I was a breastfeeding mother. I still am. I breastfed my son until he was 15 months old, and I aim to repeat that with my daughter. I know how this works. And I am grateful for the privilege of being able to feed my babies. I think it is a divine thing, to feed your children at your breast. Truly, I do.
But have I loved every minute of it? Hard no. Has it been easy? Also, hard no. Did I want to stop? So many times. Was it painful? SO MANY TIMES. Was I able to get the professional help I needed to get through the excruciatingly challenging times? Again, HARD(er) NO.
There is more information out there than ever before about breastfeeding. Worldwide, more mothers are breastfeeding than in the past 100 years. In the developed world, too, breastfeeding has made a big comeback, particularly from the 1990s onwards. This is all good and dandy, but the push for more breastfeeding has not been met in equal terms with a support system for mothers, their challenges and hardships dismissed or poorly handled by medical professionals. New moms often will have no idea where to turn when they are having problems breastfeeding. It is terrifying to feel lost and alone because you are trying to feed your child, and provide them with the very nutrition they need to develop and grow healthily.
My personal breastfeeding journey repeatedly sent me to the emergency room; it involved copious amounts of antibiotics, all while battling postpartum depression. No amount of “breastfeeding is wonderful” pep talks could have helped. In fact, they damn near drove me insane because I thought something was wrong with me, it had to be. It was painful. It was not easy. It was not fun.
Breastfeeding is hard as fuck, and anyone who tells you otherwise either has no boobs, has not breastfed, or is full of shit, plain and simple. It is hard work, relentlessly so, and there are no days off.
Yet, the prevailing rhetoric surrounding breastfeeding does not address the struggles. I am tired of seeing a sugar-coated fantasy of what it “should look like”. If you scroll through Instagram, you’ll see pictures of women boobing their children looking divine and relaxed, happy. Images of what breastfeeding “should look like”. No wonder women who endure countless challenges show signs of anxiety and even depression when real life doesn’t match up to the fantasy.
I don’t have a problem with beautiful images of breastfeeding journeys; it is a wonderful privilege, and there are indeed delightful moments. For many mothers, it is a positive experience. What is problematic, however, is that there aren’t nearly as many depictions and discussions of how brutal and devastating breastfeeding can be for women. We all know its endless benefits for babies, but we don’t talk nearly enough about how many ways it can go wrong for mothers.
For breastfeeding to be normalised we need to see the good, the bad and the ugly of it, and include the mother’s perspective. Maybe if that judgemental person who tells moms to cover up in public knew about the struggles behind breastfeeding, they might look at the whole thing with compassion; or, at the very least, think twice before opening their mouth.
World Breastfeeding Week is just around the corner, August 1-7, 2019. What better opportunity than to focus on the needs of mothers and raise awareness on how to improve the support we give ourselves in this incredibly important mission?
Don’t just take it from me: this blog post is the official launch for BoobTalk, a series of stories from fellow Mamas who went through the fires of breastfeeding. Twice a week, MotherInProgress will feature a real-life story about breastfeeding and its impact on a woman’s life. You will read about the wonderful moments and the victories of these women, as well as their defeats, injuries and, at times, their humiliation. I want to change the conversation around breastfeeding.
If social media are your thing, check out the hashtag I am using on Instagram and Facebook, #BreastfeedingIRL (breastfeeding in real life), to show the challenges and the amount of hard work it takes to feed your baby from your glorious and divine boobies.
Feel you can relate to all this? Use your own platforms to promote the hashtag #BreastfeedingIRL; share the blog posts far and wide.
Let’s change the expectations for mothers and adjust the lens to view breastfeeding for all of its hardships and rewards; not just as a fairy-tale bonding experience, but as a story of hard work, suffering, loneliness and a love so overwhelming it drives you to the brink of insanity and back.
