Did my choice to breastfeed have to do with my upbringing in polygamy?

Many people have asked me why I chose to breastfeed my babies, was it a polygamy belief? Surprisingly, it was not taught to in the Order to me to breastfeed. I know other polygamist groups teach it, but in the Order they actually frown toward women who breastfeed, at least in my experience. They say its because it prevents them from getting pregnant right away, which to me it seemed that it was always about the women’s body being for the purpose of making the baby, and pleasing the husband. It was sort of taboo seeing a new mother nursing her baby, however some were rebels and did it anyways. There were also some families who did teach and pressure their women to breastfeed. So I guess it must have just been a family to family thing. I remember talking to my mom about it with one of her later pregnancies, and she told me about the colostrum that comes the first week, and that it was important for the newborn baby to get that. From that discussion, I had just always known that I would definitely be giving my baby’s the colostrum in the first week when I had them. I would always say that I would just feel it out, and breastfeed anywhere from 6-weeks to 6-months max. I also definitely planned to be a closet breast-feeder, hiding from the public eye to keep the random people of the world more comfortable from my taboo image of breastfeeding!

Breasts have been so sexualized in the Order, and even in society that it’s weird for people to see a baby feeding from them. Yet, so normal to see breasts pushed up in a sexy dress with full on cleavage….what went wrong? How did society get here? Was it Freudian and his weirdness about children’s sexual desires that led to this rather odd culture around breasts and breastfeeding!!
How did it become more culturally acceptable to hook a cow to a machine for her milk, than to continue breastfeeding a 1-year-old …. makes you question your standards when look at it from that perspective!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those moms where I judge or even care that a baby is formula fed!! A fed healthy baby in the end is all that matters, but why is it so weird to breastfeed in public, even covered up…… why is it weird to breastfeed past 1 years-old? And why does everyone have to have an opinion on whether you chose to breastfeed or not? The cultural taboo around it is really where I am trying to understand especially, let me say it again. We hook a momma cow to a machine and take her milk, for reals, how do we justify that in our minds, yet so many judge toward moms who breastfeed past 1-years-old??? It’s just all very interesting to think about…

I don’t know where I decided that breastfeeding till 6-months for me was my plan…. I think, I just felt it was a great happy medium! My first was born 29-weeks premature because I was deathly ill with preeclampsia! I told the nurses I planned to breastfeed, but the day I delivered was hard to stay fully conscious! The evening nurse came about 10-hours after my c-section, and told me I needed to start pumping or my milk would not come in!! This was such a long night with this nurse waking me every two hours to pump for 15-mins. As I’d fall asleep holding the pumping bottles that’d disconnect she’d come back to wake me to keep pumping!! This was a miserable experience to say the least, and I learned all about how breast milk was “liquid gold” for my preemie baby! But I made it through those first few weeks pumping every 2-3 hours, setting alarms in the night to get up! Brought my sweet baby home 5-weeks later, and returned my pump to the hospital! I started her on NeoSure formula, sometimes mixed with breast milk, but often times just formula for convenience and to give her more calories being so tiny. We were doing life at home for about 3-weeks before my baby got RSV and was life-flighted to Primary Children’s Hospital!

I was told she may not live, but they had her stable on multiple machines that kept her breathing and alive! She was in a medically induced coma, and laid there life-less with a machine forcing her lungs to rise and fall! I’ll write another blog on this experience as there’s so much to share, but for the topic of this blog, I had no pump and no baby to feed so my milk dried up completely! My baby came home from her RSV stay 3-weeks later, and she was exclusively formula fed from then on! I was fine with this because I had only planned to nurse her a few months anyways….. but that first year we went to the hospital at least once a month with our baby due to respiratory illnesses! She developed chronic lung disease, and was sick more than not! She took so many antibiotics they would run out of options on which ones to give her!

So when I was pregnant with my second and the flood of info and mommy advice was coming my way again, I was reminded of breastmilks antibodies! I was reminded of the miserable first-night of pumping after I delivered my first, while I was still fighting for my life. But, because of my experience with my oldest daughters first 2-years, I decided I was gonna breastfeed the full year no matter what it took, just to see if it would make a difference for my second! Plus my oldest was 11-weeks early, so wasn’t sure if that was the only reason for her health issues, but still I was gonna give it what I could just to see!!

