I took the same from that statement. Why do you have to be so judgmental about this?
Yes, I knew a lot of the crunchy-granola type, too. Especially in the Chicago area and the NE and West Coast. In the Midwest/South, though, and especially in less well-to-do areas, the religious ones predominated – not that the crunchy types weren’t there but there was definitely more of the religious element present. I met a lot of Leaders from around the US during my time as a Leader 
On the no-men rule, I can see it as female empowerment, but I never met anyone who thought of it like that. It was more (and I know I will get flamed for this) that so many of the women were very, very uncomfortable with their own bodies. Also, a lot of those who attended got a lot of female socialization out of it and there was the thought that men might hijack it into talking about themselves. I clarify that I didn’t say this, this is what I heard from others higher up in the organization when I asked why we could not have couples meetings.
I went to a cookout at a co-Leader’s house once when I was a Leader and one man there (husband of another woman present, who attended LLL meetings with us) asked what we all did at meetings. He was under the impression that if someone had a latch issue, a Leader would attempt to nurse the baby to figure it out. Um, not exactly. Heh. But that kind of misconception is out there, or that Leaders visit hospitals and force women to nurse (also not true at all).
I have to agree that there’s nothing wrong with that. I was perfectly comfortable nursing in all kinds of different situations, but that didn’t mean I necessarily wanted to flash my boobs at anyone.
I’m not the most modest person, but my daughter was a picky nurser - she didn’t like distractions (she really - as I indicated before - wanted me to sit in a certain chair, in a certain way, and nurse from a certain side). When I fed her anywhere that wasn’t familiar, she didn’t nurse unless covered. So what you perceive as their preference may not even be their preference - since there are at least two people involved in nursing.
I’ve been staying well out of the larger argument here, and for the very best of reasons. But I cannot let this go without comment.
Bullshit. That is a huge pile of total newage bullshit which pretty much invalidates anything else you have to say (at least as far as I’m concerned), whether it is a consciously dismissive move on your part, or just an ignorant one. Anyone who’d say something so patently stupid and wrong to someone else is either laying a guilt trip or other coercive head game on them while trying to claim they aren’t, or else utterly oblivious of the effect they are having on the other and striving to stay so – either way, making plain just how much credence they should be given.
While I understand Dangerosa’s point about distractable babies, I absolutely stand by my statement that it is sad that our culture is so messed up about breasts that some women don’t even feel comfortable nursing uncovered at a LLL meeting. I’m not blaming them and I’d never comment on it to them, but it does upset me.
In general, I say do whatever allows you to nurse. I’m not judging these women for being “wrong,” I’m mad that they are forced to feel so shy about it. And I do always say, if you are comfortable nursing in public (cape or no), please do so to help our society become more used to the whole idea. Then maybe in a few generations no one will feel that they have to hide to nurse.
But that’s cultural relevancy - you are judging something that is based on culture. Unless it hurts someone else, that judging is as screwed up as covering up - even at a LLL meeting. Its saying “my cultural values regarding breast modesty are more correct than yours.”
I’'m glad you used the term “breast modesty,” Dangerosa. My point was that I wasn’t the least bit embarrassed by the breastfeeding. But, for me at least, it’s hard to shake off 40 years of avoiding showing off my breasts to strangers just because now I have a baby attached to one of them. As far as I’m concerned, t’s just natural modesty for the culture I grew up in.
And I suspect the whole cultural judgment thing is one thing that creates more bad will for breastfeeding advocates than it helps. Women aren’t just encouraged to “breastfeed” - they are encouraged to “embrace it” - there is a subtext - not always overt, but there - that we should breastfeed in public (and we should certainly be ABLE to breastfeed in public, but thank God for mother’s rooms that give us a little privacy). That we will feel blissful doing this, and if we don’t something is wrong - after all, your body is releasing hormones similar (or the same as) those released during orgasm - of course this should feel good! Its even scientific! The working thing is part of that as well - there is a subtext - sometimes actually voiced - that “of course, working isn’t ideal” - as in “well, we won’t judge you for HAVING to work, but…” That there is a uniformity of experience we can expect - and that experience is transformational. But the experience isn’t uniform.
