Breastfeeding (or, That's Enough, Gisele Bundchen)

Don't get me wrong. I realize that breastfeeding is scientifically best for babies. But I've come to learn that it is not always possible, and it's certainly not always healthiest for the mother/baby relationship. I have never encountered so much rabid disrespect as I have come across lately on all sorts of forums about breastfeeding v. formula feeding, and it's making me sick. We even have idiots like Gisele Bundchen making ridiculous statements about making breastfeeding law. (You want to talk law, Mrs. Brady? Let's talk about regulating the industry you're in - the industry that has led to unwellness and even death of young women because of the ridiculous standards you're setting.)

Insert swear words here.

The intolerance for formula feeding among many moms is disgraceful. And intolerance is exactly what I'm seeing. So-called "lactivists" and other moms who seem to have some sort of superiority complex make many formula feeding mothers I know uncomfortable to even mix up a bottle of formula in public (no, not all breastfeeding mothers, but a shocking proportion of them). Imagine, feeling ashamed to feed your baby. I've had nasty looks, as well as whispers - quite literally behind my back - and confrontational comments about feeding my daughter formula, while we were out in public. (In a movie theatre, actually, where there's a weekly screening of a current movie at lower volume, with lights on, for moms and their babies/toddlers.) This month, or week, is dedicated to the promotion of breastfeeding. I can't tell you how many Facebook threads I've discovered that cover breastfeeding, that have become downright nasty when someone mentiones needing to supplement with formula or lack of success in breastfeeding.

I wanted desperately to breastfeed Leah. I looked at Dr. Jack Newman's website for videos on how to achieve a proper latch and troubleshoot, and I bought his book, in preparation. I talked to the one family member who viewed breastfeeding positively, to gain her insight and advice. I was ready, and I *knew* - thanks to Dr. Newman - that women who said they "couldn't" breastfeed were liars who just hadn't tried.

I had a horrible fight with most of my family over it: for the most part, they've been unable to nurse their babies, and told me to not get my hopes up or be upset if I couldn't, either. Admittedly, I once thought that they just hadn't tried hard enough, and that I wouldn't follow their (obviously lazy, misguided and faulty) path.

How wrong I was.

I had plans for Leah's birth, big plans. Natural, baby; I wanted to feel every second of my long-waited for baby's entry to this world. Yes, seriously. I'll save that story for another ranty post, but suffice it to say that it did not go as planned, that it was very difficult (even accounting for the fact that it's called "labour") and that her life began somewhat outside of my hopes and expectations... Although she was - and still is - absolutely perfect and thankfully, healthy.

No, the start of motherhood and my nurturing of Leah was not what I expected. I wasn't able to hold her immediately, but we did begin to (try) to breastfeed within an hour-and-a-half of her birth. I had an extended stay in the hospital due to some slight complications during labour, so we were there for two nights and three days, instead of just one night. And thank God for that.

The first twenty-four hours were alright. Being in the hospital, with the nurses, in a quiet room (I had one to myself for the first little while) - it's like a warm cocoon, a safe, snug place where you're fed and taken care of, where you can focus on this new little person, fully formed and beautiful, and soak up every detail of the best, hardest experience of your life. And the nursing; oh, the nursing. It was beautiful - at first. I (thought I) was doing what no one else could for my daughter: feeding her from my own body, my traitorous body that had finally done something right.

Things started to go downhill the next afternoon. She was one day old, and something just wasn't right. She wasn't latching on well, and I was in pain every time she nursed. Serious pain. Crying-while-she-tried-to-eat-pain, my-whole-body-tensed-pain. She was frantic at the breast. And while we might have healthcare here in Canada, the nurses are so overworked that getting help was difficult, and not always... helpful. As with any other profession, some nurses just suck at their job, and it's not as supportive an environment to breastfeeding as I had been led to believe. I kept going, though: I was a new mom. I was tough. I was going to do this for my girl. According to what I had read, everyone will tell you all kinds of lies about needing to supplement until your milk comes in, or whatever. But I figured I needed some help, so I asked for the lactation consultant, repeatedly... Who never came that day.

Late that evening, the nurse brought Leah to be weighed and have some other info taken down. When she came back, she mentioned that there was a concern. Now, babies lose about 10% of their birth weight within the first week of life.

Leah had lost almost the full 10% in a little over twenty-four hours. Her wet and dirty diapers began to decrease. I kept going. Leah nursed - or tried to - for hours that night. I was beyond pain. She was up for about six hours, switching from breast to breast and back again. But we kept going. At about four in the morning, the beginning of the third day, my night nurse, Joan (she was wonderful) offered a little formula. Leah took about an ounce, and was settled. She slept, finally. I slept, a little. Mostly, I watched her sleep.

At subsequent feeds, I'd start her off nursing, and then give her a little formula. When nursing was too painful, I asked for a pump. I still hoped there would be something in me for her. After all, Dr. Jack Newman's book had said that it would definitely come in, and that every woman can - and should, and indeed, must - breastfeed.

We saw the lactation consultant the next day - finally. We made a Plan: to nurse, and then pump, and wait for my milk to come in, and for me to heal (result of the poor latch was bleeding, cracked nipples - yes, guys, imagine that if you will, for a moment... okay, read on) so that we could recommence "real" breastfeeding.