BUT came 27-weeks in my 2nd pregnancy, I was diagnosed with preeclampsia again!! That baby girl was born the exact same early at 29-weeks preemie! She weighed 2lbs 8oz! This motivated me more than ever to invest in a pump and make sure I kept my milk supply in for a full year! There is so much mixed reviews with moms and experts saying formula is just as great these days, or the extreme breast-feeders with their love for “liquid gold”!! There were so many opinions on how to eat while breastfeeding ie: all natural, the vegan diet, soo much opinions and advice! I just decided I’m gonna breastfeed for one year and see if it makes a difference for my 2nd babies health compared to my first! I had no intentions to stress about an all natural organic diet, I was juggling the life of preemie children, going to school, husband in school, and hitting the pillow every day with a list of responsibilities that did not get done, that rolled over to the next days to-do-list! To say the least, meal planning was the last thing on my mind, and I just ate whatever food was there when I was hungry! I say this because I want to inform you that I did not do an extremely healthy diet in my little experiment to see if breastfeeding would make a difference for my second daughters health! Now I know they are two different children, but remember, both were 29-week preemies born 2-years apart! And this baby actually had more health struggles from the get go, then my first!

So I pumped and pumped, and miserably pumped!! My 2nd daughter stayed in the hospital for 8-weeks, she could not figure out how to latch! So we finally decided to bottle feed the breast milk so she could come home! I pumped and pumped, and woke every two hours to pump and then bottle feed my baby! My husband was a pre-med student working full time. So he helped when he could, but responsibilities of parenting were primarily on me. I cried a lot, I was sooo tired all the time, I wanted to give up pumping, and just start the formula! I would try every few days to see if my baby could figure out latching on the breast, but no success! I’d sit there with the pump for the 10-minutes reminding myself only 1-year. I would think about my older daughter laying their life-less and how I would have done anything to make a difference for her health. I tried everything I could to keep motivating myself, even if I just sat and cried because I was feeling like a momma milk-cow hooked to my machine.

At 3-months old for my 2nd baby, both girls got their first sickness since she had come home! I was discouraged thinking, I’m done, not going to pump anymore, we’re buying formula! I had every intention to buy the formula on my way home from the docs! I was shocked when they showed me the girls X-rays! Both had crap in their lungs indicating sickness, but one had pneumonia the other had bronchitis that hadn’t become pneumonia! One of their lungs was so full of fluid they were gonna admit her! All this time I thought it was my 5lb, 3-month old baby, who was the severely sick one, BUT no, it was my older daughter!

So yah the baby was sick too, but she was not even nearly as sick as my older one! In fact, the doc hardly worried about the baby, I was mind-blown trying to process, how is this tiny-tiny baby not as sick? Nurse after nurse, machine after machine for my older one, but the baby is OK? I was asking, “will the baby get sicker, has it just not progressed for her yet?” but no the doc said she was actually passed the peak and starting to improve!

I sat there stunned, with the renewed motivation to keep pumping, and giving my baby the breast milk with the supposed antibodies to fight off sicknesses! Now I know formula has antibodies too, but a random someone told me the breast milks antibodies were specific to my baby, and the illnesses our family would have because my body was fighting those illnesses! I never fact checked or verified this info, just continued with my personal study to see if breastfeeding would make a difference! Even though it was soooo miserable to pump, then bottle feed, and I hardly got sleep, I was determined to do what I could for this baby! I was also told by the doctor that when an infant aspirates breastmilk it is already a natural substance to the body so it’s just reabsorbed, but when an infant aspirates formula, it is a foreign substance and can lead to pneumonia…. Again, I did not fact check this, but my postpartum psyche had major PTSD watching my husband give CPR to our first baby, having her life-flighted, and lay in a crib having machines keep her alive! I could not go through that again, at all costs, if breastfeeding would make the difference, I was gonna keep doing the miserable task of pumping!

About 4-5 months old my baby started to figure out latching, and I was so thankful because it cut her feeding time in half to take out the pumping time! So many people told me that she would never latch and she’d always only want the bottle because that’s what we kept giving her! Seriously people, why do you all know everything?
So many of you moms being told if you give your baby a bottle they will prefer it over latching then I am here to tell you that is not always the case! Maybe for some babies, but with mine she actually eventually stopped taking the bottle all together, and ONLY breastfed, she even stopped binkies!

