Warning: Breastfeeding Rage Ahead
So riddle me this.
Given the fact that roughly:
- 20% of breastfeeding women suffer from thrush in the breast;
- 20% of breastfeeding women suffer from Raynaud’s phenomenon;
- 10% of breastfeeding women suffer from mastitis, 3-11% of whom will develop an abscess; and
- 4% of babies have a tongue-tie, which can make breastfeeding painful,
such that more than half of breastfeeding women are at risk of breast pain from just those causes alone,
on the basis of what fucking evidence do midwives and health care practitioners continue to assert that breastfeeding doesn’t usually hurt, such that every fucking time I’ve sought advice for breastfeeding-related pain in the past five weeks, their first response has been to suggest I’m just latching the baby badly, and to give me advice about that despite my repeated assertions that no, that’s not the fucking problem, as can be attested to by no less than four separate breastfeeding consultants?
I AM SERIOUSLY STARTING TO GET PISSED OFF AT ALL THIS FUCKING PATERNALISTIC BULLSHIT FROM BREASTFEEDING ADVOCATES.
While in hospital, it took nearly a week of intense pain and cracked, bleeding nipples for someone to suggest my son might have a tongue-tie. (He did.)
After the tongue-tie was fixed, it took nearly a month for anyone to suggest I might have thrush in the breast, despite my being in excruciating pain and the fact that I had every single risk factor for it - and that was after the visiting midwife insisted I didn’t have it without even examining me.
That was two weeks ago. I’ve taken the course of thrush medication; I’m still in pain, and my nipples still haven’t healed from the tongue-tie damage. Using nipple shields alleviates the worst pain, but I still hurt. A week ago, one midwife suggested I might have Raynaud’s, too. Yet when I went to the new baby clinic on Wednesday and explained all this to the health practitioner, her first response? Was to smile condescendingly and say, “Let’s take you over to the breastfeeding consultant - she can help you with positioning and attachment.”
LADY. I AM FUCKING FINE WITH POSITIONING AND ATTACHMENT - AS YOUR CONSULTANT CONFIRMED WITHIN TEN SECONDS.
And I just.
I am so fucking angry.
Because I really want to breastfeed. I’m totally fine on my right side, even! But the left is fucking AGONY, and every time I seek help, I have to go through this ringmarole of having my symptoms doubted and my competence questioned - because apparently taking my fucking word for it that I know what I’m doing and am in actual, legitimate pain would violate some kind of secret code.
Not ONE SINGLE PRACTITIONER has ever asked for a full list of symptoms: instead, they’ve tried to steer me towards the simplest diagnosis. Multiple possible causes are never mentioned, despite their commonality: it’s only ever one option at a time, so that I go away, waste a week or more pushing through the pain to treat what inevitably turns out to be only part of the problem, and then have to go back and explain that no, IT STILL FUCKING HURTS, and be doubted all over again.
The antenatal classes I went to were a joke. We were told that breastfeeding shouldn’t hurt, and the only potential cause of pain we were warned about was improper latching - meaning, in essence, that if it hurt, it was probably our fault for doing it wrong.
I really want to breastfeed. When it doesn’t hurt, it’s lovely. But I’m nearing the end of my rope on having my pain discounted and being made to feel like a hypochondriac for even bringing it up.
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