>Subject: Why I chose to Breastfeed

This subject has aroused me out of lurkdom. I remember when my mother gave
birth to my youngest brother in 1967, when I was almost 8, and she gave
bottles. She wore nursing pads. Iasked her what they were for, and she said
that they were to catch dripping milk. I innocently asked why she doesn't just
feed that milk to the baby. Answer - because women today don't have milk.
Hmmm, how strange; all this extra milk wasn't enough. Also, all the work
involved with abm feeding was overwhelming.
I never saw anybody breastfeeding until I was 18, and, as might be expected of
someone programmed by this culture, I was simultaneously curious and repulsed.
Then I lived for a short period of time with a family where the mother was
breastfeeding around the clock, even at the dinner table. She had full time
domestic help plus me, sort of a mother's helper. I thought this was absurd.
Just give the baby a propped bottle and get on with life.
 So what converted
me?  I'm not proud of this, but hearing that breastfeeding could rescue me
from the terrible periods I suffered was a big factor. So one could say that
it's a case of doing something for the wrong reason, and then converting to
the right reason.  I didn't know anything about protection from disease
and allergy. When I had my first baby, I put him to my breast and something
indescribable just happened. I just HAD to breastfeed, no matter what. We
traveled by plane when he was 3 mo old, and my husband insisted that I give
him ebm on the plane so as not to expose myself in public. It felt so cold and
impersonal.  So now what I don't understand is why more women don't get
hooked? (I know, there are real obstacles, but I still see it as a preference
for using a wheelchair as opposed to one's own legs.)

Devorah Shulman, WIC PC
(Sorry about the signature file. I know it's inappropriate, but it's my
husband's, and I can't turn it off.

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