"It Takes a Village to Nurse a Child"
Jennifer Coburn

While I was pregnant, the Nature Channel aired a video safari through Africa. I watched as animals effortlessly nursed their young, and chuckled arrogantly as I recalled a friend's suggestion to take a breastfeeding class. Who needs a class on the most natural thing in the world?

Eight weeks, three in-home sessions with La Leche League, two trips to a lactation specialist, two visits to a hospital breastfeeding center, and a visit to the World Health Organization (WHO) later, I had my answer. Breastfeeding is no easy task.

Sixty percent of American women say they plan to nurse, yet only 20 percent are still with it when their babies are six months old. Despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends nursing for baby's first year and the WHO suggests two years, many women stop just days after they give birth. I don't blame them a bit. I had support, resources and was completely sold on the idea of nursing. Still, I had Similac fantasies. My husband recited the health benefits of breastfeeding like a mantra as I nursed in agony, wondering how cheetahs handle six cubs at once.

I knew I wanted to nurse because of the health benefits for my daughter, Katie. Breastfed babies show lower rates of death, meningitis, childhood leukemia, allergies and infections. And, to be completely candid, I am a little flaky. Forgetting to buy, prepare or pack formula wouldn't be an occasional oversight for me. For obvious reasons, I'd never have these problems breastfeeding. Economics factored into my decision-making, too. But when I read that breastfed babies have odor-free poop, I was sold.

In the hospital, I was given a brief lesson on breastfeeding, but was in a bit of a haze after 48 hours of labor, so forgot much of what the nurses told me. Early the next day, we were booted out of the hospital, compliments of our HMO.

It wasn't until after my medication wore off that I felt the excruciating pain of my nursing baby-in-training. I never imagined my six pound, toothless cutie could bite and pull like a pitbull going for a steak. The same friend who suggested a breastfeeding class is a La Leche leader; she was gracious enough to come over and help get my daughter and I started. She arrived in a boob shaped mini-van with a nipple siren (at least that's how it looked to me) and we went to work.

After her first visit, Mary's job was done - or so I thought. But days later, I called to tell her my nipples were thinner than cheesecloth and were going to wear away pretty soon. This time she was in the midst of bathing her two-year-old so it took her a whole 14 minutes to arrive with her phone book-sized reference book of breastfeeding.

There were times Mary was even more committed to my breastfeeding than I was. She called me several times a day to offer encouragement and update me on her reading about the problems I was having. Two things kept me going: I knew somewhere in that big book of hers, there had to be a solution for me. And Mary had no doubts that I would get the hang of breastfeeding. She was the expert and if she thought I could do it, who was I to argue?

By now, everyone was sucked into my drama. The mailman would inquire about my nipples on his daily visits. Everyone who knew me - even casually - knew of my nursing problems. The word "you" became synonymous with "your nipples", as in "How are your nipples?", "Can your nipples have lunch next week?", "Is there anything I can do for your nipples?"

That weekend, my husband and I went to a party where I nursed my daughter several times throughout the evening. I knew at that point I'd become a radical. A woman approached me, told me she gave birth to a three-pound preemie and the nurses at the hospital were "nagging" her to get her milk production up so she could breastfeed more frequently.

Finally, she said, "What's the big deal if he has formula? It's not going to kill him." "Okay, Missy," I wanted to shout, "knock off the attitude. You've got a preemie in an incubator and the best source of nutrition for him at your disposal. Your milk production is low? I've got a breast pump in the car, let's get your production up! To hell with you, where's the kid? I'll nurse him myself!!"

What a difference three months can make. I've gone from rolling my eyes at the idea of breastfeeding classes to giving them as baby shower gifts. I give a hearty, "You go, girl!" to women nursing in the park. I've even considered producing a Nipples of Steel video to help expecting mothers prepare for their task. I watch the Nature Channel with a whole new perspective, admiring the monkeys who swing from a vine and nurse (I'm still working on that one).

Nursing is the most natural thing in the world, but women need help getting started. Like anything else worth doing, breastfeeding takes effort. Nearly every community has someone who would love to help a new mom learn to nurse. A nursing mother who accesses the resources available to her can make it through those tough first weeks. Whether it is pain, low production or infection, there is a solution to every breastfeeding problem. I discovered an entire subculture of women committed to breastfeeding - grandmothers who volunteer at the breastfeeding center, working women who offer advice on pumping milk, doctors and La Leche League volunteers.

The African proverb says it takes a whole village to raise a child. It must be true, because it took a village just to nurse mine!

Jennifer Coburn is the author of "Take Back Your Power: A Working Woman's Response to Sexual Harassment", which recently won an honorable mention from the National Women's Heritage Museum book awards and an Outstanding Book Award from the Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America. She has just completed Tales From the Crib, a novel about a new mother's journey thru the first three years.

For additional Cobrun Essay:

The San Diego Breastfeeding Coalition

The Magazine of Pregnancy, Birth and Breastfeeding

Union Tribune (go to Archive and enter Coburn)

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