Question of the Day – Do you judge women who don’t breastfeed their newborn babies?
28 thoughts on “Question of the Day – Breastfeeding”
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Apt. 11d 
Nope, I was one of them. I tried with my first and got tons of guilt-trips from nurses and La Leche, but no actual help – a situation guaranteed to piss me off. I had inverted nipples and he had (it turns out) serious oral-motor problems. I did breastfeed my second, and I’d do it again if I had a third, but honestly, I hated it. It HURT – my whole body hurt for three months. I hated being a slave to my appetite. I couldn’t go back to work. I lost weight much slower and was so bleeding tired.
So when women opt to skip it, I don’t judge. But the new information on bisphenol scares me.
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I’m not a big fan of judging anyone in life.
That said, when I encounter a woman who doesn’t even give breastfeeding a try, I do think to myself, “Well it wouldn’t hurt anything to at least try.” I’m not sure many women understand not just the health advantages for the kid but also the advantages for the mom. (Weight loss, better sleep for everyone.) And then there’s the cost of formula; what is it by now, $150 a month maybe, for formula for a normal newborn?
I also have a tendency to question the supportiveness of the husband of any woman who does not even try breastfeeding. My experience has been that the husband’s lack of support (which usually comes out as “breastfeeding is icky”) has led to many women not even trying.
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I looked up bisphenol. Ugh. Let’s not forget that it affects not only formula-feeders, but also families feeding expressed breast-milk via bottle.
I remember having judgy moments as a breast-feeding mom, but then again, I don’t hold anyone (including myself) completely responsible for behavior while pregnant or breastfeeding.
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No, but I do judge women who don’t try. I gave up on breastfeeding my first (too quickly, but after a lot of things went badly). But, I tried again with my second. I had all the same problems but decided to persevere, and I am so pleased that I managed. The nursing relationship was wonderful. I also got the weight benefits; it stopped hurting after 3 months (though it did take 3 months to stop hurting); we didn’t have to buy formula, and we got another side benefit out of that — we noticed that we’d always buy other stuff when we went to the superstore to buy formula, so not using formula cut down on that, too. We didn’t have to take bottles on vacations, and our diaper bags were much smaller.
Now, what does it mean to “judge”? I judge other people about lots of things (since we’re presumably trying to get some controversy going here, for example, I disapprove of changing one’s name on marriage and on homeschooling, and on lots of other choices I wouldn’t make). But, what are the consequences of that judgment? I hope none, because I’m also tolerant of other people’s choices. I guess my judgment would go towards helping people make the choices I prefer, but basically seeing it as none of my business if they choose differently.
This does separate this level of “judging” from other judgments (i.e ones I think are unacceptable, like smoking crack while pregnant and one’s that I think are perfectly acceptable like piercing your child’s ears when they are born).
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After a rough start (with a number of fruitless visits to the lactational consultant), we went to bottle-feeding expressed-milk one year for each child. I had a lot of help from my husband to do that, but of course there were many occasions when the baby was yelling in his/her crib while I finished up a bottle. I think it’s a huge mistake to push breast-feeding too hard, especially when I remember how I was seeing stars and hating the baby up until that blessed day when we brought home the hospital-grade pump. If we have more kids, I’ll certainly give breastfeeding another try, but not to the point that it causes suffering or great inconvenience to either me, the baby, or the rest of the family.
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I try not to, especially since I haven’t had a baby myself. What about all the women who can’t breastfeed? I guess they’re excepted from the question, though. The only tiny bit of judgment I have is that breastfeeding saves money on formula and bottles, and I tend to scratch my head anytime people make decisions that seem not to be in their financial interest. But again, I haven’t experienced the situation, so the formula and bottles may be worth every penny, or even financially advantageous if not breastfeeding means an earlier return to work.
Another situation where I tend to be a tad judgmental is when women don’t breastfeed because they have breast implants. Even though I know it’s the culture, etc., I am kind of disappointed in women with healthy breasts (i.e., women who have not had mastectomies) who get them enhanced with implants. That disappointment extends to when they take the implants into consideration in the decision of whether or not to breastfeed.
