A few weeks ago, a friend of mine gave birth to a beautiful little boy, her second child. Going into the experience, she was very much looking forward to breastfeeding more exclusively this time around. In the hospital they went for it, requesting no bottle feedings and helping the little guy learn to latch. All seemed successful, until she got home.
At home she began to experience blisters on her nipples and bleeding. Her son became colicky, cluster feeding without any real relief to his cries. Breastfeeding was extremely painful and involving a lot of blood. Within forty-eight hours, my friend had contacted the doctor, lactation consultants, and La Leche League. The doctor discovered that her son was missing his upper frenem. This is the thin band of tissue connecting the upper lip to the top of his mouth. Because of the missing frenem, her son is not able to have proper control of his lip and so it curls under rather than latching on. After looking at all her options, it came down to two: she could get her two week old child surgery or she could start pumping and switch her son to drinking breastmilk from a bottle. She chose the latter.
When she called me, she seemed a little saddened by the decision, but she felt like she had done everything she could. At the end of the day, he needed to eat. And, since he was still getting breastmilk, she felt it was not a complete loss. I was very supportive of her. My intention with our son is to exclusively breastfeed and I am only hoping that there will be no issues with that. But, if life interferes with my plans, as it often does, I think I would likely made her decision. I know that she worked hard to figure out all the options to make the best decision for her family, and that should be applauded.
So, I can tell you, when a week later she is confronted by the holier-than-thou opinions of a breastfeeding mother trying to make her feel that she made the wrong decision, I feel very protective of her. This mother went as far to go to a La Leche League member and come back saying that she should do the surgery now and gave her a list of reasons including future dental health. She was completely unsupportive of any other decision. I know she was trying to help, but she just made this new mother feel terrible.
Now, I am a strong supporter of breastfeeding. I'm sure at some point in this blog, I will go on and on about it. I am a strong supporter of a lot of things I will likely go on and on about. However, I am an even stronger supporter of a parent's right to make the best decision they can for their own family when it is informed and with the best of intentions for the family. And, while I believe you can present options to people, I think you also have to be equally supportive of their right to make any decision they do. As a teacher, I always worked towards helping parents make these difficult kinds of decisions and my goal was that whatever decision they made, it was in the interest of their child rather than themselves.
In the world of natural living, we are always having our decisions second-guessed by more traditional belief systems. Every decision I have made as a parent thus far has been contradicted by someone whose opinion I never asked for. The best thing we parents can do for each other is share information, but reserve the judgement. Every family is going to make a different decision, and just because they don't make your decision doesn't make their decision wrong, or yours.
We also have to remember that alternatives to natural living were made for a reason. While I strongly believe most of them are over-used, there is that small percentage of people for whom there needs to be an alternative. Caesarians, epidurals, inductions, bottle-feeds, and medication all have their place in the world. We can do everything we can to protect ourselves from these interventions, and we can continue to work towards helping prevent them from overuse, but at the end of the day we have to remember to support our friends when they have run out of options.
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