When I attended a breastfeeding class at the community health unit, I noticed two posters on the otherwise sparsely decorated walls. Entitled “Formula” and “Breastmilk,” they listed the benefits of each. The breastfeeding list stretched the length of the poster, whereas the formula list was…succinct. Throughout the class, formula feeding and breastfeeding were placed in diametric opposition—feeding babies formula was actually likened to raising them on a steady diet of fast food!
I didn’t think about it too much at the time. Of course I would be breastfeeding; that’s why we were all here. And we had fun in the class, diligently practicing our latching technique with baby dolls and crocheted boobs. I left feeling proud that, by breastfeeding my soon-to-be-born son, I would be giving him the greatest gift I could.
Or could I? At no point in the class did they address the possibility of being unable to breastfeed, so I was totally unprepared for what was coming.
Perhaps the unplanned C-section was the culprit, but my milk took a long time to come in, and squeezing out the first precious drops of colostrum was excruciating (several different nurses also took a turn, not all of whom seemed to be aware that my breasts were connected to me). I already felt like a failure because I’d needed a cesarean, and this wasn’t helping—I resolved that I was going to breastfeed my son if it took everything I had.
Life became a long blur of feeding, pumping, and bleary-eyed researching. I wasn’t able to get much milk from pumping but was assured by medical staff that babies are much more efficient than a pump, and that the latch was good, so to keep trying. Everything I read discouraged the use of formula in these early days because it could reduce milk production, and “breast is best.” I was hopeful that my milk would soon come in, but I worried because my son was losing weight. Still, I was told that it’s normal for newborns to drop some weight in the first two weeks and that, as long as he started gaining soon, it was nothing to be concerned about.
But he didn’t start gaining, and at his three-week check-up, our doctor saw the situation for what it was. He secured a next-day spot for me at the breastfeeding clinic in the city.
After doing a weigh-feed-reweigh, the clinic doctor disappeared for a few minutes. She returned holding a just-mixed bottle of formula. While my son noisily slurped it down, she said that he must have an extraordinarily tolerant personality, because he seemed so happy, yet he was so hungry. There was no way the amount of milk my body provided in a feeding could sustain him.
My heart broke. My baby, the person most precious to me in the world, was essentially starving, because I was deficient—and, ironically, because I was trying so hard to do what I had repeatedly been told was “best” for my child. On the way home I stocked up on formula, covering the “evil” boxes in the cart because I was so deeply ashamed.
I rented a medical-grade pump and every two hours executed a sequence of breastfeeding and then formula feeding, while I pumped out anything left, in an attempt to amp up my production. I drank liters of water and took galactagogues (blessed thistle, fenugreek, and finally, domperidone). My life was consumed with feeding my baby.
And I continued to go to the breastfeeding clinic. At each weigh-in I held my breath, praying that he had gained more than two ounces in a feed. It never happened. Finally, the doctor said we’d done everything we could, and my son would need to continue relying on formula.
Nothing that anyone had preached about the virtues of breastfeeding had prepared me for this situation. I was devastated. My body had betrayed me—and I, in turn, felt like I was betraying my son!
“Sometimes it just doesn’t work,” the doctor said, her voice memorably kind. “Thank goodness we live in modern times and we have formula.”
It was the first time I’d heard formula referred to in a positive way. She went on to say that women have been unable to breastfeed throughout history. Only before formula, there were wet nurses.
For weeks, I had been feeling like less of a mother. This angel of a doctor assured me I was normal and reminded me that, just by trying, and then by feeding my son what he needed, I was being a good mom. This was something I had desperately needed to hear from a healthcare professional.
Moms are so much more than food factories. I couldn’t fully nourish my son with the much-exalted nectar of breastmilk, but he is the daily recipient of as much love and unconditional support as he can handle.
Today, three and a half years later, my son stands tall, healthy, and strong. He is curious, athletic, articulate, and compassionate. He eats a wide variety of nutritious foods and, despite his early formula intake, shows no affinity for fast food, preferring his broccoli florets to hamburgers.