Dear Friends:
    I wrote last week about the mother who didn't  believe she had milk, 
until she expressed some and squirted me in the chest! I  went back to her today 
for the final visit.
    She isn't breastfeeding. She 'doesn't have milk'. I  couldn't reach her; 
I told her I was said that I couldn't help her accept her  abundance of milk. 
But breastfeeding is the last thought for her. She told me  her story.
    She lives with her husband (an arranged marriage)  and his mother. Her 
husband hits her (which is culturally accepted), and is  hassling her now. He 
wants to know why she had a cesarean, and is angry with her  because she can't 
work. 
    Her parents lived in this country until 2 years  ago. Her father died, 
and her mother went back to India because her husband  wouldn't permit his 
mother-in-law to live in his house. This mother keeps her  mother's picture by the 
bed. She said, "Sometimes I cry" and tears flowed as she  talked of her 
mother. They do talk on the telephone.
    The pressure is on this woman now to deliver a son  next time. She was 
asking me where she could find a doctor who will do as they  do in India, take 
an ultrasound in the first trimester and do an abortion  if the baby is a girl. 
I told her that I didn't know of such a place in the USA,  and that isn't the 
custom here.
    While the practices she describes are not in  line to what we in the 
States ( and in the world) aspire, her beliefs and  point of view are as strong as 
anyone's. The mores of the world will not change  fast enough to have impact 
on this lonely, suffering lady. Her husband will  punish her if she has 
another girl baby.
    She wanted to know how to have a normal birth next  time. I gave her the 
name of the Farm and suggested she find a doula or a direct  entry midwife. 
She hates the cesarean and doesn't want another. I told her that  she would have 
to prepare as much for the next baby as she did for her big  secondary school 
examination.
    I am upset at her distress, and with this glimpse  of a woman's life from 
another culture. And this is in my neighborhood, in a  nice apartment not to 
far from where I live.
    Breastfeeding is not her concern now; she said,  "Maybe next time." Maybe 
if she delivers a son?
    Oh dear.
    warmly,
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CCE
Maternal-Child Adjunct  Faculty Union Institute and University
Film Reviews Editor, Journal of Human  Lactation
Support the WHO Code and the Mother-Friendly Childbirth  Initiative

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