Mom to Mom
What are your thoughts?
Breastfeeders Are an Endangered Species
Wow. I mean … wow. According to the Centers for Disease
Control, less than 4 percent of hospitals give moms the
support they need to start off breastfeeding right. And
only 14 percent of women exclusively breastfeed for the 6 months recommended by
the World Health Organization. Our breastfeeding map also showed how little most of us nurse our
kids.
That is not a lot of breastfeeding. That is not a
lot of support. And you can call the CDC a lot of things, but a hippie
lactivist fringe operation is most decidedly not one of them. If a
relatively conservative government organization thinks breastfeeders are an
endangered species, I believe ‘em.
Looking at this report, I seriously can’t believe what I’m reading. Eighty
percent of hospitals give babies formula, water, or sugar-water (!!!) as a
matter of routine. Only half offer skin-to-skin contact in the first hour after
birth. Only one-third allow the baby to stay in your room.
Worst of all,
almost 75 percent of hospitals don’t provide at-home breastfeeding support after
the moms go home. Remember, back in the olden days (when I was born), moms
stayed at the hospital for five days after childbirth, so if they chose to
breastfeed, there were nurses all around to help. Not that they did, my mom
tells me: “I was the only person in Brooklyn nursing,” she tells me, “and if it
hadn’t worked for me, I don’t know what I would have done.”
Contrast
that with my experience – I had a Miracle Bra's worth of
lactation support. Though Penelope was whisked off the NICU after her birth, a
lactation consultant was in my room within a half hour of my arrival there,
wheeling in a pump so I could get started and store my colostrum. Few things can
make a gal feel more powerless than not being able to hold her premature baby.
But here was something powerful I could do: start storing the milk she would
soon be able to drink.
At home, I found my supply dropping drastically,
both as a function of my being too lazy to get up at 3 a.m. to pump and of my
missing a day of pumping because I was hospitalized with preeclampsia after
delivery (you heard that right!). There was an LC assigned specifically to the
NICU moms, a volunteer with a cart selling breastfeeding support items (like
bras, flanges and fenugreek), pumps for me to borrow, and rooms I could go into
to pump privately if I didn’t want to do so at my baby’s bedside.
I also
had tons of moms around me, friends and neighbors willing to grab my hooter and
smoosh it into the baby’s mouth, tuck a finger under my baby’s chin to feel that
she was swallowing properly, or send me their leftover Soothies.
The
ones who felt like freaks were the ones who formula fed, and
they complained all the time about being made to feel bad about not
exclusively breastfeeding. And I could see where they were
coming from: for every supportive comment, there are just as many stories of
scolding, finger-wagging nasties saying you just didn’t work hard enough.
But: Aren’t there those same nasties out there with regard to anything?
You get lung cancer, there’s always someone asking, pointedly, if you smoked.
You have cupcakes at your kid’s birthday party, and someone asks if you aren’t
worried about all that sugar and artificial coloring. You develop diabetes, and
suddenly everyone you know is an expert on what is allowed on your plate.
Breastfeeding isn’t the sole refuge of the nosy looky-loo judgeybitch.
It’s just the one that gets emailed around the most.
I’m depressed by this report. I’m upset that so many women don’t have access to the amazing hospitals in my area. I’m sorrowful for women who are made to feel like freaks for breastfeeding. And I’m pissed that we can’t talk about changing that without the discussion devolving into infighting and name-calling.
The discussion of the report devolved into the same ugly arguments: “La Leche League volunteers were mean to me!” “Boob Nazis are mean!” “I couldn’t breastfeed, and you’re making ME feel bad when you say this!” For crap’s sake, people. Can’t we just agree to help women who want to breastfeed achieve their goal without taking it personally?
Some people might quote Rodney King and say “Can’t we all just get along?”
But I prefer to quote Wendy Wasserstein. “I don’t blame any of us. We’re all
concerned, intelligent women. It’s just that I feel stranded. And I thought the
whole point was that we wouldn’t feel stranded. I thought the point was, we were
all in this together.”
So. How can we make meaningful
changes in how women are supported as they begin motherhood, together?
Infighting and namecalling in three … two … one …
Replies
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Wow...I am so sad a bout this......breast are too often a sex associaltion not seen as a nutrtion tool. -
No.
If anything (especially here in CM) they are making a "comeback" of sorts... -
I thought breastfeeding was becoming more common. I do think its sad that there is not enough good info and support for mothers that want to bf. -
Theses statistics are really sad. The biggest issue really is lack of information and support for new moms. I've heard so many women say "I couldn't breasfeed", "My baby wouldn't latch on", etc. If someone had been there to help them and teach they could have made it. It is so rare that a woman truly can't. And I, will probably get called a BF Nazi for saying that, but it's the truth.
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very interesting
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Quoting seraphimsong:
I thought breastfeeding was becoming more common. I do think its sad that there is not enough good info and support for mothers that want to bf. -
Don't worry. I feel the same way and I am by no means a "bf nazi". Those are the 2 biggest reasons I hear for giving up also and I think that if they had more support they would of made it. I do think it takes a great deal of research on your own part too though. When I decided to bf I spent my entire pregnancy researching issues and remedies. I wanted to be prepared. Had I not done that, there would of been times I would of easily given up.
Quoting LOswald0314:
Theses statistics are really sad. The biggest issue really is lack of information and support for new moms. I've heard so many women say "I couldn't breasfeed", "My baby wouldn't latch on", etc. If someone had been there to help them and teach they could have made it. It is so rare that a woman truly can't. And I, will probably get called a BF Nazi for saying that, but it's the truth.
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This.
Quoting Mommy_of_Riley:
No.
If anything (especially here in CM) they are making a "comeback" of sorts... -
Quoting seraphimsong:
I thought breastfeeding was becoming more common. I do think its sad that there is not enough good info and support for mothers that want to bf.i agree with this
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Also the lack or nurses in hospitals.....or the problem with nurses havin too many patients at one time.....it is hard for them to support a bf mom bc of the time and patience that it takes to hep a bfeeding mom.