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I think it’s important for those of us who struggled to bf to tell our stories. For my first, I honestly thought it would be trivial (i.e. women have been doing it for thousands++ of years, how hard can it be?). And it was hard, and most of all I hated the pump — spending time with the pump instead of my baby seemed like a perversion of everything that was right about bf’ing (since I believe the health benefits of the substance itself are small (though significant.
It worked for me with my second, because I decided I’d persevere through anything for the first 3 months. And, at that point, the whole system was working.
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Jen said: “I’m not sure many women understand not just the health advantages for the kid but also the advantages for the mom. (Weight loss, better sleep for everyone.)”
What’s funny is that I don’t even buy the above and yet I still judge (never out loud, though). I never lost an ounce of weight due to breastfeeding, I never had lactation amenorrhea, and the first 7 months of my son’s life were a nightmare of sleep deprivation. Not to mention the period when my daughter was 14-20 months old and had started day care and was constantly sick with ear infections, and my son having peanut/nut/dust mite/animal allergies and being asthmatic despite a year of breastfeeding. Yeah, I’m not bitter at all! 😉
I go with what bj said: it’s important to be honest and not raise expectations and to have the support of the partner. Nursing my daughter hurt like hell for a good 6 weeks; nursing my son was better–it took about a week and a half before it got easy. But after that, it was cake. And it was great to come home after a day of work and just have that quiet time, me and my daughter (because everyone took off once I pulled out the breast ;). I was SAH with my son, and I tired of BF a little more quickly with him.
I think we all judge others constantly about their decisions, and we generally keep it to ourselves. It’s really human nature.
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Oh my gah! All of these non-judgers. Is it okay if I say that I don’t quite believe that these people go around being totally accepting of everyone’s personal choices? I absolutely judge, but I would never in a million years say anything because there are plenty of good reasons that a woman is not breastfeeding her infant. Plus, I’m not an activist.
Also, I would like to be signed up a list where I am not constantly subjected to the Truth about Everything. If there’s anything that I truly hate about the Internet it’s this desire people have to publish their truth. People- you are human. Chances are your experience (particularly as it pertains to the human body) is not unique. It shocks me how many people do not learn this by the time they’re 30.
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Nursing my three has been absolutely central to my mothering experiences, and has set the tone and served as a metaphor and touchstone for the ways I’ve mothered them as they’ve grown. After an extremely rough start with my first (massive engorgement, fussy latcher), nursing has turned out to be one of the sweetest experiences of motherhood for me. I would be devastated if for some reason I was prevented from breastfeeding future babies.
All that said, the only thing that really bugs me is when (some, certainly not all) formula-feeders vocally perpetuate self-deceptive, self-justifying myths that really harm a healthy collective culture of breastfeeding. (For example, the kind of thing that could lead commenter Clancy above to refer to “all the mothers who can’t breastfeed.” In fact, as a proportion of all mothers of infants, that’s a very small group.) For those who recognize that breastfeeding (or supplying breastmilk in other ways) represents a massive maternal investment in the child, and simply say “I’m not willing to make that investment” for whatever reason—peace, sister.
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I preface my comment with my quick story so you understand my passion. I have two kids. The first I breastfed exclusively for a year, went back to work when she was 6 weeks old, pumped with a hand pump at work in the cigarette storage unit in the back. My second I was able to stay home; breastfed exclusively until she was one, continued breastfeeding until she was almost three. I am currently a breastfeeding counselor.
I have to admit that I do judge, to a point, women who chose not to breastfeed though I would never say anything to them. The health benefits are amazing to both mother and baby, which was mentioned above. It seems slightly selfish to me to plunk a bottle of formula into a baby’s mouth from it’s first feeding and calling it good. Breasts are for breastfeeding, not for looks or pleasure though both of those things are added benefits. Why not at least try? Yes it can be hard, yes it can hurt but if you’ve just gone to the trouble of bringing a baby into the world you’ve done this with the knowledge that for the next 18+ years you are on this earth to raise this child to be a responsible, loving, self-sufficient adult. Why not start that off on a positive footing by breastfeeding? Why is ours a culture that isn’t supportive of the most natural act in the world?
And by the way; only around 3% of women physically can’t breastfeed. What are the other 97% of women doing?
