My mother-in-law tells the story of how neither she nor her mother were able to breastfeed their children.
Her mother was told by the doctor that her milk was not rich enough, so the children were put on formula.
And my mother-in-law herself suffered from a damaged nipple when she tried to breastfeed her first babe. She thought her nipples just weren't tough enough and went to formula. She also tells about how hard it was with each new baby (there were four) finding the right formula that the baby was not allergic to. You can tell it is a topic that upsets her.
Breastfeeding today and in recent history has been in the uncomfortable position of being usurped by current medical wisdom. These kinds of myths are why older women don't know how to breastfeed and cannot show younger women how it is done. Instead we rely on lactation consultants in hospitals who talk to us for 15 minutes, determine our problems, offer a potential solution and send us on our way. They are not in a position to know who we are, what our ongoing issues might be, or to perhaps remember our names or circumstances when we phone for follow-up help.
Rather, we are left in a position of being our own advocate but not being an expert. We are presented with limited information and left to make a decision which may be overruled by the medical establishment anyway. And all this while we are mentally altered by hormones and sleep deprivation at least and hormones, sleep deprivation, narcotics, and post-partum depression at most.
Really, I wonder if the hospital system of encouraging women to breastfeed, while well-meaning, is actually sometimes undermining the attempts of women to get on the right track with breastfeeding. So many different messages are delivered by so many different individuals. A new mom is looking for a mentor, but she gets a series of sound-bites instead.
And there is an undercurrent of unexpressed disagreement between doctors and lactation consultants over many issues -- how much should be fed, how certain problems should be treated, etc. But no one will say that there is any disagreement at all. Everyone walks a careful diplomatic line. Maybe the LCs are afraid of being ousted from the hospital if they publicly disagree with what the doctors say. Maybe the doctors are afraid of seeming not supportive of breastfeeding.
Whatever it is, it is not helping the new moms. And really, in a system where people are pushed through like widgets in a factory, with each worker so focused on his or her own task, I'm not sure that any of these folks recognize there is a problem with the big picture.