Gina writes:
I firmly believe that Westerners are coming from a bottle feeding culture
and their perspective is such that breastfeeding is an area of unlimited
challenges.
~~
Ah this point is an excellent one. I want to expand on this cultural
perspective issues. I do think that part of the incidence in mastitis has to do
with unrealistic expectations for both babies and how they should "feed" and
behave, as well as what mothers expect of themselves. I had an interesting
discussion with a mom who had just had her second baby. She endured a bout
of mastitis just a few weeks postpartum that hit over the weekend. I asked
her what her day was like on that day/evening and she said it was her
wedding anniversary so she wanted to leave the baby and go out with her
husband. Where I live this could mean a very brief time out, an hour give or take,
since there are so many local restaurants. In her case, she admitted that
she felt sick, headachy on the way TO the restaurant, but went out anyway
and stayed out for several hours. When she got home, and over the night,
that is when she got the fever, the red hot breast etc. I asked her ( gently
and in different words, we sort of snuck up on the concept of listening to
our bodies), if her body was telling her that she shouldn't be going out,
that she could be at home resting and celebrating there, why did she still go
out, and there was this entitled logic , by which I mean, she seems to
feel that she should be able to celebrate out with her husband and the fact
that she didn't feel well was of no consequence, because she SHOULD be able
to enjoy herself without her baby and toddler. This idea that we are
entitled to something, this SHOULD mentality that if often not meshing with the
things babies need and how they normally behave, really does a # on some
mothers. This mom's baby also had an issue which meant that the one position
the baby could latch well and feed painlessly in, was the
side/clutch/American football hold. Baby did great and mom was so pleased not to have
excruciating pain. Still, she kept saying she wanted the baby to be able to nurse
in the "regular" way, and kept putting the baby there, then noted the baby
was crying, unable to latch well, or if she did get on, mom said it really
hurt. It was this sense of well she SHOULD be able to do it the way I want,
or the way I think is normal, whatever, that just didn't work with the
reality of how things were actually playing out at that time. These kinds of
inabilities to take in what might work or need to be done at any given time
butts up against the expectations mothers have and I do think contributes to
their vulnerability to various "issues"
related to mothering and baby's breastfeeding. I just got off the phone
with a mom who said she and the baby had "a really bad night". When I asked
about specifics, thinking the baby was waking up every hour, crying or
hurting her, she said no the baby slept from midnight to 3, and from 3 to 7AM
but would not sleep alone in her bassinet and " I had to pick her up and let
her sleep with us." This was her definition of a bad night, that her weeks
old baby "refused" to sleep alone. Sigh. These seem to be examples of
cultural or personal expectations making life unnecessarily hard and leading to
"nursing difficulties".
Peace,
Judy
Judy LeVan Fram, PT, IBCLC, LLLL
Brooklyn, NY, USA
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