dairy farm / breastfeeding: call this easy?

the article below reminded me of the hardships i went thru to keep up in my commitment to breastfeed iñigo. well, it paid off as i was able to give him my milk for two and a half years but i really never thought i'd go that far during our first and most difficult month.

thank God it's a breeze this time with theo and i am proud to say that i have lots of milk! woohoo! i just don't pump often as am afraid mine will get engorged, which might bring me troubles later on. but it is evident with my already-tabachingching theo that he has an abundant supply of milk.

so this is what they call a "dairy farm", eh?

i am just happy. :D

theo already gained two pounds three weeks after he was delivered :)

Call This Easy?

Breast is best, mothers-to-be are told at antenatal classes. But are they
warned about how painful and difficult breastfeeding can be?

by Lucy Atkins



When I was pregnant for the first time a ''breastfeeding counsellor'' came
to our antenatal class to tell us that ''breast is best''. Given that a
friend had just told me breastfeeding was more agonising than giving birth,
I felt compelled to ask: ''Will it hurt?'' ''Of course not,'' laughed the
counsellor. ''It's what your boobs are designed for.'' She admitted there
might be a little ''discomfort'' if the baby did not ''latch on''. But, she
added, ''Many women even find it erotic.''

According to the UK's Department of Health statistics, most new mothers do
not agree. Despite concerted efforts at promotion, only one in five mothers
are still breastfeeding at all after six months. The''breastfeeding only''
rates are even worse – only 35 percent of babies are still breastfed from
weekone, 21 percent from week six, and at five months, it's only three
percent.

According to Robert Finch of the Department of Health's Infant Feeding
Initiative, ''Of those who give up in the first week, only one percent do so
because they have breastfed for as long as they wanted.''

Although over eight in ten mothers said they were aware of the health
benefits of breastfeeding, three-quarters of all mothers
had given their baby milk other than breast milk by the age of six weeks,
this proportion rising to 92 percent by six months. So why do we stop? Most
of us probably know that breastfeeding is good for babies: studies have
shown that a breastfed baby is likely to be brighter, healthier and less
prone to allergies than a formula-fed one.

Women are less likely to get breast, ovarian and cervical cancers if they
breastfeed and can (we are told) lose the pregnancy flab quicker that way.
And if the thought of a stomach like Madonna's won't persuade us all to whip
out our boobs, the message that breastfeeding is convenient and ''easy''
(nothing to sterilise, buy or remember) surely should.

But it is not that simple. ''There are,'' says Finch, ''wide and varied
reasons why women stop breastfeeding.'' One that will ring a bell for many
new mothers is that breastfeeding is not always as easy as it looks.

''It may be natural,'' says Finch, ''but it's not instinctive.'' This seems
to go against the antenatal message. Listen to any group of new mothers, and
some will be saying how breastfeeding was not the idyll they had expected.
We are, it seems, simply not prepared – psychologically as much as
physically – for the difficulties that can arise when we try to do the
''natural'' thing.

This was certainly my experience. I was told by midwives that on day three
postpartum my boobs would swell to the size of watermelons and start gushing
real milk instead of the gloopy colostrum that feeds the baby in its first
few days. They showed me various positions. They gave me a breast pump. I
waited with a growing sense of hysteria and inadequacy for the engorgement
to happen. It never did. This did not mean that I could not breastfeed. It
just caused unnecessary angst.

Most of us learn something of the physiology of breastfeeding before we give
birth. It goes roughly like this: when the baby is born, a hormone,
prolactin, tells the cells in the breasts to start making milk; the baby's
sucking then sends messages to the pituitary gland in the brain, which
triggers the release of another hormone, oxytocin, which in turn makes the
muscular walls of the milk-producing cells contract; this ejects the milk
down the duct and out through the nipple. It is what they call ''supply and
demand''.

But it does not always work so smoothly. My friend Rachel gave birth to
twins. Like me, she was reassured that her milk would ''come in'' (they said
on day five). It didn't. ''I was distraught,'' she says. ''I spent several
days in hospital with hungry and upset babies.'' When her milk supply still
hadn't come in a few days later (like mine, it took a fortnight to become
properly established), she had to start ''supplementary feeding'': that is,
to breastfeed, then give her twins formula. ''I was absolutely devastated,''
she says. ''I felt like a bad mother. I felt like I was feeding them junk. I
cried for a week.''

This may sound extreme, but according to Eleanor Jackson, a breastfeeding
counsellor, it is incredibly common: ''So many women feel like failures when
breastfeeding goes wrong, and so often it's just a matter of confidence.
Breastfeeding,'' she stresses, ''is a learned art.''

Government statistics bear this out. The chief reason we give up (48 percent
of us) in those early months is ''insufficient milk supply''. We either
believe or are told that our breasts are failing to produce enough milk. In
reality, says Jackson, it is extremely rare for women to be physiologically
unable to breastfeed (reasons for this may include breast reduction surgery
that has damaged the glands or a retained placenta in the first week or so
after birth).

The problem is that breasts do not always look or feel like they are
producing milk, and breastfed babies can guzzle frequently and voraciously.
This can be alarming if you were expecting to gush milk and have a baby that
takes efficient four-hourly feeds. Breastfed babies do not always gain
weight in the same way as bottlefed babies, either. According to Jackson,
''There is a huge ‘normal' weight range for breastfed babies.'' The health
visitor's growth chart, then, can be worrying reading for a breastfeeding
mother. When – as happened to me – a health visitor informs you that your
baby has not gained enough weight and that you should ''top up'' with a
bottle after each feed, it is easy to panic. My health visitor did not
discuss my diet, my rest or how often I was feeding my three-month-old baby.
Nor did she suggest places I could go for support. Instead, I was sent to
the chemist, feeling I had failed when, with support, I could have taken
measures to increase my milk supply.

OK, so there are worse things in life than feeding your baby from a bottle.
But if you are expecting your body to do it all automatically then setbacks
can be profoundly undermining. ''I asked the midwife in my antenatal group
whether I'd have enough milk for two,'' says Rachel. ''She told me,
‘Nature's a marvellous thing – of course you will.''' It was after the
problems set in that a health visitor admitted to Rachel that: ''In all her
time she'd only met one person with twins who'd been able to breastfeed
exclusively. And she had two nannies.''

Of course, childbirth educators and health professionals do not want to put
us off. But surely it would help if we were told beforehand that our breasts
might not do what is expected of them; that it is common for boobs to ache,
or block up, or get engorged, or nipples to crack; that our babies may not
gain weight exactly as the chart says; and that in the first six weeks they
may feed up to 12 times in 24 hours. To present us instead with a picture of
erotic mother-infant bliss is, surely, setting us up for a fall?

Wherever our expectations come from, it is clear that the support is not
always there afterwards. Another friend of mine, Tracy, experienced severe,
burning pain each time she fed her newborn. She was told by midwives, health
visitors, breastfeeding counsellors and her GP that nothing was wrong.
''You're just the kind of person who wants things to be perfect,'' said one
breastfeeding counsellor. Two months later, Tracy was diagnosed with thrush
in her nipples. It cleared up with some cream, and she had no problems from
then on.

So yes, of course we need to be encouraged; and yes, we need to be told how
valuable breastfeeding is. But we also need to know – in advance – how
''normal'' problems are. Antenatal realism might not solve the whole
breastfeeding issue – it is too complicated for that. But it might help
countless women feel better about themselves, whether they choose to
continue or not. And that cannot be a bad thing, can it?