The thread on debriefing is becoming very interesting, and I
particularly thank Heather and Rachel for their insights. On the one
hand, I've lost count of how many grandmothers I had in my office,
accompanying their daughters to help resolve breastfeeding
difficulties, start off uncertainly, often relating her own
experiences, and then suddenly have a sort of light-bulb moment
before saying something like, "I wish I'd had a lactation consultant
when I had my babies", and then - as you say Rachel - go on to be
extremely helpful to the daughter and grand-baby. And it always felt
so good, from my perspective, to realize that feeding the baby would
be a family affair from now on.
On the other hand, Rachel, you said something else to confirm what
I've so often seen and pondered over, because it seems so
counter-productive, and indeed threatening to the survival of the
species. But you also provide an explanation that helps - that this
behaviour might be designed to save the mother from pain. It's
always been mystifying to me that many nursing staff, friends, and in
fact a huge chunk of society in general (certainly as reflected in
media demonization of babies and breastfeeding) appear to be
extremely protective of the grown-up, fully mature and competent
_mother_ rather than the small, very vulnerable, dependant
_baby_. It's almost as if the baby is portrayed as an adversary - as
a manipulative, conniving, cunning, extremely clever small being who
is looking for any chance to get the upper hand, and must be shown
who's boss and whose normal needs for food, comfort and nurturing,
especially at the breast, must be denied in order to "save" the
mother from being worn out (from making too much milk, being too
available, not getting enough sleep, etc etc). I think as LCs we
spend so much of our time explaining to mothers who've been the
victims of this crazy characterization that the baby is not being
unreasonable and over-demanding - his built-in needs for frequent
breastfeeding and being held close to his mother are normal. For
many mothers, I find, it's such a relief to hear this because that's
what all her instincts were screaming at her anyway. But for us -
how can we debrief this pain all around? Clearly, it's crucial that
we do. Perhaps one friend, one nurse, one journalist at a time?
Pamela (who's having a happy Mother's Day here in England, reflecting
on how much our babies teach us!)
--------------------------------
Rachel wrote,
Echoing Heather's post on how this affects health care staff in the
way they respond to women in need of help for breastfeeding problems,
and in particular on how the emotions that come up in debriefing show
better than any other arguments that breastfeeding matters to women..
Making a safe opportunity for people to share and process these
experiences is really rewarding. Some of the people who have started
off being almost antagonistic, end up being the staunchest supporters
of breastfeeding.
It occurred to me on reading this thread that the lack of support,
especailly some of the more blatantly non-supportive comments, could
be perceived as an effort to protect another woman from pain. It's
not very effective, but it makes me think more kindly about the person
if I can see their undermining behavior as their way of trying to play
down the importance of breastfeeding so another woman won't feel the
loss so acutely. Since I get almost homicidal when I hear about
episodes like this, I welcome anything that makes me demonize my
colleagues less.
Debriefiing is not part of the process for getting approved as a
mother-to-mother counselor here, BTW.
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