Heather wrote:
<Well, yes, that's why people have training, so personal experience gets
placed where it belongs - not interfering with stuff it has no business
interfering with!
Personal experience can enhance understanding and empathy, and we can
learn from it - but it's essential to know what we can't learn from it.
Using personal experience of breastfeeding or not breastfeeding as the
basis for attitudes and information is just plain crummy *bad
practice*.>
>From my personal point of view, I benefitted and continue to benefit
from the negative aspects, as well as the positive aspects of my
breastfeeding and parenting experiences. I learned a lot of things NOT TO
DO, and I have an educational hunger to learn some better things TO DO.
It was a very humbling experience for me to realize that my ancestors had
been nourishing their children at the breast for years, and all of a
sudden, I got a little more education and couldn't make a go of it.
I needed that humbling. Otherwise, had I sailed right through it in the
50's, I would have said "What's this club for nursing mothers? There's
nothing to it. You just put the nipple in the baby's mouth! Big deal!" (I
heard that from a lot of physicians over the years)
3 very negative 5-day experiences for me were very educational. Always
before having learned most of what I knew from books, accustomed to being
at the top of my class in even difficult subjects, symphony violist in my
teens, 4th in the state in state boards, then ego dashed and bashed by
what I thought would be a piece of cake! (Mothering) The spiritual soil
was being tilled.
But there the kids were! I had to mother them the next best way I knew
how! So I always had to use Rule #1. Feed the baby.
I finally "got it right" (and got it comfortable) after a month with my
4th child, only through the early daily phone help of someone from "this
club for nursing mothers".
Many peaceful hours to meditate while nursing, and get in touch with my
feelings. "Why, with all the emphasis the world puts on bodily pleasure,
has no one ever made it more widely known what a pleasing experience this
is?" And I was very conscious that "someone had gypped me out of
something" in my mothering and my relationship with my first 3 children.
<NCT training focuses a lot on de-briefing, so all our personal stuff is
dealt with, learnt from, so it doesn't get in the way. >
OK, Heather. Point well taken. My enthusiasm DID get in the way, with a
lot of mothers, and health care personnel over the decades.
OVERenthusiasm is how it came across to many. I probably damaged my own
cause in many instances.
Further experience and time (and counseling) helped me to debrief and
gain some balance. But I know I would not be where I am, doing what I do
today without the negative personal experiences that tilled and
fertilized the spiritual soil. Only then could the positive experiences
take root as the mustard-seed of my dedication.
Because of my personal experiences, I think I have greater empathy with
parents in nearly all kinds of feeding situations today (yes, even Ezzo
parents).
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio USA
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