My oldest nursed 14-18 hours a day for the first few months. I didn’t pump at all (didn’t even own a pump), because the last thing I wanted to do after hours of nursing was hook a machine to me and do it some more. Of course, this meant that my husband couldn’t help with feedings so a disproportionate share of the childcare fell to me and I could never be away from my baby for more than an hour or so his first year of life.
Quick science lesson for anyone who needs a refresher: The hormone that aides in lactation, prolactin, also suppresses other hormones like estrogen and progesterone. Hormones play a role in just about everything your body does, so having them out of whack can cause a whole host of issues. I was a mental and physical disaster while breastfeeding. I was riddled with anxiety 24/7, I had electrical shock sensations shooting through my body, constant muscle spasms and twitches, and chronic joint pain so severe that some days trying to hold a coffee cup would put me into tears. (This is the abbreviated list of symptoms because we don’t have all day.) I had mastitis 19 times. Have you ever tried to take care of a two week old newborn by yourself (husband at work, no other family) while delirious with a 104.6* fever? Not fun. The breastfeeding suppressed my hormones to the point that my cycles didn’t return for more than a year and a half postpartum, which is kind of a problem when you were hoping to have another kid soon after the first.
At least my son got the benefits of breastfeeding though, right? Sure, there’s that, but I also think it had some downsides for him, too. Namely, he became the world’s clingiest baby. Some of that could just be his natural personality, but I have to believe having me be his one and only food source, his sole means of survival, had to have played a part in creating that. The
only place he was ever content was in my arms. Not in the same room, not sitting next to me — in my arms. Which, again, put a disproportionate amount of the childcare onto one person. I had to hold him while he slept, I had to hold him while I cooked, while I cleaned, I took him into the shower with me… He had absolutely no ability to be independent for even a few seconds without panicking. It was relentless. I always say I’m surprised he ever learned to walk with as little as his feet ever touched the ground for the first year and a half. If that’s the “bonding” that comes from breastfeeding then I wouldn’t say it’s a healthy bond. He was bonded with his father, as in, this is a guy I like to be around. I existed more as a pair of boobs to him, though. His relationship with me was one of need and he was terrified if his lifeline was ever out of reach.
He nursed for 2 years and 7 months, mostly because I didn’t know how to make it stop.
He was
very attached to nursing and I didn’t want to abruptly cut him off and turn it into some traumatizing event for him, so it went on way longer than I ever intended. By the time he was two I was
so over it. It finally stopped when my milk dried up during my pregnancy with his younger brother.
So what did I do five months later when the next one was born? Well, I nursed him too, but I took a different approach. I supplemented with formula 50% of the time in the hopes that reducing the amount of breastfeeding would help my hormones stabilize better. It made a world of difference. I wasn’t consumed by pain and anxiety. I only had mastitis once. He self-weaned at four months in favor of the bottle and I was perfectly fine with that. My husband was able to be more hands-on which took a lot of the load off of me. My second son was so much less demanding and more independent. Again, I know personality plays a role, but not having to keep a constant eye on his sole food source probably helped him feel calmer, too.
So, why does no one ever talk about the negative aspects of breastfeeding? This is what irritates me about these hardcore breastfeeding advocates. They pretend to be all about educating women but they conveniently only focus on the (sometimes dubious) benefits that it provides to the child. They conveniently ignore the drawbacks and the mother’s wellbeing is absent from the conversation all together. Why aren’t they upfront about the connection between breastfeeding and PPD/PPA and all the other awful symptoms that hormone imbalances can cause? At least I knew what was happening to me because I’d dealt with hormonal issues before. My heart breaks when I think about how many women struggle with postpartum depression, possibly as a danger to themselves or their baby, and are given pills to alter their brain chemistry yet no one bothers to say “Hey, you might want to reconsider breastfeeding. There’s a link here.”
I’d have a lot more respect for the breastfeeding advocates if they advocated in an honest way and took a moderate approach, educating women on the big picture and telling them it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Instead, they talk about “nipple confusion” and act like a single bottle of formula is going to send your child down a degenerate life path. Yes, you must nurse day and night at the expense of everything else, for at least the first year, in a society that doesn’t even offer the minimal support of paid maternity leave. And if you can’t, well that’s your choice and I’m sorry you don’t love your baby enough to do what’s best for them. Hopefully they won’t be too sickly.
and I’m curious to know what it was about that post that made you angry? Was it the part where I said I exclusively breastfed my oldest son on-demand for more than 2 1/2 years even though it had an immense impact on my physical and mental health? Or the part where I said that despite the toll it took on me, I still wanted to nurse my second son and I was able to find a workable solution that allowed for that while taking care of my own health, allowing for a much better experience? Or was it the part where I said I want breastfeeding advocates to take a moderate approach and be honest about the challenges involved so women can make informed decisions and come up with a plan that accounts for the needs of both the woman and the baby?
