How Breastfeeding Works

When did mothers stop mattering?

As I ponder the opening heading I’ve given this post, I wonder – did they ever matter?  And yes, I rather think they did.  There are ancient symbols of fertile womanhood across the world, bellies and breasts heavily in evidence.

Mother Earth, Mother Nature, mother goddesses – all significant throughout the ages.  But now?  Mothers are a nuisance.  Either they want to stay at home (unproductive, drain on the economy, selfish) or they return to work (maternity leave/pay, cost of employing replacement cover, part time working, family-friendly, flexible hours, selfish) – either way, someone will criticise them for their “choice” (despite it often not being a choice – either the cost of childcare is prohibitive, so women stay at home, or the cost of living is too high, so women use grandparent care and return to their jobs for more hours than they may ideally want to work).

It has been said that a mother’s place is in the wrong…

When does this start?  Surely the people who are doing the sneering at mothers have their own experience of being mothered to draw from?  Why don’t mothers matter more to our society?  It starts around birth, the very time that a woman becomes a mother.  How many times have we heard, “Nothing else matters, so long as the baby’s healthy”?  Really?  Nothing?  NOTHING?  What about the person who is going to look after that healthy baby?  Does she not matter a jot?  Her feelings, her thoughts, her wants, hopes, needs, desires – they don’t matter at all, so long as the baby is in full working order?

Are we quite sure about that?

Of course, everybody wants the baby to be healthy – to say otherwise would be crazy.  But for how long is the baby going to maintain that optimum health if the mother’s broken by her birth experience, or overwhelmed by becoming solely responsible for a newborn, left to cope alone, told that how she feels doesn’t matter, because she “has a healthy baby and that’s ALL that matters”.

Throughout pregnancy, women are told to breastfeed.  It is, after all, “best”.  But try asking for help once you’ve had your baby and there’s a fair chance you’ll be told that you’ve given it your best shot, not many women manage to breastfeed and that formula “isn’t poison” so don’t worry about it.  The underlying message is “breastfeeding is great if you’re lucky and it works, but generally it’s too difficult, so stop making a fuss and crack open the formula”.  So not only do you not matter, because your baby’s healthy, but you’re not lucky either, because breastfeeding didn’t work for you.

But don’t worry, because someone will be along to squeak “happy mum = happy baby” at you any moment now.  And, yeah, given that you don’t matter and you’re not lucky, now you must be “happy” because otherwise your baby won’t be.  No pressure, then.  Just the current and future wellbeing of your baby’s mental health.  At the expense of your own, quite possibly.  I’d like to spend a bit of time unpicking that one, because I think that whilst it sounds supportive and comforting, it is actually a disempowering, negative phrase which should be stomped upon until it smashes to pieces.  Ahem.

Why do you think that?  It sounds reasonable enough!  Don’t we want mums to be happy now?

Well, therein lies the crux of it.  To disagree with the statement makes it seem like breastfeeding is more important than a mother’s happiness.  And I absolutely don’t believe that at all.  However, what I do believe is that the answer to breastfeeding not working out is not necessarily to stop breastfeeding.  Yes, of course, for some women, stopping breastfeeding will be right.  That is absolutely their choice and I am absolutely not arguing with that or going to reel off list upon list of facts and statistics to make them change their mind, because all that does is make them hate me.  Hardly the way to keep the dialogue going!

But for the woman who wants to continue to breastfeed?

Is stopping and giving formula and telling her not to feel guilty going to be the best thing for her?  She’s spent her pregnancy imagining mothering includes breastfeeding.  She visualised holding her baby close and nursing.  She’s bought breastpads, dammit, and she wants her breasts to see active nutritional service!  She has perhaps learnt the facts and statistics off by heart, she is desperate to breastfeed.  And yet it is Just Not Working, for whatever reason.  And she is sad about it – grieving, perhaps.

Is the best thing to tell her that she should stop doing what she wants to do, what she’s imagined herself doing, give formula and – above all – be happy about it?  Really?

Or should we help her to fix breastfeeding or, possibly, if for whatever reason that isn’t possible (and it isn’t always) to come to terms with not breastfeeding, gently and sensitively and, above all, kindly?  I think you know what my preference is…

And how do we make mothers matter more?

We could start by not attacking each other, by not criticising each other’s choices (because they’re often far from freely made and there’s often a lot of soul-destroying guilt bound up in them), by being more supportive – but not in a passive, patronising way.  Because trilling “happy mum = happy baby” at each other, when inside we’re sad, we’re desperate for someone to listen non-judgementally, to help us in practical, useful ways – well, at best, it’s thoughtless.

So, how do we help each other proactively?

Support the women who want to breastfeed (and most do) by finding them useful, relevant information about breastfeeding – and encourage them to breastfeed.  Don’t just say, “Aw, you gave it your best shot, hun, formula isn’t poison” – because then the woman who is desperate to breastfeed is also going to have to be thinking of non-upsetting ways to scream, “I know it isn’t poison, but I don’t want to give it to my baby, because I want – I NEED – to breastfeed!” at someone who means well, but who isn’t helping.

And challenge people when they say that all that matters is that the baby’s healthy.  It’s a meaningless, trite, pointless statement and it undermines the importance of having a healthy, happy mother in that baby’s life.  Of course we all want all babies to be healthy – who wouldn’t?  But the standard for good maternity care for mothers isn’t “You’re not dead”.  Mothers matter.  Let’s shout about it.

Because happy mum = better society.  And then we all benefit, babies included.

Filed under: breastfeeding promotion, Discussion, Feelings about breastfeeding