Breastfeeding - my experience

Almost 18 years ago now I had a baby. As all mums will tell you, it feels like it was yesterday, they grow so fast. What is it they say? 'The days are long but the years are short' ? Yes that sums up parenthood. Tiring, exhausting, but ultimately amazing and it's all gone in a blink and they are adults themselves.

When I became pregnant I decided I wanted to do everything naturally, or as natural as possible, though I didn't want a home birth. I felt that if everything went well then hospital would be OK and they could do the clean up, and if things went badly, I'd have the support I needed.


I also decided that I wanted to breastfeed my baby. At the time the advice was exclusive for 4 months and then introduce solids but keep breastfeeding alongside for as long as possible. (current World Health Oganisation advice can be found here) That all sounded fine to me and so I didn't buy and bottles, no formula, no sterilising kits. Nothing. I had boobs and I didn't need anything more.


The birth (a water birth) was easy and fairly swift, less than 12 hours. And DD (darling daughter)  was born with a shock of dark hair, eyes to fall into, like deep pools and a gaze with the knowledge of centuries, as babies tend to have. I was instantly in love and started feeding withing minutes of birth. Text book stuff, I stayed in hospital overnight and the midwives checked on my (and her) latch positioning regularly, they asked how things were, checked I was feeding on demand and were just lovely. The midwife that helped deliver her showed me the 'rugby ball hold' as DD preferred to feed on one side and Dave (the midwife) worried I'd get lopsided!


After 48 hours or so I went home and everything was fine, DD slept and ate and was as cute as the cutest button. Life was dreamy.

On day 5 after the birth I woke to discover my milk had 'come in'. What a misleading phrase, it conjures flowing rivers of creamy goodness when in reality it means your tits, whilst looking like a porn stars are suddenly rock hard and tender, engorged and not in a good way! Baby DD found her latch was no longer easy, she looked at me accusingly, suddenly she couldn't feed, and so she wailed. I wailed too. Hearing her wail my body cheerfully created more milk! I hurt! I wailed more, DD wailed. My poor husband looked on helplessly. After 12 hours things had got worse, not better and I was terrified that DD would die of thirst (I had no idea how resilient babies are!) I was hysterical, she was purple in the face from screaming and my husband said he was going to buy bottles and formula right away.


I broke down, felt like a failure, torn between not wanting to give up and feeding my child! Luckily I'm really stubborn. So instead of letting him go for formula I said we should phone the labour ward, they had said we could phone for any reason, at any time (it was now 10pm) I rang, they said to come straight in. And so we did.


The loveliest nurses and midwives in the world took DD for a walk around the ward to calm her (and, looking back on it maybe to give her a sly drink!) while another midwife made me tea and calmed me down. Then they brought a now calmer DD back in and helped her get a grip, it felt like they just held her head against my boob until she had no choice but to suck! But maybe it was more subtle than that.

Whatever they did it worked, she glugged (you could hear her glugging!) and emptied both breasts. Poor hungry baby - she then slept for about 8 hours. We went home and after that we didn't look back. DD continued breastfeeding as and when until she was 4 months when she was keen to eat! She raced up the centiles chart (chubster!) and then gradually settled when she started eating food. She continued to breastfeed until she was 10 months old, when she self weaned having discovered cups and food easier that the work needed to breastfeed! Such a cute and lazy baby.



The things I loved about breastfeeding were; the lack of preparation, you want milk, it's there (and no extras to carry when you go out) ; the snuggles, tiny pudgy hands massaging you as baby drinks, like a little kitten; the cheapness, I didn't buy bottles, or sterilisers; the supposed health benefits were just a bonus if I'm honest


My experience of breastfeeding was fabulous. I want other mums to know it can be great, and support can be great too - never be afraid to ask. If I hadn't had help I might have given up on day 5! I felt like a failure but mum's shouldn't, there is no reason you should be good at it! It's a skill and both you and baby have to learn. Take your time, get help, enjoy.

And if you don't breastfeed? That time is gone in a blink anyway - enjoy every precious second with your child.

Being a Wise Woman, or a Killer Whale

Earlier today - interested by the mysterious headline "What can killer whales teach us about the menopause?" I had a read of a BBC article. Sadly it was not a ground breaking moment of clarity about hormones and physical changes. It was a moment of anger and rage!

At first I merely tweeted -

"The menopause is a puzzle for biologists. Why would the female of a species cease to reproduce half way through her life, when natural selection favours characteristics that help an individual's genes survive?"

Maybe because women have other skills that help improve the gene pool and the survival of the young as well as actually making the babies? Maybe old women have a purpose too!