Just chiming in as someone in that fourth “had lots of problems but worked my ass off to make breastfeeding work” category.
At the end of a pregnancy during which I had never even taken a tylenol, I gave birth under general anesthesia with several IV drips of potent meds before and after. The hospital nurses gave my son a bottle of formula before I even got to see him, and they repeated the hospital LC’s advice to continue to give him formula because he had a weak suck and no interest in latching. They even threatened to call my pediatrician and force me to give him a bottle if his weight didn’t go up within 12 hrs. (The ped told me later that that was bs – that all babies lose weight in the first 2 days, and it is more important to get in lots of bf practice than to worry about getting their weight up)
I gave in a bit on formula, but badgered them until they finally got me a pump on the third day, and I was feeding him only breastmilk by the time we went home. I had never known anyone who breastfed, so I mistakenly thought it was working a few days later and stopped pumping. The baby lost weight, I lost my supply, and ended up spending 6 weeks pumping ever 2 hrs, taking 12 fenugreek capsules/day and living in constant stress/depression/exhaustion to keep ahead of his needs.
Finally at 6 weeks, after renting a baby scale, wooing him back to the breast, weighing every feeding, reading everything I could find, trying every technique, etc, I got him latching well enough to stop the bottles. Even then, however it was a rollercoaster ride. He was probably 8 months old before I finally stopped worrying that he wasn’t getting enough. Then, just when I started to really enjoy things, he got teeth. Ow!!
He’s 11 months now and we’re still going strong, but I’m itching to see if things are 1000x smoother next time now that I know what I’m doing. Most of the advice I got (football hold, sandwich techniques, nipple shield, finish first breast, etc) was completely unhelpful in my case. It was only when I started ignoring the LCs and books and started talking to bfing moms with similar body shapes that things really came together.
I agree with the poster above that it is not helpful to every struggling mom to tell her “formula is just fine”. I wanted to scream and cry everytime I heard that. Here I was busting my butt to try to make it work and other people were trivializing my effort or suggesting that they didn’t expect me to succeed.
IMO, humans are built for breastfeeding. The big problem is that we no longer grow up surrounded by it, so we try to learn from words and diagrams instead of observation. I was down to practically no supply at all and even the LCs were doubtful, but as soon as I got him latching right, he built it up almost overnight in a way that a pump or poor latch just couldn’t. Imagine if I had been surrounded from the beginning by female family members who knew exactly how to make it work with our genetics/body types.
Exactly. And what if someone just happens to be personally shy? Is that not allowed?
I enjoyed nursing my children, I had no real problems, and pretty much everyone I know assumes that they will nurse their children unless they can’t. I still usually preferred to cover up in public, at least with my shirt among friends, and I probably would have covered up at an LLL meeting if I’d ever gone to one. (To horrify you more, I always went to another room to nurse if my in-laws were over, because the idea of nursing in front of my FIL is absolutely intolerable. Besides, it gave me some much-needed space and quiet time.) So freaking what? They’re my boobs and I’ll do what I like with them, thanks very much.
Besides which, I’m not sure that the goal of nursing to 12 months is that huge a deal, worth getting so upset over. Yes, it’s great to do that, but 9-10 months isn’t horrible either. I’ve had a lot of friends who had to quit at 6 months or so because their kids simply didn’t want to any more–they got way more interested in cups or the rest of the world or something and refused to go along with the program. I stopped at 10 months with my first because I had to go on a very low-fat diet (gallstones), and my daughter stopped gaining weight. I had put off the surgery in order to keep nursing, but that turned out to be a bad idea. When I had the next baby, the visiting nurse had the gall to tell me I’d done it wrong and 12 months was better. Is that supposed to make me feel friendlier?
