Mother’s Milk: Breastfeeding AA in a DD World; A Human Pacifier Story
Mother’s milk is one of those ‘does size count’ topics that can make new dads wonder how their wives suddenly look like an ad for Hooters, and new moms quake in nervousness bookmarking resources from La Leche League for fear the baby won’t ‘latch on.’
There’s guilt-laden inadequacy of spousal pillow talk mumblings like, “Fergawdsakes, quit touching them, they feel like they’re gonna pop!” and surges of insecurity that surface in the wee hours of baby fussiness that can mess with our brains, convincing us the tyke must be starving. But the baby bonding, nourishment, and even eco-benefits of breastfeeding? Worth every precious ounce of initial angst and challenge…
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In fact, the notion of “BYOV” (values!) helps prep perseverance for lifestyle ‘myths and musts’ to create a healthier worldview for our children from the get-go. (whether it’s greening your hospital setting or debunking relatives’ outdated advice)
As one who had a whopping (almost 9-lb.) girl, with an AA chest referred to as ‘mosquito bites’ by her own (now 13-year old) daughter, I can honestly share my unfounded worries were so severe that the pediatrician berated me for allowing myself to be turned into a ‘human pacifier’ nursing constantly for fear she ‘might not be getting enough’…
The upside? I “got milk.” I produced SO much that supply exceeded demand and I had to pump constantly, which finally quelled my fear of failure. It makes me wonder how much body image plays out in the new 2008 CDC report card data, which shows about 75% of U.S. moms initially breastfeed, plummeting rapidly thereafter, subpar for the CDC Healthy People 2010 goals.
How much of this body image is media-induced, in an aspirational era of ‘breasts rule, men drool’ depictions of watermelon-sized ideals and mammoth mammaries? From video game icons to hypersexualized kids’ cartoons, big-breasted jiggle-fests dominate the pop culture zeitgeist with an “Onslaught” of ‘appearance-based shoulds’ that make even self-actualized AA gals like me get a little skittish…So this two-part post is really for my teen daughter, who recently asked,
“You mean to tell me you actually FED me with those things?” Followed by her query, “Did you ever think about…um…getting ‘work’ done? I mean, I’M even bigger than you are! You look smaller NOW than these photos of you as a teenager…how is that even possible?“–And “How do celebs and models with boob jobs breastfeed?”
My reply to her in part two; complete with horrors from the ‘Beauty and the Breast” experts to impart the wisdom and wonders of being au naturale…Stay tuned.
Image credit: Women & Infant’s Hospital of R.I. store
[...] and personal’ piece about my own Keira Knightley AA body image confessions, here’s my debut article on ECP with part two soon to [...]