It arrived in the post today. A fresh copy of the newly revised “Womanly Art of Breastfeeding”.  As I stared at the front cover….I felt this excitement well up in me. It’s like I have this giddy zeal inside me that makes me want to share it with the first pregnant mother I see. Yet, with that excitement and zeal, I feel this sense of…sadness really.

When I first decided I wanted to help other mothers breastfeed, I was so excited. I remember running around the hills of Mt. Pleasant, my daily workout while living in South Africa…and my mind always drifted back to the antenatal class the NHS provided on breastfeeding, and the mothers to be who sat in a circle less than enthusiastically. It felt a bit like school really. It was not inspiring, and in no way was it empowering. The midwife did her best but the general response in the group was a resigned “well..i’ll give it a go…but if it doesn’t work out…it’s fine” Breastfeeding was presented and understood as some sort of lofty ideal, that some magically seemed to be able to do, but that the majority struggled with, and that many simply “couldn’t do”. This is not what was said in words but it was how it felt really. So as I did my daily run, my mind would swirl with ideas….what would have made that session more productive? What would have really inspired those mothers? what would have empowered them? What would have opened their eyes to consider this issue as something really worth doing?  I had all sorts of ideas.

I came back to the UK and hit the ground running. I joined the world’s leading and most longstanding breastfeeding support group, and threw myself into digesting information and learning as much as I could about the subject so that if anyone needed help or advice, I would know what i was talking about and actually be able to help them.

But the further I have gotten into it, the more mixed feelings I have. It is simply not straightforward. It is not just enough to enthusiastically encourage someone, provide them with information, support, and whatever they would need. It sort of feels like I am up against a great big wall. I want to help people, but I worry about being pushy, about being judgemental, about being pressurising. I suppose I naively think most woman  want to be helped. I was not prepared to hear while helping out at a breastfeeding cafe “If i had to do it over again, I wouldn’t do it” or for this general feeling that the breastfeeding experience is a hard slog that we have to get through  and when we’ve “done our bit”  we can breathe a huge sigh of relief and get on with our lives. I also did not expect to hear such inaccurate information at times with regards to the subject, often given by health professionals.  I knew that I fell somewhere on the attachment parenting spectrum when it came to my parenting but I didn’t expect to get labelled as “extreme”. As much as the issue was important to me, I didn’t realize how quickly it would define me as a person in other people’s eyes.

It sort of dawned on me recently…that a lot of women, simply do not want to be helped. They know in their own minds what they want to do, and they simply do it and get on with it. If they have a question…they’ll ask their health visitor…so just stay away..you’re being pressurizing, interfering…extreme…even if all you have done is say “how are you getting on with it?”  Even quietly modelling it around other mothers can be interpreted wrong….

It’s been a hard lesson, but it’s made me take a step back and realize that all I can do is simply be there for those who want help. It’s hard. It’s always hard when you hear misinformation being given or certain perceptions expressed on the subject.  Yet,  we do live in the Western world…and this is just how it is here. It almost makes me want to give up on the whole thing and just forget that it was even an issue that was important to me. “it’s not worth it” I tell myself…surely there are other things that are more important in life…..other causes I should get stuck in to.

But when I opened my parcel and pulled out the crisp new edition….and saw that beautiful picture on the front, tears welled up in my eyes. My heart tells me, it IS important…it IS what I should be doing….it does actually matter.