Tryst with the Breastfeeding Nazis

You can never really be prepared for things like this. 3rd day after Chip was born, BigGeek and I were required to take a class about taking care of new babies before they allowed me to go home that afternoon. As I sat on my donut cushion, surveying the windowless hospital room full of tired looking moms and dads not really wanting to sit through an hour of wisdom aimed at the slightly dense – always hold your baby while giving her a bath, lest she slip and drown. Or don’t shake your baby or drop it on its head (really, I am not making this up), don’t drink because you will be breastfeeding (what you can’t feed a good single malt to the baby? There go our plans) and suchlike. The Euro-looking instructor was a registered nurse and a certified lactation consultant and most importantly a mother herself. She dourly introduced herself as such from the head of the conference table and handed us thick folders filled with information. After the presentation, she asked if anybody had any questions. I did. It was regarding breast feeding. “It’s the best for your baby. You should not even think otherwise” she snapped even before I had a chance to ask my question. “I am worried I may not produce enough milk.” I ventured. “Everybody has that worry. But true milk insufficiency is rare. The more you feed, the more your body produces. Don’t formula feed your baby other wise you will never produce enough milk.” She warned me. “But I have a family history.” This is true. My mother had very little milk just like own her mother and both had resorted to using diluted cows milk and milk powder. The instructor was clearly exasperated with me. “In the 50s, 60s and 70s nobody breastfed. Formula was thought to be better. As many studies have shown, you should breastfeed. True milk insufficiency is very rare.” I am from India, you twerp. I felt like yelling. We could not afford formula in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And why could I not be that rare case with true milk insufficiency?

BigGeek sensing that my eyes were welling up, got up, shook hands with the instructor and thanked her. She gave him a sheet. “This is a list of lactation consultants. I think she should see one.” Thus started my battle. The milk, as I had half-expected was insufficient. I nursed every hour, but five times out of ten, Chip would howl, sucking at a breast that would yield no milk. Those were stressful times. I bought a pump and pumped. Still no luck. My mother understood my distress and tried pointing out the brighter side. My brother and I were doing fine without breast milk. She and her brother did fine too. Plus she was truly impressed with the new formulas and the choices that I had (my brother is lactose intolerant and she had to mix arrowroot powder with water to make his milk)

BigGeek sympathized with me, but simply would not understand my torment. What he did not know that the torment was being fuelled everyday by many people and many things. By relatives who were asking me if I had enough milk, friends who wondered why I was buying formula in bulk at four weeks post partum, the nurses at the pediatrician’s office who wanted to know so they could write it down in Chip’s charts. By the celebrity moms who gave rave interviews about the glories of motherhood in general and breastfeeding in particular. And on demand too. Lactation consultants that I met free of charge (my place of work provides them) who were unsympathetic to my milk insufficiency line. I was taking the easy way out, they told me. By doing what, again? Co-workers who confessed their first was still breastfeeding and it was time to wean because they were expecting their second. Moms on my parenting message boards who asked questions about what to do with excess milk- could they donate it? And strangers I met at office parties who told me their secrets to relieve engorged breasts.

And the media. Oh! The media. Every parenting and baby magazine I picked up had at least two articles about the glories of breast feeding. How not breastfeeding was certain to give your baby cancers, hyperacidity, depression, ear infections, diabetes, ADD/ADHD and what ever other ailment du jour they could think of. And of course there were benefits to the mother too. Not breastfeeding meant I was at high risk for breast cancer and other complications I don’t even remember now. Even the cans of formula had a warning label about breastfeeding being best for babies. Always reminded me of the statutory warning on packs of cigarettes. Not Breast feeding was a few inches away from being turned into a crime. There were lactation Gestapo every where I turned.

I took all this to heart. After all the messages came from veteran mothers. They had raised happy, well adjusted, bright and successful kids. They had uncovered the secrets of motherhood and adroitly employed them while raising their kids and were glowing in their resounding success. What did a first time mother like me know? She was still trying to navigate her way. If the vets said breastfeed she would breastfeed. It was a classic case of Pascal’s wager, but of motherhood.

At my six week checkup, I finally confessed it to my (wonderful) ob-gyn. I had told her of my family history while I was pregnant; she had warned me of the breastfeeding nazi and the immense hate I would encounter. She was telling me that she had been formula fed and she went to John Hopkins to study medicine. It’s a trend, she told me off the record. Just like formula feeding had been 3 decades ago. I wasn’t sure of how my mom-in-law would react, I told her. BigGeek told me she had breastfed all her three kids until they turned one. That’s what I was up against. I had read about drugs that would help. She would not recommend them. Formula was fine. Chip was happy, healthy and thriving. Could she still write a prescription, please? I promised to think about it with a calm head, talk it over with BigGeek before filling it in.

So a few weeks before my mom-in-law arrived, I filled the prescription. BigGeek was livid that I was flooding my body unnecessarily with chemicals. What’s wrong with formula? He yelled one night. The drug wasn’t working as expected either. I refused to listen to him or my mother. He threatened to tell his mother. I dared him to call and he did. My mother in law patiently heard the whole story. She agreed that I should stop talking the medication. It was not a big deal that I was unable to breastfeed. Such things happen she said gently. I almost cried with relief. I had heard horror stories from my best friend whose mother in law would not stop cursing her (literally) because she was unable to breastfeed. She told me she had exclusively breast fed for 5-6 months, but the supply had waned and she breast fed only once until the kids turned one. So BigGeek had forgotten to tell me the “once a day” part.

By the time he was about 6 months old, Chip was on formula. 100%. No more mother’s milk. I still felt guilty, but there was nothing more to be done. So when a few days ago, a message was posted on the mommy message boards about lactation issues by a first time mom, I was amazed to see the responses. There were just the usual suspects- milk insufficiency is rare, how she was taking the easy way out, how her child would suffer., how she would regret. No one told her it was alright and formula was good enough. Not one. That it was better to have a happy mother than a distressed one. These days breastfeeding has gone from its original intentions to something much larger. It is politically correct, hip, green, the latest must-do after getting those Jimmy Choo’s and buying the antique spindle cribs. I wrote to this mom, telling her my story. But of course my son is only two. I don’t have a neurosurgeon or a lawyer to prove that formula works just fine.