Cynthia's excellent post in reply to Rachel's post said:

<Rachel Myr wrote: "She got flowers from her family and friends while in the hospital, and said she felt guilty accepting them, as she didn't
deserve them, having not produced a living child...."

Rachel is absolutely right that the mother deserved flowers. And it was
good of her to tell her this. This story brought to mind a few general
thoughts about grieving, mothers' expressions of feelings including
guilt, and how we health care providers can help.>

This brought to mind a deep thought that occurred to me several days ago when the situation was discussed of a pediatrician and his wife, who had "failed" at breastfeeding.

What we here on LN have nicknamed a "trainwreck" (from our perspective)has the emotional equivalency to a "threatened miscarriage" for the mother (and perhaps the father), and the grief that accompanies the cessation of breastfeeding despite the mother's best efforts and against her desires, is for all intents and purposes, actually like a "miscarriage of breastfeeding". In each case, just as in actual miscarriage of pregnancy, it may be the size of the dream lost that bears a direct relationship to the depth of the grief experienced.

Health care providers (some LC's included) often do not seem to recognize this. This may be due to plain ignorance of the grief process, (amenable to education). Other times, it may be because they never fully dealt with their own such grief. Until they recognize and deal with it, it stands as a significant barrier to accepting further education about many aspects of breastfeeding and provision of real breastfeeding support.

Jean
************
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio USA

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