In the past couple of days, I was seeing news headlines about acute shortage of baby formula in the US but hadn't paid much attention to those because I was pre-occupied with work. As more and more Linked In posts started popping up and my neighbor also mentioned that all his free time is currently spent trying to get formula for their 6 months old daughter, it took me back to our dependency on baby formula when Neel and Mili were infants.
The trigger for this story is when I read posts or articles where people (mostly men) try to say that there are no such thing as psychological effects of breast feeding on moms. A general attitude indicating that feeding formula to babies is a "choice" made by all moms. First and foremost, I don't think that women need to explain or justify anything related to breast feeding to anyone. But then my subconscious tells me, if moms don't share their stories, do we just let ignorance prevail?
Our twins were born full-term and at healthy birth weights in 2009. Every day at the hospital and the next couple of weeks after their birth, we spent more than an hour with lactation consultants that tried to teach the babies to latch and for me nurse - hold the baby this way, hold the baby that way, use this contraption, do this and do that. They would weigh the baby before the session and after the session and my heart would beat anxiously as we tried to see if they got any milk in. It was very hard on mind and body for me as a new mom.
We had to start with formula while continuing with my attempts to give them mother's milk. Our pediatrician put together my daily pumping schedule warning me that if I didn't do this, the milk supply wouldn't come in (6am, 9am, 12noon, 3pm, 6pm, 9am, 12 midnight). We rented a hospital grade breast pump with maximum suction power than those available in retail stores (at that time). Also, so that the babies learn to latch, I needed to pump and then I had to try to nurse them so that they got used to associating the breast with the milk. Easier said than done! I would sit with the pump for 45mins only to get 1ml or less of milk, then I had to sit with each baby and by the time I was done with both and cleaned up all the parts and bottles, guess what - it was time to pump again. It felt like despite the best intentions, my body was not co-operating and in that state of zombiness (I was on painkillers since I had a C-section), I felt like a complete failure. This is not something that I could verbalize to anyone around me. On the 3rd consecutive visit to the pediatrician's office when she brusquely told me that if I didn't intend to nurse my babies, formula was always an option, I was frustrated and with angry tears streaming down my cheeks I said that I wish I could keep awake long enough to feed them. She immediately became alert and prodded further. She was aghast to learn that while everyone told me that I needed to pump, nobody told me how long each session should last and that I was doing it for 45mins. Then she asked me why I was falling asleep and only then realized that I was on strong painkillers that were prescribed to deal with the C-Section pain. The pain killers affect milk supply and nobody (OBGYN, lactation consultants or pediatrician) that were encouraging me to breast feed all this time, connected the dots. No doubt I was getting only 1ml or less despite the hours I spent with the pump, and it was the reason why I couldn't keep my eyes open too long! I went cold turkey with the pain meds and sure enough a week later, things started improving. Somnath and I also decided that we were not getting time to enjoy with our babies in this whole exercise of pediatrician/lactation consultant visits just to get them to nurse and the heavy toll it was taking on me. We stopped all visits, but I continued to pump every 3hrs and slowly and steadily the milk supply set in and while Neel latched on, Mili just refused and ended up being bottle fed fully. Again, the guilt that one baby was "bonding" with me while the other refused. I consider myself mentally very strong, but I was weakest during those days of new motherhood. Hormones were in an overdrive, body was recovering from the pregnancy and delivery, sleep deprivation was at its highest, mind was numbed by pain killers and the responsibility of caring for real tiny human beings without messing up, was the need of the hour!
20 weeks flew by, and I was back at work. We had a Mothers' room in each MSFT building and what a blessing it was! A boon to working mothers! If meetings were in other buildings on campus, I just needed to stop at the reception to get the code to the Mother's room in that building. It used to be a room that had two pumping stations with screens for privacy, a table and chair in case moms wanted to work on the laptop while pumping and a mini fridge to store the milk until the end of the day. All moms had their own bottles labeled to avoid mix-ups. We were encouraged not to join meetings or make any phone calls while in the room and the Mothers' rooms were a peaceful and quiet sojourn. New moms at MSFT were encouraged to block time on calendars for pumping and it was very common to see the Medela breast pump bags that moms carried in daily to work along with their laptop bags. I was able to continue pumping until the babies turned 1yr old. It was a long journey from those initial days filled with frustration to being able to keep up the supply for the year. I was able to make enough milk for one baby - took fenugreek capsules and did everything that is supposed to increase supply to no avail. So we did have to supplement with formula. We are used to Mothers' rooms here in the US but at least back in 2009, I had a hard time finding one in airports in India. I hope that things are different and all banks/companies/schools and airports have these facilities. I have always wondered how working new moms in India and other countries manage.
Prior to becoming a mother, I didn't know how much encouragement (or pressure?) new moms had to endure if they had issues with milk supply or problems with breast feeding. It starts with the first visit by the hospital lactation visit within hours of delivery and goes on for days after. It is hard to reconcile my personal experience with recent tweets/articles that say that moms are discouraged from breast feeding in the US.
MSFT benefits have also over the years only gotten better for new mothers. Now every calendar year, moms that are nursing can buy hospital grade pumps and are fully reimbursed (for the pump as well as all accessories). Mothers' rooms across MSFT campus also have pumping bags available if moms forget to bring in bottles. This indicates that new moms are still encouraged to pump and year over year, benefits are only improving so that they can continue to feed breast milk to their infants.
Every mother is different, her circumstances and her body are different. Some might have moments of weakness, no matter how logical they are in their day-to-day life. There is pressure on new moms from so many directions and we have to admit that they are judged no matter what they do. Among my friends, I have cancer survivor moms and moms who had to have babies via surrogacy who have to depend on baby formula for their infants. Whether it is her choice or it is a physical or psychological limitation because of which she needs to depend on formula, she should be left alone.
Most importantly, I do not think anyone (especially men) should comment on psychological impact of breast feeding on women unless they are psychiatrists or psychologists or doctors themselves!