I was really lucky I had a friend who had her daughter the year before I had my son and she found out about La Leche League from somebody that she worked for and she went to meetings when she was pregnant with her daughter and then when I became pregnant with my son she invited me to go along to meetings with her, so it's her that I thank really for introducing me to La Leche League.
Did you find that useful?
Very, very I think, I do often wonder whether I would have had problems with breastfeeding if I hadn't gone to La Leche League meetings. I think I probably attended three meetings before I had my son and I can't really remember a lot about them, but I think what I gained from them was that breastfeeding shouldn't hurt and that all the previous information that I'd kind of gathered in my head from other mums and friends that had breastfed, was that breastfeeding hurts and it's painful and you have to go through all the problems of sore nipples, but I think the one thing I gained from La Leche League meetings before I had my son was that it shouldn't hurt, breastfeeding doesn't have to hurt, you haven't got to harden your nipples off to breastfeed and that's my ultimate thing I think I got from those meetings, not only that I also had the support of my friend who had breastfed and I knew that if I was having problems that she was there and also that I'd got the information from the Leaders that I met when I went to the meetings, so yeah that's that was my experience with him.
Did you go to any antenatal classes or anything like that?
I did, I went to some at my local hospital. I didn't go to my local ones and I went to some at my local hospital and we had a breastfeeding video. I remember it being a breastfeeding video and I remember not being impressed at all with what they did about breastfeeding because I'd been to my La Leche League meeting.
So what was it about this breastfeeding video at the antenatal class that you think you didn't like?
I think it was, it's a long time ago so it's difficult to remember, but I vaguely remember it being very prescriptive about this is what you should do and, and lots of information about how good it was to breastfeed but not actually any of the real realities of breastfeeding. What to expect when you have a baby because I think that is more important. You can't show anyone how to breastfeed or tell anyone how to breastfeed and they weren't seeing it from the perspective of the baby, and what the baby expects when it's born and other things as well, how the birth, because breastfeeding can be influenced by the kind of birth that you have as well and I don't remember it being, it was just very prescriptive about this is what you do, and I, I vaguely remember it being kind of coupled with some talk about bottle feeding as well and maybe a video, then something to do with bottle feeding which I don't think they are allowed to do now I think that's probably not allowed, you're not allowed to promote bottle feeding at all.
So this was in contrast to what you were getting from the La Leche League meetings?
Yeah, see my first experience of a La Leche League meeting, I can remember there was one mum there who actually went to my antenatal classes as well, she was there. There was a mum who'd got a baby who was probably about three or four months old and just seeing her, she was responding to her babies needs every time her baby needed her and, her baby didn't cry to be fed, she just, the baby would just fidget and then the mum would feed her and I think just seeing mums, seeing mums happy, babies happy, mums happy. I think what I was going to say about breastfeeding was that all the benefits, they weren't just if its about the baby's immune system and all the health benefits, they were things that I didn't know about like meeting your baby's needs whenever, breastfeeding is the best way to meet your baby's needs. You can meet all it's needs just by feeding it and I think I had thought about the convenience but not really probably, not practically because I found it like just seeing the fact that the mums were there with their babies in the evening and I think it was probably late summer and it was lovely because they were there, they didn't have to leave them at home, they could take them with them and it was, you know, it was completely normal for their mums to be there and that's something that I've always felt anyway about my own children, that I've always wanted them to be, I've wanted to be with them all the time. But going to a La Leche League meeting just cemented that really in my head because that was what all these mums did and it was quite normal and it wasn't frowned upon because they wanted to take their babies with them, they didn't want to leave them at home. |
