The issue of "breastfeeding products" has distressed me for a long time. So
many of them serve to continue the separatation of moms and babies and make
breastfeeding hard to do. We have to continue our education of the public
that breastfeeding is simple and natural.  However (on my good days) I see
many of the women we work with today as being "transitional" in our journey
back to the human family. As Diane implied, they just can't make the leap
from what what they've seen their peers doing, to attachment parenting as we
love it. They pick and choose what level of commitment they are willing to
make to their children. (And we weep.)

I've been working for about three years with a group of wealthy young women
of about 30-38 yrs who are friends and run in the same social circles. (And
boy these are whirling circles!) They refer each other to me for
breastfeeding help, as they are ALL breastfeeding.  The number is up to 6
now, with some second babies. They all must have three strollers (including
the jogging stroller) plus pram, nurseries out of this world, designer baby
clothes, soft plastic black/white pictures for the bassinet (with human
faces painted on), monitors, "diaper genies", heaters for the wipes,
designer diaper bags, live-in nannies--and, of course, the "best" breast
pumps, properly-shaped bottles, orthodontically correct teats,  and imported
ergonomically designed infant carriers.

One told me after I questioned why she needed to buy the $200 breast pump,
that she plays golf five days a week, and a game can easily last 5 hours.
She wanted to take the pump to the club house along with baby and sitter, so
that she could maintain her milk supply. She fed her baby at the breast most
of the time and is still nursing him at a year.

I was trying to get one interested in a baby sling. She gave one reason
after another and finally said that she wanted one like her friends have
(Scandinavian design) because she saw the slings as being quite "frumpy" and
she would be embarrassed to be seen wearing one. I helped her put on her
just-right baby carrier. (most complicated)

One of the moms has inverted nipples and tried for 2 weeks to get the baby
to the breast, then just settled into pumping and bottlefeeding, with no
interest in getting baby to breast.  The baby is 5 months old and has had
only breastmilk.  Another had no initial problems breastfeeding, but is now
totally on bottles because of so much pumping and bottle feeding.

And I weep.

But I see that what these moms and babies are getting as better than what
their peers are getting with their abm and possibly no involvement.  These
women are just not secure enough to explore attachment parenting when ther
friends aren't.  However, two of them shared sleep with their babies for
several months, and several have made reference to vacations where they take
baby, nanny, and pump. One was considering pumping gallons and leaving baby
with nanny, but decided that it was too much trouble so baby (and nanny)
went along.

When I see them carrying their babies at a couple of months of age they are
holding them close and the babies "fit", if you know what I mean.  I'll
admit that these babies are playing part of the role of "success" of these
parents, but it could be worse.  Ten years ago these same women wouldn't
have considered breastfeeding for even a week. And without all of the
gadgets they wouldn't be doing it now.

I'll admit that I see much of this as obscene in the light of all of the
need that I am aware of.  Why am I willing to work with these women?  (other
than the fact that they eagerly "buy" my services). I see these little ones
growing up more human than they would have been otherwise.  I see them a
little more treasured as persons, with a little more sense of Self, with a
lot more health, perhaps less greedy and more compassionate, and, I believe,
more connected than they would otherwise have been. And I see these wealthy
mothers experiencing some connection that they could have missed.

Of course, included in the picture are the many, many parents who are
spending money on all of these contraptions who can't afford them.  And
there is the assumption that is supported that one can't breastfeed a baby
without all of this stuff. And there is the very real risk of shortened
breastfeeding duration caused by the intervention of the separators.  And
there are the political decisions that are based on the "fact" that mothers
don't have to be with their babies in order to breastfeed them.

These inventions are delaying the goal we all have for a return to optimal
human development, but given the two + generations of humans involved in the
experiment of detatchment parenting and the "chemical feast", it is probably
a miracle that the mothers in the technological  culturals are wanting to
feed their babies at their breasts at all. And better to use all of our
technology toward more breastfeeding in any fashion than for further
isolation of the babies. Women who were minimally touched as infants are
doing well to *want* to hold their babies to their breasts, and thanks to a
glorious natural design, many of them (us) experience an intimacy that they
(we) didn't know existed.

So, I return to my beginning premise that the women many of us work with are
a transition generation.  Most of them are at least two generations from
true breastfeeding, many three generations, and having grown up emotionally
isolated they are still "spectators" experientially. (I liked Linda's shirt
message: Bottlefeeding is a Spectator Sport.) But if they will allow
themselves that experience of cuddling a baby while she is suckling at
breast the healing will begin.

The trick is to get the spectators of life to become participants without
selling the already-participants on the necessity of carrying all of the
un-necessary baggage necessary for spectators.

It is such fun to go into the home of a client and see baby asleep on mom's
bed (BTW *not* lying face down on a 2-inch comforter!) and the only
accounterments being some cloth diapers, a second-hand sling, a cup of
water, and a small plate where a snack was. This still happens and maybe in
another 10 years it will be more commonplace.

Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee

mailto:[log in to unmask]