Although the end date of my breastfeeding goal is still 3 months away (exactly 3 months to the day, as a matter of fact!), I know this time will pass more quickly than I can imagine. Because of this, I need to start preparing mentally for how I am going to transition my baby and myself into this new realm. This is a new concept to me: I will have a child who will no longer view me as his own personal dairy cow.
I was talking with my best friend last night about why she decided to stop breastfeeding when she did. She told me that it wasn’t actually she who decided, rather the children. She said they just didn’t seem to need it anymore, so she basically let them wean themselves. I thought that was really interesting, because in my mind I have been imagining this being a really tough process where I will be consoling my crying child as he is trying to unsnap my bra against my will. That didn’t sound ideal, but since I am new to this whole motherhood thing I usually have no idea what to expect.
If I achieve the goal I have set for myself, I will actually be a statistic on the opposite side of the actual U.S. statistics for mothers reaching their breastfeeding goals, according to a recent article I read. As stated in this new study, most mothers don’t reach their goals, despite having said that they intended to exclusively breastfeed for X months.
What stood out to me in this article is the fact that regardless of whether it was one month or 24 months, most mothers didn’t reach the breastfeeding goal. Furthermore, most mothers actually said that their goal was to exclusively breastfeed, yet many of them didn’t even make it out of the hospital before they gave up.
This article brings me back to the concept that in order for women to have success breastfeeding (regardless of the length of time they plan to do so), they need to have support from all aspects of the community. If many women don’t leave the hospital still breastfeeding, that tells me that the support needs to be heavily focused during those first few days of the baby’s life. When I had my child, my nurses knew that I planned to breastfeed, and let me tell you—they were on me like a fly on a turd! That was a totally gross word picture. Anyway, my nurses saw to it that I took every opportunity possible to foster good breastfeeding habits as long as I was in their care.
Not only did the nurses encourage me, but my husband did as well. Despite my mother not having breastfed me, she also encouraged me, and was even fascinated with the whole concept, which made me in turn more enthusiastic about it. I have friends who were more than willing to answer any of my off-the-wall questions regarding breastfeeding, since they had plenty of experience.
Now, when I imagine what my experience would have been had I not had the amazing support system those first few weeks of my child’s life, I feel really sad. It makes me sad because I know that it is reality for many American women. In this fast-food nation we live in, it probably just seems more convenient to go the formula route, rather than taking the time to properly train mother, baby, and everyone else in their lives to be a supportive part of breastfeeding.
So my question is: Did you feel that you had sufficient support to learn to breastfeed while you were in the hospital, and then to continue thereafter? If not, what do you believe could have changed your experience in a positive way?
Signing off.
BKB
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