A Secret Relationship

By

Barbara Behrmann, Ph.D.

Much of the information you hear about breastfeeding focuses on the properties of the milk itself and it’s nutritional and immunological importance for babies health and well-being.  As important as this is, though, listen to women and you often hear another story.  That’s because mothers typically focus less on the milk than on the relationship breastfeeding fosters, on breastfeeding as a way of parenting. 

“Nursing was Louisa’s lifeline,” says a mother in upstate New York.  “It calmed her down, brought her into sleep, and woke her up when she couldn’t transition.” 

A woman in Washington state, not emotionally close to her own mother, reflects, “Breastfeeding is more than nutrition, but a way that I parent.  When my daughter is nervous or hurt, the first thing she wants is to be held closely and suckle at my breast.  It has so easily and quickly calmed her. And I like the idea that she is attached to me, rather than an object like a bottle, pacifier or blanket.  I definitely feel that breastfeeding has improved my mothering and that I would have been a different mother without it.  It has taught me to listen to my child’s cues.  I became so in-sync with her that it naturally flowed into other areas of my parenting.”

Closeness and Intimacy

Other mothers emphasize the closeness and intimacy they feel with their children.  “I really don't think of the decision to breastfeed as a nutritional one,” adds Lori, a Florida mother of four.  “I'm glad that breast milk is good for babies, but the actual milk itself has never been my motivation to nurse.  My motivation has always been the intense relationship, the incredible feeling that I have doing it.  I was lucky enough to share that intense relationship with three of my children for an extended period of time.  I love my husband and we are very compatible, but it doesn't come close to what I’ve felt with my babies.”

In interview after interview, women admitted to feeling differently about the children they nursed compared to the those they didn’t. “My love for my son is steady and true and I will love him until the day I die,” asserts a mother in northern Michigan who had used formula with her first, “but I feel so much closer to my daughter. Every time we nurse I feel like we become one again, like I could melt into her.  It is the deepest love I’ve ever felt.”

 “I have found that I am closer and feel more of a bond in proportion to how long I nursed a child,” adds another mother. Even grandmothers in their 70s talked about how they still have a closer relationship with the children they nursed compared to the children they did not.

Before you attack me for claims I haven’t made, I fully admit that some of this makes me feel uneasy. I would never want to suggest that bottle-feeding women don’t feel close to their children. I wasn’t breastfed and share an extremely close relationship with my mother. I can hear other mothers and daughters defensively saying the same. On the other hand, not a single woman has talked to me about feeling closer to her bottle-fed children than she did to her breastfed children.  It seems easier to dismiss comparisons between women who nursed all their children and women who bottle-fed all their children – if we’ve never done anything else, on what basis do we measure? - but it is harder to discount the experiences and perceptions of a woman making this comparison on the basis of her own mothering experiences.

The main point, though, is not to make comparisons. It’s to recognize that breastfeeding is more than getting the product – breast milk – into a baby.  It is that nursing promotes a certain kind of closeness, a “tuning-in” to one’s child in an intimate and profound way.

Falling in Love

All babies are delicious, of course.  Many new mothers, regardless of how they feed them, are surprised to discover the depth of the feelings they have for the new little people in their lives.  In fact, the feelings are not unlike those we may have had toward a new lover.  One mother in New York City, for example, returned to work after her maternity leave ended and had her babysitter bring the baby to work so she didn’t have to wait until she got home to see her.  “It was like I was waiting for a date,” she explains.  “Do you think she’s left the house yet?  Do you think she’s here yet?  Is she on the subway?  I didn’t expect to be that excited about a baby.  Not like oh wow, I’ve been away for 5 hours and I get to see her again!”

In The Eros of Parenthood, author Noelle Oxenhandler asserts that there is an unease that makes it hard for us to speak of the pleasure we take in our children’s bodies and they, in ours. Even putting the words eros and parenthood in the same sentence, she writes, is to step into forbidden territory. But the pleasure exists, drawing parent and child to each other like a kind of gravity. In its intense physicality it is deeply akin to the love between lovers. But unlike the eros of adult sexuality, the eros of parenthood is a sheltering and protective love. “…its predominant rhythm is serene and relaxed,” Oxenhandler explains, “quite different from the climactic movement of adult sexuality.”

To be sure, given that sexual abuse was kept hidden for so long, it is understandable that some women are fearful to speak of the physical dimensions of the love we share with our children. But Oxenhandler cautions that in an atmosphere filled with such tension and anxiety, it is difficult for parents and children to enjoy intimate moments with each other.

Adding Breastfeeding to the Mix

Breastfeeding adds yet another level of intensity and intimacy, a level with which not everyone is comfortable.  Nursing our babies is supposed be a selfless act we engage in because it is healthy, not because it is pleasurable. It shouldn’t hurt us, we are told, but it certainly shouldn’t feel too good.  But life is rarely that orderly and distinct.  For when our bodies are constantly accessible to our children, when our relationship with them is a physical one, when we lie together skin to skin, it can be profoundly sensual. 

“I derived tremendous satisfaction from breastfeeding,” reflects Opal, a professor of literature and creative writing who has nursed three children.  “It was an incredibly sensual experience.  I don’t know anything that approximates the kind of intimacy.”

The Role of Hormones

Hormones, whether we want to admit it or not, play a key role in understanding the biological basis for the pleasures associated with nursing. In fact, prolactin and oxytocin, the two main hormones involved in breastfeeding, have earned the warm and fuzzy nicknames of the “mothering hormone” (prolactin) and the “love hormone” (oxytocin). Prolactin, responsible for the production of milk, often creates a feeling of well-being and relaxation. Oxytocin, responsible for the milk “let-down” reflex and the same hormone released during labor contractions, love-making, and orgasm, triggers feelings of nurturance and affection.

In short, what is sexual and what is sensual or pleasurable are easily confused but are not the same thing.   Failure to understand the physiology and intimacy of nursing can have devastating consequences.  For example, there is an infamous case of a woman who, while nursing her two year old, was concerned about feelings of sexual arousal. She called a crisis line for insight, but instead of being helped to understand what was happening, the Department of Social Services ended up taking her child away from her for more than one year.  Who can blame women, then, for not wanting to admit that nursing can be pleasurable?

An Embodied Relationship

The bottom line is that nursing is a relationship that women and babies experience through their bodies.  It doesn’t always feel good, especially at the beginning when sore nipples, engorgement, and other challenges may rear their ugly heads, but many nursing couples ultimately end up enjoying an emotionally and physically satisfying relationship.  And from the baby’s perspective, it can’t get much better.  “I loved the look of complete satisfaction and bliss in my daughter’s eyes,” recalls one mother, thinking about her nursing days. 

“I loved when she would get “milk-drunk,” satisfied, wobbly, can’t quite focus, full-of-milk-and-lovin’-it thing,” adds another.

Perhaps no one expresses a better understanding of nursing’s potential than this mother’s three year old:  “My daughter knows we are planning to have a new baby someday soon,” explains a mother in Washington.  “The other day, she bent over, kissed my nipple and said, ‘I put enough love in here to last for the baby when it nurses.’  Why is it that children instinctively know what nursing is all about?  And how did society get so far removed from the simple idea of nurturing and love?”

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Barbara L. Behrmann, Ph.D. is a writer, researcher, and author of The Breastfeeding Café: Mothers Share the Joys, Secrets & Challenges of Nursing, University of Michigan Press, 2005. She is a frequent speaker around the country and is available for talks, readings, and conducting birthing and breastfeeding writing circles. The mother of two formerly breastfed children, Barbara lives in upstate New York.