Kathleen wrote "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."

I so identified with this - dealing with the emotional angst of motivated
mothers trying hard to breastfeed within a social structure that works
against them.  Our job has so much to do with being part-therapist as we
work to help mothers cope with the loss of the expectation of how
breastfeeding should be/could be if only...  Any of you who have read Harry
Potter books will be familiar with the "dementors" who suck all the
happiness out of you.  After some days of working back-to-back for hours
with weeping mothers, sad over the medicalized delivery, sad over low milk,
sad over baby's disorganized breastfeeding skills, and so on I feel
"dementored".  

As for those mothers who seem a little less than motivated - Jack Newman has
commented that if we make breastfeeding sound very difficult some moms will
be more easily deterred.  You know - that long list of what a breastfeeding
mom can't do.  Some of the moms I see (they've been researching all over the
internet) are totally shot - weeping, sleep-deprived, low milk, detached
from infant and full of what they can't do as if there are rules cast in
stone.  They are convinced they will be failures if they deviate from some
imagined path to perfection.  Oh dear.  There's something so wrong when a
mom of a 5do emaciated yellow baby is sure breastfeeding will never happen
if she follows the physician's directions to start some formula supplement
(and pump, fix latch etc) and thus would rather watch her baby fade in her
lap than supplement.

One mom had a 3-month-old, one pound over b.w.  It looked as awful as that
sounds.  Terribly shallow latch with baby fidgeting, fussing, staring with
wrinkled brow up at mom.  And mom refusing to supplement "because I don't
want to give up the breastfeeding relationship - I enjoy it so much".    

And then there are the parents trying to give 60ml feeds via 1ml syringe to
a 7do because *one bottle* will cause nipple confusion.  The parents are
hating the process (thus unable to relish the joy of feeding) and are so off
the mark re what they need to do to get breastfeeding back on track.

Worked with a mom who cannot remember birth or the next 10 days as she lay
close to death.  Didn't see her baby till day 10.  She sat sobbing that her
lack of milk will mean her baby will be less intelligent, more sick and so
on.  Zero attachment to baby.  All mom could think about was why baby
wouldn't stay on empty breast and took no pleasure in having this little
cutie in her arms.  Clearly mom needed therapy, an SNS maybe, and so on and
so on.  But she also needed some balanced input (early on) that mothering
involves more than breastfeeding.  

I certainly meet the unmotivated ("I pumped 3x in the last 24 hours for
total of 3 oz - I have a night nurse and I'm just too busy to do more during
the day").  But the super-motivated, guilt/failure-ridden moms are more my
population.

Joanna Koch IBCLC  

 

  

  

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