by Mary Jessica Hammes
December 21, 2009

Affirmations make a difference
For every distressing story of bad advice or hurtful words, there are others who receive the kinds of messages we wish all women who want to breastfeed would receive—mothers like Abigail Holbrook and Clare Norcio.

Holbrook, a licensed clinical social worker in a cancer treatment center in Athens, recently nursed her 4-month-old son, Ephraim, in the outside eating area of a grocery store.

One woman eating near her told her she used to nurse her own daughter. “A little while later at the next table two other women smiled at me,” Abigail says. “And one said, ‘I am so glad to see you nursing him out in public.’ The other woman said, ‘It’s wonderful that you are doing that. I nursed my children.’ It was so great to get two affirming messages back to back.”

Abigail knew she wanted to breastfeed when she was pregnant with her first child, Susannah, now 4. Abigail’s mother—who breastfed all of her children and has pictures in the family photo album to prove it—was very supportive.

She also felt encouraged by her friends, who made breastfeeding feel normal by nursing their children at group gatherings.”

I made a point of surrounding myself with messages that supported breastfeeding,” says Abigail, who nursed Susannah until she was nearly 3 and nurses on-demand with Ephraim.

Clare Norcio, a graduate student at the University of Georgia, also nursed her children to toddlerhood. Lucas, 5, weaned himself at 13 months; Zeke, 2, did so at 19 months. Clare never felt self-conscious nursing at family functions or in public.

“I nursed my boys everywhere—on airplanes, in moving traffic while they were strapped in to their car seats and I sat in the back, in the first pew during mass, at the mall, at playgrounds, at restaurants, you name it, I’ve probably nursed a baby there—without using a cover of any sort,” she says. There’s been little accompanying reaction.

The Norcios have moved enough that their children have had five pediatricians, all of whom have been “reasonably supportive,” she says. When her boys were born in Massachusetts and Michigan, respectively, the hospital nurses pushed free formula. When Zeke was born, one pediatrician at the hospital routinely recommended supplementing right away so the baby wouldn’t “lose too much weight before the milk came in.” Other nurses were surprised that Clare refused to give her child formula.

Clare has mixed feelings about free formula samples. She knows that some mothers truly appreciate them, and formula is expensive.

“But I also think it’s a very insidious and almost paternalistic way of undermining a woman’s confidence,” she says.

Another insidious message, Clare notes, is that women are encouraged to breastfeed, but not in public, creating the message that “breastfeeding is good, as long as I don’t have to see it.”

Hiding breastfeeding “marginalizes women in so many ways,” she says. “It reinforces the oversexualization of women’s bodies. It contributes to the isolation of new motherhood if women are told that they should breastfeed, but should not do so in public where others might be offended. It causes stress in general during a time that is inherently very stressful. And I think it also perpetuates the myth that women’s choices about health and child rearing are open to, or best served by, public debate.”

Every parenting decision is personal, but few attract the scrutiny that breastfeeding or bottle-feeding provoke. At a time when women young and old are trying to do what is “best” for themselves and their babies, perhaps the focus needs to be on what is “right”, believing that in the end the right choice will be the best choice.