""From an evolutionary perspective, it's very difficult to explain," says Prof Darren Croft, who travels here from the UK's University of Exeter to study the whales." says a man ...maybe we women know things, maybe we can teach things!

Seriously sometimes scientists can be dim.

but the more I thought about it the angrier I became. Were scientists (or at least one scientist) really saying that they had always thought that once we couldn't make babies women were useless? Based on that, even in animal and evolutionary terms they were saying female animals are only about babies. I assume that all animals while needing to make babies are also about keeping those babies alive. Making a new whale, or a new human, is important to carry on your genes but if you just leave it (especially among mammals which tend to be born fairly small and weedy) then your genes will die out pretty fast along with your baby!

In nature and still, often, in humans the bulk of rearing the young falls to the mother, often because of breastfeeding (those awkward breasts - being fixed to us as they are) and just the way things are. So if you are rearing young, pregnant and then rearing more young, you are pretty busy. (I see you new mums nodding) One of the things you are busy at is learning. Learning how to raise babies for a start! Your manly male may be off teaching hunting to the rest of the pod but that doesn't mean your skills are useless, just different.

So without being a scientist, or a professor of anything, it seems pretty clear to me that female mammals need a bit of time when baby rearing is totally off the table, to focus on teaching. Leaving that until after they have had time to learn makes some sense too.

To me the menopause is the start of that movement into 'wise woman' status. And while modern humans can share baby raising, share feeding (how handy to have bottles that make detatching a baby from the mum so easy!) and can control their fertility and pregnancies, it wasn't that long ago (in evolutionary terms) that we couldn't.

Like killer whales we seem to live fairly complex lives; and having the ability to pass on information without the complication of babies seems pretty clever to me. After all males are burdened until death with sexual desire. Something older female mammals can move away from (and before you all shriek, yes I know older ladies like sex...shhhh) Males of many species often retain the testosterone instincts to fight and hunt too, leaving those pesky useless women at home.

The mysterious wise women of folklore, that 'scary' knowledgable witch, is a real person, with midwifery skills learned from years of doing it right (after all - if you got it wrong you would die) and skills in childhood illnesses and finding useful foodstuffs that babies could eat. These are skills to pass on to your own offspring, because your genes mustn't die! And you might not have time if you are busy still raising babies, to teach your daughter what she needs to know.

I can't help wondering if we would have come as far along the evolutionary path as we have if women had all died as soon as fertility finished. Longer life gives rise to greater learning, and a better ability to pass things form generation to generation.

So the article just seemed to confirm the obvious, that women, even old women, have a place of genetic evolutionary importance. And I didn't need to go to university, or study killer whales to know that...it seems I just needed to be old.


Read the full article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37025092

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Whale Image Copyright: desertsolitaire / 123RF Stock Photo

Woman and child Image Copyright: digitalpress / 123RF Stock Photo

It is fine to be offended by public breastfeeding...

It is fine to be offended by public breastfeeding...or any breastfeeding.
You can be repulsed by it, loathe it, find it vile and disgusting.
You may if you like actually feel physically sick when you see a woman breastfeeding.
That is your right.
I myself find spiders to be loathsome and vile.
Everyone has a right to be disgusted by anything.
We can't help it.

I could tell you that breastfeeding is natural (it is), beautiful (it is), that it is brilliant for both mum and baby (it is), I could tell you that it can be hard and that mums need a medal even for trying to breastfeed in many cases (they do) but just as you could tell me that spiders are harmless (yeah yeah) that they are miracles of nature (I hear you) that they rid the house of nasty dirty flies (yep again) and neither of us would be convinced. I would still feel disgust when i see an arachnid and you would still feel ill seeing a woman breastfeeding. It's your right of course, I can't tell you how to feel. Neither can any one else.

You are allowed to be disgusted by a perfectly natural and beautiful thing.

What you are NOT ALLOWED to do is ask a woman to stop, to ask her to 'be more discreet' or to 'cover up'. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED to ask a cafe owner to move the lady to another table 'at the back' YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED to ask her to feed her baby in the toilet, or to point at her, to make a fuss, to embarrass her. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED to complain to her or those around you, to harass her.

You are allowed to look away. To move away, to use another cafe, to eat your sandwiches in the toilet.

You are free to be disgusted, just as I am of spiders, but you are not suddenly allowed to assume the world is an adult only space, or that a baby eating should be hidden away.

And to all breastfeeding mums reading this. I salute you.

oh and I don't kill spiders - I know it's my problem, not theirs

Awarded 5th April 2012