I think you have a very good point, here. I have had a bunch of conversations about this with my best girlfriend who is had homebirths and nursed until her kids were 3. She LOVED nursing, which is terrific. For me, though, it just never reached that level of enjoyment or personal satisfaction, but instead was merely functional…the kid had to eat, I had the milk, and there you go. I didn’t resent it (although pumping was no fun), it just was something I did because that’s what you do. One thing I DO resent is the implication that if I don’t embrace the whole thing as the best, most transcendent thing I’ve ever done, that there’s something wrong. Or if I’m shy about nursing on a bench in the mall that I’m making the wrong political statement about breastfeeding. The fact is, it’s a personal experience…it’s MY experience, no one else’s, and I can’t make myself feel something about it that I don’t (and wouldn’t want to).
Hold up, there. I saw where there was a slightly higher risk of SIDS if bottlefeeding per the cite, but nowhere do I find that bottlefeeding causes SIDS. You don’t say that, but the implication is strong. There are BF babies who die of SIDS. No one knows what causes SIDS, but if LLL wants to blame it on formula, I just lost all respect for them (not that I had much to lose).
This is the kind of thing that just turns me off of LLL and their sort. Go ahead–eat like crap, smoke, do whatever: You. Must. BreastFeed. Baby. No. Matter What. As if breastmilk can make up for meth, ciggies, and a diet of Twinkies and corn dogs. If it’s to be a medical issue, than the shit diet and the smoking should be a concern. Sounds to me like you think the poor nutrition and the ciggies are just excuses made by women to get out of BF.
Some women have no interest in BF, period. Why do we demonize them? I bottlefed my older two, after trying BF. Yes, my mother did indeed sabotage my first attempts, which were not helped in any way by the LLL or the nurses in post-partum. I was also quite sick and did not know it for 9 months after the birth of my first because as everyone told me, “all new moms are just that tired.” No, I had hypothyroidism and was nearing myxedema coma. What a slacker I was. I should have tried harder. And that second child? The one who weighed over 10 lbs at birth and was as hard to handle as a greased pig? No “football hold” was going to hold him. I went straight to formula after 3 weeks of hell. I had plenty of milk; I couldn’t manage the toddler and baby at the same time–not and feed him every hour which seemed to be what he needed. Forget it.
Side issue here: Where is the woman in any of this? Where does she get to be herself? Why is Baby above all? I tend to look askance at those books etc that presume to limit women re their intake and “lifestyle choices” while pregnant. It does not sit well with me (although I understand the motive and desire to provide the optimal situation for baby). When does mom get to be more than incubator or food dispensing device? I’m serious here. What is it about when women turn into mothers? Why do we do this to women?
This makes me want to bang my head in frustration. I’m an RN. When I was having kids, I worked 12 hour shifts–days shift. Most days I didn’t get lunch, never mind time to pump (or a clean, quiet place to pump). Most women I know work in service industry jobs–it is just not feasible for teachers or nurses (or doctors) to do this and work FT.
I was lucky that I was a SAHM for my last baby–I nursed him for 6 months, with the support of a BFing friend. He lost interest and I was quite done with it by then. It was ok; I’d recommend it to my daughter, but it’s not a Holy Grail. I don’t feel like I’m a better mother because I did it. I am glad I did it and want my kids to push (slightly) for it, but the world won’t end if they don’t. And this BF kid? Sick from Oct to April with URIs, croup, RSV, you name it, he got it. Must have been all those immunities.
After I stopped, guess what? I got criticism for not nursing longer. I got stories from and of odd women who nurse until their kids are in Kindergarten. Flame away, I can take it–that is messed up shit. I don’t care what “primitive” tribes in Africa do with their kids–where I come from, women don’t BF for 5 straight years. Did they ever think that those “primitive” (and that word was used by those who criticized me as proof of some authenticity or something) that they do it because their hand to mouth existence requires them to? We have more resources here, and thank god for it. As we all know, BF ain’t reliable as birth control, so that’s out as a reason. Yup, I’m being just as judgmental about those who made that choice: I don’t understand it and I haven’t heard any sensible argument for it (yet).