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Teresa, I think your second-to-last question is the one we should be asking, about why and how our culture is so unsupportive of breastfeeding. A lot of women who don’t breastfeed do so for societal reasons– not everyone has a job where they can pump during the day, for example, and not everyone has a supportive partner they can rely on for help. Not being able to breastfeed is not just about nipple formation or medications like lithium– there are so many factors that come into play that women are unable to control.
I breastfed my twins, and while I’m glad I did it, it was a really difficult, painful experience for me, and that colors the memories I have of it. That’s one of the many reasons I don’t judge mothers who don’t breastfeed.
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Sorry, Teresa, but when a breastfeeding counselor tells me only 3% of women can’t breastfeed, I simply don’t buy it. I am too burned by the breastfeeding zealots I’ve encountered.
We all have our breastfeeding nightmare stories. What I find shocking is the volume. It’s one thing to say, “I had a friend who had a friend who bought a toy with lead paint.” It’s another completely to say, as I can, “I have three close friends who got such bad advice/pressure from lactation consultants that either their mental health or the health of their baby was compromised.”
I actually believe La Leche is to the point where, somewhat like PETA, its vehemence turns more people off than it helps. As many have noted, you can’t paint breastfeeding as an all-roses thing. And it helps absolutely no one to essentially tell a woman that, although she believes she could not physically nurse, really she just wasn’t trying hard enough. Only 3% *really* can’t nurse.
(FWIW, breastfeeding was a very big deal for me. I nursed both my kids for a year and it was extremely, extremely fulfilling for me. But you know what? I’m not everyone.)
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As much as I hate to admit it, I do. Mainly those who don’t give it a good try! A friend who just had a baby and said she was going to BF – then when she got home from the hospital she was FF – claiming it just didn’t work! Well it takes a little longer than 2 days to figure that out! In fact for the first 2 months it’s hard work! It just kinda makes me shake my head!
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Nope. I don’t judge individual parents. As long as the child is fed, hey.
For the record I am still nursing my 28 month old though, and in the first 4 months I had thrush twice, and mastitis, so it’s not that I’m not prepared to do it.
I do kind of judge the US (country of my birth and where my sister lives) on their maternity leave policies though. One of the things that makes breastfeeding “worth it” in Canada is that many women (those who can afford to live on 55% of their salary up to a cap of about $1600/mo, who are not self-employed) take either the 15 week maternity leave or 50 week maternity + parental leave.
So it makes struggling through the first hellish 3 months worth it as you have a stretch of time afterwards to both reap the benefits and move to solids/weaning and you don’t have to go to pumping necessarily, which is much, much more complicated than just breastfeeding as well as requiring expensive equipment – pump, storage stuff, bottles, etc.
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i absolutely don’t judge women who don’t breastfeed. why not? because i feel like i was fed a big lie by la leche league & all the pro-breast feeding people, which is: it’s the most natural thing in the world. what isn’t included, and is a lie by omission is (a) how hard it is, and (b) how much work it is. i understand that some women are able to BF easily and find it wonderfully rewarding and not hard work at all.
my “truth”, (sorry Catie, scroll if you don’t want to hear it) – i started out bf’ing my son, he had a shortened frenulum and difficulty latching (i found out later) and, for whatever reason, by the time he was 8 weeks old i was not producing enough milk for him to grow, even though we were spending hours and hours and hours AND HOURS per day nursing.
and there was all this crap about how i was supposed to just go to bed naked with him for three days and do nothing but nurse in order to jump start my milk supply. um. excuse me? who was supposed to feed me while i did this? who would change his diapers? what world do other people live in, where they have the luxury of dropping out of life for three days and be catered to by someone else? (my husband was working 70 hour weeks at the time; i was essentially a single parent).
so, on orders of the pediatrician, we started supplementing with formula at 8 weeks. continued with a mix of BF’ing and supplementation until he self-weaned at 5 months. do i have any regrets? no.
i just wish i had had a more realistic expectation of what BF’ing entailed.
and yeah, i have a little anger around that. not about what happened, but about the message that i get from the BF’ing advocacy community.
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I have opinions about people who don’t try. Especially since people who don’t try tend to have strong and erroneous opinions about breastfeeding and the people who *do* try.
