In defense of breastfeeding mamas

Source: New York Times, Illustration by Barry Falls

Mister T told me there was an anti-breastfeeding article in the current issue of The Atlantic, so of course, I quickly took it out of his hands to read it. I asked him first if it was written by a man, so I could easily dismiss it. It turns out to be written by one Hanna Rosin, a mother of three breastfed children.

My case against The Case Against Breast-feeding is multifold. Let me preface this by saying that I breastfed Miss L for 10 months (until I weaned her to cow's milk) and I had a really difficult time breastfeeding. When Miss L was born I had no idea how to breastfeed a baby. I had never seen a baby being breastfed, as I was raised in what I remember as the formula-crazy years of the 70's. I had a hard time getting Miss L to latch on, she fell asleep on the breast all the time and I felt really uncomfortable as I fumbled about trying to hold a delicate newborn while trying to remember how to guide Miss L to breastfeed. On top of this, Miss L continued to refuse one breast. I would try to stand and walk around to get her to breastfeed on the "bad boob". I constantly worried that she wasn't getting enough milk and continued to pump every day to try and get my supply up. I felt like an Austin Powers Fembot with both breasts hooked up to a hospital grade pump through holes I had made in my exercise bra to be hands-free to care for Miss L while pumping. I was the mom who went back to the lactation classes at Realbirth when Miss L was three months old, sitting in a room with moms of brand spanking new babies, just days or a few weeks old.

With this said, I still loved breastfeeding Miss L and look forward to breastfeeding Miss L's future siblings. Rosin paints breastfeeding mothers as overzealous, narrow-minded parenting fanatics. I chose to breastfeed and will breastfeed in the future for a very simple reason. It is a natural process. It is the same reason that I chose to make my own baby food purees from scratch rather than buying highly processed jar baby food for Miss L. The real bonus of course was the great bonding experience as I would sit and cuddle Miss L as she breastfed. I wouldn't trade that time with her for the world.

I have many friends who are amazing mothers who did not breastfeed or breastfed their babies for a little while and then switched to formula. I hold no judgments about their decisions. I think it is a personal choice. For myself I feel very strongly about breastfeeding, but I understand the personal choice of another mother who decides not to breastfeed because it is painful, or who is just not comfortable doing it, or who finds it too difficult to breastfeed when she has gone back to work. I think it is really hypocritical for Rosin to complain about the breastfeeding mothers who judge her for giving her baby formula when she herself is hyperjudging mothers who breastfeed and decide to selflessly put natural mothering ahead of their career aspirations.

And I know quite a few moms who have successfully maintained a career and breastfed their babies. Some of us decide to put careers on hold to raise our children. Maybe it is one year to focus on raising an infant or maybe it is five years to wait until children start school and then re-enter the workforce. In a time where people are working for forty years in their lifetime, is one to five years really a big deal? Rosin seems to think it will derail our careers, our marriages and our lives. It's true that some of us are lucky enough to have the luxury to make this choice. I would argue that our country's maternity and parenting policies are out-of-sync. We could take some real lessons from Europe where mothers are given much longer paid leaves. According to a BBC News report on Parenthood Policies in Europe, mothers are given 18 months of paid leave in Sweden, up to 12 months of paid leave in Norway, up to 36 months of paid parental leave in Germany and about 10 months of paid leave in France. "Paid leave" doesn't necessarily mean full pay, but I think we can argue that the United States is lagging in its maternal and parenting support policies.

I also wish we lived in a more supportive culture for breastfeeding. I wish it was something people talked about and that was normal to see through the generations of our families. That is why there is a lactation consultant industry in the United States. We don't watch our mothers, aunts and cousins breastfeed, and no one talks about breastfeeding (until after you have a baby). We are lucky to have such supportive, carrying people who help us mothers learn how to get a good latch, relax to get a good milk flow, boost our supply and gain the confidence to do something we may have never seen before.

Unlike Rosin's assumptions, I am not a religious zealot. I was not trying to boost Miss L's IQ. I was simply choosing a natural, loving way to feed her, in the same way that I choose not to feed her processed unnatural food, but real, organic food in her toddler years. Rosin does acknowledge the intimacy of breastfeeding. On this point she is right. It is intimate. As women we should strive to support one another in our personal decisions rather than judge, which only does us harm and sends us backwards. I don't particularly want to revert to times when "maternity wards automatically gave women hormone shots to stop the flow of breast milk," as Rosin cites during the time of the "formula wars". I'd like to move forward into a peaceful, open-minded time.