…Contemplating the Core Elements of a Modern Breastfeeding Lifestyle

This summer the pedestrian mall between Herald Square and Times Square in New York City is home to a unique art installation, Sidewalk Catwalk, promoting the fashion district.

The mannequin below was designed by Kenneth Cole.  Its tongue in cheek message made me think of the topic du jour…Breastfeeding in Public.

Lily O’Brien’s Chocolate Cafe near Bryant Park is just a few blocks away from the “eye candy” above.   A New York mother claims in a law suit filed this week  that she was harassed there last summer while breastfeeding her 5 month old infant.

In the past 24+ hours her story has been trotted out on all the local media. Read more here.

Cathal Queally, the Irish candy man proprietor of Lily O’Brien’s Chocolate Cafe, told the local NBC interviewer that it was a misunderstanding.   He said he grew up with sisters and was surrounded by breastfeeding women. He added that the target audience for his confections are mothers and children.  Indeed, there were signs welcoming breastfeeding mothers on his store front window.

It is Breastfeeding Awareness Month so any buzz on breastfeeding gets traction.  The comments on the blogs, news articles online and those solicited from New Yorkers on the street were mixed.

A cynical analysis might be that the entire episode is being “milked” for all it is worth by the parties involved.  On the whole. the impact of this publicity seems positive.

The media news blitz is educating the public about the law allowing mothers to breastfeed anywhere, rallying other breastfeeding mothers to have confidence to openly breastfeed and publicizing an establishment now very openly declaring that they are breastfeeding friendly.

I still find it quite amazing that breastfeeding in public ruffles so many feathers.   Breasts are mammary glands perfectly designed to feed human babies.  Their function as eye candy is contextual.

We have lost touch with the naked truth.  As the Kenneth Cole mannequin reminds us…Underneath it all you are all naked.

Human bodies are works of art in their own right.  When a mother breastfeeds her baby that stark beauty is expanded into a very sweet and tender tableau…

Eye candy in the eyes of the beholder.  What do you think?

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One of the most valuable concepts of Eastern philosophy is found in the Japanese word Nyuanshin which is commonly translated as “beginner’s mind”.  I stumbled upon an amazing post which draws upon this concept… The Inner Art of Airmanship…Master of the Wing , Yet Always a Beginner.

While reading this article I suddenly remembered a fun incident that I had shared many years ago with my youngest brother Stephen who flies silver jets…or so says his email handle.  To be more exact he is now a major in the Air Force Reserves currently on leave from being a pilot for American Airlines.

When he was in the final stages of getting his wings, Stephen had arranged for all 4 of us siblings and the parents to have a go with him in the cockpit simulator used to train pilots.  Sitting there with him and faced with a dashboard of complex and unfamiliar knobs and gauges was exciting, but daunting.  I was immediately overcome with admiration for him to have been able to master such complexity.  On another level, my desire to show how smart I was and to be better than all the other newbies in the family got in my way as I tried to follow his instructions in this unfamiliar space. I became filled with fear being asked to “pilot” this imaginary vehicle.   Although, I was quite comfortable with the technology specific to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, this was beyond my scope of knowledge and expertise.  I felt like a fish out of water.

So… to no one’s great surprise… I crashed the plane and didn’t even realize it until he exclaimed…gee…you’ve just  cost Uncle Sam millions.

We both had a good laugh!

My misadventures in the cockpit could be a metaphor for the way a new mother may feel when she starts breastfeeding, a bit vulnerable and out of her element.  Although she has lived in her skin for some time, she has not ever had to rely on her body and specifically her breasts in this way.  She knows that breastfeeding is natural and has most likely heard that it has a learning curve.  She may do a fair bit of reading, take classes and/or check in with her family and peers to get prepared.  She may expect that it will be easy, or not, depending upon the input she has had in advance of beginning her breastfeeding experience.

It seems to me that the Zen concept of Beginners Mind is particularly suited to a new mother.  It requires that she leave behind some of her preconceived notions and be open and receptive to learning, both in mind and body, the fundamentals of mother-led Conscious Breastfeeding.

Unfortunately, many mothers experience pain or may even be unable to get a good latch because they believe it should be left up to their baby or worse yet, a pump.

As in flying planes or practicing martial arts, breastfeeding requires attention be paid to the details of a learning a specific physical skill…in this case, the latch.  By “just doing” the specific steps that enhance the latch connection an optimized breastfeeding journey becomes possible.

A muscle memory of the latch will develop for both the mother and her baby; it is acquired after some practice and the rate of learning is different from one individual to another.

Coordination of this latch-on technique can at first seem difficult.  Through continuous repetition of the basics, a dynamic will develop for a Conscious Breastfeeding mom… where she is no longer needing to make constant corrections, but will still remain alert for any changes that could develop bad habits or set backs that might unfavorably alter her enjoyment of breastfeeding.

As a new mother you need to be patient, diligent and forgive yourself for being a beginner.

