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A Barrier to Successful Breastfeeding

By Ashley LichensteinPublished 5 years ago 5 min read
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Can I just say that our western culture kind of sucks? Can I just rant for a minute or two? What do I mean when I say that language is a barrier to breastfeeding success, and how is that relevant to western culture or society?

Allow me to explain.

The way we talk about our food is backwards. We talk about our food the opposite way from what we should. In the last 5 years or so, I've donned a nice and shiny tinfoil hat. I got to thinking about the economy, and what would happen to it if people stopped getting sick; if people only died from injuries or old age, and I figured out that the repercussions of that would be bad, economically. There would be too many people on the planet, even less food to go around, and less money in the system. So, to keep people sick, and to keep the bank notes flowing, we are poisoned on the DL. That is one reason why we have side effects from the medications we take. We need to be just sick enough to keep taking this pill or that pill, to keep paying the doctors to heal us, kind of, and to die, eventually. It is because of this that, I think, if there was a magic pill that we could take at birth that would keep us from ever getting sick, the system would have to be overhauled completely and changed so that it worked to keep everything from descending into chaos.

The thing is, we have this already. We just don't realize it. It's not a 'magic pill,' but there are substances on this green rock that we live on that can help and heal with minimal side effects, or no side effects at all. However, from the moment we make our way into this world, we are taught to think a certain way and to believe certain things. We are taught what to call the various things we encounter on a daily basis. Somewhere along the way, in the name of convenience and monetary gain, we forgot how to sustain our everyday life on our own. It is hard work. Let's focus on food.

So, when you go to the grocery store, and you pick up a package of carrots, how is it labelled? 'Carrots?' Or 'Organic carrots?' I try to buy fresh, organic foods. I'd rather grow my own, so that I'd know for sure that my carrots were organic, but it's hard work, and I live in the United States, and it's too terribly easy to cut corners when it comes to these things, so in the name of time management, I grocery shop, but I digress. My point is, what if the 'carrots' were labelled 'chemical carrots' and the organic carrots were labelled simply 'carrots?' Why is there a need for the label to point out that the carrots are organic? The label implies a variation, an alternative version. Hmmm. Well, if I'm not mistaken, the 'organic' version is the original. All the chemicals that were added to 'prevent pest infestation' or to make it tastier or prettier were added AFTER the discovery of the edible root vegetable. So, why is the label insinuating that the original carrot is the alternative? See where I'm going with this? I'll tell you why. Would you buy a carrot if it was called a chemical carrot? Odds are, probably not. So, the company that sells the carrots label them "carrots" and charge a reasonable price for them, and they make money. Then, they label the true carrots "organic carrots," charge a little more for it, because it's of better quality and "an alternative" and make MORE money. It's a win/win.

So, what does this have to do with breastfeeding success? We don't talk about it properly. We label it wrong. We label it as an alternative to artificial milk when, in fact, it's the original! We hide it away so that our kids can't see what it looks like. The CDC measures our kids on a chart that compares breastfed babies' growth to that of formula-fed babies, rather than using the breastfed babies as the standard, to ensure adequate growth, and when the breastfed baby doesn't measure up, we tell the mom that there is something wrong with her milk, and give her a formula sample. We are humans. Human babies need Human milk. If a human mother can't offer her baby her own milk, her baby should be offered the milk from another human mother, not the milk of a mother cow. Often, I'll hear mothers touting things to be eaten to help improve a milk supply, or a well-meaning friend wants to make a breastfeeding goodie basket for a mother-to-be, and she fills it with herbal teas and fenugreek and oats and brewers yeast and nipple shields, and bottles and what does she tell the mother-to-be, subconsciously? It implies that she needs to have/eat/drink/use these things in order to breastfeed successfully. It undermines her confidence in knowing that she is a human mother, and breastfeeding starts out as a primally instinctual action, and the only things that are typically needed are boobs and a baby. Evolutionary design does the rest of the heavy lifting. Yet, we are met with more subliminal messaging and marketing and obstacles that undermine a mom's confidence. Her expectations are unrealistic, because the media portrays motherhood as calming and happy and rainbows and sprinkles. And when she brings her baby home, she has this vision of what having a newborn is supposed to look like. So, she unbuckles her sleeping baby from his car seat, and he starts to cry because he got gas from the ride home. He wants to nurse, but he just nursed before they left, and it was just a 15-minute drive, and he just CAN'T be hungry. So, what does she do? She calls a maternal figure in her life that she knows has had children. The mom/aunt/grandma/cousin/friend/nurse at the hospital says, "I'm not sure! I couldn't breastfeed. Give him a bottle so he will settle down." Shots fired.

We talk about things that are good for us in the opposite way that we should. The way we talk about breastfeeding and motherhood makes us try to ride a bike backwards and up a hill. It's doable, but it's unnecessarily difficult. Let's teach our kids about what is actually normal by changing the way we refer to our food. In my house, we drink cow milk. When my oldest son asks for a glass of milk, he literally says, "Mom, can I have some cow milk?" It's not weird. It's not hard. It just is.

Call it what it is, and just maybe, we can reap all the benefits of having a healthier life, in pretty much every aspect. Changing your language can do that.

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About the Creator

Ashley Lichenstein

I’m a Certified Lactation Counselor, wife, mother of 4 boys, positive thinker, and perpetual student of the world.

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