Rebekah Diamond, MD
Fed is Best What I learned from breastfeeding
Once upon a time, women had magical pregnancies. They danced through meadows in flowing Grecian gowns with a crown of wildflowers until their exact due date. When they went into labor, they were lifted by a flock of doves and laid onto a fresh bed of lavender. Surrounded by loved ones, they smiled through childbirth and delivered a beautiful baby who was placed on their breast, only to immediately latch and feed on ample mother’s milk. Two rainbows appeared and there were never any wars or famine again. Oh, if it were only that simple. Between social media and my own expectations, it was hard not to think my breastfeeding experience would be this easy. What a surprise to discover that, like so many other moms, breastfeeding would be one of the more difficult and stressful parts of my postpartum journey. My baby didn’t latch, my supply was low, pumping was miserable, and I pushed through months and months of a joyless feeding plan that was rooted in an obsessive desire to maximize the amount of breast milk my daughter got. It took far too long to let nuance, science, compassion and common sense redirect my breastfeeding path. Looking back, I wish I had given myself
permission to stop pumping earlier and focus on the parts of bonding and feeding that were going well and that I enjoyed. I didn’t know how to
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balance the benefits of breastfeeding with the harm of obsessively striving to produce as many drops of breast milk as possible.