#NormaliseBreastFeeding
By: Katie Sale
Tags: Parenthood, Breastfeeding, Parents

#NormaliseBreastFeeding is a hashtag that I’ve used and potentially you’ve seen other people use it too. But what does it actually mean? Originally I thought it was to help normalise breastfeeding in a public space, as this is something we don’t see a lot of, even on TV. But now due to me reading everything and anything about breastfeeding and being active on various breastfeeding groups on Facebook. I have come to the conclusion that #normalisebreastfeeding is about so much more.

When is the last time you saw someone breastfeeding in public? The answer to this, potentially if you live close to me, is probably.. “recently”.

This is because I have the attitude of ‘if my daughter needs feeding and/or asks for “boobies”, then “boobies” she will get.’

Some women don’t have this mentality and to be honest, it is understandable. When you’ve read or seen stories about women being asked to cover up, or “do it elsewhere/in private”.

The funny thing is, I doubt another pig/dog/cat/mammal would say this to a mother pig/dog/cat/mammal who is nursing/feeding her young in the animal world. So why do we say it to our own species mothers?

To simply put it, breasts have been over-sexualised and bottle/formula feeding has become the norm. Even though there are laws in place to protect breastfeeding mothers from having to stop feeding their young, this doesn’t mean the women feel safe.

If they see someone make a face while looking at them or hear someone tutting or even actually confront you, it is really damaging to a mother. If the mother is a first time mum, first time breastfeeding, first time breastfeeding in public, young mum that was struggling with if she was doing the right thing, has had about 4hours of broken sleep, this tiny bit of interaction could really off-road a woman’s breastfeeding journey. Especially if the woman believes that she can only go out in between feeds due to the fear of someone saying something negative if she was to feed in public.

We should be part of society that if a woman is breastfeeding in public, you shouldn’t even notice it. Just like you probably don’t even notice if Joe Bloggs you just walked passed was drinking a can of Pepsi or not.

Whoever coined the term ‘sleeping like a baby’ obviously did not have a baby! Babies by design wake frequently through the night. It helps the mother’s milk supply as mother’s produce more prolactin during the stupid o’clock hours of the night and prolactin is one of the major hormones when it comes to milk production. Frequent night waking also helps to prevent SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) and it is biologically what human babies are meant to do. Also, a newborn has no circadian rhythm, so they don’t know the difference between night and day.

Sleeping has nothing to do with how the baby is fed or how they get to sleep. Sleep is developmental. Some babies are sleepers, some are talkers, some are walkers, some are climbers, just like some adults are active, some are great speakers, some are creative etc. Therefore where has the idea come from that breastmilk make these baby wake up more? A common answer given to a breastfeeding mother is that her milk is not filling the baby up anymore and that she needs to start solids and/or swap to formula.

How is a substance that is tailored made to the needs of the baby, not enough for the said baby?!? And also at night includes a hormone that helps to promote sleep. There are also studies out there that prove it doesn’t matter how a baby is fed, the majority of babies wake frequently through the night and then on average breastfeeding mothers actually get more sleep, which might be only a couple of minutes more though.

Come to think it when is the last time you slept all night through? Most people don’t sleep through every night, they might get up to go to the toilet, have a drink, rearrange the covers, snuggle up to their partner, check their partner is still there. Babies can wake for the same reasons, the difference is they cant sort these things themselves they need help from a parent and most of the time that does mean giving milk. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are hungry, just that we know that is the quickest way to get them back to sleep.

Speaking of babies feeding frequently, mother’s are always getting told ‘oh your baby can’t be feeding again’ or ‘surely baby can’t be hungry again’ but human babies need to be fed frequently. This is because compared to other mammals our milk is quite different. Our milk is high in carbohydrates (lactose) but low in fat and protein. Therefore our milk is digested quicker than other milk.

Studies have shown that the more vulnerable a baby mammal is the more frequently it has to feed. It is like a survival mechanism. Human babies compared to other mammal babies can’t do anything apart from cry, sleep, eat, dirty their nappy, whereas baby horses, can walk from birth. This is due to the fact we walk upright and therefore having smaller pelvises making us have our babies before they are actually ready, but I digress.

If a baby as helpless as a human baby, it makes sense that it would want to keep its mother close because it can’t run away to defend itself and one way to do this is by needing to feed regularly. Regularly feeding or feeding on demand also has long term benefits as well, as it teaches the baby to control their food intake and that food will always be available meaning it is less likely for them to overeat and to become obese.

Continuing from vulnerable human babies, another thing that breastfeeding gets blamed for is this supposable ‘rod for your own back’ eg. ‘you shouldn’t pick the baby up every time it cries else it will learn that you always come running’. What is wrong with our children learning that if they ever have a problem that we will be there to help fix it?

