Dear Lisa,

At 13:07 13/03/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I've been following this thread, thinking that what I would do is nothing
>special worth posting about

thanks for sharing your ideas. It is great to have other's experience to
learn from and think about.   The situation that is being explored is
difficult for many reasons.   Your suggestion is a very good one.  A woman I
was assisting today in the birth unit was a large woman with breasts similar
to those that have been well described in previous posts.  I was asked to
assist, as the midwife who had been caring for her hadn't been able to help.
It's good to change people, isn't it, if getting frustrated, babies and
mothers are so sensitive to our 'feelings' and our touch obviously changes
with our moods.   We (the woman, her husband and I) spent ages getting the
woman to feel comfortable in position and modeled the positioning/manoevers
etc....  The woman's first experience with feeding her baby had been
positive, but in the interim, the baby had gone to the nursery and had been
given a bottle (Jack's famous and useful  "AAArrrgh") the baby had a hump in
his tongue as he attempted to attach and the woman's nipple did a dive into
the areola as she (and must admit I, on different occasions) attempted to
sandwich her breast into a manageable 'landmark' (I really like that term!
Thanks Lisa)  The baby managed to latch after a long and very patient
exploration of different positions, techniques etc.  Both the mother and the
baby were stunningly patient and 'willing'.   One interesting thing for me,
was that the mother asked very haltingly and self deprecatingly if her
'things' were the problem  :-(    she objectified her breasts and her
demeanour would have me think that, to her, they were objectionable, yet
needing reassurance to the contrary.  I said, putting casual surprise in my
voice, really *wanting* her to know her breasts and nipples were part of the
huge variation in 'normal'   Goodness, your breasts are
perfect....breastfeeding is just like a dance between the two of you,  you
both need to learn how to do it without treading on each others toes...
symbolically of course' and laughed.  the mother laughed and I said that
they had been learning the tango and the nursery had thrown rock and roll in
after one lesson and the baby needed to relearn the tango as rock and roll
had a different tempo and rhythm and it's loudness caused temporary
deafness...... etc...etc... I also explained how some women have long,
large, tiny, everted, inverted, bobbly etc nipples with a huge variation in
breast size and all babies have different sized and shaped mouths and all
motherbaby pairs have to learn to be together/to match on the outside the
same as they matched on the inside. She seemed to accept it, but deep down
probably doesn't feel any more 'normal'  :-(

My issue here comes from we women's general dissatisfaction with our body
shapes and sizes and how we don't feel good about ourselves.  ( I am being
very general here, I know).  this lack of positive self appraisal has
enormous implications for us as helpers and us as mothers, women......  I
felt really angry that women have to deal with fitting culturally prescribed
norms and end up disliking the body they have to live in.  Any
suggestions/comments, milk sisters/wise people?

searchingly, Carolyn