Breastfeeding: a retrospective view across culture and time

I have been meaning to write this story for some, but was prompted by a recent email I received from a young mother asking me for advice on breastfeeding in public. Her baby was four weeks old and breastfeeding was going very well. Except that she was uncomfortable breastfeeding in public. She wrote about the reaction she received from her when she breastfed her child in her NCT class; neither of which she was breastfeeding. A mother actually walked away from her. It was a terribly traumatic experience for this new mom and she undermined her confidence.

I feel like I have a unique take on this topic. I have breastfed six children…notice I didn’t say successfully because few breastfeeding relationships are free of its difficulties. I have breastfed in four countries (pictured is me nursing Emily outside the Louvre in Paris), five US states, and three decades. My partners come from three different cultures, including upper class white, Mexican American, and British Afro-Caribbean descent. I trained and worked as a peer counselor in two organizations… and in two countries… in different decades. What have these different experiences taught me?

Let’s start with my American perspective from the 1980s to the 2000s…

My first memory of breastfeeding was not until I was 15 years old. I was bottle fed…my brother was bottle fed…all my cousins ​​and all the babies I saw were bottle fed. It wasn’t until my younger cousin was born that I learned anything about breastfeeding. My mother’s younger sister was quite a nonconformist and she decided to breastfeed her second child. I don’t remember how old she was when she weaned him, but I’m pretty sure it was between six months and her first birthday. In all that time, I saw her nurse him only once and then only briefly. When he began to get restless, she would simply disappear into a bedroom to perform some unimaginable ritual. That time, I absolutely had to use the bathroom and to get to it I had to cross this floor in fear. I’m not sure which of us was more embarrassed by the brief glimpse I got of the exposed inch of tit on his little blond head. But it was not an auspicious introduction to this female art form. Sometimes I wonder how from that simple beginning I became such a committed breastfeeding mother.

When I breastfed my oldest son in the US more than two decades ago, I remember feeling just as uncomfortable as the new mom who wrote to me. I spent a lot of money making special tops so I could breastfeed discreetly. Even then people looked harshly or made quiet comments. But one of the strongest memories was that of the missionary from Nicaragua who visited our church. He burst into tears when he saw me nursing my son. Our pastor translated that his tears were of regret for not having breastfed his child because in his culture the formula was considered more beneficial… due in large part to the advertising dollars spent in this poor third world country. world.

In the early 1990s, I was privileged to be part of a new program through the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) project. WIC offered stables of food and formula to low- and middle-income (working poor) families. Providing formula cost them more than $100 per month, while providing nutritional supplements to nursing mothers cost them just $32. This show was nothing short of state-sanctioned peer pressure. They identified women who had participated in the program who had breastfed. These volunteers were jointly trained by WIC and La Leche League. Before pregnant women receive their supply of food stamps, they must attend an educational session with a counselor where the benefits of breastfeeding were presented. We then take the contact details of all mothers-to-be, including due dates. We called them several times during their pregnancies to discuss it further. Then, when they had their baby, we visited them at home or in the hospital to help them get off to a good start. This project and many others like it in the US have had a dramatic impact on the number of new low- and middle-income mothers who choose to breastfeed their babies. Dramatically, 63% of African-American mothers now breastfeed, whereas just twenty years ago fewer than 15% did.

Fifteen years after the birth of my first child and almost a decade after this project, I had another child. I lived in California at the time. I must say that those years and perhaps the more open culture of Southern California meant that breastfeeding, even in public, was not a problem. I returned to work when my son was 8 weeks old and my employer was happy to accommodate breastfeeding and pumping. Our pediatrician was a grandpa type who, if anything, was even more pro-breastfeeding than I was. While the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization recommend exclusive breastfeeding until six months, Dr. Jones recommended not adding solid foods until nine months to a year. He felt that introducing them earlier increased the chances of children developing allergies. Even my lactation activist failed to achieve this laudable goal as my eight-month-old son looked longingly at every bite of food he took.

In stark contrast, however, was the visit we made to my partner’s family home in Mexico when my son was a few months old. It was like going back in time… or even worse. I remembered once again the tears of that Nicaraguan missionary. No one… and I mean no one breastfed despite poverty. The families went to their uncle’s store and bought expensive formula and two or three eggs and bread for the rest of the family. Of course, at this point I had become what could be considered a breastfeeding activist and considered it my personal mission to expose as many people in that small Mexican town as I could to the sight of my son nursing at my breast.

When I moved to the UK with my youngest daughter in 2006, one of the biggest changes was the difference in views on breastfeeding. When we first checked in with our doctors, I was thrilled with the fresh perspective of health visitors…until my first visit with one. My daughter was eight months old and she was still breastfeeding well even though she had added solid foods to her a few weeks earlier. She shocked and horrified me when my HV said in an authoritative tone… You have to wean that baby. After my shock wore off, I politely told her that she had always followed the World Health Organization’s recommendation to breastfeed for at least two years. Our visit quickly deteriorated into an argument as she claimed it was for Third World countries only. From then on, I simply avoided the Health Visitors.

A few months later I was pleasantly surprised when flyers were being handed out in the same clinic for a new breastfeeding counselor program. Once again I signed up and was pleased to once again be one of the first to complete the training. But over time I became disillusioned. Unlike the WIC program where I had previously worked, we were directly under the PCT, which meant we were instructed never to contradict anything mothers were told by Health Visitors…even if we knew it was wrong information flagrant.

One thing I do know, I am glad that my daughter was born in the United States. She was premature by a month. While she wasn’t having difficulty breathing, her digestive system was another matter. She had jaundice, difficulty passing stools and for the first two months of her life she hardly gained any weight. From my personal experience, as well as my peer counseling work, I know that if we were in the UK, I would have been pressured to recharge (not that I would have listened).

So what about this new mother and the thousands of others like her? Is there any hope that the UK will become like the Los Angeles I left behind with babies feeding from exposed breasts every time you visit the mall? I have seen glimpses of such hope. One is my daughter’s swimming class. Of course we’re in the toddler group, but the baby class is just before ours. The teacher encourages mothers to breastfeed on the steps of the pool after class to make a positive connection in the minds of water… and milk of babies. I was also very encouraged a few months ago by the black teenage mother, who was interacting so positively with her baby and discreetly feeding her on the Piccadilly line.

But if the UK is to successfully increase the number of mothers who breastfeed their babies, we must not only provide the expert advice needed to get them off to a good start, we must also provide a supportive culture that recognizes the unique value of nursing relationship. . It was not a short or easy battle for the US…and the war is far from over there, either considering that in the southern states breastfeeding is lower even than in the UK. .but given the physical and emotional benefits for mother, baby and society, it is something worth undertaking.