Valerie says,


> But our culture does not recognize the profound loss women feel when they
> can't make breastfeeding work for them.  It hits you in the gut.

But maybe women instinctively DO recognize that there is a loss if
breastfeeding doesn't work, which is why they are so tentative about "trying"
it -- so they won't feel that gut-loss if it doesn't work.  If they don't
make an emotional commitment to it, then it doesn't hurt quite as badly if
they fail.  When I was a childbirth educator (in my salad years -- whatever
those are), we'd see women doing the same thing regarding "going Lamaze" or
"trying Natural Childbirth."  The fear of disappointment was great, so the
emotional commitment wasn't made "just in case."  And of course, when an
emotional commitment isn't made to something, then there is less incentive to
do whatever has to be done to MAKE it work, whether it's extra pumping or
doing just one more contraction without the epidural or whatever.

I'm amazed that so many of the women that won't make an emotional commitment
to natural childbirth or to breastfeeding are yet the same women that make a
commitment to working out or running marathons or other things that involve
pain.....

Jan Barger, RN, MA, IBCLC -- Wheaton IL
Lactation Education Consultants
www.lactationeducationconsultants.com

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