Breastfeeding

Some of the participants, and their friends, asked me to add some of their thoughts about breastfeeding in public.

Titch said – “You can tell by their crying, and then screaming, that your baby wants to be fed. Babies don’t understand that it may not be the best moment. You have to stop whatever you are doing and if you are out you have to try to feed your baby wherever you are without showing boob or nipple.

You get looked at as if you are disgusting, you get the double-look – is she really doing that in public? Or you get the odd man who will sit near you and the hope of seeing a boob and stare throughout.

As a new mum it can take ages to learn to feed, to get it right. It’s painful, you get chapped nipples, they can bleed. As soon as your baby starts to cry for food milk may start to leak from your nipples and leave wet patches on your top – the last thing you want is to walk around with wet rings where your nipples are and a crying baby.

Over time this does improve, you can get very adept at covering up, hiding behind clothes away from the prying eyes. The way society treats this goes against nature in my view. Luckily living in Brighton its a lot more tolerant than other areas of the country but I’d had enough after a few months.”

I’ve faced a lot of issues with her, from poor weight gain and tongue tie to food allergies and jaundice. I was told to stop feeding her very early on by doctors and other healthcare professionals due to these issues (but I’m far too stubborn!). I’ve also received a lot of comments from family with regards to feeding in front of men, in public, or feeding an older baby.

Society has been a lot better though, and I’ve not had any comments this time round – just looks. But then again, I’m an older mum and I’m a lot more relaxed and comfortable in my decision to breastfeed, so I suppose if people were to make comments behind me I wouldn’t notice!

I have been ridiculed by friends again, mostly for posting breastfeeding pictures. This time there’s almost a shame associated with wanting to be proud of breastfeeding. How dare I share my success when other women couldn’t breastfeed?!

I trained last year too to be a volunteer breastfeeding peer supporter, so to give help and advice to new mums with regards to breastfeeding and everything around It.

There’s still this stigma that breastfeeding makes your boobs all saggy, so I think a lot of people don’t even want to think about trying it during pregnancy. Friend and family opinion and comments also have a massive impact on a mum’s decision to start, continue and finish their journey.

Even now, I’m getting sly digs about stopping because my daughter will be 2 next month, and we’re now considered into “extended breastfeeding”, which is just daft considering humans are designed to breastfeed until about 4-6.”

Lex said – “I was the world’s most unlikely breastfeeder. There were so many people that delighted in telling me, throughout my pregnancy that I’d feel differently and how much easier it was but I was adamant all the way through that there was no way I would even consider it. I found the whole idea repugnant. I’ve always found the idea of my own nipples somehow wrong. The idea of actually using them for something other than male titillation was completely beyond me.

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Growing up in the era of the Page Three girl* until and various lad mags, I hadn’t realised the strong impact that the media had even before this age of social media could have on a teenage mind and body image. I was unwittingly of the belief that my body was, in some way, public property to be utilised or ridiculed by others. I remember in my late teens, sitting on a bus whilst a man in his mid-sixties, in the seat in front of me opened the paper to Page Three and unashamedly stared, drooling for a long period of time. It made me feel dirty.

Similarly, lad mags had various articles about women’s nipples and what ‘good’ ones looked like, and what ‘weird’ ones looked like. There was this hangover from the idea of “good girls don’t show their breasts” mixed with media, largely directed at men, saying “look at these breasts“. And somewhere, in between that was mothers who were shamed for breastfeeding in public.

So as the time drew nearer to giving birth, my resolve stayed the same. Nipples were gross and I would not be using them for anything, ever. Then came the birth itself and the world changed, my body changed and my whole perception of the female body changed. It was a very long and difficult birth, there were issues but everyone was okay. This tiny little bald thing was laid on my chest and I was told that I’d need to stay in hospital for a while. I was told that given the difficulties of the birth, it would be a good idea to breastfeed him just for the first three days as it would mean he got certain antibodies that would prevent jaundice.

I don’t know if it was the painkillers, the lack of sleep, the fear of simply not knowing what else to do with this helpless human that was suddenly my sole responsibility, or simply the fact that I had spent the last two hours splaying my body out in front of 9 strangers and my stepmother in what could be considered the most undignified way, but I attempted to breastfeed. And it was amazing. And I couldn’t actually remember what I’d been so bothered about. Sure, it felt weird, and it was something my body had never done before but the little thing that I needed to look after looked, well, looked after and it was a happy place to be.

The three days I spent on the ward were an eye opener. It was a small room and crowded with other women separated by a thin curtain. I was there longer than a lot of them, Women came and went, but an overwhelming number of them were, as it turned out, unable to breastfeed. There were issues like tongue tie and various other issues. These women were devastated. The guilt I felt at this coming so naturally to me, as well as the fact that I’d so vocally opposed the idea of it was immense.

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Back in the real world, I carried on breastfeeding. Wherever, whenever. There is an insane amount of pressure on new mothers to do just this. There is also this strange idea that, whilst they are evil for using formula, they are disgusting if they get their breasts out in public. No one actually ever said anything to me but occasionally, an older gentleman would look cross and make a lot of drama about moving from his seat. I wondered if those same gentlemen were the ones who stared hungrily at the Page Three girls in the days of yore.

