As I grew up I have seen moms breastfeed in public, in buses, in bus stops. Our cultural attire was well suited to breastfeeding and all I remember seeing was a baby hidden behind saree and playing with their legs and hitting handle bars (of bus seat) and moms holding their baby with love and most of the times moms were super duper cool. They were unfazed and holding and feeding their baby in their arms in a moving bus and sometimes multitasking… Hence it never struck me even for once that breastfeeding is hard. I assumed that it was natural.
When I was pregnant I went to couple of classes and I met another pregnant lady who challenged the La Leche League leader when she said that breastfeeding does not hurt if latched properly. Later after the session I went to her and told her ‘there are some videos on how to latch properly and if we follow that it does not hurt that much’. Yes, I was that naive. She probably realized that and told me that was not true and sometimes it may hurt even if latched properly and her friend who just had a baby was in pain for more than 3 weeks. Well that was news to me!!! I went back and researched some more but it went to back of my mind and I did not think about it much after that.
And after I had my baby so much happened with breastfeeding that I found myself pumping more often than breastfeeding. Upon more research I found out about exclusive pumping and struggled and learnt and struggled some more to increase my supply with pumping. During this journey I learnt a lot and I continued to research. In fact I used the pumping time to do the research about pumping.
In this series, I am going to document all that I learnt. I really hope it is useful to the moms out there who find themselves in this like I did. Trust me, you are not alone. We are here with you and when you are up at 3.00 am and pumping and wondering ‘Why am I doing this’, we are awake and pumping and wondering the same too sometimes:) You are not alone in this journey at all.
Nice post ! thanks