Thanks Kathy D. for confirming my ideas related to pain while nursing and the
"wimpiness" of Americans. Thanks also to Jean Cotterman for suggesting that the
one to ten scale...with one being "it just feels funny" and ten being "worse
than labor" is a classic. I'm not sure anymore how I developed that
criterion...so I am not taking credit for it.

I guess this just became so clear to me by asking women to describe their pain
in detail...and to rate it. I considered myself to have NO PAIN with
breastfeeding. This does not mean I had no sensation. I came to realize that
what some women were calling pain was what I had called "no pain." Part of this
probably relates to my three unmedicated home births and my reference point for
what pain, therefore, is.

I am in no way saying that we should berate women for their pain, or blame them
for it. I am only saying that we cannot spend inordinant time trying to "fix"
what is physiologically "normal."

Susan Keith-Hergert RN, MS, CPN, IBCLC
Mercy Health Partners
Cincinnati

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