The phenomenon of strong emotional responses to the topic of breastfeeding
is familiar to us all.  It used to get me down; now I use it as evidence for
how important BF is.  It wouldn't engage us this way if it really didn't
matter.  It is so important that some of us are too scared to even go into
our own grief about it.
I can't remember who it was here on LN who suggested, when someone is
irritating you, that you try to imagine them three days post-partum and
unable to get their baby latched.  It really helped me to feel compassion,
because that situation is so familiar to me from work, and the urgent
desperation is so real.
Last time someone unleashed her anger at me was at school; a fellow student
whose children were born in the bad old 1970's told me, quite politely, that
she 'hated' people like me who were so holier-than-thou about how important
BF was, because it never worked for her, and who was I to say that everyone
should, or could, BF anyway and what right did I have to make her feel
guilty?  It opened the door to a good conversation about the difference
between guilt and regret (thank you Diane Wiessinger!).  I'd like to think
she even felt a little better about her own loss afterwards.  And it allowed
me to say that a big part of my motivation is the desire to prevent the
mothers I work with today, from having such pain at having weaned
prematurely that they can still be very disturbed about it 30 and 40 years
later.  I want mothers to wean because they and the baby are ready to, not
because they are having unbearable pain or because their babies are not
thriving or because they think some minor medication they are taking
precludes BF.
In the past week I have had three phone calls from mothers who, after
determining that they have reached the person they were seeking, have simply
started to cry.  It's happened before, but not so many, so close together.
I'm so grateful that I have had the opportunity to get them seen and taken
care of quickly, but I am concerned at the proportion of mothers here who
get *extremely* sore the first week.  Convincing the staff that soreness (to
the point of bloody nipples) is not inevitable is my biggest job now.  Wish
I could send them off one by one to visit places where positioning and latch
are strong points!
Feeling no guilt in Kristiansand, Norway
Rachel Myr

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