I don’t think we can underestimate the enormity of the birth process for so
many women, and how that impacts their feeding decision, even amongst women
committed to BF through pregnancy. 
Too many women leave the maternity floor having had a horrendous experience
of labour and delivery, not to mention post care with all the conflicting
information about feeding. These women are traumatised, in shock, feeling
betrayed (often by their friends and mothers who delivered before them) and
can barely think through the tiredness, exhaustion, pain and shock to care
for themselves, let alone work through a BF difficulty when the baby is
affected by the assaults of separation, force feeding and the like. 

BF becomes a huge stress that they don’t have the resources to deal with.
Husbands who tend to want to "fix" the problem-which means stopping,
grandmothers who feel uncertain, helpless and worried for their daughters.
Before the week is out Bf is over and the mum feels a huge burden has been
lifted so that she can concentrate on herself and her recovery from what has
been the most major event of her body's life. 

Too often women have to FIGHT the system to get BF to work for them.
Alcoholics who want to stop drinking don’t go into a clinic and be subjected
to faulty, out of date information, mixed messages and posters for scotch on
every wall. People wanting to stop smoking aren’t given packs of cigs just
in case it doesn’t work out, with discounts vouchers for even more later on!
No, its nothing but the best, well funded, evidence based practise for these
conditions. 

   When women feel like birth has been like a huge car crash they don’t want
the emphasis of care to shift to the newborn, at their expense. Giving up
Bf, for some of these women, returns the focus of care and recovery back to
them.  

Thinking out loud,
Meg Kingsley IBCLC 
Dubai UAE -soon to be back in Australia.    

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