Well, that was a Hell of a long wait. Because it never came in, in spite of rigorously sticking to The Plan and pumping obsessively to try and create a milk supply. Not a freaking drop. Engorgement? I'm afraid I have no idea what that entails.

It was a fucking disaster for me. My body had failed to nurture a child, again. I kept pumping, I kept trying, and eventually, it stopped being about feeding Leah and it started being about doing it because I had to do it. Otherwise, I was a lazy, selfish, no-good mother. I was hellbent.

David finally told me it was okay to stop, that it was okay to use formula. The most important thing was that Leah was healthy, and that formula is food - not poison. (There is a drug that can aid in milk supply, but at the point I got to with this Breastfeeding Disaster, we agreed that breastfeeding was not the best way to proceed. Private lactation consultants can be found easily in this city, but sadly, they were not financially possible for us. So I guess I really didn't try hard enough, since I didn't have the resources to pay someone to teach me something that was suppposed to be innate [I couldn't even have resorted to prostitution so soon postpartum], and that I was unwilling to take a drug, domperidone, that causes miserable side effects during the most special and challenging time of your and your child's lives... And which, by the way, passes through breastmilk to the infant!)

In trying to set myself up for success, I put a lot of pressure on myself. We're expected to do everything naturally and perfectly. It's the new black, the new thin. Poseur crunchy mommas, who have SUVs and twelve-hundred-dollar strollers, whose eight-week-old babies sleep eleven hours a night, and who have sex three times a week within four weeks of their child's birth, and snap back to a size four within six weeks (even if they were a size twelve pre-baby), and pay for the *best* daycare in town while they tool around town to fast-moving working lunches within six months or so, and go home to bring kids to ballet practice, soccer and make a perfect, piping-hot meal with dessert every night of the week (except date night, when their husband brings them two-dozen roses and takes them for steak and a $100 bottle of wine at the neighbourhood posh eatery). And you have no idea what we are doing to ourselves, with these ridiculous expectations and the understanding that this is all the "norm" - or that it's even achievable - until you have to deal with it.

I did do this to myself. Because I bought into it all, single-mindedly, specifically on the breastfeeding issue. I was totally unrealistic and ignorant and bought some asshole doctor's book because I believed so much in the rightness of everything being as natural as possible, and that any other way was wrong; a result of laziness, lack of education and preparation, and selfishness. Yes, I was that judgemental, arrogant bitch who looked down on formula and didn't even have a single bottle in the house when we got home from the hospital. We had no idea what the Hell we were doing, with this formula business. And thanks to my absorption of Jack Newman's missives on breastfeeding, I knew that I should feel guilty for even thinking of formula feeding, let alone for making the choice to do that. Let us not forget, in his humble opinion, it's always a choice. Clearly, I should have tried harder.

And to top it all off, and make this rant much longer... Families who need to formula feed have a damned hard time finding resources on how to formula feed. The City of Ottawa has a whack of information on breastfeeding, but scant good info on formula feeding. Go to the website of a formula company right now, and I'll bet one of the first phrases you'll see is, "Breastmilk is best."

Well, yes, I know that. But why do you think I'm looking for Goddamned formula and information on it?

Formula is also expensive. Why would I choose to use something that is far, far more expensive than the best possible food for my baby?

I'm going to wrap this up now, because it's getting lengthy... But expect another post, soon, on my disgust with the very formula companies and bottle-makers who prey on Breast-is-Best-Guilt to get mothers to buy their products.

I believe that all this pressure I bought into led to an episode of mild postpartum depression. (Thank God, also, for David and my doctors, and a terrific online community I belong to - I pulled out of it with relative ease and a terribly unnatural, chemical solution - har, har. I love me some good Prozac.)

The point of all this is, that when you're walking through the mall, or the park, or are in the movie theatre, and you see a formula-feeding family - you have no idea why they're feeding their baby that way. There actually are some serious medical issues for both mom and baby that can interfere with healthful breastfeeding, and some very good reasons as to why that baby is slurping on some formula. Sometimes, breastfeeding just doesn't happen - in spite of what militants like Jack Newman will tell you. To judge that family if you have no idea why they are doing what they are doing is the epitome of arrogance - and ignorance. You have no idea the guilt that momma might have endured - and may still - because maybe her body wouldn't produce nourishment for her child, in spite of wanting to so, so desperately.

Why do you think there were wetnurses once upon a time? Before formula, babies had to eat somehow. And wetnurses were not only the prerogative of the wealthy. They were, in fact, very necessary for some women and children.

So, Gisele Bundchen: That's Enough. You are not an expert. You're probably muddling along and going with your gut like the rest of us are (although I'm sure you and your baby are doing it in rather more style and plushness than we are), and if you had a good breastfeeding experience, that's wonderful for you. I'm envious of that, in fact, and I wish so badly it had been the same for me and for others. But making irresponsible statements, that breastfeeding should be legislated - that's enough. Go back to prancing about the catwalk in over-priced, tacky underpants, and do so quietly, please.

I can only imagine that, perhaps, your participation in an industry that objectifies women may have led to your tendancy to judge other women, becoming part of your moral fibre.

And that, my dear, is what should be illegal.