And if more LCs and LLL people actually walked this talk within this thread even, we wouldn’t have the term boob nazi and a mess of pent up resentment about a primal thing being used to make people feel bad. You cannot criticize and judge people where they are most vulnerable and not expect blowback. (you meaning LLL et al).
It may have started out as a help and support, but there are too many stories and women out there who are angry about how they were treated by LLL. I have no horror story–I just got a bad vibe from the woman and got rid of her. LLL comes with an unspoken agenda regarding not just BF, but parenting and mothering.
I especially dislike their not including the new dad in any of this. Say what you will but bottlefeeding (of any kind) allows Dad in on some of the action–giving mom a break and helping Dad and Baby bond.
What LLL et al may be saying is that there is a better way out there and they want you to try it*. What is being heard is “you don’t love your baby enough to do it like we do, so you are bad mothers.” Whether or not that is what is intended, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s heard–and a reason for all the bile.
I also cannot help but notice the inherent contradiction in LLL and BF advocates: by god, use the breast; don’t use that bottle–you’ll give the kid nipple confusion (did not happen with any of my 3, although the first 2 were only BF a short time), but wait! Go ahead and give them the bottle of breastmilk, that bottle’s ok. Oh, and Carnation Good Start is ok, too.
(ok, I’m being a bit unfair there, but this whole thing just pisses me off. It’s like the labor nazis who insist if you didn’t do it with a doula and w/o meds, underwater while chanting from The Prophet, you didn’t have an authentic birth experience. You do the best you can.
Not everyone can give birth at home (no way would I take that chance); not everyone can just breath their way to nirvana (I was taught in nursing that the Lamaze breathing functions primarily to give the mother a locus of control–not to control pain, but I digress); not everyone gets a vaginal birth (although I will say that there are too many Csecxns now and that OBs are losing the skills needed for forceps delivery, but that’s another thread).
Look, feed your baby as best you can. Yes, it’s best to use the breast, but realize that with the breast comes a host of obstacles that require you to be firmly committed for an extended period of time. I am of the school that says any BF is a good thing–even if you only did it for 3 days, Baby still got that colostrum. What is more important is your nurturing of that baby. It’s a huge job and we start out overwhelmed. No wonder we’re touchy as hell about stuff like this.
- I don’t fully believe this, but am willing to give LLL the benefit of the doubt.
Sometime after my son came home (and very shortly thereafter) I was standing around talking to a friend of mine (who also happens to be a guy) and was ranting about the whole LLL thing. And he said “of course, you’ll breastfeed your daughter.”
I looked at him and said “my boobs, my baby, my business.”
If I am asking for help and advice or seem to want support - go ahead. “Boy, I LOVED my Boppie!” “My nipples were sore for six weeks! Then they toughened up, but I do remember it was hard.” “I didn’t really like lanolin, XXXX worked for me.” “Yeah, mastitis was horrible.” “Lunch is kid free, but we make an exception for nursing mothers” (which is a bookclub rule for us - bookclub is kid free unless you are nursing - or have a bottle fed very small infant who gets the 'yeah, Dad could feed him, but it would deny the mother the same opportunity to show off the new baby that nursing moms get. Besides, we are a group of baby worshippers).
However, mentioning to an obviously pregnant stranger that she should breastfeed (happened more than once, once in an elevator - surprisingly I NEVER got the tummy touch from strangers, but I did get drive by feeding advice - when you are bottle feeding an adopted child getting told how much better breastfeeding is DOESN’T HELP - regardless of how true it is) or even to a friend (as above), making comments about breastfeeding to strangers - particularly strangers holding bottles, saying to pregnant friends anything much more than “I have a pump you can have and a bunch of leftover nursing pads - if you choose to breastfeed,” making any comments about evil formula companies (those evil formula companies provided the most acceptable diet for my son - and for millions of other children that couldn’t be breastfed - they may not be ethical, but a whole lot of women think they are anything but evil) - that’s when people start getting into trouble.