It feels like a way to keep women controlled somehow – “You must use your nipples for their intended purpose, but not where we have to look at it. Don’t spoil nipples for the rest of us. Tell you what, just don’t go out in public with your child or your nipples, that way we’ll be okay”.

I have never been less body conscious than I was in the first year of my son’s life. Even though my body was wrecked and tired and broken and forever changed. It gave me some sort of comfort, feeding in public. For once, for the first time, my nipples were mine, for feeding my son and everyone else could do one, as far as I was concerned.

My heart goes out to the mums that wanted to breastfeed and couldn’t. I met a lot of them. I think they were made to feel a shame far greater than the one that random old men tried to make me feel for doing it in public.

I love my nipples for doing their job. I no longer feel ashamed of them.”
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*Page Three of the UK daily newspaper “the Sun” carried a large image of a topless women pretty much every day between 1979 and 2015 in the print version and until 2017 on-line. The removal of the feature followed many years of campaigning by groups such as the brilliant “No More Page Three” on the basis that the use of topless images, for no purpose but titillation, was degrading.

Jenny said – “When my daughter was born (she’s 17 now) I remember being blown away that she tried to feed straight away, as soon as she was handed to me. I thought it was amazing that it was so instinctive.

I never felt self conscious or embarrassed about feeding, I suffered from post natel depression and breastfeeding was something that helped me to bond with her. I actually regret I didn’t do it for longer. I was very young and in the middle of my degree, so I didn’t carry on for as long as I would have liked.

My sister has recently had a  baby and feels much the same way I did. My mum though, stands in front of her looking very serious, guarding her from predators. She will hiss ‘there’s a man coming’ and look panicked if she sees anyone in the distance.

She also gets flustered if I sunbathe topless, which I love to do, as it feels free. I feel attitudes around women’s breasts/nipples are trapped somewhere in between a Victorian hangover of shame along with periods and female sexuality, and a hypersexualised objectification. We can’t win.”

Sarah P said – “Breast Side Stories 1.

My first baby was born in 1978; she had a cleft lip. In those days (1978) breastfeeding was seen as a hippyish middle class quirk and its benefits were not well publicised, even by midwives. The expectation was that I would bottlefeed because of her cleft lip, but my baby didn’t have a cleft palate, which does make breastfeeding difficult and usually impossible. She managed perfectly well and was a determined breast feeder – so was I. I couldn’t wait to get home and left hospital after two days. We had moved house (not on purpose) the day she was born, so I sat on the sofa amid the chaos, placidly feeding away, while her father sorted out our new home.

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The feeding was an absolute joy – I fed on demand and there were no big problems in the first few months. But – at three months, she had the cleft repair operation. I had to use a breast pump to keep the milk going for several days – an evil thing which made a disturbing groaning noise – then reintroduce her to my breast. After a while she got the idea again and fed on and off for a solid four hours – which really got the milk going again. I fed her – as well as solid food after six months – until she was almost two, when I became pregnant again.

Breast Side Stories 2. This is just a tiny story, it may be hard for you to read but it is still about breastfeeding, albeit for but a brief moment in time. My second baby was born 40 years ago. I tried hard to feed him, expecting things to go well. He never really got going with feeding, or living, having irreparable problems. After eight days he left his little life in my arms and in my aching breasts.

Breast Side stories 3. A year later, my third baby was born at home on a sunny Sunday and this sunny baby took to my waiting boobs instantly with gusto and delight, just as she has approached life ever since. Not a replacement, but her own sweet self completing my family. Feeding her was wonderfully healing.

Breast Side Stories 4. I was a breastfeeding counsellor for the National Childbirth Trust for several years. No missionary, me, I wanted women to feel confident and comfortable with whatever feeding decision they made and to do it for as many or few months they wanted. I gave advice about cabbage leaves for mastitis, demonstrated how to get the baby to latch on; suggested ways to treat sore nipples, reassured mothers that having teeth didn’t mean the baby would bite (though sometimes they did) and told people about other uses for breast milk. Cradle cap – rub some in daily. Starting solids – mix with breast milk.

I ran regular classes for pregnant women at my home. One evening my four year old came trotting into a class, launched herself at me, saying “huck, mummy”, lifted my jumper and helped herself. I had to do a bit of damage limitation but as far as I remember nobody was put off the whole idea, as well they might have been.

Breast Side Stories 5. Feeding in public isn’t illegal and very few women reveal a whole boob when feeding, often more for their and baby’s own comfort than modesty. A peaceful feed is arguably much less disruptive than a screaming baby. It’s not on to be asked to feed your baby in the lavatory – who’d eat their dinner in a loo – but it does happen. Strange too that boobs not being used for their primary purpose are hardly invisible in society. A cafe in Brighton once objected to me feeding my baby – they picked the wrong woman. I organised about 20 women to do a ‘feed in’. We made the local paper and got an apology from the cafe. On another occasion I was quietly breastfeeding in a corner of a local pub. Somebody objected. Kudos to the landlady and landlord who asked the objector to leave.