Netizen: “My baby has never had a drop of formula since birth,” is a statement that makes every mother incredibly proud. The baby arrives amidst our heartfelt anticipation, and we awkwardly attempt our first feeding.
When we say “dedicated to breastfeeding for life,” it’s because to maintain this 37°C love of motherhood, who knows what we have gone through.
You must be fully committed to breastfeeding
My close friend gave birth two months before me, and when I asked her when it would be convenient for me to visit, she sent me a feeding schedule, implying that I should visit outside of those times. The tight schedule made me silently gasp in disbelief, wondering if it was really that exaggerated.
In reality, it was even more exaggerated than I imagined. My postpartum life was spent either breastfeeding or pumping, running 24 hours non-stop, with my chest feeling like it had two bombs attached. Waking up in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed, holding the breast pump, the sound of the “whoosh whoosh whoosh” of the pump is something I will remember for a lifetime, as I desperately thought, when will this end?
In the postpartum yoga group, mothers often reply to the instructor, “Sorry, I can’t make it today, the baby is still asleep, and will need to be fed when they wake up.” Some mothers even sit on their yoga mats before class to pump, so they can feed their babies as soon as they get home, because yoga instructors usually advise us to wait an hour after exercising before breastfeeding.
The embrace and deep gaze shared with the baby during breastfeeding can sometimes serve as a strong heart tonic, encouraging tired breastfeeding mothers. I have two friends who, for various reasons, cannot directly breastfeed their babies and can only pump milk into bottles. This means a heavier workload and a cold, mechanical process. Yet they persist, whether it’s inconvenient to go out or their shoulders are stiff, they are fully invested, with complaints but no regrets.
Not only is it a “full commitment,” but sometimes it even means sacrificing “body and mind.” A friend, when her baby was five months old and her milk supply was low, ran around borrowing milk and had chicken, duck, fish, and pig trotters soup on the table every day. Over-nutrition was also a torment; she said she felt like a “garbage can.” In my memory, she was slender, but now she is robust, of course, radiating maternal brilliance.
From the moment we become pregnant, we are fully committed to nurturing life. Breastfeeding is never subject to the economic rationality of “input-output.” We invest everything; this is the need for breastfeeding and the need as a mother.
You must love breastfeeding
“Dedicated to breastfeeding for life,” you might say, breastfeeding doesn’t last a lifetime, usually only two or three years at most. But this period of breastfeeding is something that breastfeeding mothers hope to cherish for a lifetime. We also hope that the breastfeeding duration can be a bit longer, or at least as long as possible. Just like any profession, after a long time, one can become weary, and there will always be people advising you to give up. Various comments often make breastfeeding mothers doubt their persistence.
One of the most damaging comments is, “Why haven’t you weaned yet?” During the National Day holiday, my uncle talked about his daughter-in-law with disdain, saying, “Your sister-in-law insists on breastfeeding until the baby is over a year old.” As a doctor, my aunt’s husband said, “Breast milk has no nutrition after eight months; you should stop soon.” The tone implied that breastfeeding mothers are foolishly “stubborn.” After hearing it so many times, I was too lazy to educate them that “without external intervention, it is normal for humans to wean between the ages of 2-7, and the nutrients in breast milk are ten times that of formula.”
Because breastfeeding is ultimately a game of confidence. It’s not about the confidence others have in you as a mother, but rather your confidence in your own parenting philosophy. We love breastfeeding not for its ability to prevent breast and cervical cancer, but for every drop of immunoglobulin in the breast milk, and for the healthy babies it nurtures. A friend’s son, four months old, has been exclusively breastfed but is underweight. From pediatricians to friends and family, everyone said her breast milk was inadequate. In frustration, she had a breast milk composition analysis done, and everything was normal. She said, “I really want to throw the results in their faces.”
You must hone your breastfeeding skills
Did you think breastfeeding is as simple as it looks in TV dramas, where you just hold the baby to your chest and lift your shirt? I cry to tell you, fairy tales are deceiving. Breastfeeding is not only a physical task but also a technical one. If the baby has a short tongue tie, no matter how you adjust the breastfeeding position before three months, it won’t be right. I consulted several doctors, but none were willing to cut the tongue tie for the infant. The oral specialists’ theory is almost always, “As long as the baby can suck milk, we don’t care how much pain the mother is in while breastfeeding.”
Only breastfeeding mothers understand the pain that surpasses childbirth. If the pain of childbirth is rated at 12, then the pain of breastfeeding should be rated at 13. Bleeding, cracking, inflammation, white spots, and blisters, I have unfortunately experienced them all. Breastfeeding pillows, nipple creams, breast pads, and lanolin cream, I have almost prepared all the equipment. Cross-cradle, football hold, cradle hold, I have tried almost all breastfeeding positions.
During that time, the lactation consultants at the breastfeeding center were closer to me than my own mother. I often wondered why something that is so beautifully portrayed in literature has so many ugly difficulties in reality. A friend, who is a “milk blockage expert,” said, “Giving birth didn’t depress me, but breastfeeding almost drove me to depression.” We all know that breastfeeding is “on-demand feeding,” but infants only express one thing—crying. In the midst of sweating and chaos, we gradually learn to distinguish when they are hungry, when they need a diaper change, and when they are tired.
We flip through books and check parenting public accounts to learn about breastfeeding knowledge, while constantly adjusting with our babies in practice, and through stumbling and confusion, we have persisted in breastfeeding for one month, then another month. My lactation consultant comforted me, “Every mother who experiences milk blockage tells me they will never breastfeed again, but once the wounds heal, they all continue to breastfeed.” As we continue, we become more skilled.
Because for breastfeeding mothers, breastfeeding is a profession, dedicated to it for life, experiencing pain and joy simultaneously.