Breast is Best?

A couple weeks ago, the world celebrated World Breastfeeding Week and it felt like the perfect time for me to write about something that has been on my mind for a while now - breastfeeding. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs with my journey during breastfeeding, so I wanted to get them all out here in case anyone else is going through the same thing I did. I believe that breastfeeding is amazing! It can be this magical moment with you and your baby and it has fantastic powers for mamas during postpartum. However, I do not agree with the perceived idea that it is the “right” way to feed your baby. It wasn’t until I became a mom myself that I realized just how much breastfeeding is pushed on a woman and idolized as the “best” way to feed. Which is just wrong on so many levels and I’ll explain why.

I’m all for breastfeeding being normalized, so that if you so choose, you can just whip out your boob and start feeding your baby without judgement or stares from others. I also understand that it creates this bond with mom and baby that most women feel and it’s incredible that you’re able to be this life source for your baby. But what happens when the conversation is surrounded around one way to nourish your baby? Here you are, trying to navigate through postpartum, while also being bombarded with “breast is best” jargon. What happens when it’s not? You’re left feeling as though you’re a subpar mother whose body isn’t able to do the one thing it was designed to do - or so that’s how it feels.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones when my daughter was first born. She came out of the womb basically with a life’s mission of finding my breasts haha! She latched on immediately and rather easily. Everything seemed to be going so well. I found myself feeling superhuman-like that my body was not only able to produce a human, but also be the only thing that’s capable of keeping this human alive. Then, just as quickly, it felt as though the magical moment was over. Once my milk finally came in, my daughter was starting to have some serious stomach issues. She would cry nonstop, was in noticeable pain, and was extremely bloated. We were essentially told that this was just colic (which means they have no idea what it is…) and that it would get better. I had other moms, my doctor, and family telling me that it would get better, to try this and try that. Nothing was working. Then one day I was so fed up that I solely ate the BRAT diet for a few days just to see what would happen (bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast) and guess what, it worked! So, I guess I’ll just eat the equivalent of cardboard for a year so that my baby will accept my breastmilk, right? WRONG. Now, if you tell me you’re someone that can survive off of eating the most bland food ever for about a year (did I mention the toast is plain? PLAIN), then you are much stronger than I am haha. Before you start thinking that the BRAT diet was a bit extreme, trust me, I tried everything before that. I tried calming my let down, reclining while feeding, cutting out gluten, dairy, soy, broccoli, cauliflower, spicy, I tried almost every hold you could possibly think of, and I tried burping her frequently during feedings. So when I say nothing worked, nothing worked. Yet, when I expressed this to my doctor she told me to just keep trying, “their digestive systems aren’t quite developed yet”… Just keep trying? My daughter is bursting into tears after each feeding (so a minimum of 8-10 times a day), she’s so bloated that her onesies aren’t fitting her right, I’m crying constantly because my breastmilk is supposed to be the main thing keeping her alive and here I am being the main thing causing her sooo much pain and you’re telling me to just. keep. trying!? Why is this the norm?

So, I tried mixing in half formula, half breastmilk. I tried bottle feeding my breastmilk thinking it was air that was getting in through the latch. THEN, I did one full week of just formula and oh my god, it was as if we had a new baby. She was calm, she was sleeping, she was less bloated. It was great! Yet, there I was, being manipulated by society again that I needed to breastfeed in order to feel the true “mother” feeling. The true “empowerment” that you feel when you breastfeed. So I convinced myself that it wasn’t the formula helping her, it was that her digestive system finally matured, as our doctor said it would, and she was handling feedings a lot better. So there I was the next day, back to breastfeeding our daughter. And you know what happened? You guessed it! She was bloated again, crying and screaming from discomfort and now her poops were the weirdest colors. So the next few days, I went back to formula. Then I somehow convinced myself again to try breastfeeding, but this time I would do half formula and half breastmilk mixed into a bottle. Aaaaand there I was again, back at square one. My poor husband understood that I had to go through this journey myself, because that’s who I am, but I’m sure he was silently screaming “We found what works woman!! Why are you going back to old ways thinking the outcome will change!?” - ah yes, the definition of insanity. So, in order to help me along, we brought in some statistical data from this amazing book Cribsheet by Emily Oster.

I bought a lot of books about breastfeeding and ways to help me through that journey, but this book (Cribsheet) that my husband bought, was the one that helped me out the most. It’s a data-driven book that has a whole section on explaining real evidence on breastfeeding. It essentially took all the pre-conceived ideas that go hand-in-hand with breastfeeding and digs deeper into the research. Things such as higher IQs, less likely to become obese later in life, less illnesses, etc. There actually isn’t any research supporting these ideas being linked directly back to babies that were breastfed. Most of the information and “research” just comes from moms own account to doctors - so hearsay. There’s also a lot of socioeconomics that come into play with breastfed vs. formula fed babies. Therefore, it’s hard to derive that breastfeeding is the direct link to all these benefits when it could simply just be class and advantages. Either way, at the beginning of the chapter she had a chart with claims of breastfeeding benefits and after looking into extensive research, the chart was completely wiped clean as none of the claims could truly be supported of their findings. Now this made me feel better, but not the “a-ha!” moment I was looking for.

Honestly, it took a lot out of me to completely give up breastfeeding. I think it may have been after the 4th or 5th time of trying over weeks at a time - because I’d always give a new way of feeding a full week to “kick in” that I realized I was just kidding myself by not seeing the direct correlation between Abby’s pain, crying, and bloating to breastfeeding. Maybe there’s just some weird thing that my body does that she can’t process? Or maybe she’s allergic to something like yellow dye #5. However, I do know, that my sanity would not stay in tact during this pandemic (with no friends or family nearby) if I were to keep trying. Nor my husband’s!

All of this to say I am debunking the theory that breast is best and changing the narrative to FED. IS. BEST. It honestly felt as if there was this breastfeeding sorority that all these moms were a part of and the message I kept getting was to just keep pushing through the hazing portion - even though it meant crying myself to sleep and feeling less of a mother than anything - to just push through and then I would be accepted into this amazing mom-hood. And I’m not gonna lie, I bought in for a while and put myself, my baby, and my mind through hell to try and make it through. But now being on the other side, with a completely formula fed, happy baby, I will tell you that it is not worth it. So if there are any moms out there struggling or found themselves in the same situation I was in, please know that torture and stress is not the only way to being a great mom. Learn from my mistakes! You will not mess up your baby’s chances of becoming an astronaut or rocket scientist if you choose to formula feed. And literally whatever you choose to do, is the right thing to do.