You probably know about the pediatric study in the news right now that shows if 90% of American moms would breastfeed for 6 months, we would save 911 lives and 13 billion dollars.
I read this response last week. I hadn’t planned on blogging it but the article has been swirling in my head. It is the tale of two births. I’ve seen both kinds. I’ve also seen better and worse.
Take a look at the article and see what you think.
Inexplicable Ways 
This is a wonderful way to illustrate the problem. It’s becoming clear that the main reason so many women “can’t” breastfeed is strikingly similar to the reason there are so many birth interventions/surgical births – failure to support women in the natural abilities of their body. Women have turned the power of their bodies over to “experts” and science, sacrificing the power of our instincts and the sanctity of birth and parenting. Hard to hear the whispers when society as a whole continues to scream themes of “safety” and convenience and “modesty”.
Unfortunately, in our society, breastfeeding is hard. Too much misinformation and too many mixed messages. It seems overwhelming but I think the key is taking back control of our bodies and babies.
I loved that article. My hospital birth wasn’t as bad as the bad scenario, and my homebirth was better than the good scenario, but still, there was a night-and-day difference in the experiences and the breastfeeding problems/success that came from them. I think most people believe that the idea of skin-to-skin contact and immediate, possibly spontaneous nursing is just a novel, hokey, mushy-gushy mom desire and not actually useful. This was basically what I was told by a doctor at AnMed when he was trying to talk me out of a homebirth–that these things, which he saw as unnecessary, were sacrificed at the hospital for safety’s sake. Which, of course, makes no sense because the things listed in that article aren’t even risky.