I'm getting tired of being different, you know?

[jenn_unplugged]

It seems like there is some sort of organized campaign against breastfeeding these days. There are always the asshats who think it's gross and perverted to feed your baby the way God/nature intended, but in this case, the effort seems to have been spearheaded by women who breastfed their babies and somehow found it a miserable experience.

Okay, I get that BFing isn't for everyone, I really do. But why belittle those of us who not only BF, but who went out of our way to make it work by pumping to start or maintain our supplies? Why mock us for that commitment? Clearly Judith Warner had major issues with her own role as a BFing and pumping mom. Fine, whatever.

But if it weren't for the pump, I would never have been able to nurse Carter. At all. Ever. Breastmilk is more than just "best" for preemies; it saves their lives. In the city I live in, if the mother of a preemie doesn't pump, the doctors write prescriptions to get donated breastmilk for the babies. Since they started doing this, NO preemie here has died of intestinal infection -- and there are 5 NICUs in the area.

I was PROUD to pump for my baby, because it was the ONE thing I could do for him while he was hooked up to machines and living in a heated plastic box. It helped me heal from the devastation that is an unexpected premature birth. It helped me cope with almost 8 weeks of visiting my baby in the hospital before he could finally come home. It made me feel like a real mother, something I desperately needed.

So pumping was and is really, really important to me. Clearly Judith Warner has no idea what it's like to walk in my shoes. She makes good points about society needing to support working BFing moms more, but the idea that a breast pump is some sort of torture device that should be relegated to a horror museum (yes, she basically says that) demonstrates not only ignorance of situations like mine, but also the opposite of the point she thinks she is making.

But you know, things like this just highlight to me yet again how abnormal my parenting journey has been. That is often a source of pride for me, but sometimes it just makes me wonder how people can take their fertility, their health, and their ability to bring a baby into the world for granted like that. If you have no trouble getting pregnant, have a healthy, full-term pregnancy, and then go on to nurse your baby for years with no major difficulties, good for you. But remember that some of us didn't get to do it that way, and be grateful.

Comments

[bicrim.livejournal.com]

Amen! I get so angry when people who have had it easy take it for granted.

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are plenty of things I blithely take for granted, but it doesn't stop me from getting annoyed when people take MY issues for granted, yanno? :-P

[mockingbirdq.livejournal.com]

I have so much respect for the moms of preemies who pump breastmilk, simply because it was difficult to do myself with an established milk supply after 6 months. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to manage with pumping right away!

I didn't like using a breastpump, but it kept my milk supply going a little longer. It was also always nice to have frozen milk in the freezer as a result, and I wouldn't have survived mastitis without it.

My thought about most women who resent their breastpump is that they are focusing the anger on being seperated from their baby while working at it, or want an excuse to use formula. There are times and situations when a bottle is needed and I knew my son was getting the best nutrition possible if it contained breastmilk...

[heathog.livejournal.com]

I hear you--I doubt my youngest twin would be as full of health as he is now if I hadn't pumped breastmilk for him for the first 4 months of his life (he was the one in the NICU)! And I couldn't breastfeed at the time, as I had one twin in one building, the other in a completely different building and different floor!

((hugs))

[ahurani.livejournal.com]

I definitely think this latest round of anti-breastfeeding articles is that much more detrimental because it does come from moms who breastfed. But they, too, are so one-sided about the whole thing. I was really annoyed at Rosin's article where as part of her argument that breastfeeding is the newest thing "to keep women down" she said that a woman can't have a meaningful/successful career and breastfeed. Yet here I am, working as a doctor at a university hospital AND going to school full time and I manage. No, I don't enjoy pumping, but I don't hate it either. And with my son's dairy allergy, formula would have been a nightmare.

[sassywoman.livejournal.com]

That woman is a jerk! I am really hoping to have a better b/f experience this next time around. I admire you for how you were able to pump for Carter for so long and how you got him to the breast successfully. That is something to be very proud of.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Hello! Visiting from Mockingbird's journal.

I saw her article from a very different perspective. While she does say she'd be happy to see pumps disappear entirely, I read that as hyperbole. What she seemed to really be arguing against was the way feeding breastmilk has been prioritized above having mothers spend time with their babies. The problem is not the breastfeeding - it's with the way mothers are guilted into pumping at the office, after they go back to work.