By embracing your beginners mind, you will own the experience.  Do the learning.  Walk the path.   And you, the student/mother will ultimately become the teacher for your baby of this way of Conscious Breastfeeding and many other life lessons.

It has been many years since I first donned this button from the Florida Lactation Consultant Association (FLCA).  I found it doing the August Cleanup suggested by Dr. Jeanette Cates on her blog.

I wore it on my lab coat while I was the first lactation consultant at a major NYC hospital.  It was a conversation starter.  People were intrigued and wondered what it meant.  The nurses thought it was a great button for me to wear as the representative of breastfeeding on our maternity unit.

I have to laugh as its message was unclear to anyone who was unfamiliar with my passion for breastfeeding promotion and support.  One day on the elevator a man asked me, “Are you a vegetarian?” His companion chimed in, “Are you Hindu?”   My Irish eyes were smiling as I explained to them the meaning of my button.  “Human babies should not drink cow’s milk which is for cow’s.  They should be breastfed by their mothers.”

Believe it or not, not long after that comical incident, I was called into the office of the Director of Maternal Child Health.  She told me that I was offending formula feeding families with my FLCA pin and demanded that I should remove it from my lapel.  I explained  its purpose in detail, but my protests fell upon deaf ears.

It should be of no great surprise that I resigned soon after that encounter to go into a full time private lactation consulting practice.  I figured I would be better able to help new moms and breastfeeding families on the “outside”.

To still keep a foot in the system, I  moved to another hospital to teach all their prenatal breastfeeding classes.   I felt that empowering mothers with information before birth, one of the Ten Steps, would be the best way to set them up for success.

What continues to distress me after all these years is that there still seems to be a need. here in NYC, to temper the endorsement of breastfeeding when dealing with the consumers of maternity hospital services.

You’ve come a long way baby or NOT?

Is this an only in New York phenomena?  Or have you also received  mixed messages about breastfeeding in the hospital or from members of your health care team?

Can you share what approaches helped or hindered you as you began your journey as a breastfeeding mother?

Today is the 8′th anniversary of losing my mother, Margaret.

A part of my mom is literally nestled in the Red Rocks of Sedona on the hillside near this famous church designed by Frank Lloyd Wright .

We had spent a magical weekend near here attending a breastfeeding conference in late July 2002. Three weeks later she would be dead.

Mom was my breastfeeding role model and had inspired my passion for helping mothers that led me to become a lactation consultant. She was very proud of having breastfed five children without any support save for the encouragement of my father.

Our last trip to Sedona  had come during a difficult time for mom. She had made the very painful decision to put my father in the assisted living facility that they had agreed upon when she was no longer able to care for him by herself.  Without him as her co-pilot, she had not ventured far from home for several months.   She was having health challenges of her own, but remarked on how liberated she felt to be on the road again.

We were like an inter-generational Thelma and Louise.  Indeed, mom drove us at a fast and furious clip from their home outside Phoenix to Sedona as if she knew her days were numbered.  During that road trip we had a ton of fun and I was able to thank her for being my mother.

Three weeks later, I would be flying back to Arizona to be with her as she left this world. It was a very profound experience that lingers with me to this day.  Both of us were nurses, and now it was my turn to take care of her. Incredibly, as she prepared to let go of this life, she told me to write my book and carry on my work.  I laughed saying, “From your lips to God’s ears.”

Somehow the gift of that quality time together in those last weeks has sustained me all these years. I did go on to write my book and have continued as a passionate advocate for breastfeeding mothers.

Breastfeeding was the alpha and omega of our mother-daughter connection.  It fostered an even deeper closeness between us as adult women coming full circle in those final moments of her life.

Thank you for breastfeeding me mom…that bond endures in my heart to this day.

I was gifted this book by a mother in my lactation consulting practice.

You would have to be under a rock to miss that the long awaited movie rendition of Elizabeth Gilbert’s moving memoir Eat, Pray, Love opens today in theaters throughout the States.  Her yearlong journey of healing and self-discovery has touched the heart strings of millions of readers the world over.

Some will call it a “chick flick”, but it is really a love story that invites us all to live our lives with authenticity.  Elizabeth’s narrative spoke to the fundamentals of what binds us all together as human beings: food, connection with spirit and love.  Now the vicarious and passion-filled travelogue that was so transformational for her is about to come to life on the big screen.

Although different in form, this is quite similar in substance to the symbolic journey taken by a new mother.  Buffeted by a flood of hormones, her body and psyche will expand while she eats for two and contemplates the new life growing within her body.  During that first year of pregnancy and breastfeeding she will navigate tremendous changes in her self-image and identity.  She moves from morning sickness through the energized passionate appetite for life of the second trimester.  Finally toward the end of the 9′th month, this morphs into a cocooning phase which will extend through early breastfeeding.  She has prepared throughout this entire period to be fully present for meeting and embracing her new love…her beautiful baby.

In the zen stillness of a breastfeeding moment, a baby is nurtured and much love is shared.

Breastfeeding is Eat, Pray, Love.

Every breastfeeding mother has a story.  What is yours?