Dee wrote:
<< She wants to form a support group for women who originally wanted to
 breastfeed but weren't successful.  ...  I   asked her to define, as in did
she just mean moms who couldn't make enough milk?  Or did she also mean moms
whose babies couldn't/wouldn't latch, so mom pumped  and fed expressed
breastmilk by bottle.  The question surprised her, but upon  consideration she figured
they could be open to both sets of women, if the  woman in question did not
get to do what she originally planned to do.  >>

The statement of how the woman was suprised by your question makes me wonder
how much she knows about breastfeeding in general, or maybe I am just reading
into this .ANyway... Mothers who don't find  normal feeding, breastfeeding,
working out for them ( and their expectations were educated and realistic) can
obviously find themselves in that situation for many reasons, some of which
have to do with the mother, some with the baby, and some with the unique dyad
itself. It may be asking too much to have the name reflect the idea that
breastfeeding is nothing  more or less than normal feeding for a human baby, or have a
name that does not totally focus on breastfeeding but here goes... The loss
of normal should always allow for grief, and yet so many women are told to just
forget about breastfeeding as a goal, not encouraged to maintain any supply,
go for any nursings at breast possible, etc in favor of total bottlfeeding of
formula. Since these are mothers who do not necessarily fall into that
extreme, total willing abandonment of breastfeeding as the norm, they are mothers (
and babies) caught somewhere in the middle - the middle of not being able to
exclusively breastfeed, in the middle of not being able to exclusively
breastmilk feed, in the middle of wanting to give the baby some nurturing at breast,
some breastmilk even if it has to be in a bottle, etc. They are dealing with
ongoing sadness, grief, anger and are in the middle of many emotions, and dealing
with an ongoing challenge. They may not know that if the feeding challenge
was more on the baby's side they might be in the middle of a healthcare system
of SLTs, OTs, early intervention etc, for down-the-road sequela that radiate
out from the original feeding difficulty that preempted normal exclusive feeding
at breast. These mothers are also in the middle of a society learning more
about normal feeding, and they may have feelings about having to bottlefeed
their milk, or using formula amidst other women judging them for not doing the
breastfeeding they would have loved to do. Hence, my ongoing and sort of
repetitive theme, Mothers In the Middle. I know this takes the focus off
"breast"feeding somewhat and that is not by accident. Although they may not be able to
breastfeed as they would have liked they can still co-sleep, bottlefeed with
responsiveness and love, etc. Loss of a breastfeeding relationship means being also
in the middle of discovering how they can be the kind of mothers they want to
be in spite of not being able to nurse. Anytime 'normal' is not achieved, or
is lost, we can do our best to compensate and enjoy what is
available/salvagable of normal, in this case normal human mothering. Now that I have written all
this, I'm not at all wedded to this suggestion, but since it's all typed, and
maybe it will spur another idea or track, there it is...:)
Judy LeVan Fram, PT, IBCLC

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