So can you tell me about your experiences of breastfeeding?
I was very keen to breastfeed, because I knew all the health benefits for my daughter as well as the health benefits for me I've got a very strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer so I was very keen to breastfeed for that reason as well, so I went into it with quite a positive attitude. And at first it all seemed to be going very well, the first twenty-four hours seemed absolutely fine and I thought this isn't as difficult as anyone makes it sound but then once we came home and she was a bit more awake and feeding more often that's when the trouble really started and, and I had very, very painful nipples, cracked and bleeding nipples and it was just agony to breastfeed. And so the first, I'd say the first six to eight weeks really were really quite hard.
Right, can you tell me what you knew about breastfeeding before you had your baby?
I, about, I knew about the, the health benefits of breastfeeding so I knew that it was better for the baby, baby's immune system to help her fight infection, that it had all the right blend of nutrients and the right amount of water and all that sort of thing, and I knew that it was good for bonding, and I knew that it was much more convenient and cheaper and, easily packaged and portable, and I knew that it was good for mums in, that it reduced risks of cancer and osteoporosis and so on. I didn't really appreciate how hard it would be and how much of a skill it was to, to breastfeed, I, I'd figured that you know people are mammals and mammals have been around for millions of years and they've all had no problems breastfeeding so why should I have any problems I, I thought it was, it just must be natural and it must be very easy and I was very wrong.
Where did you get that information?
I guess it was more of a perception because the women that I'd seen breastfeeding, or the women that I'd seen in cafés or breastfeeding in supermarkets they all looked so comfortable and happy and I thought well it can't be that hard really. Not very many people in my family have breastfed, I just haven't been around people the right age to be breastfeeding and I think out of my female relatives a lot of them bottle fed rather than breastfed so there wasn't much family input but it was just sort of, the women that I'd seen out in public and they seemed to be very happy with it so I thought it must be easy.
Right, so your mother didn't breastfeed?
I think she tried, to breastfeed me, my mother tried to breast me, feed me for the first few weeks but she'd had problems that I think, she thought that she didn't have enough milk and therefore she moved me on to formula very quickly.
Mm-hm, what country was that in?
I was born in Sri Lanka, and that's where my mum moved from breastfeeding to bottle feeding. |
