Comments on: Feeding

By: gallopingcats

gallopingcats — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:51:21 +0000

I just read an article about breast feeding that made another point regarding it being “free.” Considering how many hours it takes every day, particularly when you add in pumping etc, it’s only free if a mother’s time is worth nothing! (google “the case against breast- feeding” from the Atlantic not too long ago.)

I have started to realize over the last few weeks that most of the pressure is in the media and online, not in real life. Not in mine, anyway. I was talking about it with my chiropractor (since bf’ing positions and heavy breasts can make a mom’s back hurt) and he said only about half his pregnant lady patients said they were going to even try it, even for a first child. I thought practically everyone at least tried for a first child, but not so much.

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By: Liv

Liv — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:23:48 +0000

Its actually nice to hear from the other side. I LOATHED it. Sorry, its a relief to just say it though. I felt so much pressure about this. Maybe I’m a selfish person but after nine months pregnancy, birth, then all the adjustments and care a newborn needs the breast feeding thing was sort of the proverbial straw for me. I felt I need a little bit of personal space and autonomy in all this and that was the thing that really made me feel it was completely impossible. I think its valid though to say that the mother also has valid personal needs and in order to be a well adjusted person and good parent these should matter as well. I found the process uncomfortable as well. I believe it may provide health benefits so I did stick with it doing a combo of breast/formula for three months. I have to say though that my siblings and myself were all raised on formula exclusively back in the 70s and were all very healthy. My sister has breast fed her three boys for over a year each and they have had way more ear infections then we ever had. Maybe they would have had them worse without breast feeding. Who can know. I also think the economical claim is a bit of a misnomer. Maybe if all you do is feed from the breast. For my sanity and also because we needed to have a reserve a pump was needed, bottles, nipples, breast pads, nursing bras, storage bags, etc… So its not cheap or free either in most cases. From a climate where people treated breast feeding as taboo (which is also wrong) we have moved to where the mother is brow beaten into it by judgmental and pushy people. This doesn’t seem to really be a valid solution either. I don’t think not breast feeding means you are a bad parent nor that it usually results in unhealthy children.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:33:54 +0000

I totally got the other kind of pressure–people asking me when I was going to quit breastfeeding or, when I had to restrict my diet because of the kids’ allergy issues, why I was bothering to go to such lengths to continue. Everybody needs to back off about how other people feed their kids!

By: dorothy

dorothy — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:35:27 +0000

I loved breastfeeding my first after the first month or so, and continue to enjoy breastfeeding the second, but my only feeling about other people bottle-feeding is a sort of vague sadness that they didn’t have the same experience. And I wonder why that’s so common; I know the majority of women aren’t like me but like you.

What’s irritating is that the strategy society seems to have come up with in response to low breastfeeding rates is trying to make people feel guilty, instead of figuring out what the problem is and addressing it. Upon reflection it seems pretty similar to the social response to widespread weight gain.

Well that, and I don’t have to show up for jury duty for a year and won’t get arrested for nursing in public. Yeah! That’s totally going to convince more women to breastfeed. Let alone share when things are going well: I’m actually trying to donate extra milk right now and you’d think I was trying to smuggle in an illegal immigrant with hepatitis and HIV given what the milk bank demands. Blood tests, detailed health history, signed permission from two MDs, a home inspection visit from an RN: WTF, people? It’s (a lot) less work to give blood.

By: daysgoby

daysgoby — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:45:24 +0000

(how do I make this font bigger?)

FRICKING AMEN.