THAT bugs me - the objectification of the woman. The feeling that my primary function had become a breastmilk dispenser system - particularly when I had a one year old at home who also needed my time and attention. My life suddenly revolved around “when baby eats” and since breastfeeding goes hand in hand with feeding on demand - I was lost as an individual anytime my daughter cried.
That’s true in a general sense - people are built for breast feeding.
However, before there was formula there was also a very high infant mortality rate, and possible some of that was due to the fact that if breast feeding couldn’t be made to work (and you couldn’t find a wet nurse) the baby would likely die.
I suppose ideally we would have modern medicine and breast feeding as the norm. And part of modern medicine is formula for those who can’t breast feed after some mother-determined amount of effort.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan, shame on you…don’t you know you’re not ALLOWED in this thread?! :mad:
(Kidding!)
This point about formula is a really good one…there are some babies who simply cannot be breastfed (having been one of them, I relate to the problem!) I don’t know if what formula companies do is unethical. It CAN be, certainly, but these days there are watchdog groups and the government making sure that their claims are not lies. The fact is, for babies who can’t be breastfed, I’d sure as heck rather have formula than the alternatives.
I was pleasantly surprised to get an little kit from one of the formula companies designed to help with pumping at work…it came with cold packs & a thermos pouch, a little do-not-disturb sign for the door, and a letter for your doctor to sign, explaining to your workplace why you need a private place to pump. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.
I got the “breastfeeding pack” from Enfamil or whomever - no formula coupons, or bottles - a “how to breastfeed” brochure published by the LLL, a sample tube of lanolin. A water bottle for me. A CD of baby music. The cheap little Peter Rabbit diaperbag I still see people carrying - so they are still handing them out.
I suppose that was detrimental to my breastfeeding experience because Enfamil had been so nice to give me something I probably felt obligated to go out and buy their formula.
(For SOME reason, I couldn’t get coupons or samples or ANYTHING when I adopted - which drove me bonkers. You’d THINK if formula companies were going to hit up anyone in an attempt to gain market share, they’d be standing at the door of adoption agencies handing out samples to people adopting. You can send away for free formula at every damn maternity store and OB office - which is one of the things breastfeeding advocates object to, but if you are adopting, you aren’t IN the maternity store or the OB office to pick up the “send me free stuff” flyers.)
That is weird…you’re right that it seems like an obvious market. It’s easier to get the coupons & stuff these days…I signed up for their clubs online, and they send it to you. They don’t need to know where you got your baby!
The formula compaines have re-designed the diaper bags…they are black now, and although still cheap vinyl, they look a lot better than the Peter Rabbit ones! Good to use for a backup bag or to keep in the car. Personally, I can’t keep the 2 major formula companies straight, so I never knew who gave me what, and I always bought the stuff on sale or with coupons if I had them…my kids never seemed to prefer a brand.
I find this mini sidetrack funny. I would never use Enfamil, because when I did my student rotation, the hospital only used Similac!* Another hospital I worked at had a very scientific system: boys got Enfamil and girls got Similac. I used Carnation Good Start for both boys because Similac constipated #1 son so badly, and frankly, when I used what little formula I did for #2 son, he was so damned sick, I wanted something “easy” for him. I never did warm up to freezing breast milk (a personal prejudice on my part). I wish they had had GS when Daughter was a baby–that stuff was so much better (IMO).
*I know they’re essentially interchangeable, but personal experience does drive choice at times. I never felt obligated by anything any corporate entity gave me re babies and kids. (I know it was a joke, just sayin’). I agree re the coupons etc–I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to tap that market.