The Myth of the Lactating Woman

We all know breastmilk is best. We all know that breast feeding is one of the best ways to create a lasting bond between mother and child. But there is a great diversity in the quantity of breastmilk a given woman will produce and, as millions of children of adopted parents, step-parents, and other alternate caregivers can attest, children can have fine childhoods without ever being beast fed. We know formula has had a rocky past – from nutrient concerns, to cross-contamination and tainted milk scandals. But that’s mostly in the past. Formula is now a viable option.

Why then do we persist in the idea that there is only one way to parent, one way to mother? Why do we buy into the rhetoric that breastmilk and breast feeding is essential to caregiving? Why do we build up such high expectations over something we cannot control, that we tear each other down and resent each other over it? To such an extent that those women who produce only a small amount of breast milk are envied by those who have none?

The conversation on gender and sex is changing. We no longer require a person to be born with female genitalia, and to develop female secondary sex characteristics at puberty to be a woman, if that is who she considers herself to be. We do not tell women who are not wearing a skirt, or who are wearing a Niqab that they are not real women. We do not tell women who have had a hysterectomy or mastectomy because of cancer of other illness, that they are not real women. We do not tell women who have lost or terminated a pregnancy, or who have chosen not to have children, that they are not real women. Why then do we tell women whose bodies and breasts do not cooperate in this one small regard that they are not real women, not real mothers?

We knew going in that producing enough breast milk might be a problem, because I have benign cysts in my left breast. Prior to getting pregnant, my doctor and I had discussed options, and agreed that while removing the cysts might increase lactating function, it could just as easily stop it entirely. We decided that some lactation in the breast was better than an unknown quality of lactation in the bush.

Subsequently, from day 1, I never produced enough milk to come anywhere near my daughter’s intake, and it never caught up. My left breast would typically produce between 10 and 15mls less than the right. We spent a week in hospital over concerns about weight gain. I was breast feeding, and she was being supplemented with donor milk, but still wasn’t gaining weight. The problem eventually corrected itself, but I think she’d been expending too much energy for too little gain from the breast feeding. We got home, finished the donor milk, and started her on formula. My mother told me during this time that she’d never understood how small breasts could be able to produce enough milk. I breast fed until my baby weaned herself at seven and a half months. I continued pumping until nine and a half months, because I had a friend who was pregnant and I wanted to share what I had, even if it hadn’t been enough for my own baby. I also wet nursed for her a couple of times. I suspect this act of charity was ultimately resented as a reflection on her own failure, instead of as an offer of solidarity.

We need to stop shaming each other and ourselves. We need to stop producing and reading articles where women incriminate themselves for ‘being lazy’, where heroes are glorified purely because they had the good fortune to have breasts that produced more milk in a week, than I produced in nine and a half months of pumping and breast feeding.

Should we completely give up on breast feeding? Of course not. Every woman owes it to her child and herself to give it one good try. Certainly there are medications, treatments and techniques which may improve lactation, and the breast feeding experience, but if they don’t work, what then? We need to concentrate on the real goal – to create happy, healthy, and independent (however your personal culture defines it) contributors to society.

We may never know the reasons why a woman chose to supplement with formula. Frankly, it’s none of our business. What we need to hold onto is the knowledge that she is doing what is best for her baby, her family and herself. The entire process from conception through pregnancy, to labour and live birth is fraught with hardship, danger, pain and heart-breaking decisions. The number of women who will die in childbirth this year, despite access to 21^st Century First World medical care is staggering. Let’s not add to the burden. Let’s celebrate our babies, and support each other as we nourish and nurture them into becoming the wonderful people they are destined to become.

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article sponsered by Northern Michigan certified lactation consulting and Mother Hubbards Country Cupboard