WHY BREAST ISN’T ALWAYS BEST

Lisa - 11 Feb 15

At my baby shower I was given membership to the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) by a girlfriend in her 50s. She’d assumed I would be breastfeeding my baby. As had I. Of course I would be. I had read the books and seen the strategically placed posters in my GP’s office. I was a competent, confident professional 38-year-old expectant mother.  I would be doing ‘the best’ for my baby, no question.

At seven months pregnant and having just moved to a new town, I started going to ABA meetings.  The women were kind, supportive and firm on sticking to their code of ethics to support and not judge.  However, they made it clear that in line with the ABA, exclusive breastfeeding for six months and then with solids up to two years was the “preferred” way to go. This is also endorsed by the World Health Organisation.

According to the ABA, if you feed ‘on demand’ ie: as often as possible, your body will generate enough milk for your baby- and since the law supports you doing it wherever, whenever you need to, you should not have to miss that symphony performance, drinking (virgin) pina coladas, going for walks on the beach or maternity leave negotiations with your employer.  Just flop out your boob and all will be well. The sisterhood will support you. Only, it wasn’t as straighforward as this for me.

After an agonising fourteen-hour posterior labour and an emergency C-section I gave birth to a baby boy.  I was happy but mostly relieved.  End-of-the-world relieved that my pregnancy was over and had resulted in a much-wanted baby. You see, no one had warned me that pregnancy included savagely resenting everyone for the first three months while vomiting all day, spending most of the next three months with a foot stuck in my ribcage, and the last three months walking like a sailor carrying a medicine ball.

For the three days after the birth I dutifully stuck a tiny angry person to my breasts every two to three hours and applied wound gel to my nipples.  My milk would not come. At the three day weigh-in I was told my baby was underweight.  Mother guilt kicked in. I must have caused this by the resentment I had felt during pregnancy, I told myself. I was a bad mother.

I did not fall over with post-natal depression.  I unwittingly fell headfirst into it like a diver tripping and hitting their head on the concrete floor of a drained pool.  I was kept in hospital for two weeks and put on antidepressants and a milk boosting drug, motilium. In the meantime, I signed “The Form” authorising the use of formula top-ups. The man in the white lab coat was sent in to shrink my head.  A very hairy-faced pedaetrician spotted me on a double electric breast pump at 6am,  my eyeballs hanging out of my head with exhaustion.  He said “It’s disempowering isn’t it?” I wanted to wack him with the pump except… there were drops of ‘liquid gold’ in it.  My husband, delirious with sleep deprivation and joy at having a child of his own to love, was confused and frustrated by my slow recovery from surgery and my seeming indifference to our baby.  I was exhausted.

Four months on, after one case of mastitis, two rounds of motilium, dozens of rounds on the electric breast pump,  I have now weaned my son. With all the complications I experienced, it was the right thing for us. Apart from the physical bonding with my child and ability to watch every episode of Downton Abbey on disc at 2am, I don’t miss breastfeeding.  Even more so, I don’t miss the hand wringing and agonising that comes with making such a sensible and rational decision to wean. We are both much happier as a consequence.

Human milk. The ABA calls it “liquid gold” and recently I caused a storm in an F-cup when I objected to a member of the ABA posting this picture on an ABA group Facebook page. While the group acknowledged that it trivialised the struggles women have with a new baby, they defended the cartoon on the basis that it highlights the availability of counselling and support the ABA provides. I’m not so sure.

There is near-zero consideration of maternal mental health when the breastfeeding posters are stuck up in the hospital or when the bank teller or pharmacy assistant said when I was pregnant, “I take it you ARE planning on breastfeeding.”  It’s no-one’s business how you feed your child – and none of this helps the associated guilt experienced by mums who can’t feed.

I applaud the local ABA support groups for assisting women who are committed to breastfeeding and the dozens of volunteers who dedicate their time to supporting those women who melt down at 4am with naked boobs and crying babies.  I just can’t be part of it anymore.  I can’t sign up to the overarching dogma that manifested itself in the posting of that cartoon.

Like breastfeeding, there is a lot of information and support available for women suffering from post-natal depression. Unlike breastfeeding, there is so little conversation amongst those going through it. So I continue with treatment and hang on to my baby boy’s smiles, which are made of pure joy. That way, I borrow a little back from him to carry both of us through the day.

Motherhood is different for all of us… if you’d like to share your thoughts, why not join our Network & start posting?

Lisa

Lisa is an academic who had a previous career in industry before marrying in her late 30s and having a son aged, 4 months and counting. She likes singing Broadway musical numbers to her baby whilst dreaming up travel plans for her family.

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