Background: Most would consider me a pretty hardcore breastfeeding advocate.  [Of course, it isn't my business to tell other people what to do, and I think it is best not to question why another woman chooses not to breastfeed.  Breastfeeding can be difficult and it is more difficult for some than for others.  Also, there may be factors at play that one can't know about.]  I nursed all three of my children until they were between 18 months and two years of age.  None of them ever had any formula, and none of them had any solid food before they were six months old.  Also, because I never got the knack of pumping, I was never without them for the first six months of their lives.  Does this qualify me as hardcore? 

What I saw: As I approached the checkout line at Costco, I found myself behind a woman pushing a full cart of groceries with one arm, nursing a newborn under a blanket cradled in her other arm, and with her head kinked at an angle, talking on her cellphone at the same time!  It was time for her to put her groceries on the belt, and the clerk was tentatively smiling  with perhaps a slight sense of “what should I do now?”

I deliberated for a second about whether I should start moving her groceries to the belt before getting her permission (she was not paying attention to the grocery situation enough for me to gesture).  Her purse was right there and well– I’m just wimpy–fear of people being angry with me and all.  Then she got off the phone.  So I asked if I could help, and she said yes, expressing her gratitude.  It wasn’t hard to help of course and it actually sped things up for me, since I was behind her in line.  As I left, I saw her still cradling the baby in one arm under the blanket, and with the other, pushing the heavy cart slowly out of the store.     

What is good about this: It is great that any woman in our culture could possibly be so nonchalant about this natural and important practice.  I always wanted to feel free to breastfeed anywhere, and felt I should feel free to breastfeed anywhere, but even though people were nice to me, I never made it all the way to comfort with breastfeeding whenever and wherever I went.  Although I did breastfeed in public many times, I also spent a lot of time nursing in more private spots because it was more comfortable although less convenient.  Breastfeeding is good for babies.  Anything our culture can do to help women feel more comfortable about breastfeeding, anything that makes it more convenient, is good for babies.  So yea for nonchalance! 

What is bad about this: Where was this woman’s support network?  Husband?  Friends?  Coworkers?  Religious community?  Kind neighbor?  The woman mentioned that she couldn’t leave the baby behind and therefore couldn’t get a sitter.  But could someone else not have done the shopping or gone with her?  Call me, I’ll go. 

Some unsolicited advice:

1. If you are breastfeeding as you approach the checkout, this is not a good time to make or receive telephone calls.  If the call is that important, it is not a good time to be approaching the checkout. 

2. You might find that you finish your errand more quickly if you find some place to sit down (not many at Costco I know–but how about a comfy couch or office chair, if all else fails?  It isn’t more public than the check out line) and finish nursing before resuming your shopping and/or checking out.   

3.  If it is possible for you to hire a sitter, but you can’t/won’t because you can’t/won’t leave your baby alone, consider hiring the “sitter” to be a grocery cart “pusher” instead.  An 11 year old could do that if necessary.  I have one.  I’ll rent her out cheap! 

4. Ask for help.  If you don’t have any support network to speak of, ask strangers for help.  You need it and the planet is depending on you!  In general, people are happy to be helpful to people with newborns.   

Lastly: Hugs to all the new moms who don’t have strong support networks and are going through all that new and crazy, wonderful and scary, tough stuff for the first time and don’t know what they’re doing yet.  A lot of us have been there, and we’re pulling for you.

Today I

• I slept in (till about 8:30–thanks Pdad!) because I stayed up very late last night, as is becoming my habit. (I did lay in bed for a long time thinking about my neighbors, being pained to realize that their tragedy is reality).
• I took a shower, I put makeup on, I wore nice clothes. (Thank you Pdad, I needed that!)
• Nursed, nursed, nursed. Kate is still not doing very well at all with solid food. This is increasingly frustrating, since I need to take some medicine but don’t dare to when so much of her diet depends on me. Also, I’d like to be able to leave her for longer than an hour. The upside is I am now at my lowest weight in over a year and that is after living on Snickers & Raisinets for days.
• Did a big shopping trip at Costco–without kids! (Thanks again, Pdad! No more subsisting on Raisinets) In my unencumbered state I found that my ambition was way up. I came home with a fifty lb. bag of rice, sacks of russet and red potatoes, printer paper, milk, etc.
• Did another grocery shopping trip for the non-Costco items.
• Lugged all the laundry downstairs after everyone went to bed and sorted it.

