was overwhelmed by the response I
received and moved by the number
of women who wanted to share their
experiences with me. But there was
also something quite disturbing
that came to light. The first batch
of responses on the forum were
mainly from mothers who were able
to breastfeed successfully, despite
some initial difficulties in most cases,
and many of them were vehemently
outspoken against formula. Then I
asked to hear from those who had not
found it so easy, and was saddened
by the fact that many of these women
had not wanted to share their stories
publicly. They emailed me privately,
asking for their names to be changed,
afraid of being vilified for the choices
that they had made.
Many women used the word
“
failure” to describe their inability
to breastfeed, while most said
they felt “horrible” or “ashamed”.
One mother went into such a deep
depression that she was physically
incapable of feeding her son. Jane
described her feelings of frustration:
“
It is hard enough to have to make
the switch due to dire circumstances;
as a mother you already feel horrible
about it and as if you have ‘failed’.
Reading article after article that fail
to acknowledge that, sometimes,
it just doesn’t work, makes things
even worse. I read loads of sites
and articles implying that if I
had just ‘tried a little harder’ or
‘
waited a little longer’, things
would have been fine … I now
know that I would have had
a more severely underweight
child (with all of the
accompanying issues)
if I had not switched
to prescription,
hypoallergenic
formula when I did.
I only made it to six
weeks, and I had
another painful
six months of
‘
justifying’ why I
didn’t breastfeed
to so many
mothers. I regret
that the guilt, the
explanations, the
justifications, the
people who said
hurtful things, darken my memories
of my son’s infancy even to this day.”
Obstacles to overcome
The many critics of today’s breastfeeding
policies, which recommend exclusive
breastfeeding for six months, followed
by breast milk and
solids until
two years
of age, cite a 2006 Scottish study. The
study, investigating both the feeding
practices and views on breastfeeding
education within families, found that
many parents made the decision to
change to formula or introduce solids
when breastfeeding had a negative
impact on their daily lives. The
immediate well-being of
the family, particularly
when there were
other children to
worry about,
was of greater
concern than
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