I keep my opinions to myself, for the most part.
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I want to be a bit more anonymous here than I usually am…
Women who don’t breastfeed because “I like my breasts the way they are” — yes, I’m judgemental, and not in a good way.
Women who don’t breastfeed because it squicks them out (and I know at least 3 women who said some version of that) — uhhhhh I’m confused there, but inclined to be a bit sneery.
Women who give up after 48 hours because “it just isn’t comfortable” — eh — maybe not such good prenatal education.
I have to say, the first week of breastfeeding was exceedingly uncomfortable at least x out of the y feedings. Not thrush or mastitis — just really strong sensations in the breast. Then things just sort of clicked, and my child was BF exclusively for over 9 months (baaaad allergies on both sides of the family).
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Here are a couple quotes from Vicki Iovine’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood:
“I just read an article in a mothering book that contained this line: “It’s not supposed to hurt to breastfeed.” Well, it may not be supposed to hurt, but, Girlfriend, that first month can hurt so badly that you see stars and break out in a sweat whenever your baby looks at you hungrily. I recently went to lunch with eight of my mommy Girlfriends…The single most shocking and guilt-lifting bit of truth shared by nearly all the mothers was that we hoarded our prescription pain medication, no matter how badly our “privates” ached, and saved them up for the critical half-hour before it was time to nurse.”
“My Girlfriend Lori said that even with her third baby, she would sit in her bed and start weeping silently when she heard the little darling start to stir and awaken in her bassinet.”
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I’ve been a La Leche League leader for over 4 years (btw, y’all know LLL leaders are volunteers, yes? and the type of help we can provide is pretty limited because we’re not medical professionals). I’ve worked with mothers who experienced severe problems, had no medical support, little (or no) support from family. Sometimes they aren’t able to continue, sometimes they beat the odds. I’ve seen enough to realize that successfully breastfeeding a baby requires more than shear force of will.
I tell the moms who call me, often crying because they are in pain and/or are scared, the ones who begin to cry as they tell me that they’re calling me as a last ditch effort after 6 weeks of exclusively pumping for a baby who has never latched on properly and is still not gaining properly: “You are the best mother you can be right now, under these circumstances. Nobody can ask for more.”
Do I judge a woman who doesn’t nurse her newborn? Absolutely not. I don’t know what her situation is. I don’t know her health history (PCOS? preeclampsia? baby has jaundice?) I don’t know what her previous experiences might be. I don’t know what information and support she’s had.
ps Trishka, I’m sorry you had such a bad experience. I just worked with a mother whose son has a tight frenulum. Although the lactation specialist at the hospital noticed it immediately, the pediatrician didn’t feel it warranted treatment and did nothing. Checking the structure of the baby’s mouth is not part of the standard newborn or well-baby exams. In this case, the mother didn’t contact me until her son was about a month and a half old, by which point her milk supply was decreasing, her son was not gaining properly and she’d been enduring tremendous pain for over 6 weeks. Does this make me angry? Yes. I consider her pediatrician’s action to be, at best, medical negligence. Why is it that this woman had to rely on a random volunteer when her child’s health was at risk? Where was the medical community?
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Hey, Laura, why do you ask? It seems like something of an out-of-left-field question given the ages of the kids in your family.
I used to have strong opinions about people who wouldn’t even try to breastfeed, and I still think the lower rates of breastfeeding in this country tell us a lot about how women are perceived by society and about how they’re supported by their employers, families, and government, but mostly I find that, as the mother of almost-seven year olds, I really don’t have the time or patience to give a crap anymore. I nursed until my kids were 3.5 years old, and it was one of the best parts of mothering in the first years, but really, who has time to worry about other people’s choices? I’ve barely got a handle on how to judge my own.
I do think the number of women who call for help in complete despair, who spend days worrying about whether their child is getting enough to eat, who are filled with panic whenever they hear their baby cry in hunger in those first weeks and long for the packet of formula — I think those women are telling us a LOT about how absolutely crappy it is to be a new parent in this society. New motherhood and social isolation are NOT a good mix. No matter how you feed your child.
