Long before I had a baby, I knew that I wanted to breastfeed.  I watched my friends lose weight while nursing and became an immediate enthusiast.  (A maternal activity that burns an extra 200 to 500 calories a day has to be a good thing.)  I became even more committed to it as I read about the many benefits of nursing your baby.  The legions of passionate advocates of breastfeeding influenced me as well, including my husband’s family.  (My mother-in-law breastfed her children in an era when formula was the norm and served as a leader with the La Leche League.)

 

During my pregnancy, I added breastfeeding to the classes my husband and I attended.  Actually, we attended two breastfeeding classes because I didn’t want any hitches or problems to occur.  I can’t really say that I learned all that much in these classes.  The proper ways to hold a nursing baby were very valuable, but didn’t take up much class time.  For some reason, the lactation specialists running these classes spend a great deal of the class-time “selling” an audience that was already sold on the benefits of nursing…including citing extremely dubious research.  (It might make a nursing mother feel good to think that she is preventing SIDS by breastfeeding, but it’s not true.  If there’s a slightly lower incidence of SIDS among babies being breastfed, it’s because more of these moms are putting their babies to sleep on their backs.  Duh!  Don’t make the poor mom whose baby has died of SIDS feel like it’s her fault because she didn’t breastfeed.  There are enough benefits to breastfeeding without making up some.)

 

In any case, I felt prepared for breastfeeding before my daughter was born…but nothing went according to plan after she was born.  For starters, my baby was breach and was delivered by C-Section.  I had some large thing clamped onto my finger and wires connected to machines coming out of both arms.  It’s pretty difficult to hold a baby in a natural position with all of that paraphernalia.

 

I had no indication that anything was wrong, however, until the second night when I received a visit from one of the night nurses in the middle of the night.  She said my baby had lost too much weight and wanted me to use some type of funky contraption that would hang around my neck to give her formula – supposedly it would resemble breastfeeding to the baby.  I took an immediate dislike to this person and her suggestions, as only a nut case would barge into my room and wake me up at 3:00 in the morning to discuss this with me. 

 

One of the lactation specialist hurried into my room the next morning to warn me that the night nurse had taken her concerns to the staff pediatricians.  She and the other lactation specialists then started seriously working with me to improve my nursing.  Apparently, my nipples are completely wrong for breastfeeding…square and flat at top, instead of tapered to a point.  I was given a plastic pointy nipple with holes at the top to use over my inferior nipple.  I also started using the hospital breast pump, but never got more than an ounce or two of milk after hours of use, even though my breasts were heavy with milk.  One of the lactation specialist worried that my daughter wasn’t doing something with her tongue that she needed to do.  The staff pediatricians lectured me repeatedly and tried to talk me into giving the baby a bottle.  The nurses gave me advice on everything (whether I wanted it or not). 

 

It was a zoo.  I tried to break out of there early and might have gotten away with it, but developed a fever and my doctor refused to release me.  When I finally went home, I left with one of the hospital breast pumps, a list of herbs that the lactation specialist told me would increase my breast milk, and a lot of worry.

 

It was a zoo at home too.  My baby was hungry and crabby; my breasts hurt; I was running a fever; the breast pump didn’t do diddle; and my husband and I were exhausted.  My husband put me into a tizzy by laying the blame for the whole breastfeeding problem on my “bad attitude,” an insensitive ignorant remark for which I’ve forgiven him, but NOT forgotten.  (It turned out that he had heard his mother talk about the importance of a good attitude in breastfeeding and interpreted this remark in his own way.)

 

My pediatrician was much more relaxed about the situation than the staff pediatricians at the hospital, but eventually counseled me to give her a bottle after she lost 15% of her birth weight.  The poor thing sucked it down lightening fast and immediately fell into a deep sleep.  Giving her formula was the right thing to do and I felt like a huge Meany for not giving it to her sooner.

 

But I hadn’t quite given up on breastfeeding yet.  Eventually, the milk in my breasts would have to let down…so I continued to take the herbs, tried futilely to pump, and offered her the breast (covered with the fake plastic nipple) before giving her the bottle.  My poor little baby would latch on, but then cry and give me such a pathetic look, as if to say, “why are you making me do this?”  I always ended up giving her the bottle right away.

 

My breast milk never did let down and I finally gave up when I developed an abscess from a nasty breast infection.  I had flunked breastfeeding, depriving my daughter of the many benefits of mother’s milk.  But thank God for formula…for those of us who can’t breastfeed.  And she was a perfectly happy and healthy baby despite of this and has grown into a happy healthy little girl. 

 

In retrospect, the best thing I could have done was to relax.  I had plenty of milk, but it wouldn’t let down and nothing that I was advised to do helped with that…all it did was add to my stress level and exasperate my breast infection.  A massage would have been much more beneficial than either a fake nipple or a breast pump.  At least I would have been rested if I had slept a couple of nights at the hospital and let the nursery feed the baby.  I might have been more relaxed if I had a doula (someone who provides support for moms during birth and post-partum) to help take care of me. 

 

Well, maybe next time.

 

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Really Mad Momma is a site celebrating the madness of motherhood - the things that make us insane, confused, angry, and wildly enthusiastic in our roles as nurturer and protector of our children.