I have energy yes, I do, I have energy how about you?

One thing that surprised me was the venomous tone of so many of the comments on her blog. The mommy blogs I read are all of the type that attract sympathetic commenters. People comment because they agree with you and want to say something nice. Currier’s blog is wallpapered with people who wanted to tell her what a whiner she was, what a disgrace to working women she was, what a disservice she was doing for nursing mothers, how stupid she was, how her litigiousness was the root of all ill in our society, what a poor physician she would be, and how foolish she was to choose to have children during medical school. Whew! Ouch.

All of this fills me with 100 different blogposts I would like to write, but as always, I don’t have time.

So, two questions:

1. When one has a disability, when should one ask for a concession or accommodation? What is the force of “should” in the previous sentence? When is it morally proper to ask for/expect an accommodation? When does it make sense to ask for an accommodation from the perspective of life efficacy?

This issue is becoming very real for me because my daughter has a disability. She has very poor fine motor control. This makes her handwriting nearly illegible. She can write legibily but only with great difficulty and extremely slowly. Unfortunately, her challenges are beginning to color her entire school experience. I don’t want her to decide that she hates school or even worse to conclude that she simply isn’t very intelligent. From that perspective, it makes sense to give her the wings that keyboarding allows. She can type much faster than she can write. She will never write well. Why not let her start typing everything now? It’s pretty clear that if we push it, her school will make accommodations that allow her to avoid most handwriting. But avoiding handwriting now, when her struggles are the greatest, means she will need an entire lifetime of accommodations. She will be unable to fill out a job application without a computer or help from another person.

So: When is it best to soldier through a problem, doing one’s best in light of disappointing results? When is it best to throw in the towel and acknowledge one’s limitations?

2. How should the availability of birth control color how we view timing of motherhood and working motherhood decisions? Many who left comments on Currier’s blog felt that she had no business planning pregnancies for the lifestage she did given the demands she knew her program would present. These weren’t people urging Currier to become a SAHM, but rather people opining that if she was serious about being a physician she didn’t have any business shorting that side of her life in order to bear children.

AP coverage initially made the case sound open and shut. Currier has to take a 9 hour exam and asked for extra time in order to pump breast milk for her 4 month old baby. The exam board turned her down. The judge rejected her request saying,

“The plaintiff may take the test and pass, notwithstanding what she considers to be unfavorable conditions. The plaintiff may delay the test, which is offered numerous times during the year, until she has finished her breast-feeding and the need to express milk.”

When I first read this I was appalled. What was that judge thinking? Unfavorable conditions? As a person who struggles with engorgement, clogged ducts and mastitis, I don’t believe that having insufficient time to pump is merely an “unfavorable condition.” It is a very big deal. Breastfeeding mothers can’t simply skip a day. I imagine there’s considerable individual variation, but at times I have had trouble just skipping 4 hours! And, supposing we forget pain and suffering, what about the importance of sustaining the milk supply? Not nursing for an extended period is not a good idea. The result is a precipitous drop in your milk supply. This is a problem that is hard to fix because when your milk supply drops, your baby still needs milk. If you feed the baby artificial baby milk or previously pumped milk, you miss the stimulation your body needs to trigger an increase in milk production.

I did not like the judge’s phrase “[when] she has finished her breast-feeding.” 1) Calling it “her breast-feeding” makes is sound as though it is merely a lifestyle choice, as if this is about what color of hair to have. But breastfeeding isn’t some kind of feel good/I’m in touch with nature thing (or at least not only), it is about the health of mother and baby. See my other post here.

