Why
Women Find Breastfeeding Empowering
by
Barbara L. Behrmann, Ph.D.
© 2006
Despite all the
birth stories I had read during my
pregnancy, I knew little about breastfeeding.
So nothing had prepared me for a baby who
refused to latch on to my breast for almost six
grueling weeks; an otherwise happy baby who
would scream with terror whenever she faced my
nipple head-on. Although I was
ultimately able to nurse my daughter, I can
honestly say that getting her to nurse was
probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
My experience was
not unique. Many women experience similar
hurdles and breastfeeding rates in the U.S.
plummet throughout the first few months. It’s
typically not because women don’t want to
nurse, though. It’s because they lack
information, support, hands-on assistance and
role models; it’s because giving birth in
hospitals often subjects women to many
interventions that have been proven to interfere
with breastfeeding; it’s because our culture
teaches women that their bodies are somehow
inadequate; and it’s because despite formula
companies’ declarations that “breast is best”
they continue to engage in aggressive marketing
tactics that fly in the face of internationally
established ethical standards. I could go on.
But millions of
women do overcome these social and cultural
hurdles. Maybe this is why many women who have
nursed successfully express a determination and
fierceness that would not likely be seen in
other cultures or periods of history. If we
mothered in a true breastfeeding culture,
women would not defiantly express commitment to
nurse; they would simply do it.
Lori is a perfect
example. “If I had not been absolutely
determined to breastfeed,” she reflects, “I
don’t know that I would have been able to
succeed….The nurses would say, ‘It’s not going
to hurt him to have a little water out of a
nipple,’ and I would reply, “Well, my
understanding is that it could be harmful
and that it could set back my chances of
success, so I don’t want you to do that.”
In order to
successfully develop and maintain a nursing
relationship, many women, like Lori, learn to
speak up to health care providers, challenge
hospital protocols, and become less susceptible
to the unsolicited advice and opinions of
others. This is true whether it involves having
babies in bed with them; nursing in public;
letting children decide when they are
ready to wean, or numerous other parenting
decisions. In the process, women often become
more comfortable questioning, confronting, and
often resisting what may be thought of as
“conventional wisdom.”
This doesn’t
happen all at once, of course. Experience
counts for a lot. Dee, for example, 19 when she
first became a mother, had a birth with many
interventions and breastfeeding didn’t go well.
Without any support or information, she quickly
switched to formula. “I had no magnitude of
what I was deciding and how it would affect me
later,” she explains. Two years later she
became pregnant again. She read voraciously and
was “determined” to nurse. As she recovered
from a C-section, Dee endured mastitis, thrush
and other challenges, but ignored the cases of
formula being sent to her house. She
persevered. When we spoke, her daughter was 19
months old and nursing was wonderful. “Even
though I haven’t yet gotten the birth I’ve
wanted,” Dee explains, “breastfeeding has made
me feel more like a woman, like my body is doing
what it was meant to do.”
Building Self-Esteem and Confidence
Not surprisingly,
nursing mothers often talk about how empowering
breastfeeding is. They emphasize how healthy
their babies are and the awe they feel from
watching their babies become chubby from their
own milk. What can be more empowering, at the
most basic level, than to be able to produce
food from one’s own body? Indeed, studies of
low income women reveal that nursing
successfully helped them gain confidence and
social validation. “Breastfeeding has made me
feel good about myself,” said the mother of six
who nursed her last two children. “ I had low
self-esteem and it’s made me feel real proud
that I’m able to help my child because I’m
giving him the best thing.” When we spoke, she
had recently become a WIC breastfeeding peer
counselor to help other women like herself.
Reclaiming Our
Bodies
The self-esteem
and confidence women acquire helps them gain new
appreciation and respect for their bodies and
breasts. Julie, for example, who became
pregnant two months shy of her high school
graduation, struggled with a decade’s worth of
body and self-esteem issues. “Through
breastfeeding,” she writes, I reject what
society has told me my body parts are for, where
my value as a woman lies, and what exactly I am
capable of. I can sustain the life of another
human being so that he flourishes and I can do
so without the help of corporations, machines or
imitations of myself.”
Breastfeeding can
help carry women from a place of self-loathing
to a place of self-acceptance, even self-love.
In a culture that tries to disconnect and
distance us from our bodies - we shave,
deodorize, hide, change, and fix them -
breastfeeding enables us to “take back our
breasts,” as anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler
declares.
Women who have
battled infertility or had difficult pregnancies
also may find breastfeeding empowering. Laura
had a history of endometriosis, laser surgery,
infertility work-ups and delivered her
first-born via C-section. She viewed the
biological rhythms of being female as problems
to overcome. Now a mother of four, this former
rower, runner and martial arts practitioner,
found breastfeeding to be the most empowering
experience in her adult life. “It has given me
faith in the strength and capability of my body
and I discovered how strong and capable I truly
am,” she reflects.
Empowerment also
stems, I think, from the fact that breastfeeding
involves challenging cultural perceptions of
what “normal” is. One woman’s favorite memory
of nursing, for example, involves meeting a
friend at a bagel shop, where they sat in the
back nursing their daughters. She described
this as “cool.” What is significant is not
that she felt comfortable nursing in public,
(albeit in the back) but that she felt moved to
mention it at all. We wouldn’t marvel at how
wonderful it felt to share a muffin with a
friend, or walk our babies together. But
nursing in public somehow falls outside the
boundaries of people’s perceptions of “normal”
or accepted behavior.
From Empowerment
to Normalcy
Not all women, of
course, find breastfeeding to be healing,
empowering, or transformative. Indeed, aspects
of it can be tedious, trying, and tiring. It
can also feel boring, relentless, and assault
our prior sense of autonomy and independence.
But in our bottle-feeding culture, nursing
successfully is cause for pride, empowerment,
and celebration. And when women do experience
this, the impact can be profound, often
inspiring women to help others have similar
experiences.
Despite its
transformative potential, however,
“breastfeeding can’t empower women until women
are empowered to breastfeed,” asserts Rosemary
Gordon, a La Leche League leader in New
Zealand.” Hopefully this day will come. Only
then can we move beyond the notion of
empowerment to one of normalcy, when our ability
to nurse successfully is as noteworthy as two
women sharing a muffin in a coffee shop.
Back to Barbara's
Articles ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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. |
