Ye Olde Breasts
Two bags of tissue
underneath the nipples, that come in various shapes and sizes that often don’t
live up to media-driven expectations and make under- and over-endowed women
feel bad about themselves. Breasts produce milk for babies.
Breastfeeding
So, you’ve somehow made it through the childbirth or
adoption of an infant process. You wish to feed your infant as nature intended,
from your breasts. Sometimes, this works and your breasts produce the right amount
of milk and the baby figures out how to breastfeed, and breastfeeding is convenient for your life situation, and everyone is happy.
More
often than not, the breasts either produce too little (requiring formula – what
an amazing, baby-saving invention) or too much (causing pain and misery for the
mother, and angry babies who can’t understand why they are being water-cannoned
every time they try to nurse). Or the baby can't figure out how to latch. Or gets too frustrated by the start-up patience required.
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| Ok that satisfied face is pretty dang sweet, though. |
Aside from problems like these, blocked ducts are common and can be
extremely painful (the recommended solution is to freaking massage the tender, painful part of your breast), and can lead to
mastitis – a bacterial infection of the boob that causes a woman’s entire body
to ache like she has the flu. Oh right, and for both of these, we are supposed
to keep nursing.
Other problems with breastfeeding include:
a.
Raw nipples. Especially in the beginning before
there is much milk, your infant may want to nurse constantly, and often incorrectly,
causing all sorts of soreness and even cracking and cuts. This is an excellent
way to start an infection, too.
b.
It takes forever. I think I spent about 8 hours
a day nursing my infant son, because he was super freaking slow and would fall asleep and
have to be coerced to wake up and eat more. Thank goodness for time off, a comfy couch, and
good books.
c.
It makes you really thirsty and hungry. I can’t
believe the number of times that I desperately begged my husband to bring me a
cup of water, while trapped nursing for an hour, and he kindly brought it and
then placed it JUST OUT OF REACH. Torture.
d.
It’s messy and awkward at first. Did you know
that the baby has to suck for a while to get the milk to start flowing, and
then it will “let down” and suddenly start coming out in force? Did you know
that it comes out from both boobs at once? Useful if you have twins nursing
together, but otherwise just a great way to soak through your nursing pads and
shirt. The milk still continues to come out when the baby gets distracted and
randomly unlatches, spraying everywhere.
e.
It can be embarrassing. We are generally raised
not to flash our nipples in polite company. Despite the best intentions of
those companies that make breastfeeding covers, I could never get my kids to
nurse under a blanket. Once the baby is on, if they stay on, there’s not a lot
showing, but the initial hoisting-up of the shirt and hoisting down of the
nursing bra cup, etc. can be rather embarrassing. My most awkward encounter was
when Ryder was 6 weeks old and I was at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
reunion party at the American Geophysical Union conference. I retreated to a
quiet corner, got set up to breastfeed, and just then an old male professor
came up and started talking to me. I’m not sure if he was genuinely unaware of
or unbothered by what I was doing, but he just kept talking to me as if it was
totally normal that I was busy whipping out my boob at a work event.
f.
Babies get teeth. Enough said.
g.
Parental imbalance. The existence of and ability
for mothers to breastfeed can create a sort of “well, you are naturally better
at this so why don’t you do everything” attitude. I can’t count the number of
times a crying baby was foisted on me with the words “s/he’s hungry” even if I
was 99.9% certain s/he was not and I just wanted 5 minutes to take a freaking
shower/eat/brush my teeth/stare at the wall alone.
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| This baby totally pretended to take a bottle up until I went back to work. Grr. |
h.
It makes you sleepy. Breastfeeding releases
hormones including oxytocin and prolactin, which can make a woman really tired. Therefore, even
if we were really clever and could type while nursing, for example, we
generally aren’t really 100% up to it because we are flooded with hormones that tell us "Stare at your cute baby! Relax! Take a nap!".
i.
Pumping. Moms who go back to work and want to
continue to breastfeed generally have to use electric (or manual) pumps to
simulate nursing. This alleviates the inevitable pain associated with over-full
breasts at work, allows moms to bottle the milk to leave behind when they are
away, and keeps the breasts producing milk as needed. But it’s time consuming,
messy, and requires a lot of parts that have to be remembered, washed and
stored properly, etc. It's also practically impossible for the milk to be released if you are stressed, such as if you have to pump in an awkward location like the bathroom or you are worried your colleagues might walk in on you.
Fun story: I flew to Hawaii for
work while nursing, and brought all the parts except the dang power cord for my
electric pump. I didn’t have my own rental car and was at the mercy of my male
colleagues, who thought I was really weird for continually and frantically asking
whether we might happen to be driving past an electronics store. Finally, 24
hours in and almost debilitated by pain, I thought to explain: “It’s a medical
problem, and I need to buy a power cord immediately.” “Oh, I thought you just
wanted to charge your phone. Let’s go!”
Another one: I had to pump on the plane from Australia once. There were no outlets in the bathroom, so the stewardess literally suggested, and I had to, pump in my seat with a blanket over me.
I was lucky not to have to pump on fieldwork, but have heard many horror stories.
Also, pumping releases the same
sleepifying hormones as nursing…just exactly what you want flooding your body in the
middle of your work day.
j.
Boobs are great. My babies loved nursing so
much, they refused bottles. Like, “I will starve myself all day and scream for as
long as you try to give me that second-rate crap” kind of refusal. This led to
one of my favorite stories:
Jessica: “Ryder
will only take milk from me, so I'd like permission to work from home.”
Boss: “Why don’t
you have Adam wear your perfume?” (Do you think I wear perfume?)
Jessica: “No, I
mean he doesn’t want milk from a bottle, just from me.”
Boss: “Oh, you
mean he wants the TIT!”
Jessica: * grimace *
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| Luckily she loved and still loves food, so she didn't starve herself at daycare despite not taking bottles (unlike my son). |
k.
Weaning…ugh. I nursed Adelaide way past age two
because she would cry so pathetically when I would tell her she was old enough
and I wanted to stop nursing. Finally, I explained: “Producing milk for you is
hurting my body, and I need to stop.”
Adelaide, contemplating: "Ok, can I have milk in a cup?”
Me: “Yes! Of course!”
Not sure why I didn’t think of that
sooner. The “hurting my body” part was maybe a little extreme – I was actually just
vainly frustrated that my metabolism had gone to shit while nursing, and over
it.
So, men, tell me how your taking leave to go to the park and
the beach and read to your baby, and then jump on the computer and perfect that
Matlab code without the necessity to nurse, pump, take care of f-ed up nipples, sleepiness related to said nursing and pumping, etc. is equivalent?
Stay tuned for the last part of this uber-TMI series: the
other bits!
p.s. if you are interested in learning more about the science behind breastfeeding in mammals - check out Katie Hinde's awesome Mammals Suck...Milk! blog
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