Phyllis Adamson wrote: "I tend to think there is an element of personal physical involvement with the baby that mom was not counting on..."

I, too, believe that a huge part of many women's difficulty with breastfeeding has to do with the conflict between expectations and reality. I believe that these conflicts are culturally based. As I wrote in "Unexpected Mothering" (to read this short essay in full, go to the breastfeeding section of the publications page of my website):

"Women who grow up in profoundly age-segregated societies (such as the United States), where babies and mothers are commonly isolated in nuclear homes, simply have not had the chance to see what human babies and young children are really like. Women who grow up with little or no exposure to breastfeeding simply have not had the chance to see what breastfeeding and breastfed children are really like. What they see instead are media and marketing myths of babies and children-myths that create false expectations that eventually conflict with reality. Babies are supposed to sleep contentedly alone through the night, but they don't; babies are supposed to feed on schedule, but they don't; babies are supposed to play happily alone for hours in a play pen, but they don't.. According to the marketing, such conflicts between expectations and reality can only be solved with the purchase of a product: a tape of a mother's heart beat that plays any time baby stirs from sleep, artificial substitutes for human milk, more and more toys.. Such products are grossly inferior substitutes for what babies and young children really need: engaged, active, present mothers backed up by the ongoing support of extended families and societies that truly respect mothers and the priceless work of mothering." 

I agree that if breastfeeding were inherently difficult for the majority of mothers, we would never have survived as a species. Unfortunately, in many areas of our modern world, societies have deviated so far from our environment of evolutionary adaptation that the developmentally, psychologically, and socially normal context for breastfeeding no longer exists. We were never meant to breastfeed and to mother in such isolation. And we were never meant to grow up in an environment so chronically deprived of breastfeeding and mothering learning opportunities.

Cynthia

Cynthia Good Mojab, MS clinical psychology, IBCLC, RLC
Ammawell
Website: http://home.comcast.net/~ammawell
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