The excellent post on Noah Gray’s blog entitled The breast feeding scapegoat is timely as this week (starting today) is Breastfeeding Awareness Week in the UK. In the comments there is a lively discussion on whether or not there should be private places available for women to do it; and some exclamations on how many women in science return to work very soon after having their babies.
My experience of breastfeeding has been very positive. My daughter was delivered prematurely and for the first few days was fed solely via a nose-tube. I was praised for every millilitre of milk that I expressed to add to the formula until I was able to produce enough to feed her; and was given a lot of encouragement and advice both for the expressing and when I started trying to feed her myself. My personal motivation was two-fold: I needed to have a role while my baby was surrounded by competent medical staff and machines, and I wanted to exploit every opportunity to have physical contact with her. I am ever so grateful to the other mothers and nursing staff at St Peter’s hospital as it would have been a lot more difficult to persevere without their support. Bliss, a charity for special baby care, has prepared a really good leaflet on breastfeeding the premature baby which can be accessed from this page.
Unfortunately, though, the stress related to the whole NICU experience can make it so that it is difficult to keep up with expressing and it may be that the mother’s body is unable to produce milk at all. Like many other neonatal units, St Peter’s hospital has a milk bank for donated milk. For information about donating breast milk the United Kingdom Association for Milk Banking might be a good place to start. To my knowledge, the main advantage of breastmilk in this context is that it is easier to digest, and the premature baby will be able to tolerate larger volumes of it.
Woking is a very civilised town with many of the restaurants and coffee shops having signs saying: Breastfeeding Welcome Here, though for some reason I prefer to either have privacy or a lot of open space (if you have ever been with someone who whistles in a lift you probably know how I feel with respect to the appropriateness of the behaviour – though of course you may not agree that they are analogous…). The local Boots and the main public toilets have separate rooms for breastfeeding and changing babies, and I have made frequent use of these. The absolute best for me, though, is to do all of the play-with and care-for my baby in the shade of a leafy tree on a sunny day.
Great post, Bronwen. Now you mention Boots, I remember very well as a new mother being very grateful to Boots as it was the only place in the town where I live which bothered to provide a breastfeeding room which did not also double up as a toilet. I suppose it is all different now because that baby is now 18 and about to take her A levels next month. I’m very glad that I overcame the initial difficulties in this regard also, with both my children. From the other end of the scale, it is a fond memory on which to look back.
My partner and I are about to have a baby and we feel very fortunate that both Washington State and Vancouver, BC have excellent policies for public breastfeeding. A statute was just passed in Washington that makes it illegal to ask someone to leave a public place (such as a restaurant, cafe or public park) while breastfeeding their child. It always amazed me that people would find it obscene. It’s nice to see that the awareness is growing.
Thank you Maxine. It makes me quite emotional to think that the “objective” of this whole baby thing is to help to create a new adult. It seems Very Far Away Indeed.
The “set” that I seem to go around with are quite uninhibited about breastfeeding in public. Some of them have the most technologically advanced bras and tops – for some reason I did not quite get around to buying any and it seems a bit silly to do so now, but these things must surely help with confidence.
You must be so excited, Eric. I hope that everything goes well.
I remember that Very Far Away feeling so well, Bronwen! I remember when my baby was a tiny baby, looking on in awe at those who were accompanied by these six-month amazing children. And when my 3 year old went to nursery, how amazingly sophisticated were the 4 year olds. It is all unknown territory ahead of you. But it all kind of happens, and before you know it you have a lovely teenager on your hands who keeps you smiling! ;-)