Alyssa Baby is now 5.5 months old, which means I have been breastfeeding for close to half a year! This is an achievement to me. When I first started breastfeeding, I really wonder if I could ever last for 6 months. That looked like a damn bloody long time to me. Trust me, breastfeeding isn't a fun thing at all and I can still feel the pain when I see new mothers trying to breastfeed.
Desmond, Alyssa Baby and I attended the 'full moon party' (one-month celebration) of Desmond's friend's baby last Saturday. I was in the baby's room breastfeeding when the mother walked in and ask if I'm still breastfeeding fully. She was envious when I told her that Alyssa is still exclusively breastfed and asked if I have alot of milk. I asked her how much she could pump out, to which she replied 80ml. Now, seriously, 80ml of milk is a decent amount to drink for newborns! Alyssa only drank 60ml of milk when she was two months old and 90ml when she was 3 months old. She was convinced by her confinement nanny that she doesn't have enough milk for her baby to drink and supplemented her baby with formula milk.
Now, this milk quantity thing is a pain for many breastfeeding mothers. People from the older generation are used to being able to see how much the baby is being fed and they sometimes doubt if the small-looking boobs of the mothers can contain enough for the baby. It doesn't help when breast milk is more easily digested and absorbed by the baby so they need to be fed more regularly than formula-fed babies, thus perpetuating the misconception of 'insufficient milk' further. What usually happens next is that 1) the mother will be pressurised by the entire world to supplement the baby's diet with formula or 2) the mother will be convinced she doesn't have enough milk and supplement the baby's diet with formula milk. The inability to breastfeed on the 'lack of milk'.
Milk supply is of the fundamental economics principle of demand and supply. The more the baby drinks, the more the boobs will produce milk. Supplementing breast milk with formula milk will only lessen the baby's demand for breast milk, leading to a lower production. Many mothers will say 'but I pumped and could only get 'x'ml!' Well, one thing they don't know is that pump is not an efficient method to extract milk from the breasts! Babies are able to extract milk more efficiently than any pump, which really means they drink more milk than what could be expressed with a pump. Also, if mothers would continue pumping, they would realise that milk will flow for as long as they pump. That means, if mothers pumped for 2 hours, milk will continue to flow for 2 hours (with short pauses in between). If they let the baby latch on for as long as they need to get enough milk, they really don't have to worry that they do not have enough milk for the baby.
I was lucky no one pressured me to supplement my baby's diet with formula (all thanks to the nurse at Mount Alvernia who announced to the whole world that I have alot of milk. I don't think I really have alot of milk but she was trying to be as encouraging as possible). However, I faced the problem of being pressurised to feed my baby water. Again, as formula-fed have to be fed water to prevent them from being constipated and being so used to formula-feeding, people from the older generation thinks that baby needs to be fed water. However, they do not know that breast milk is actually high in water content so breastfed babies DO NOT need to be fed water. It is in fact not advisable to feed the baby water because 1) To feed baby water, it has to be through a milk bottle. To make the baby adapt to the breasts fast and feed properly, it's best NOT to introduce bottles or pacifiers to them and 2) Water can affect baby's demand for breast milk, thus affecting the breast milk supply. My parents know nothing about breastfeeding and accused me of being too lazy to even feed my baby water in the beginning. Now they haven't said a thing since my baby survived for this long but that was quite something to bear.
Of course, what is the breastfeeding experience without the pain??? I think I mentioned the pain before in a previous post. That might be the worst pain anyone can experience, other than the labour itself.
Breastfeeding is actually the most fundamental stuff of child caring and it's ironic how people have made it so difficult for a mother to care for her child. Although more people are opting to breastfeed, but more education needs to be done to help these mothers withstand and eventually enjoy the breastfeeding experience.
I'm glad I managed to pull through so far for my baby.
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