When I became a parent, I breastfed. I supplemented a bit when there were problems that took a while to solve, but I breastfed. It was a huge shock to me when I started hanging out in Mommy forums and realized that there were women in North America who had to go back to work when their babies were only a few weeks old. You see, I live in Canada, where I could access Unemployment Insurance for a maternity leave that lasted until my babies were ten months old. So the idea of a pump in a workplace was totally foreign to me. I've never, ever seen a woman pump at work in Canada. Not once. They don't need to, because they're home with their babies during those first crucial months.

I think getting pumps out of the office/workplace would be a fabulous thing, if it were done by making sure that every woman who wanted to give breastmilk to her baby was at home for those first six months to a year. And on that level, I think this article was right on track: it's absurd to think that pumping at the office is a reasonable substitute for being home and nursing your baby. It's not. It's not even close.

Pumping in situations where baby is having trouble eating for whatever reason is not in the same category. I can see how her imagery would be offensive to someone in your position, but she's not really talking about someone in your position. She's talking about the mothers who go back to work at eight weeks and leave their perfectly-healthy babies with a sitter, and have to take an hour and a half of extra breaks to pump food for their babies during the day.

Pumping should be an interim measure until breastfeeding can be well-established or baby's health stabilized enough to allow for normal breastfeeding, or a stop-gap measure so Mom can get out of the house for a few hours without baby. It should not be the way caregivers get milk for healthy infants of working mothers - because healthy infants of working mothers deserve to have their mothers at home with them.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I agree that the hook on which she chose to hang her good observations was perhaps not well-chosen, and that pumping does have its place in the world. I just didn't see the article as an attack on the attempt to provide breastmilk - only on the practice of forcing moms to provide it in a bottle because they are required by economic necessity to be elsewhere.

[faded-thoughts9.livejournal.com]

I think what she should be criticizing is the dilemma for working mothers. If you've had a baby, just a couple of weeks off is ridiculous. I don't see how the actual breast pump is a problem. I have two young sisters and my mom pumped for both of them. If anything, it seemed like a convenience. She is acting like it's somehow demeaning to women to use it... and that's just odd. No one is forcing you to breastfeed, if it's not for you then don't do it.

Also: Rosin does an excellent imitation of a breast pump machine as the room erupts into laughter. “Who could blame [your husband] for never wanting to sleep with you again?”

Um.. what? Maybe you and your husband need to grow up.

[teleute.livejournal.com]

She sooo needs to work out what her issues are and then write articles. I don't think she actually knows what she's arguing against. Personally I think velvetpage may have it right, that she was really arguing about women being forced to go back to work so soon, but really what does pumping have to do with that? Plenty of mothers who go back to work switch to formula during the day. I think we're in a lucky situation where we can require our workplaces to allow us to pump if we want to. Banning breast pumps (the woman is insane) would clearly reduce women's choices: if you have work then you have to formula feed. No choice there.

As you know, I didn't pump for all kinds of reasons. I know that for me, at least with Jamie, breastfeeding wasn't a valid option. I think you also know how much this annoys and upsets me. I'm still hoping I'll be able to breastfeed Peachy. But whether I can or can't, I'm pleased that I and every other mother I know has the option to work or not work and the option to breastfeed or formula feed or a combination, and that these choices are totally independent of each other.

The woman is insane.

[teleute.livejournal.com]

Also, the other article (The Case Against Breastfeeding) is odd too. I suspect that she didn't pick that title - I think she's much more balanced than that, but at the same time she seems to have had the experience that if you don't breastfeed you're ostrasized as a mother. After I stopped breastfeeding Jamie at 6 months, I got just as many comments on my feeding him as I did before - pretty much none.

THis paragraph caught my eye:
Even in the best of marriages, the domestic burden shifts, in incremental, mostly unacknowledged ways, onto the woman. Breast-feeding plays a central role in the shift. In my set, no husband tells his wife that it is her womanly duty to stay home and nurse the child. Instead, both parents together weigh the evidence and then make a rational, informed decision that she should do so. Then other, logical decisions follow: she alone fed the child, so she naturally knows better how to comfort the child, so she is the better judge to pick a school for the child and the better nurse when the child is sick, and so on.
because I hear this stuff all the time. In our house, in the first few weeks, Adrian did everything else because I was breastfeeding. That's how we split the job. H's still better at getting Jamie to sleep, and slightly better at calming him (possibly because he's better at staying calm himself). If nothing else I would LOVE to stop this husband bashing that seems ubiquitous. I see it all the time and every single time I want to jump up and say "not MY husband".

Sorry. I'll stop ranting now. ;-)