Dear Lactnet Friends:

Why did I breastfeed? I was born in 1950; my baby dolls all came with
bottles. The little siblings of my peers in the neighborhood were all
bottle-fed. I remember sitting in my high chair, watching my mother making
bottles of formula....store-bought formula was too expensive for our family.

To this day, the thought of drinking anything milkish makes me gag, as
sometimes the milk used to make my formula had turned, just a
little....gives me the shivers right now as I write.

When I was 9, I attended a family reunion and saw the wife of a cousin of
my father's breastfeeding her 4th baby. They were sitting in a rocking
chair by a window, on a distant edge from the party. The light shone on
them.  I had been taught that it was rude to stare, so peeped out at this
lovely scene from the corner of my eye. I was fascinated with the aura of
the dyad, the visible connection.

My first baby was born in 1975. I read Suzanne Arms classic work, *Immaculate
Deception* during my pregnancy and WOW. The power of that book sold me on a
Lamaze delivery.

I always assumed that I would breastfeed, even before reading Ms Arms'
book. Another important factor in my choice was that I had a deep
commitment to being a better mother than my own; my mother had PTSD from a
lifetime of every kind of abuse, and mothered me the way she had been
parented, with one exception. She breastfed me. I have no idea why.

Perhaps she had some deep connection to breastfeeding, having been
breastfed herself for the 10 days of lying-in given to new mothers in
Philadelphia in 1929?  Once my grandmother arrived home, everything fell
apart. My grandmother's family was a full day's car ride away, in
Lexington, Virginia.  My grandmother had no one to encourage or teach her,
so ended up moving to homemade formula, all that was available at the time.

My parents gave me different stories about my breastfeeding duration. My
mother says about 6 weeks, because then she had a postpartum collapse from
a combination of mental and medical problems.  My father insisted that it
was about 6 months.

Certainly, during the hell that was my childhood, I would have comforting
feeling memories of something wonderful in my mouth; these were consoling.

I still believe that seeing my cousin's wife nursing her baby was the major
element in my decision to breastfeed. But who can really say; the decision
is so complex.

What's your story?

warmly,



-- 
Nikki Lee RN, BSN, Mother of 2, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI, ANLC, CKC, RYT
Reviews Editor,* Clinical Lactation*
www.nikkileehealth.com
Pronouns: she/her/hers
*Communications are confidential and meant only for whom they are
addressed.*

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