La Leche League Conference

Over the weekend I went to a CE conference that was sponsored by the La Leche League and the University of Illinois.

Topic: Breastfeeding
Main speakers: Dr. Bob Sears and Dr. Jack Newman.

Dr. Bob Sears was a fine speaker but my heart belongs to Dr. Newman.

Now, even already, with the children so young, I understand that parenting is done alone in a group. There are other parents around everywhere. Another parent is sleeping next to you in bed. There are other parents at the school, at work, at the gym (okay--I don't go to the gym, but I know there are parents there), but, really, all the decisions you make for your children are yours alone. No one feels responsible for and dwells on these choices but you, not the other parents, not even your spouse. Your choices are made with input coming in from everywhere--the media, books, the doctor, the daycare, the spouse, the other parents, and finally, and often least, your instincts.

I already see that these decisions, that I've ultimately made alone in this group, could be daunting and forever haunting. I see how it is for my Mom, who still thinks back on choices that she made with me, and how she wonders if they were correct. Clearly, they were--Just look at me!

Wrong choices, right choices, they are all there in the growing and grown child--the living embodiment of your choices. Right there as a constant reminder.

When you do make a choice for your child, you want support. And this is where Dr. Newman comes in. Throughout the conference he did some wonderful teaching about specific things to help women with breastfeeding, but the most memorable things he said were these:

• He said that women don't fail at breastfeeding, but that we fail women.
• He said that we've created a bottle-feeding society that doesn't look at breastfeeding as the norm. He said that if you use the bottle-fed baby as the model of normal then the breastfed baby will fail.

I know that it's not often that parenting choices that I've made will be validated, but I felt wonderful and relieved after the conference. In my own breastfed babies it turns out that I was right to:

• say thank-you-very-much, and hang up on the telephone nurse that was telling me I needed to give the baby formula when he hadn't nursed the first night we were home together.
• to switch daycare when the provider told me that nursing was weird and creepy...and to leave that same instant after she angrily threw a blanket over T and the boob.
• tell the new daycare to stuff it (politely, of course) when they said that the babies needed to drink an enormous bottle-full each time.
• to tell the daycare to shove off (politely, of course) when they said I hadn't brought enough milk.
  
• tell the daycare that in our family my breast was more important than the bottle and that the babies could wait until I got there at lunchtime to feed them.
• not ever, ever, look at or measure the number of ounces that I pumped out.
• nurse through a pregnancy.
• nurse in public.
• not give the babies an iron supplement.
• sleep with the little monsters and let them nurse whenever they wanted in the night.
• tell the hospital nurse to bring in a damn bed (politely, of course) so that I could sleep with M when she was hospitalized.
• booze it up a bit in the evenings sometimes (politely, of course) while I nursed the babies.

These are all things that I was told to do or not do. The "do or not do" advice didn't fit with what my instincts were telling me. These are all things that weren't supportive to my breastfeeding endeavors. These are all things that Dr. Newman said were fine, or even normal!

I wish that all women who want to breastfeed had access to a guy like Dr. Newman. He's online, but it's not the same as having that overwhelming support in person. I wish that we, as a society, and as health care providers didn't fail women who want to breastfeed. I wish we did a better job supporting breastfeeding as a totally separate and different model than bottle-feeding.

And now, about my choices, about my instincts...I wanted to breastfeed those darn babies, and I did. I didn't listen to the advice that wasn't supportive, and I nursed them. I want very much to remember this as a success, something that I can look back happily on, many years from now, as I'm driving to bail the kids out of jail (Because I know all the choices I make won't be right! :).
Of course I'll have left them to spend the night in jail as a lesson--because that'll be my instinct in that situation...