A few days ago El País shared "The brave photo of a mother who shows the nightmare that can be to breastfeed a baby." Or so the owner said. I imagined a woman devastated by the tiredness of not sleeping and having a baby hanging all day to the chest and I thought it was great that she shared it to give another opinion of this of having a baby, very different from the one that you sold in plan: "Have children, it will be wonderful and you will be much happier".
If that were the case, obviously, I would have clarified that the nightmare is not breastfeeding (or not just breastfeeding), but raising a baby in a society that no longer thinks about babies or their care: have children, receive our visits and congratulations and, as soon as you can, be the same as before. And the baby? That the grandparents take care of it or in the nursery school… you have already done the most important thing, to bring them to the world.
But no, what I found in The country It was the image of a woman breastfeeding in a somewhat strange way, for a serious problem in breastfeeding: a mastitis that was significantly affecting your general condition. Normal that he was having a bad time. But you can't say I was discovering something surprising. I think, more or less, all women who breastfeed know that one of the possible complications in breastfeeding is that. So I wanted to share it this way: A mother shares how hard it can be to breastfeed when you suffer a mastitis.
Founder of the breastfeeding support group The Leaky Boob
His name is Jessica Martin-Weber, is the mother of six children and is the founder of the breastfeeding support group The Leaky Boob. Apparently, she decided to share with others what had happened a long time ago with her fifth child, so they could see that even she, an experienced mother, had suffered the unspeakable at that time of her upbringing and breastfeeding.
These photos are not from a sacred and special time of breastfeeding. They are not to celebrate my belly or even feed my baby. These photos are of me trying to survive. My temperature here was over 39.5 ° C and I was dying.
Thus begins his writing, in which he explains that his chest was inflamed, red and sore, like the rest of his body, with his children at home, while explaining to her husband on the cell phone that he thought he would die. Such pain, I was convinced that I needed to go to the hospital to do something, even if it was to tear her breasts.
Because of a too tight bra
Two factors came together. According to Jessica, she put on a bra that tightened more than she should just the day her baby decided to skip a shot. Thus came congestion, engorgement, pain and fever.
In that situation, he began to look for the position that was best for him to relieve the pain and get the retained milk out, so he knocked it down and she was rotating until she found the position in which His son's chin pulled from the point of greatest discomfort. His baby, along with chest massage and frequent milk extraction, in addition to hydrating and resting, was what helped him gradually emerge from what he termed as "a nothing inspiring moment of breastfeeding captured on camera, but that was real and saved me. "
So, is breastfeeding not as pretty as it is painted?
Well, it depends. Although in everything related to babies and their upbringing, there are many things that are not as pretty as they are painted, because babies are dependent, very dependent, and require a mother and father to be there with him, giving hours of rest and sleep to try to have the baby do.
Mothers and fathers who then, when the leave ends, have to return to their respective jobs to give the callus every day, as if they had not had a baby, when it turns out that still almost as dependent as the first day.
So breastfeeding is not idyllic (or sometimes it is not, because many women say yes), and less if you have no one to help you if you have problems (this woman at least knew what she had to do to solve the infection ). But neither can we say that feeding a baby with a bottle is, because there are children who do not tolerate the formula milk proteins well and you have to walk by pediatricians and doctors changing milks in case they are colic or bad digestions, or directly testing with hydrolyzate in case it is allergy.
And the portage is not idyllic either because many of them leave their backs broken, nor is the stroller because many cry as possessed ... and so, because being parents is more or less this: dancing to the sound of your baby who is the one who knows best in every moment what you need to develop correctly.
I say this in case in El País they want to also mention these "non-idyllic" processes of having a baby. Since they have started with breastfeeding, now they can continue with formula milk, then with porting, then with strollers, with complementary feeding, which leads many parents, and can even make a special parents ( dads), that many think that their life is going to be a fun time to be parents and they find that that baby they just had requires much more dedication than they imagined, and some they are erased and all of paternity, demanding that couples "let him cry a little so that he doesn't tease them and doesn't need them so much."
