12 times a day means that's all you would do.

And then I think of women like a colleague I know who breastfed TRIPLES for TEN MONTHS. I called her in my hour of discouragement and received a great pep talk to get me through the day. And thought about starting a cheerleading group for myself to make it to October 30th, our son's three month birthday.

Breast feeding is the blight of mothers; if you do it, you are resigning yourself to sleepless nights and missed social opportunities. The second cost may not be true unless you are really adept at using a hooter hider, talking, and checking on your feeding one OR have such great self esteem that you don't care about exposing yourself in front of all and sundry.

As you can tell - or may already know from your own mothering experiences - the choices are really non-choices. Which is what makes motherhood one of the most selfless experiences a human can have.

It struck me in the days after my own mother left to get back to her own life, leaving me with the newborn, nanny, and his father, that human beings are strangely resource intensive. After all, since the moment of his birth, my son has had a team of people looking after him. Four people to be exact once we got home from the hospital.

I shared this rumination with one of my friends who was visiting me during a coffee morning here at the house. These visits kept my morale up by making me feel special. My friends celebrate this achievement of mine which is as old as time but new to me. This and a father who does diaper patrol at nights and the two hour afternoon naps have been key in keeping the postpartum depression at bay.

I'm convinced that women get the baby blues largely because of sleep deprivation. Think about it: if it can be used as a means of torture, should anyone voluntarily give themselves over to it? Women get overwhelmed by newborns because this wiggling, squirming, bundle of love is introduced into an already full life and often nothing gives. We still have to cook, clean, have sex, work, and now look after someone so small, that he/she can't be left alone even for a second.

Back to the breast.

When the lactation consultant came over four days after my son was born, she had some ominous words for me.

"Your body makes all the milk your baby needs."

Well, as great as that line is, many mothers will tell you this is not necessarily their experience.

As during the course of my pregnancy, talking to other women has gotten me through the last three weeks. Lately it's been getting advice on how to increase milk production. So many people have said that they obsessed about how much milk they were or were not making that now they would do it all differently.

"Do what's right for you," or "Do what works for you," have been the supportive responses to my worries that my hungry caterpillar is not satisfied with what he's getting out of me alone.

This had me at the GNC kiosk last night to pick up a bottle of fenugeek which two people told me stimulates milk production.

My wars at the pump, as in breast pump not gas pump, are disheartening. The very first time I tried using it, I didn't realize how far down your nipple has to be in order for the suction to work. So ten wasted minutes later, I shrugged and put it way. Then I asked a few friends at the tea we had for my visiting mother.

"It's got to be down in there," a mother of two, her bouncing three month old just a few steps away told me. With both of her children she has had to supplement with formula because of low production. And she does not have small babies.

The second time I pulled it all out, I almost cried when 45 minutes into it, I only managed to eek out 1.5 ozs. Determined not to repeat the drip, drip, of the second round, I pulled it out at night while we were watching T.V. the third time. An hour later, about the same amount, and this from two sides!

Needless to say, my dreams of building up a bank for my child to eat while I was at work were quickly disappearing.

I never thought about how long I would try to breast feed: the whole idea was a vague notion in my head. Last night I promised myself three months as that is supposed to be the critical period. But today, as my young one screamed his head off only an hour and a half after we had nursed and sucked down 2 oz. of formula in less than a minute, I gritted my teeth, thinking of how I would make it to next Friday; one month after his birth.