Thank you, Barbara, for your extremely warm and sensible post to Lactnet this
morning about people with difficulty breastfeeding.

I see the opposite population from you -- nearly all 100% normal but not
incredibly committed to the process -- since I have no official status but
just get calls from folks who know that I am involved in bf support.   These
are often people who are uncomfortable with the whole idea of bf -- find it
existentially weird -- even though they know as a theoretical matter that it
is best for their baby.  (That's why they call me, unthreateningly
unaccredited and  unaffiliated as I am, instead of calling an LC or going to
an LLL meeting...)  But even in this group I find that simplistic answers
never suffice.   People's social situations are complicated, their personal
histories are complicated, even if their bodies are working fine their minds
are complicated.

As a result, in the many cases where people come to talk to me after they have
already weaned to formula to tell me their stories of woe, I always ask, "What
did your pediatrician suggest to try to fix the breastfeeding before you
weaned?"   Needless to say the answer is always, nothing.  But it suggests to
them, usually for the first time, that if it is the larger context that makes
their bf difficult, they might try finding solutions in the larger context
too, rather than just throwing in the towel.   It's too late for that baby but
if the next time they tell that story to someone pregnant they add, "And when
I didn't have enough milk it never occured to me to try to fix the
breastfeeding, I thought I just had to give him formula instead," then maybe
the next mother will not be so quick to decide that the first thing to try
when her baby "is still hungry after he nurses" isn't necessarily weaning
tomorrow.

Hopeful, and sympathetic to the varieties of human experience,

Elisheva Urbas in NYC