One of the main reasons I chose to have a natural home birth
was to maximize a solid start to a successful breastfeeding relationship with
my baby. Everything I read about the
multitude of interventions that are common in hospital births seemed to point to
the beginning of the end of breastfeeding for mothers and babies who were
“drugged” during birth. And since I
didn’t trust myself to turn down interventions in a time as vulnerable as
labor, I opted for a homebirth instead.
But as Albert Einstein once said, “information is not
knowledge.” Did I seriously stake my entire birth and early postpartum
experience on mere potentiality? There
is a chance of an unnecessary
cesarean section at a hospital birth.
Hospital births are more likely
to result in prolonged or even stalled labor. Mothers and babies who experience
unmedicated birth tend to go on to
have strong, successful breastfeeding relationships. The epidural may lead to other, unwanted interventions. None of these are universals or guarantees, yet
they’re the pearls of wisdom I read about which convinced me to have a natural
homebirth.
When I finally held Natalia in my arms for the first time, I
did not think any of the crunchy poetics I had read about from other natural
birth moms. I did not think for one
second that it was worth it, or that I’d do it all again if I had to. It was over; that’s all that mattered. Now my daughter was here, and I just remember
thinking how tiny she was. There was a
definite disconnect between her presence and the manner of her arrival. Other than giving me bragging rights, I did
not feel particularly empowered by the natural birth. And as I’d learn over the following days and
weeks, the experience did not naturally (pun intended) lead to establishing a
smooth breastfeeding relationship, either.
As it would turn out, while my little girl’s being small (5
pounds, 10 ounces) may have been beneficially for me during birth, it would
prove a stumbling block to establishing a good latch. Her mouth just seemed to be too small to take
in the appropriate amount of the areola, nibbling instead on the nipple
itself. Furthermore, having come a
couple of weeks earlier than expected, she fell into a category no one
mentioned before – near-term baby. As
such, her rooting motions were quite jerky, and her sucking not very well
coordinated. Add to that a mom
traumatized by early nipple damage (yes, even without teeth, my little
crocodile managed to munch a piece of my nipple right off!). The result: an inability to boldly and
quickly maximize the few nanoseconds baby’s mouth stays open before attempting
to suckle, and painfully sore nipples are bound to happen.
Although everyone not directly involved with La Leche League
claimed that a painful beginning (days? weeks? months?) was part of the deal, I
had a hard time believing that my threshold for pain was that much lower than
all of these other moms’. The nipple damage traumatized me quite a bit. It was
the last straw on a heap of a week’s worth of painful nursing sessions. Contrary to what I knew had to happen once I
began lactating, I was so afraid of anything coming anywhere near my damaged
breast that I neither nursed nor expressed any milk from it for 12 hours. When the scab came off in the bath, I was
able to attempt to express milk using the manual pump I had “just in case”. But
because my milk had just started coming in the day before, I spent two hours in
all sorts of crazy positions, trying to maximize the amount I got with the help
of gravity, yielding just enough for one feeding – by miniature bulb syringe –
before realizing that I simply could not keep up with my little one’s needs.
Utterly disappointed in myself for my inability to nourish
my child the way nature intended, I had to succumb to allowing formula into the
picture. We had received some formula
samples in the mail which I had gathered to donate, since formula did not fit
into the ideal I was trying to establish in my early days of parenting. But now I was so thankful that there was a
way I could feed my baby, even if it was no thanks to me. Oscar, bless his heart, offered to take the
entire night shift (since this became a possibility with the introduction of
formula into the picture) so that I could sleep and thereby try to recuperate a
bit from the day’s drama.
Go to Part 2.
Go to Part 2.
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