My Breasts and Me: How I didn't get a chance to make a choice about breast feeding.

When you start breast feeding, it’s suddenly like you have a big sign on your big chest, saying “Feel Free to Invade my Privacy!”

Suddenly everyone in the world becomes an expert on your breasts – everybody but you, apparently.

When I started breast-feeding, my own brother tried to give me a lecture on how to properly clean my nipples! Just because he became a parent before I did, he suddenly thought that he knew more about my breasts than I did!

When my son was born, I was very keen to breastfeed – and breastfeeding was great at first. There’s simply nothing like that intimate connection I had with my son when he fed.

When he was 3 months old, I had to go back to work full time. I really didn’t want to be away from him and I began to get stressed – both from being back at work and missing out on the opportunity to see my baby grow and develop.

As I got more stressed, I noticed a sharp decrease in my breast milk production.
At first, I thought: "No problem! I can talk to my doctor and get lactation drugs, or speak to a le leche consultant.”

Boy, was I wrong. Neither one of them helped. In fact, they each made me feel totally inadequate as a mother for struggling to breastfeed.

My OB GYN was actually very sympathetic, and explained that it was definitely stress causing my milk production to stop. He did say that he didn’t think lactation drugs were the way to go if I couldn’t produce breast milk naturally, but he did agree to prescribe them anyway if I really felt I wanted to keep going. That made me feel great – like he respected my opinion and was giving me control over my body and how I chose to feed my son.

The lactation consultant and le leche league members, on the other hand, were horrible. Utterly, utterly horrible.

I tried going to breast feeding group meetings and the Doctor in charge, who was a women, said that my problem was that I was ‘producing too much milk’ and ‘creating a blockage.’ What the hell? I knew from the size and tautness of my breasts that this was definitely not true.

Then, she tried to say that perhaps my son was latching on wrong, and the fact that he was drinking less subsequently created a decrease in my milk production. This wasn’t accurate either - my son was latching on just fine - I had it checked at the hospital and by my doctor. My son was nothing to do with the problem. My milk was simply decreasing due to stress...

In the end, I had no choice. I simply couldn’t afford not to return to work. We had to switch to formula as we became concerned that my son wasn’t eating enough.
I tried other methods, like pumping breast milk and storing it.

My sister in law, who worked full time and pumped throughout her son’s first year, didn’t have the same problem I did and that, on top of how the lactation consultants had spoken to me, made me feel hugely inadequate.

I was miserable, as I wanted what was best for my son, but my body simply wasn’t reacting the right way and the people I turned to for help gave me no useful advice and criticized me for a physical failure I had no power to control.

I guess some women are luckier than others - that their bodies can deal with stress better than mine. I know several women who had no problem returning to work and pumping throughout. We’re all different and I’ve come to terms with the fact that my milk drying up was not my fault.

But it was so disheartening to go for help and receive no support, even from the so-claimed ‘breast experts.’

When I tried to contact le leche in the first place, the rep took months to get back to me every time I called – and each time they eventually did, they had a different excuse for why it had taken so long.

And it wasn’t just the rep’s fault. The book "The Womenly Art of Breast Feeding" also bothered me. In one chapter, it said to fall asleep with your baby on the bed while breast feeding. While that may be natural, there was no way in hell that I felt safe doing that (which just added to my stress.) I’m sorry, but after having a baby you’re permanently exhausted for the first few months and I was terrified of accidently falling asleep too deeply and rolling onto my baby.

So, yes, sleeping in bed is very relaxing and thus would make breast feeding more easy, but I’d read enough documented cases of babies being crushed or injured on the Internet not to feel comfortable doing it myself. I brought this to the lactation doctor’s atttention and she said: "Oh, no, it’s the most natural thing in the world. You should do it and lie in bed with your baby while you rest."

Um, okay Doc. In your career, you've obviously never met someone who fell asleep while breast feeding and accidentally smothered their child. Scarily enough, when I worked for a major newspaper back in England, I met a mother who that had happened to. As far as I was concerned, it simply wasn’t worth the risk.

No one was of any great help to me - but I learned a lot. I learned that with Baby #2, I needed to control my stress so maybe the milk production would be better. I needed to be more forceful with my Job about breast pumping rights, so I didn’t feel stressed or pressured when I took the time to pump. Laws protecting the rights of breast feeding mothers do exist!

And even if not being stressed didn’t help my situation, I realize now that I need to be a little more of my own advocate with my doctors and specialists. When I milk started drying up, I was interested in trying lactation drugs. I’d studied them and was comfortable with the risks that came along with them - and I was willing to take them to prolong the breast feeding. I should have stuck to my guns and gone with them.

I mean, I even saw a TV show with a mom who had a surrogate bare her child. After another woman had the baby, she took lactation drugs so she could breast feed it herself. Enough women do it to convince me that it’s safe and smart.

I needed to be stronger, and stand by my decision that the drugs were the right thing for me at the time. If I’d have done that, perhaps I’d have been able to keep breast feeding longer and not feel like I’d somehow failed my son.

With baby #2, I feel like I’ll be stronger and more able to deal with these problems. And as for the lactation specialists – who had nothing to offer but criticism, scorn and smug superiority – I say: “Screw them.”

These are my breast, not theirs, so I get to decide what to do with them.