Confessions of a Breast-Feeding Mom
Ah, mother’s milk. Purity, perfection and the promise of love. Breast-feeding is so natural. But it takes a sense of humor to learn the milky ways.
Imagine going to bed looking less than well-endowed and waking up resembling Loni Anderson. That’s what happened when my milk came in. And this may come as a surprise to some of you, but not all women enjoy having gargantuan breasts.
Whether breasts are small or large, sometimes it seems that newborns don’t like them at all. First feedings can be as awkward as a blind date. Especially for mothers who are unprepared.
Did you know that experts recommend “toughening up” the nipples by rubbing them with a rough cloth a month before childbirth? Or that babies can get ticked off at their moms on the first day of their lives? (They could at least wait till they start talking.)
Dr. Spock said that women who try to encourage nursing by holding infants’ heads or pinching their cheeks together can make babies really angry. I’d be mad too.
They don’t tell couples all they need to know about breast-feeding in childbirth classes. The first time my daughter turned toward me and began sucking vigorously on my nose, I thought, “Oh, no, she has nipple confusion,” something I had overheard mothers talking about in the park, and a term that I believed was an indication that my child would have a less-than-average IQ. I later learned it has nothing to do with intelligence--or lack of it. Nipple confusion is an outdated belief that a nursing newborn who is bottle-fed too soon will start refusing the mother’s nipples.
I was relieved when more experienced moms told me that my infant wasn’t confused--she was rooting. A baby whose cheek is lightly brushed will suck on anything that protrudes nearby; it’s a reflex. But usually when a newborn roots, head turned up and mouth open like a swimmer doing the crawl, the lips are in the general vicinity of the breasts.
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Breasts have always been fodder for jokes, but breast-feeding seems so wholesome, so the teasing caught me by surprise.
Many mornings as my daughter lay nursing softly, sweetly in my arms, my husband would enter the room, lean down to our little girl and ask, “Hitting the milk bar, eh? Nice, isn’t it?” It also wasn’t uncommon for male friends to get in on the act, joking among themselves: “Smart little tyke, I like it too” (wink, wink).
I had a chuckle or two sitting with my breast pump, a funnel on each gland, listening to the click-slosh, click-slosh of the pump and envisioning bovine milk machines.
Expressed milk is sweeter but thinner than cow’s milk. When our daughter was only a month old, we rented a cabin in Big Bear and spent Thanksgiving playing in the snow and feasting with friends. When it was our turn to cook, my husband substituted some of my breast milk for the thick, canned variety called for in pumpkin pie recipes. The pie came out mushy and flat, but everyone had a good laugh.
The best story I ever heard about expressed milk was from a girlfriend who lives in a tiny town in northern Louisiana. We’ll call her Dixie.
Dixie had what they term a difficult pregnancy. For the doctor, it’s difficult. For the pregnant woman, it is pure hell! Dixie spent the last three months of her second pregnancy in bed, requiring that she take leave from work and put the needs of her first child (who no doubt was already experiencing some anxiety about her soon-to-be toy-sharing sibling) in the hands of a housekeeper.
When Dixie’s second girl was born healthy and pink, Mom decided she deserved a break. So after everything settled down, she expressed some milk, left it with her husband (along with the two kids), rented a limo and took her girlfriends out to wine and dine in the nearest big city, Shreveport.
The women ate, drank and danced the night away while Dixie frequently excused herself to go out to the limo and express her milk--those little wet spots on the front of your shirt can be so embarrassing.
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The first time she went out, the limousine driver innocently inquired if he could be of assistance.
“I believe this is something I’ll have to do for myself,” she told him, as she closed the curtain separating the driver and passenger sections and readied the pump.
The women were all a bit tipsy as they headed home. Dixie rolled down the back window and was preparing to pour out some of her milk when one of the single women inquired: “Would you mind if I have a little sip? I always wondered what mother’s milk tastes like.”
On the way home, the women passed around the bottle ritualistically. It was like passing the peace pipe. It was female bonding. It was the bow on the box of presents that Dixie had given them that night.
Lulled by the drive and warmed by the milk, all of the women fell peacefully asleep--just like babies.
When Dixie got home and told her husband about the milk-tasting, he was less than amused.
“Why, Dixie, that’s akin to perversion or cannibalism,” he said in his deep Southern drawl. Funny how something so sweet can turn sour.
But I’ll bet you this: He was first in line at the milk bar.
