I can't speak for all mothers, because i know my case was not uncommon,
but traumatic.   I had difficulty from the first time, because we'd waited
until the next day after my c-section to try to nurse, which means Chris
already had several bottles.  The nurses were not trained in lactation,
commented on my inverted nipples, and tried to force him to the breast.  One
insulted his stubborness.   One came in to my private room and told me to be
decent and not show the whole world, because I'd found it easier to unsnap
my i.v. gown (since my i.v. was still in my hand and threatening to come
out, despite several nurses commenting on how they needed to replace that)
than to bunch it over my breast because it was too hard to fight with that
and with my son who was severely nipple confused.  I'd found the unsnapping
the gown easier, but found it impossible to snap it back up with one hand.
    When we got home, I wouldn't let my husband be a witness to the repeated
nursing failures because I was afraid he too would've offered a ton of
suggestions, and he probably would've since he wanted me to nurse more than
I did at the time.  The La Leche League Leader that helped us was the first
person who really treated me with care and respect.  I hadn't realized how
traumatic that was until I went to a lactation clinic to observe a client
whose case was very similar to mine.  It really struck me when they just
invited her to take off anything that would be in the way, and she sat there
topless, nursing her baby, with 5 other people in the room, no one really
indicating that this was abnormal in any way.  I cried on the way home.
    I was really very thankful that we were 2000 miles away from family and
most friends when Chris was born, so I didn't have people coming to the
house wanting to see him and staying forever, telling me what to do with
him.  I think that would've interfered with a lot of things, including my
eventual decision to attachment parent.  Not having people around helped me
to really get to know my son, and to get through our first struggle together
(cupfeeding and relactating)actually helped us undo a lot of the damage that
was done by our birth experience, so it doesn't surprise me in the least
that the ones who interfere the most with animal raising are the ones who
end up raising the animals.  Reading what Dr. Bradley says about animals
needing privacy to birth also reminds me of that.
    Just a few personal thoughts

Lora Horn
LC student, Marriage and Family Therapy student,
but most of all, Mommy

Pasadena, CA
___________________________________

"The services which mothers and fathers habituallly render their children
are so taken for granted that their magnitude is forgotten.  In no other
relationship do human beings place themselves so unreservedly and so
continuously at the disposal of others."      --John Bowlby

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