It seems to me that it is very hard for any of us to know the reality of
another woman's life and the factors that may have affected the development
of her fears, beliefs and choices.

I sat through the entire inquest into the death of Jordan Heikamp, a baby
who was born prematurely to a teenage mother living in a homeless shelter
(and who died of starvation a few weeks later). The mother was criticized in
nursing notes for her reluctance to spend much time with the baby when he
was in the NICU; what the nurses didn't realize was that when she saw the
respirator hooked up to him, she thought he was going to die. Nobody told
her it was common for premature babies to have trouble breathing at first
and that they go on to breathe on their own; her previous experience was
with an elderly relative who was on a respirator and then died.

She was criticized for discharging herself early; what the nurses didn't
know was that she would lose her bed in the homeless shelter if she wasn't
there for more than two nights. She was criticized for visiting the baby
only once a day; but she was too weak after her C-section to walk to the
hospital and had to rely on shelter staff to drive her back and forth.
Nobody at the hospital told her that the hospital would pay for a taxi, and
she had no money. She was criticized for not pumping frequently enough;
hospital staff did not realize that people in homeless shelters are not
permitted to stay in the shelter during the day, but must leave every
morning and come back in the evening, and that privacy is almost impossible
to get. The medical notes suggested that the mother "didn't really want to
breastfeed" or "wasn't committed to breastfeeding" yet when her baby was
finally discharged she did put him back to the breast and asked the nurse on
staff at the shelter to help her and see if he was latched on well.

This mother did many things wrong, no argument, and she did not put adequate
effort into learning about breastfeeding (or formula feeding, as it turned
out) and her baby's death was a terrible tragedy. But as I listened to the
nurses' testimony at the inquest, I saw much blaming of this mother for not
trying hard enough to breastfeed with little attempt to understand the
reality of her situation.

It is true that I sometimes see a woman with incredibly damaged, sore,
bleeding nipples or repeated mastitis or other major challenges who
struggles on and continues breastfeeding despite all the challenges, and
another woman who stops breastfeeding because of what seems to me like a
minor problem. But I don't know what that problem is in the context of her
whole life. Perhaps she feels like she can't bear the pain of sore nipples
one more day because she is carrying emotional pain from a terrible
childhood. Perhaps she is afraid to succeed at breastfeeding because her own
mother, who bottlefed, will see it as a rejection and withdraw the emotional
support and love she desperately needs. There are millions of possibilities.

Teresa Pitman
Guelph, Ontario

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html