I was sitting outside my work today, waiting for my ride and pondering what to blog about when I saw a young mother with a baby who could not have been more than two months old. She was standing at the bus stop near the front door of my work place, and when her baby cried to be fed, she whipped out a bottle and popped it into the baby's mouth. I don't think she realised (in fact I hope she didn't!) that another mom with a baby, nearby, was giving her dirty looks as she nursed her own child the old fashioned way.
There are many reasons a woman would choose to bottle feed her child. Not all that long ago bottle feeding, whether it's formula or express breast milk, would have been considered the norm. Now, it's almost as though a woman who chooses to bottle feed her baby is regarded with disdain despite the possible reasons behind it.
I am one such woman.
Breast feeding is definately the most natural way to go about looking after your offspring. There is no doubt that it is the healthiest thing you can do for the both of you. There are facts that back my claim up. What people often fail to consider, though, is that there may be any number of possible obstacles that can get in the way of feeding the baby the natural way. There can be physical reasons, psychological reasons, or even practical reasons to choose bottle-feeding over breast-feeding.
Here are two of the physical reasons for choosing to bottle-feed:
The mother could develop severe milk fever. While this is normally only a very mild rise in the mother's temperature, that begins at the onset of lactation and usually lasts a few hours, continued high temperatures (above 100.4 F) may indicate that there is an infection present. In severe cases, the doctor looking after mother and baby will usually give the mother a prescription to dry up the milk supply.
The baby may not latch onto the nipple properly, or may clamp down painfully. Either of these can result in frustration for both the baby and the mother, and may hurt the mother considerably. Some women are not prepared to "soldier through" this discomfort, to see whether or not the baby's habits change.
Here are two of the psychological reasons for choosing to bottle-feeding:
The nursing experience may be psychologically frightening to the mother. How is that possible, you may ask? Two ways, at least. When the baby is very young, it's necessary to keep your fingers around your nipple so that the flesh of your breast does not suffocate your little one. If the mother suffers from postpartum depression, she may have unwanted images of accidentally suffocating her child by the very act of feeding it. Even if the mother is not actually suffocating her child, the image can be so strong and so pervasive that she can't block it out of her mind.
Another way that nursing can be an uncomfortable psychological experience for the mother comes when the mother concerned has had some kind of physical or mental/emotional abuse in her past. This abuse can change anybody's natural views concerning their body and their very character. In a nursing mom, it can lead to feelings of unworthiness, emptiness (feeling like just a milking cow instead of a mom), hurt, etc. The act of nursing your child can bring forth, with great energy, your personal insecurities. It has a way of putting them front and centre, where you cannot get away from them. Not only that, but having these feelings in the first place can sometimes chip away at whatever bond the mother may have with her child, until they begin to associate the act of nursing with emotional pain and fear.
I can only think of one practical reason, but I am sure that there are more than one:
The mother may not be in a secure enough financial position to take her full maternity leave time. Having to work, even an at-home job, can mean that the mother simply is not available to breastfeed her child. So, she may make the effort to express milk for bottling (but that still means she would have to pump at least every 2 hours to keep her milk supply up), but formula feeding is the more likely result. Even if she expresses her milk regularly, she still may not produce enough since expressing doesn't empty the milk as effectively as nursing does. With this reason, simply put, time availability may be the central issue.
My point in all this rambling is this: the choice of feeding style has to be made with BOTH the welfare of the mom and the baby in mind. Nursing may indeed be what is best for the child, and there is plenty of evidence that it is generally good for mom too, but it may not be what is best for the mom in question. She is not a milking cow, and should not be looked at with disdain because she chose bottles over breasts. That's just my opinion, mind you. Chances are, however, that it was hard enough for her to make the choice in the first place. Chances are, also, that her self-confidence is pretty low at that point.... and sometimes one has to do what is best for establishing a proper parent-child bond.
A mother who bottle-feeds is not worth less than a breast-feeding parent, though many people seem to treat them as such. Although I agree that breast-feeding is the best option, it is not the only option and it is certainly not the only right option.
The right option is the one that allows the mother to bond to her child.
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