Another day another breastfeeding smack in the face

I was never going to breastfeed my child.  I had vomited for what felt like forever, I had stopped eating sushi and I had given up my ankles and I just knew that I wanted my body back after my baby was born.  I was working in a corporate environment, no one around me had babies and I just didn’t think that breastfeeding was for me.

And then I had my son 10 weeks early and he was sick. Very sick and really ridiculously small.  He was whipped away into the Neonatal intensive care unit and I was transferred to high care. We were both sick it seemed. But him more so and before long a midwife was standing by my bed giving me instructions on how to express milk for a son that I had never touched or held.

There was no option it had to be done, and to be honest I was desperate and afraid in this very intensive medical setting and I did whatever the doctors/nurses/people wearing official uniforms said and I expressed.

I was happy to be doing SOMETHING for my child, anything because all his other needs were being met by machines and medical staff.  So I persevered and I pumped and I expressed and luckily he was only on 2ml feeds and I could manage  just about that. (I was really bad at expressing )

It didn’t really go so well though. Little Pencil failed to gain weight. The hospital added Human Milk Fortifier to his feeds (yes like formula but added to the breast milk!) and he didn’t handle that well. So he was taken off feeds and put back into intensive care. He got sicker. He required a blood transfusion. You get my drift – he was really unwell.

But he got stronger and better (just not much heavier) and after 2 months we left the hospital with my beautiful son weighing 2kgs.  Boy was I proud of him.

And then he was sick – all the time. He could not put on weight. Repeated and hideous invasive testing eventually showed that he was severely lactose intolerant. Breast milk is full of lactose.

What does a mother who has been told that “Breast is Best” for 8 months do? When for 8 months every day you hear people repeating the mantra “at least you are able to feed him, you are doing the best thing for him” Repeatedly. For 8 months. And then your doctor tells you to stop breastfeeding THAT DAY because you are damaging his stomach lining?

I know that my situation was extreme and that breast IS best for most babies. But I also know that sometimes it’s not. Sometimes formula is best – sometimes for the baby and sometimes for the mother.

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Breastfed babies have an increased chance of climbing the social ladder and carving a better life than their parents, research shows.

Breastfeeding increased the odds of moving up social classes by 24 per cent and reduced the odds of sliding down by 20 per cent, a large British study found.

The study, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, examined the social class of the children’s father – measuring them as unskilled, semi-skilled, professional and managerial – when they were 10 or 11 and their own social class at age 33 or 34.

“We found breastfeeding for longer periods increased the probability that someone would move up the ladder more than for someone fed for a shorter duration,” said lead author Amanda Sacker, of the University College in London.

But further down, and perhaps most importantly, there’s this

Professor Sacker said mothers who did not breastfeed should have skin-to-skin contact and cuddle while bottle feeding, adding that it was difficult to pinpoint if breast milk nutrients or bonding afforded the greatest benefit.

Wouldn’t it be great if the study results could be reported as “babies who are cuddled have better chance at success.”

Even though undoubtedly breast is often best even this study cannot claim whether it’s the breast milk or the close bonding that helps the child in the long run.  So why lead the article with breastfed babies when the link has been difficult to pinpoint?

Because it’s sensationalist scaremongering.

The Breast is Best message is strong. It is accurate (in most cases).  But sometimes it’s not. And no amount of guilt is going to make that different