For the remainder of that first year my girls continued to experience respiratory illnesses, but each time my oldest was always sicker than my tiny baby! My faith in breast milk being “liquid gold” continued to build!

I know they’re two different kids, but again they were the same premature, my younger had more health concerns at birth, and she also had the older sibling that brought in more germs and illnesses to her environment, yet she was NEVER the sicker one!

When she turned 1-years-old, which was my deadline to stop nursing then she was refusing to take a bottle, she refused formula, even in a sippy. Rewind — she was sensitive to so many things in my breast milk that I avoided dairy, wheat, eggs, spicy food, etc. I still ate them, but avoided them when I could. So point being, we were hesitant to go straight to giving her dairy milk! We decided I would just keep breastfeeding till her due date so she’d be gestationally 1-years-old, from there I just kept nursing her during the night and putting breast milk in her sippy’s during the day! About 4-months before her 2nd birthday I decided to stop breastfeeding! Largely because of the social pressure that I was still breastfeeding this baby who was almost 2-years-old.

Anyways, she was healthier then my older daughter, she was doing great, and I believed that breast milk was a huge part of that difference between my two girls! Because really like I mentioned, my 2nd had more things going against her, yet here she was almost 2-years-old and healthier than her older sister!

Oh my gosh, I’m turning into those moms that shout “breast all the way” from the roof tops– haha kidding, but seriously my whole outlook changed!

I still think formula is just as great for keeping babies fed. I just personally have decided to give my babies breast milk! I get that not all moms have this luxury on so many levels, so if you’re not breastfeeding don’t ever feel guilty! My oldest is still loved, was well fed, taken care of, and I still think I’m a great mom to her! And my experience is with preemie babies, whereas a full-term may have not even had the same weakened immune system that breast milk would have made such a stark difference for!

This is my experience with my two kids, and now with my 3rd daughter who was 32-weeks preemie due to preeclampsia I will be breastfeeding her as well! So if you’re reading blogs trying to decide, do I breast feed or do I formula feed,  just know that many are speaking from their personal experiences.

Breastfeeding is my choice based on my experience, remember you’re experience may be different and that’s OK! The advice of do’s and don’ts come from all directions, but remember this advice may be from someone’s unique situation that’s different than yours, so take it for what it’s worth, filter it for yourself and your life!

Whatever you chose as a mother give yourself the credit for making an informed decision about what’s best for YOU! Because our situations are all so different, our struggles are different, and whether “breast is best” or formula… what’s BEST is to go through motherhood with confidence in yourself and decisions as a mother!

So give yourself a break, and love yourself through this hard and rewarding journey of motherhood! And tell another mom what a great effort she is giving rather than judge what she chooses to do different than you!

I sit in public being that mom nursing my baby, and I get lots of looks and comments! Don’t get me wrong some are VERY positive praise for breast feeding (which is great, but then I wonder “what do you do, and say to moms bottle feeding?”), others are judging me for not hiding, making comments (even though I’m almost always covered), and some explain to me why they’re giving their baby a bottle (like maybe they think I’m judging them).…. and every time I just think WOW how is a mom supposed to endure motherhood with so little support and so much judgement? No wonder so many mothers these days suffer from depression and anxiety…

I know I’m getting off topic again, but moms give yourself a break, and love yourself through your personal journey!! Because those kiddos need you!! Way more than they care if they were formula fed or breast milk fed!!!

My personal journey has guided my decisions as a mother, and yes I sometimes feel guilty that I did not take breastfeeding more seriously with my oldest. BUT then I forgive myself, and remind myself that I took care of her, I fed her, I loved her, and that I did a good job. Plus there is still no guarantee that breastfeeding her beyond her RSV sickness would have made that big of a difference for her. Her health struggles could still be what they are today, whether I breastfed her or formula fed her, I will never truly know. It is just not a gamble I am willing to take with my current baby, so I will miserably pump as long as I need to. Again, I am only sharing this because so many have been asking me why I decided to breastfeed my babies, and if that was a teaching in polygamy. Again, the answer is that it was not a teaching for me in polygamy, I was actually taught the opposite, but it is a personal decision I made based on my personal experiences.

 

I also get a lot of questions about the products I use for breastfeeding, and where I get my cover-ups click here I share all that!  Thanks for reading, and again, seriously momma’s do what is BEST FOR YOU and go forward CONFIDENTLY in your decisions knowing that you are raising a fed baby that’s loved!!