Dear Friends:
Diane asks how we learned about breastfeeding. My first baby is now 33. I
saw breastfeeding once as 9-year old and really didn't see very much. I had
been trained never to stare; a relative was nursing her baby while I was
visiting in her home. Yet somehow, something about what I saw then got to
me.
I was nursed for about 6 weeks, mostly partially as mother became very ill
after I was born. Nothing was taught to me about breastfeeding in college
nor in graduate school, beyond "some women breastfeed". I am sure that I did
some reading before I had my first baby, and can't remember. My mother
detested babies, or so she told me, many times. I am an only child.
So with that background, how DID I learn?
Choosing to conceive, to welcome a baby into my life was the first step. By
doing. By just "knowing" that I would breastfeed. By paying attention to my
baby. Ignorance helped, because I had no idea about timing or positioning or
what was possible or impossible, so there were no pre-conceptions to
debunk. Paying attention to my endlessly fascinating, totally appealing and
beautiful and miraculous newborn taught me the most. I couldn't bear to be
away from her, so kept her with me at night and probably just fell into the
ease of side-lying.
I was determined to be a better mother than my mother was to me. That gave
me determination. When I ran into my first challenge, the 'first minute
latch-on pain', that felt like knives going through my breasts, I endured
it, having grown up with a lot of physical pain. And it passed. The next
challenge I couldn't handle on my own. My darling baby threw up in a
spectacular fashion; her dad (the gastroenterologist) and her mother (the
nurse) totally freaked out and imagined hypertrophic pyloric stenosis. Thank
goodness for LLL, who responded to me so beautifully with encouraging words
and practical advice.
The next challenge was my husband, her father the gastroenterologist, who
informed me the minute she turned 1 year old that I could stop doing "That"
now, as she'd gotten all the benefits. I didn't want to stop; I couldn't
stop. It was easier to take his reaction as one more sign to leave that
marriage, and I did............and continued nursing for a few more years.
Looking back, I recognize that I had some luck. I didn't have to leave my
baby to return to employment outside the home. I was blessed with perfect
anatomy and a baby that knew what to do. I was able to labor and deliver
without medication, the first Lamaze-style delivery at Baltimore City
Hospital (1975). I was able to keep my baby with me 23.5 hours a day in the
hospital, a perk of being married to a GI fellow in that same institution. I
was used to ignoring authority (another trait from my upbringing) so paid no
attention to the nurses warning me against having my sweet baby in my bed. I
couldn't surrender all the easy things that worked for us to some outside
notion.
I know that every woman has her own unique story: this would be a blend of
history, heredity, environment, temperament, and luck. This is why stories
teach, because we are all so different, even as the passage (from maid to
mother) is similar for all. Distilling my story into some collection
of pithy statements to give to pregnant women wouldn't have much of an
impact.
What do you all think?
warmly, and thanks for the terrific question, Diane.
>
>
> Nikki Lee RN, BSN, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI
> craniosacral therapy practitioner
> www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com
> www.myspace.com/adonicalee
>
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