The breast may be best, but it's not enough

Breastfeeding was one area of motherhood I was woefully unprepared for. I expected it to be easy. I imagined myself looking serenely down at my baby feeding at my breast, a perfect picture of mother and child. Wow. Not quite.

My adventure started in the clinic, where I was given shields to help Adam latch on. First mistake: nipple shields create a barrier between you and your baby that prevents the stimulation of milk. At ten days old, Adam hadn’t regained his birth weight and so we fed him 100ml of formula. Second mistake: supplementing with formula prevents your body from producing milk. In order to try to get some rest, my husband would sometimes give our baby a bottle of expressed milk in the middle of the night. Third and fourth mistake: milk stimulation is at its greatest during the night hours and feeding with a bottle leads a baby to reject the breast. And so I felt guilty. Guilty because I couldn’t seem to be able to feed without the shields. Guilty because I was feeding him formula from a bottle instead of a feeding tube attached to the nipple (or from a syringe, as my pediatrician recommended). Guilty because I was putting my needs (rest) ahead of those of my baby (breast milk). Add two bouts of mastitis and six weeks of cracked nipples into the mix, and breastfeeding was turning very quickly into a nightmare experience.
But I survived… Eventually I said screw you and decided to do it my way – which meant nipples shields and the odd expressed bottle. I went on to exclusively breastfeed Adam until I had to return to work (ironically, as soon as I stopped obsessing about it, my milk supply increased). How? Support and lots of it. From my husband, who was always there with open arms and endless patience. From my best friend, who had been through it all and worse. Together we laughed and cried and got indignant over men writing books on breastfeeding. From our local midwife, who brought tears to my eyes when she patted me on the back and told me I was doing great, (everyone else only seemed to be telling me what I could be doing better). From my mother, who was concerned for me and not just for my baby. My mother-in-law, my yoga teacher, Adam’s pediatrician… the list goes on and on. For me, it wasn’t a village raising a child. The village was feeding the child!

So, when Health Canada or the WHO wonder why more mothers don’t breastfeed or why they give up so early (90% of mothers in Canada start, but less than half that last three months), I can tell them. It’s hard. It’s hard on Mom. It’s hard on Dad. And sometimes it’s hard on Baby. Without proper support (which is seriously lacking), an emotionally and physically exhausted mom can very easily decide that breast is not best. And really, who can blame her? Not me.