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Wednesday, 19 May 2010

Breastfeeding and Booby traps


There is wonderful breastfeeding advice on the Net. I wish I knew more of it when I started with breastfeeding 17 months back. I thought that there would be excellent help and that I would get wonderful support with regards to breastfeeding. Not so!

Best for Babes is an excellent website which talks about Booby Traps: cultural and institutionalised. (See the nice ad. I’ve grabbed it for the blog.)

Cultural is the stories and misconceptions and cultural myths that is being told by well-meaning friends and family and even other breastfeeding moms. How do you decide what works best for you? Or do you cave in with the first mention that your milk supply is not adequate? When your baby does not gain weight in a week? I struggled with all of these, but continued in any case.

In the beginning it felt like Mieka was stuck on my breast. We did not get a lot of sleep. My breasts were extremely sore. I asked for help from the sisters in the hospital, but nobody pitched to help me with the latching. There was a woman who came around twice who introduced herself as a lactation someone (I was too dazed to register) and I asked her twice to come and help me with the latching. She never came back. The clinic sisters were also more concerned about the weight gain than anything else. Luckily Mieka gained her weight every week in the very beginning.

Institutionalised is the help (no help) you get from the hospital /gynaecologist / paediatrician/ sisters and everything in the system. It felt more like something that was frowned upon than something to be congratulated for. Which all breastfeeding moms should be made to feel!

Powerwoman votes for huge accolades going to each and every mother who breastfeed and tries to continue for as long as possible!

Luckily I had a husband who supported me, and who did not feel threatened by the relationship between mom and baby. What a joy to be able to still breastfeed the toddler of 17 months which is tomorrow). I am very glad I persevered!

Related posts:
- Breastfeeding the toddler - positives and negatives
- Big heads and breastfeeding
- Breastfeeding blues

3 comments:

  1. Happy WW! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

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  2. I always recommend finding a good private lactation sister - they are wonderful. I would have never managed no1 for 10 months and the twin tandem feeding thing for a year without my Cheryl.

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  3. I would have been lost without the lactation consultant who helped us at the NICU. She spent *hours* with me - hours that no nurse or doctor could have ever done (nor would they have been as knowledgeable).
    Also - I'm running a series about the joys of breastfeeding toddlers. I'm trying to get guest posts from other mamas who are nursing their toddlers to contribute, let me know if you are interested :)
    And finally, thank you for visiting my site! I answered your question about tooth brushing in the comment thread to the post - I hope something you read there is helpful!

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