>>>>Hmm, so breastfeeding is 'really' about the health advantages of breast
milk
to the baby and is a health behaviour.  I don't find myself able to buy
this.  Breastfeeding is a biopsychosocial behaviour, with many dimensions,
and deep personal and cultural meanings.  It is an expression of one of the
closest relationships humans can have with one another.<<<<<<


Magda, this statement is just beautiful.  This week I worked with a mom of a
5 month old who has been back to work full-time for about a month or so.
She's struggling to keep up her milk supply with 10-hour-per-day
separations, five days a week.  She sees her daughter only an hour or so in
the evenings before baby goes to sleep.  She's heartbroken because
breastfeeding "was perfect before I went back to work."  She spent the first
3.5 months after her daughter's birth loving, mothering, napping with her
baby.  But now, she feels "selfish" (her word) for wanting more time with
her daughter in the evenings.  What can I say?  I can help her figure out a
pumping plan that may increase her milk supply.  We discussed nighttime
mothering.  I talked with her about breastfeeding as a *relationship* not
just a way of feeding a baby.  But, her life is structured in such way that
she must deny her instincts and fierce drive to *mother* her child through
breastfeeding and demean herself by saying such a drive is "selfish".  I
tried reassuring her otherwise but I'm not sure she buys it.  Such calls
make me weary.


Kathleen Salisbury, LLLL, IBCLC, RLC
LLL of Washington State, USA

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