I agree wholeheartedly with the many comments that
what we say to one another in the interests of clarity
differs from our conversations with mothers.

When I speak with mothers who are able to provide milk
but not breast, I find the language rich in
opportunity to nurture the relationship.  Most mothers
have a relationship resplendent with touch.  Most
mothers and babies find a way to have a relationship
with the breast.  The milk yes, but often much more.
I have said here and to countless mothers, milk is an
emotional secretion.

I see mothers who have milk to offer.  I see mothers
who for various reasons have little or no milk, but
are able to nourish their babes at or near the breast
which so represents the milk they dearly wish they
could offer.  Lucky the mothers who have breast and
milk to offer their children.  They do not know the
anguish of mothers who have less.

Time and again, I find myself saying and thinking,
breast or bottle, babies want their mothers.  And
fathers.  And Aunts, all of us, the whole village.

The conversation has strayed dangerously when we
assume that some in our numbers have forgotten just
how vulnerable and valuable each mother is.

“Milk harvesting” was a reference to a company
purchasing milk from women.  Human-milk-feeding is the
phrase used by Jill Landis, the LLL Leader who wrote
the thought-provoking article Cynthia brought to our
attention.  In the article Jill tells us she has a
pumping goal of two years for her son born with Pierre
Robin Sequence.  An important aspect of Jill’s article
is the section “Helping a Mother Grieve the Loss of
Breastfeeding.”  It is a difficult subject made more
difficult without new language.  I respect and have
used Jill’s phrase.  I’m also moved by the phrase used
by the mothers of www.pumpingmoms.org.  These mothers
prefer “mother’s milk” to “human milk” or “EBM.”  I
was struck by this when I first saw it thinking how
important that small change is.  After all, it is not
banked milk, but milk drawn from a mother’s heart and
breast for a very special baby.

In rereading Jill’s article I am struck with the
analogies to my own experience with birth.  When she
quotes the well-intended saying to the grieving
non-breastfeeding mother, “Oh, that’s too bad.  But
it’s not the end of the world.  Your baby is getting
your milk.  What more do you want?” I want to cry.  It
is a dagger to my heart and soul that I have never
given birth.  My baby was cut out of my body.  There
is nothing more patronizing or enraging for another
woman to say to me than the lie, “Of course, you gave
birth to her!”  To me that is tantamount to saying, “I
do not listen to you.  I do not believe you when you
speak.”  Other women have reclaimed their children’s
introductions to the world in phrases such as
“cesarean birth.”  I am happy for them.  But they do
not use the language of vaginal birth.  The same is
true for the word breastfeeding.  If we use the same
word to mean both breastfeeding and not breastfeeding
however will anyone know what we mean?  It is not
about judgment; it is about clarity of language and
therefore of thought.  Living as we do in a time of
test tube babies, cloning, and artificial wombs, it is
appropriate that we concern ourselves with such
issues.  As Valerie, Alexis and others remind us, we
are not far from seeing human milk in a can.  Our need
for new language increases as such ideas become
reality.  Our language prefaces and becomes our
politics.

My concern is for the growing number of women who,
upon hearing a watered down use of the term, will be
encouraged to think there is little or no difference
in putting the baby to breast.  I would rather think
of a more empowering phrase to embody the devotion and
fortitude of the mother who supports her child through
milk and love, but without the ease of the breast.
All of us who have known and worked with women in
these situations have witnessed the devotion and the
pain.

I would offer this thought shared, I believe, by many
of us.  The language of the breastfeeding relationship
takes two parts.  There are the technical components,
with which we analyze and rebuild the way a mother
nourishes her child.  And then there is the romance of
the relationship.  The first is merely science, though
grand and everbranching.  The second is poetry; the
romance with which we love our children and spill our
milk.

When I speak with mothers, I speak as a poet.  When I
speak with all of you in this forum, and more often
when I listen, we are about the science of
breastfeeding.  Both voices are important if we are to
learn together.  The two ways of seeing, together, are
what mothers need.  It is what they want and ask of
us.

The mother who aches to nurse her baby is a far cry
from the woman who couldn’t be bothered or does not
know it is possible.  Better language for the
differences saves us from descriptions that may
themselves be judged judgmental.


Susan Johnson  MFA, IBCLC


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