2) When did the judge think she would be “finished”? Sure, plenty of women in the U.S. only breastfeed for a few weeks or months. But breastfeeding much longer is better for the mother and the baby. The World Health Organization recommends nursing to age 2. Granted, the urgency of pumping would drop off before the baby turned two. However, if our society is going to welcome women into the workforce, it is a mistake to encourage women to see progress in their careers as balanced against the opportunity to nurse their children. Ultimately, fewer women will nurse and they will nurse for shorter periods. And other women who would have been assets in the workforce will opt out in favor of their children.

So,
1. My infection is still untreated, and it’s almost a week later.
2. I want a new doctor.

Seven months ago, I was about to give birth. Today I have a charming nursling. Two different doctors have prescribed medicine dangerous for my condition (pregnant or breastfeeding) in these past seven months. When it happened last week, I was given every assurance that the Rx was safe to take while breastfeeding. The pharmacy info assured me that it wasn’t. After the fact, my doctor offered her apologies. I accept them (we all make mistakes), but I don’t know that I will trust her again.

Remember: you are the best guardian of your own and your sweet baby’s health. Rx mistakes are much more likely in case of pregnancy or breastfeeding. Beware!

P.S. Did you know that some medicines that would be fine to take in your second or third trimester should not be taken right before you expect to give birth? I didn’t–until I learned it from the Rx literature I’d been prescribed immediately before my due date.

See more Works-For-Me-Wednesday ideas at Rocks in my dryer.

***
Did you see the Washington Post article that came out last week?
There is a problem in our country. Moms are constantly marketed to by formula companies. No one markets breastfeeding. The Washington Post Article I linked to discusses how the government was going to market breastfeeding, but then formula companies fought and fought and fought to get the message softened and they won.

I understand why people favor the softer message. There are a whole lot of women out there (my mother and most of my friends) who have fed their babies formula. No one wants to hear that they haven’t done the best thing for the baby. The problem is, too often we allow our reticence not to hurt others feelings (which is a good thing) keep the truth about the importance of breastfeeding hidden. And then another generation of mothers turns to formula. Unfortunately, breastfeeding can be really, really hard. We want to believe what the formula companies tell us: that formula feeding is almost equal to breastfeeding. That you’re not a bad Mom if you want to give your baby a bottle.

It’s true, you are not bad if you are that Mom. Those feelings make sense and there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way! But for your baby’s sake, you need to know what the best medical studies suggest about the benefits of breastfeeding. [I strongly recommend the book So that's what they're for! It’s hilarious and has a lot of great information.]

When mothers are fully informed about the health of breastfed babies vs. bottlefed babies breastfeeding is worth the struggle in most cases. Obviously, there are exceptions. But they are *exceptions.* [Unfortunately, in our country breastfeeding for any sustained length of time is the exception. We have it backwards.] It’s true that some women can’t successfully breastfeed (although it’s a much smaller number than the number of women who believe they are in this category). Some have had breast surgery, others need medicines that make it too dangerous. But most of us can.

I like dark, bitter chocolate. In Germany, after college, I discovered something called Herrenschokolade in a black wrapper. I bought it because I liked the idea of being a 22 year old girl eating something labeled Herrenschokolade. However, I kept eating it because I liked it. When I lived in the Bay Area, I got excited about Scharffenberger chocolate which was also quite bitter. These days I just go with the cheaper 70% Ghiradelli that one can pick up anywhere. My guilty secret is the enormous bag of chocolate chips standing open in my pantry. Someone asked the other day whether eating chocolate doesn’t bother my little nursling. My steady progress through the 5 lb bag suggests it doesn’t.

I also like garlic. One of my prouder accomplishments is that I’ve learned to cook very good pasta dishes. Although pasta dishes are my favorite, I seldom order it out, because I can usually do better at home. Woo! Anyway, I have always liked garlic. But growing up, my acquaintance with garlic was through garlic salt and garlic powder. I thought I was really gourmet when I moved to the bottles of minced garlic. Now, I can’t imagine life without a garlic press and the pleasure of newly smashed garlic cooking in olive oil.