Breastfeeding:  Lessons from my Children

 by Barbara L. Behrmann, Ph.D.

(c) 2002

I never had any doubt  about how I was going to feed my babies.  Of course I was going to nurse them -- why wouldn’t I want them to have all the nutritional and immunological benefits that breastmilk provides?  What I don’t know is where my initial determination and enthusiasm came from.  Neither my mother nor my grandmother nursed and it wasn’t as if I had grown up seeing women breastfeed.  In fact, I can’t recall a single instance during my childhood in which I saw a woman put a baby to her breast.

Most of what I knew about breastfeeding wasn’t as relevant to me personally, as it was politically.  In college I had done considerable reading about the causes of malnutrition in the developing world.  I had read all about the insidious efforts of multinational corporations to convince women that formula was superior to breastmilk and about the devastating impact of their marketing.  Even though I would clearly have access to clean water, refrigeration and money to pay for formula, (unlike many of my poorer sisters overseas) I wanted nothing to do with formula.  Moreover, as a feminist, I thought of my body’s ability to bear and nourish children as a great source of power and pride.  Why would I let some company rob me of that or convince me that my milk was inferior?  I figured that not only were my ample breasts made for nursing a baby, but it was probably the one aspect of having a newborn that I was most looking forward to.  I would put my baby to my breast and voila! she would nurse.  Moreover, I was prepared to nurse my child wherever and whenever she needed to.  I believed strongly that breastfeeding needed to become more visible; and it would only become the cultural norm when breastfeeding women come out of the closet, or in this case, the bedroom.

Now, several years and two breastfed children later, I realize how partial my understanding of breastfeeding was, and how intellectualized.  My first epiphany was that nursing does not always happen easily and that accurate information and adequate support are crucial.  In my case, it took a supportive family, a dedicated and knowledgeable certified lactation consultant, and my own determination and tenacity to weary through those first grueling weeks.  I had been prepared for the temporary possibility of sore nipples or engorgement, but nothing had prepared me for a baby who would adamantly reject my breast for almost six, grueling weeks; whose happiness turned to hysteria whenever she faced my nipple head-on.  My initiation into motherhood consisted of a brief but scary bout of newborn dehydration, supplementing my incipient milk supply with a soy-based formula, (causing me to become less dogmatic) and expressing my milk every three hours around the clock with an electric pump. I spent many days in tears, wondering if I would ever be able to nurse her at all. 

For reasons that we still can’t figure out, my daughter finally began to nurse. At first we could accomplish it in only one position and I needed four pillows to do so.  But gradually my daughter and I learned together and we became more confident, carefree and flexible.  I’ll never forget the night that I awoke to discover that she had latched on all by herself and was nursing in her sleep, eyes closed, cheeks gently moving in and out.  Bliss.

The second thing I have learned is that there is no single or correct way to nurse and there is no “right” way to feel about nursing.  Sleeping with my children made the nighttime easier for me, for example, but that doesn’t work for everyone.  Moreover, what works for one baby, does not always work for another.  Nursing my firstborn (after our rocky start) was calming and relaxing for her, regardless of where we were.  But my second was a rather aggressive nurser and could be easily distracted, making nursing in public difficult.   I discovered that sometimes nursing in private really was necessary, political statement be damned!  Today I remain as personally and politically committed to nursing as ever, but my beliefs are tempered with the realization that each woman’s experience is her own.

Perhaps the most important thing I have learned, though, is that breastfeeding is not simply a matter of providing nutritional and immunological benefits to one’s child and it encompasses many things that are difficult, if not impossible, to learn in a “how-to” book.  I had to discover on my own that nursing can really be about how we mother our children.

My daughters nursed not only when they were hungry, but also for comfort.  They nursed when they were hurt, tired, frustrated or cranky.  And they nursed for the pure joy and delight that it gave them to be enveloped by my body, to feel my skin against theirs.  For my first daughter, in particular, nursing was the center from which she gained the security and confidence to explore her world.  It was her pacifier, her anchor, her lifeline.  And although I once vowed to never nurse a child who could ask for it in words, I could find no reason to force her to wean from something that she so dearly loved.  And for the most part, that I did to.  It was only during my second pregnancy, when nursing became too physically painful, that I had to wean her completely. 

After three-plus years of nursing my first child and 2 ½ years into nursing my second, I began to gradually wean her.  It took me about eight months.  I was ready to burn my nursing bras and reclaim my body as my own.  But I love that I was able to provide my children with something that gave them not just optimum nutrition, but supreme satisfaction.  I love that I was able to watch every ounce of tension in their bodies drain away after five sucks at my breast. 

Today they are happy, bright and loving children.  And I enjoy the elementary and middle-school years more than the era of diapers and Raffi.  But when I see a nursling at its mother’s breast, I realize there are times when I still miss nursing.   I miss the humor that often accompanies a nursing toddler, the way my children once enjoyed a snack of cookies and milk, the mantras they would chant in honor of my breasts. 

But the intimacy we shared, that basic, primal connection that turned into a love affair unlike any other, still endures.  They may not suckle at my breast any more, but when they snuggle next to me, shower me with kisses, or insist on falling asleep in my bed, I realize that they are not fully weaned.  Nor am I from them.  And if we’re lucky, the weaning process will continue for years yet, just as I, now in my 40s, feel that connection with my mother, despite never having received her milk, and despite living hundreds of miles away from each other today.

My experiences have taught me many things, all of which have strengthened my resolve to work toward creating a culture in which breastfeeding is the norm.  At the same time, I realize that each woman must feed her children based on the unique circumstances of her life.  Not every woman will embrace nursing.  But all women deserve the right to nurse, if they so desire.  As a La Leche Leader in New Zealand once said, “Breastfeeding can’t empower women until women are empowered to breastfeed.

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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.