I didn’t have any real pain to speak of when establishing breastfeeding, so I can’t speak to that, but when it’s a huge, enormous struggle, I do find myself thinking — what has happened to our support network, that some women have excellent support (paid and unpaid) and relatively smooth beginnings, and other women endure nightmares? Something’s seriously wrong with that.
But judge the women themselves? Again — my kids are almost seven. This just isn’t my battle anymore. Not by a long shot.
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I threw the question out, because I was curious. I haven’t been weighing in, because I didn’t want to sway the answers one way or another.
It came up, because my neighbor isn’t breastfeeding her kid, because she thinks it’s icky. Some judgy thoughts entered my head. But then I felt guilty for judging her, because mothers are under enormous pressure to be perfect and I don’t want to be another voice in the tut-tutting choir. Where’s that neurotic blogger prize?
Yeah, we’re past all that early mom stuff. I think our battles aren’t about about breastfeeding in particular, but about all the pain, isolation, and guilt that mothers face even as their kids get older.
I am the mom that forgot my kid’s School Visitation Day last week. And my kid had to tell me that I’m the ONLY mom who has EVER forgotten to see her kid in school.
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Laura, if it makes you feel better, I forgot to pick up my daughter after school yesterday. I fell asleep and woke to the phone ringing (the school).
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Honestly? Yes, I do judge. 😦 If a mom can’t breastfeed because of a physical problem, that’s one thing. But it’s rare. In my experience I know far, far many more women who didn’t try bfing (or only did it a few weeks) because it was icky, inconvenient, time consuming, or (I love this one) unnatural.(?))
Granted, if a see a woman out in public, particularly with a newborn, I have no way of knowing if it’s formula or pumped breastmilk. I don’t think I judge strangers as much as I judge people I know personally.
Someone asked why moms wouldn’t breastfeed if it’s a financially good move. I would guess most professional moms will be going back to work and are more worried about getting sleep and making sure their baby takes the bottle. Those on the lower of the payscale (or SAHM from low income households) qualify for WIC. WIC pays for all your formula until your baby is 1 year old. Why bother, kwim?
A whole ‘nother post could be devoted to encouraging low income moms to breastfeed. These babies need all the nutritional boosts they can get and bfing can really help the bonding and attachment between mother and child. It can also build some foundational parenting skills.
I’ve recently had some major changes in my life (things I said would *never* happen) 🙂 so my judgment isn’t quite as bad as it used to be. I like to hear other people’s experiences as it keeps me from climbing on my soapbox.
Heather
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Breastfeeding is the only part of parenting that can’t be done by men. But it is very labour intensive and, in my experience (as a father of 3) while the infant was being breastfed the entire pace of my relationship with the kid was dictated by the breastfeeding schedule. EG, I couldn’t be left alone with the infant for long periods, and couldn’t make my own judgments about what they needed, independently of whether it would fit with my wife’s breastfeeding needs. I didn’t resent it and was fully committed to being a full parent to them even when young (and my wife was fully committed to me being that too). But it was a major barrier to me being abn equal parent in the early months of their lives. The upside of not breastfeeding is that it removes that barrier.
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It’s possible to combine bf-ing with formula. That’s what we did. My husband took one late shift with formula from the very beginning. He had some bonding time and I had a small break. We slowly increased the formula bottle and phased out the bf-ing by 6 or 7 months. That one bottle didn’t completely equalize our responsibilities, but it put a little more on his lap.
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BF was a huge trial for us (well, for my wife), and in the first two kids we thought (rightly or wrongly) that formula would put an end to it. I suspect we were wrong, but that’s what all the BF people said. Its not the bonding, exactly, that I think is at issue, but the power to structure the time you spend with the kid — autonomy, if you like, without someone else’s needs dictating the key interactions, including the time. Many men are disinclined to, and many more intimidated by, spending a good deal of time caring for an infant, and I suspect that the lack of control that goes with not being able to feed the child in a way that seems to respond to its needs undermines the will a bit. AS I say, it didn’t undermine mine, but if we are interested in getting men to take up more of the burden of, and get more of the pleasure of, childrearing, these early experiences matter, and BF is often a barrier on top of all the others.
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Not at all. Sometimes I even lie and claim I didn’t when the intolerable lactivists try and drag down a social even with their sanctimony.
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