Myths? What a golden opportunity! You'll be sorry you asked...
1) mom must have a good diet to breastfeed (no junk food, must drink milk,
no alcohol, no spicy foods, no gassy vegetables, etc.)
2) the women in our family (or country, or race, or social class, or
whatever) can't make enough milk to breastfeed. (The old "My mom tried, but
she didn't have enough milk, and neither did my sister, so I know I won't
either" song & dance)
3) a woman must be in a stable, calm, emotionally secure environment to
undertake BFing (like that refugee on the cover of TIME magazine nsg. her
baby?)
4) teenagers are too young, immature, etc. to BF
5) BFing is difficult (or "special", or "extra" or "unusual", or...)
6) can't smoke and BF; can't use birth control and BF; can't ever leave the
baby while BFing; can't take X medication while BFing, etc.
7) can't commit to a full year of BFing, so why bother even starting?
8) BFing is fine for healthy, middle-class, married women who don't have to
go out to work, but not for young women, or poor women, or women who don't
live in magazine-perfect houses, or women with____medical condition, or
single women, or students, or developmentally-challenged women, or gay
women, or women who do farm work or factory work or fast-food work or have
irregular hours or whose husbands/boyfriends/fathers hit them; certainly not
for anyone who has a premature or sick or "different" kind of baby. Not for
"women like that"...
9) all "problems" with life with a baby are due to BFing - including crying,
individual growth patterns, spitting up, farting, mucousy noses,
soft/hard/frequent/infrequent bowel movements, any kind of "upset stomach",
all rashes, "excessive" time demands, parental sleep deprivation, postpartum
depression, less sex, anything that makes having a new baby be "more work
than I thought it would be", a crabby or displaced-feeling father, unwanted
advice from in-laws and complete strangers, and droopy breasts......no end
in sight to this particular list of things "caused" by BFing; guess we'd
better just disband lactnet and go become formula reps.
Enough to be going on with, Jan? YIKES!
Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY
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