Birthworks
Birth is an experience that demonstrates that life is not merely function and utility, but form and beauty. – Christopher LargenArchive for Mentoring
Breastfeeding Illiteracy
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We live today in a society which has seen a generation of women and girls who simply do not know how to breastfeed. They have had minimal mothering and mentoring in breastfeeding and are simply not breastfeeding literate. These women and girls have sometimes never even seen anyone breastfeed a baby, let alone bare a breast, except in a sexual manner on the TV! So isn’t that rude??!!
Like our parents we too will rarely have more than 2.5 children and so these children will never have the chance to see siblings Breastfed either. We have become a victim to our progressive society, neglecting the smaller things of life, but are they really smaller, or are they the fundamentals?
“Women began [in our grandma’s days] bearing children early and often went on right through their reproductive years. Very few followed the present pattern of two or three children close together in age, then to end childbearing unless divorce and a second marriage intervene” (Minchin 1985 p81)
This has led unfortunately to a deficit of knowledge in our generation about breastfeeding, they have little or no knowledge to lean upon or glean from their forefathers/mothers.
“Many women discontinue breastfeeding within 8 weeks after giving birth. This isn’t surprising. The majority of women of childbearing age were predominantly bottle-fed. Even if they were breastfed, few were nursed further than 8 weeks. As a result many American [and Australian] women who nurse their babies receive little knowledgeable support from their mums, extended families, or older women in their churches or neighborhoods- the age old traditional sources of breastfeeding support in previous eras.” (Evans 1999 p202)
So who will teach the mother to mother? The government, the medical profession? Perhaps, but it seems unlikely that the very institutions that forged a wedge between the mother and her child will somehow reconcile and reunite the chasm and heal the breech. Indeed this may only reiterate and confirm the “age of the expert”, women have the innate ability to be mothers and it’s associated skills, and women who love and care for other women and show them how, may be our only solution.
There must be a ground swell from the mother’s themselves, a determination and desire to get back to the fundamentals and the basics. It will again have to be the mother mentoring the mother, although changed in practics the philosophy must remain the same.
The medical model has provided us with ammunition to throw back on itself. Research now reaffirms the bottlefeeding disaster and it’s detrimental results long term. However it does little to change the situation.
“The situation is strange today. The medical model’s scientific work has proved the superiority and importance of breastfeeding, and the medical world argues for it’s promotion, but medical systems jeopardize its chances for success.” (Wagner 1995 p241)
The women today needs to be provided with correct information to confirm the value of breastmilk and the fundamental skills to give it to their baby preferably from another mother who will nurture and mentor her until she is ready to nurture others also.
Breastfeeding and Mentoring
EROSION OF THE MOTHERING ROLE AND MENTORING IN BREASTFEEDING
Along with the many physical changes industrialization must make, it also brings great social change. One of the most significant social adjustment families had to make is the erosion of the mentoring role that took place with the extended family. No longer did mother live with daughter, aunty with niece, this environment of mentoring was changed utterly with serious and generational consequences in mothering (and fathering) we are still reaping today.
Women were around women, men were around men, they learnt to mother, they learnt to father……and what they learnt was not all bad. Girls and boys learnt how to birth babies, how to care for them, nurture them and bond with them. Mothers had babies for many years and the siblings got to be little mums and dads, boys and girls saw babies breastfed, burped and soothed…they got ideas, they remembered, they tried them out, they were mentored! They learnt how to be mothers, and they learnt how to be fathers.
They saw, they tried, therefore they were!
“In Grandma’s day, many sisters acted as little mothers to younger children, so babies were much more a part of everyday life…It’s easier to breastfeed if BREASTFEEDING IS TAKEN FOR GRANTED as a natural part of life, rather than being a rare sight which affronts some people: it is easier too, if handling and carrying babies has become second nature, rather than it being a source of great awkwardness and unease. This means that as our children grow, we should give them opportunities to care for other women’s babies and see them being breastfed” (Minchin 1985 p81)
Let us become a society where the breast is for nourishment not purely for ravishment…..let mentoing and modelling breastfeeding and natural birth be a part of our everyday experience.
I am not ashamed to tell you I have been breastfeeding almost continually for 16 years…..that is a long time. I am glad my young boys, especially my 16 year old son and 14 year old daughter have seen me naturally breastfeeding and it has been a normal part of our lifestyle over the years. That can only make for more balenced, supportive and open minded people…..but we need more of them!
Blessings Cathy
