HI,
We live in a culture where breastfeeding is not the norm. Although, for the baby, physiologically and biologically breastfeeding is the norm - already one of the many, many mismatches we face!
Education is needed at all levels of society. think about this. You see your parents drive every day of your life (and driving is not instintual!) Many a teenager gets behind the wheel of the car and thinks they will no how to do it. They kangaroo hop down the road, stall on the first hill, mum or dad has to drive them home. It all ends in tears!
Breastfeeding is instinctual - we give birth and put our babies to the breast. Any vet or farmer would know that you don't interfere with a birthing animal, or handle it before it feeds. But there is so much in our society that interferes with this instintual process and means that for so many of us, breastfeeding is something we must learn. Many of us have never seen a baby being breastfed until we have our own - then we expect that we will just *know* how to do it. The whole process of birth (and in fact our lives as women) teach us to deeply mistrust our bodies. We often come out of the birth experience injured or drugged or both - and our babies the same. We have to contend with hospital policies or procedures that aren't helpful to breastfeeding. We have our own inner doubts and those of our friends and family to contend with.
We need education on many levels. Despite feeling sometimes that we have the benefits of breastfeeding rammed down our throats (and remember, breastfeeding is the biological norm - so there are not any benefits of breastfeeding. -it is normal. There are risks associated with artificial feeding) many including health professionals to not understand these risks. There are lots of competing pressures on women - the pressure to "get their body back" and the pressure to go to work (a recent newspaper article in my own town reported that women had been asked by their employers to wean before returning to their employment - not on, but still happens) Women still get *looks* and commnets when they are breastfeeding. so there needs to be community education on this level. Also, there needs to be ongoing support for breastfeeding mothers. To tell mothers they *must* breastfeed without offering them the education and support to do so is the cruelest of all cuts, and I think this is sometimes why people feel the breastfeeding experience is such a painful one.
Warm Regards
Barb