When say a gorilla gives birth, the baby is always with the mother, if not then the zookeepers worry that the mother has for whatever reason rejected the baby, but yet in our culture, we are basically telling mothers to put down their baby’s. Why are we telling the mother’s to not trust their instincts and pick up their baby?

Breastfeeding gets a lot of stick and I think it is due to a society that doesn’t know much about it. Therefore it’s scary so when something goes wrong because the Grandma or mother in law has no advice they resort to what they know and that is potentially formula or out of date breastfeeding knowledge.

Unfortunately, breastfeeding is a dying ‘artform’. In the UK our breastfeeding rates are terrible. Even though the WHO and NHS recommend that children should be breastfed until at least the age of 2, only 1% of babies are still being breastfed at the 12months of age. So PJ is in a very small percentage of toddlers still being breastfed past 12months of age.

Most information that is passed on to mothers from family and friends may be based on what was done in their day, or what they did but that doesn’t mean its correct or what is advised by the professionals. Even some health care professionals have incorrect and out of date knowledge of breastfeeding.

When PJ was 4days old (our first full day at home) a midwife came to see us as they do the first day home after having a baby and in our case being discharged from hospital. She asked me how long PJ was at the breast per feed, I replied about 5–10minutes, her response to that was that this wasn’t long enough and PJ wasn’t getting enough of the hind (fatty) milk (just as for your information the whole fore/hindmilk things has basically been debunked). So that evening I sat on the sofa PJ had her feed of about 10minutes and then I basically force-fed her until she reached the magical 20minutes as stated by the midwife to make sure PJ was getting all the hindmilk.

It took me about 90minutes to do this. A couple of friends came round just as I finished feeding PJ, poor Ben I gave PJ to him to have a cuddle and she projectile vomited all over him, he ended up going home in one of Aaron’s t-shirts. The reason why she was sick because I had overfed her. PJ knew what she was doing she only needed 10minutes to get what she needed.

The other night as a bit of research for this post I did a poll on a breastfeeding group to see what breastfeeding gets blamed for, such as not sleeping through the night (even though mentioned above this isn’t because of breastfeeding) to sort of highlight how little some people know about breastfeeding.

Here are the responses I got:

574 people who voted for breastfeeding got the blame for children not sleeping through (already said sleep is developmental)

456 voted for a child only wanting mum when sad, tired or for comfort (most of us call our mums, or look for our mums when needing comfort)

394 voted for being a needy baby (I’ve forgotten where I read it, but I read something that basically said some babies are like weeds can grow anywhere but some are like orchids where they need the conditions just right)

373 voted for mum being exhausted (I think all new mothers are exhausted)

365 voted for baby not being able to self soothe (again this is a skill that is learned)

317 voted for frequently feeding (How many of you have a morning/ afternoon/ evening snack? or have a drink regularly?)

248 voted for not wanting to eat

217 voted for ‘everything under the sun’

198 voted for dad not being able to bond with the baby (Aaron has a wonderful relationship bond with PJ, they are like best mates, I’m just a vending machine)

174 voted for going to make them shy and too dependant (they clearly haven’t met PJ)

90 voted for child being underweight (now I don’t know if this means being smaller than average but I’m going to answer like it is. All humans come in different shapes and sizes and this includes babies)

82 voted for decaying teeth (it doesn’t make biological sense that breastmilk would decay teeth, with a deep latch the nipple is drawn all the way into where the hard bit of pallet meets the soft bit. And there probably wouldn’t be humans today if all our ancestors lost all their teeth when young)

44 voted for child being overweight (we can’t win)

29 voted for “ that my son will be ‘handsy’ because he likes his hand down my top” (well PJ is going to like groping boobs too then)

…and a handful of other ones, but the thing is these things are just a breastfeeding thing/problem. I bet/ know that even formula-fed children don’t sleep at night and don’t know how to self soothe or hate to put down and always want to be near mum. What do people say to them? Oh well, its because you’ve formula fed?

How about we stop dictating to parents how they should parent, let them trust their instincts without them worrying about this stupid rod we keep hearing about. We should be supporting these mothers if we don’t know the answer to a problem doesn’t just go ‘here’s a bottle of formula this will solve everything’ why not change it to ‘I don’t know but let me put you in touch with someone who might’.

Women’s bodies do amazing things, we grow a baby sort of without having to lift a finger and then we push (majority) the baby out of somewhere that doesn’t look big enough and then we can feed our babies with milk that is made just for them. So women should trust themselves more, trust their breasts more and also trust their baby, those little things know what they are doing.

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