Your worth as a Mama is NOT determined by the volume of milk you make
The first week of August is World Breastfeeding Week (WBW#2020). As a neonatologist, I promote breastfeeding on a daily basis. I champion moms to start early non-nutritive feedings in the NICU. I encourage moms to pump. I promote donor milk for babies in the NICU. And I can rattle off all the benefits of breastmilk to anyone who asks. When I was pregnant, I could not wait to breastfeed my babies.
And every year during World Breastfeed Week, I am reminded of why I failed as a mom. Why I felt like I failed as a mom. My failure to be able to breastfeed my babies slams me all over again, every year during this week. I failed to breastfeed my kids. All the mom blogs say “If all you do is feed your baby and sleep during the first several weeks, you are succeeding as a mom” — and I couldn’t breastfeed. And I felt like a failure.
Why?
My body never made milk. I tried. I hired lactation consultants, used medical-grade pumps, went to special breastfeeding clinics, and pushed myself to succeed. I pumped every 2 hours around the clock. I tried breastfeeding first and pumping after, and pumping first and breastfeeding after. I took supplements and drank tea and tried…. well…. everything. In the end, nothing helped. It was likely a combination of Poland Syndrome, post-partum hemorrhage, and severe post-partum anemia. I would pump for 2 or 3 days just to give my baby one bottle of my breastmilk. My breasts hurt. My head hurt. My heart hurt. I would let someone else feed my baby while I tried, yet again, to pump, giving up precious snuggles with my baby. And still - felt like a failure.
I remember my sister-in-law came out to visit from across the country about a month after I delivered. She had a 4-month old. I would pump and pump and pump - to get 10mL. She was exclusively breastfeeding her daughter. And she would pump right before bed and throw that milk down the drain, because she was an over-producer. She couldn’t take it home with her. And I was too proud to ask to use it. I told everyone around me I was fine. It was fine. But even now, writing this 6 years later, I get tears in my eyes while writing this. I hated myself. I hated my body for failing me - for failing my baby. And I hated the societal pressure to breastfeed and how EVERYONE asked me how breastfeeding was going. The old lady at the mall lecturing me about bottle feeding, telling me what my baby was missing out on. The well-intentioned neighbor who asked why I was giving her a bottle. My aunt who casually mentioned that the double whammy of a c-section and formula meant my kids were destined to be unhealthy and sickly and obese.
When people ask “Are you breastfeeding"?” or “How’s breastfeeding going?” it feels a little like how we ask “How’s it going?” as we pass someone in the hall at work. It is a polite statement, not an actual invitation to discuss what was actually going on. No one wanted to hear me respond “It’s going terrible and I’m a failure of a mom, thanks for asking.” While they were asking the question, they didn’t really mean to engage in a conversation.
So for World Breastfeeding Week, I am not writing about the benefits of breast milk or breastfeeding. I’m writing to all the Mamas in the NICU who are pumping around the clock, to all the Mamas with post-partum hemorrhages who are so anemic they can’t produce milk, to all the Mamas who are on medications that prevent them from breastfeeding, and to all the Mamas who tried to breastfeed and couldn’t. To you, I want to say —
You are wonderful. You are doing great.
You are just what your baby needs.
Your worth is not determined by the volume of milk you produce.
Your baby can and will thrive on formula.
Whether you breastfeed for 1 day or 1 week or 1 year, your value as a mother is not determined by the amount of milk you make.
“You are enough”
The face of a defeated mom, trying to show the world that everything is “fine”.