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You are the most advanced person who has ever lived. Thousands and thousands of generations have been preparing for your presence. Millions of years of birth and death, enemies catching animals, creatures fighting each other in time, the great victory of immeasurable obstacles and here. Everything is directed to you.
Our parents may be disappointed with our skills and abilities. And they might want to throw something at us (hopefully not a hunting spear) when they realize how many of us spend so much time focusing on what we CANNOT do with our imperfections.
If it were us, he would be challenging others as the next leader of the tribe. In fact, we often wonder if our thighs are in good shape.
Or when it’s time to become parents, do our breasts work the way they should?
Breastfeeding struggles in our community for a dozen reasons including lack of funding and health education opportunities.
It is important to realize that our thoughts about our bodies are part of the problem.
An online survey was conducted by the Mental Health Foundation and YouGov in March 2019 of 4,505 UK adults aged 18+ and 1,118 GB young people (aged 13-19). One in five adults (20%) have been embarrassed, nearly a third (34%) have felt inferior or inferior, and 19% have been disgusted by their appearance in the past year.
Among young people, 37% were disappointed, and 31% were ashamed of their appearance.
More than one in five adults (22%) and 40% of young people said that images on social media make them feel anxious about their bodies.
A survey of 11- to 16-year-olds in the UK by ‘Be Real’ found that 79% said their appearance was important to them, and more than half (52%) often worried about how they looked. In a survey of 13-19 year olds, 35% said their body image made them feel anxious most of the time or ‘always’.
When we believe that our bodies are weak on the outside, isn’t it a stretch for us to feel that they are also weak on the inside? If we feel inadequate, then breastfeeding becomes difficult.
As breastfeeding advocates often being parents ourselves, we are in an important position to shape how the next generation feels about their bodies and breasts.
It would be easy to think that we are lucky because our children can hear us talking on the phone and sit with us when our new parents stop us on the street and talk about nipples. They live in homes surrounded by books about breastfeeding and how breasts work.
But in some ways, we may have to be persistent.
Our house may not represent the messages it may receive from the rest of the world. Can our young people come to us when they are uncomfortable with their breasts, don’t trust them, don’t like them, want to hide them? Our society sends conflicting messages about why breasts are needed and it can be confusing.
These feelings do not magically disappear in young mothers when they have a pregnancy test in their arms. The digestive pressure that your body isn’t ‘sufficient’ for doesn’t go away after months. They also do not disappear when breastfeeding begins.
As breastfeeding supporters, we have a responsibility to connect the dots. Could it really be a coincidence that we struggle to continue breastfeeding and rely on breastfeeding when we struggle so much to have faith in our bodies as a whole?
In Sikhism, the human body is a gift from the divine spirit. When you fight against your flesh – believing that you are deficient and need to change – you are fighting against God and you are also fighting against your spirit. Even for anyone who is not religious, there is a light of truth there. There’s a lack of peace that comes with feeling inadequate — just one pound lost, one week of exercise, and wishing your face belonged to someone else.
Yes, it is not easy to find that peace. We live in a world where many people spend hours trying to confuse us. It’s someone else’s job (many people’s jobs) to try to make you feel inferior. Something your ancestor is a spearman didn’t worry about – he had a variety of saber tooth tigers. Anu works for advertising agencies and large multinational companies. They sponsor TV shows and pay celebrities to use their products. They employ models. They have tricked supermarkets into putting things in your face. You are not a person to them but a part of bank accounts and money. He may not even know that he is one of the bad guys. They have also adopted this culture and for them, constant sorting is a strange part. When they were young, magazines and billboards told them they were ‘not good enough’.
Not all fashion models can be thin and tall these days, but they are still traditionally beautiful. If they are female, their breasts are the same and round (which is usually not the case in real life).
It’s interesting how the trend towards larger shapes seems to be bypassing the breast gap. More than 50% of teenagers experience breast asymmetry as their bodies change and asymmetry becomes more common as they get older. When have we seen asymmetric breasts in a picture, in a movie, on TV?
What are often called ‘saggy’ breasts are also different from the normal shape. But our culture represents them as something to do to be an old crone or false, related to breastfeeding. In fact, sagginess affects many things: pregnancy, smoking, weight loss. It is true that when estrogen is lost during menopause, connective tissue becomes dehydrated and the shape of the breast can change. But girls can also have such breasts. Check out the beautiful and colorful Eggerue Region. The description of her trying to buy a bra as a teenager and finding every way possible to tell her that her body wasn’t normal is heartbreaking. Not all young people will experience this as he did.
Some will turn to surgery. Women still make up 92% of cosmetic surgery procedures in the UK. In the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons’ 2019 annual survey, of the 26,043 procedures performed on women, 11,741 were related to the breasts.
We find that even today, doctors do not tell the whole story about the effects of breast surgery on the future decision to breastfeed. A leaflet on breast reduction provided by a major association of surgeons has one word about breastfeeding and it says, “N
In fact, those of us who support breastfeeding parents after surgery know that when the nipple is completely removed and the intercostal nerves necessary for the milk ejection reflex are cut, the complications can be serious. There are many IBCLCs who help new parents who have been told, “breastfeeding should be affected” by their surgeries. It is possible to breastfeed and even breastfeed exclusively after surgery, but it often takes a lot of effort and the reality is not shared. Maybe not because of deliberate deception, but because of health professionals who don’t understand how breasts are formed because of their education. If you have been told that women usually have 20-25 milk ducts (not about 9), you can make different surgical options.
We often say when we help new parents and babies that ‘it’s great’. This is especially true for breasts. How many times do we talk to a woman who is worried because one breast has the capacity to pump X mls and the other only Y? We confirm by saying that we are all a little asymmetrical and it is normal to have different sprays. Wouldn’t it be amazing like him he already knew thatbecause everyone expected breast asymmetry? Instead, they often feel like they need to fix themselves.
Women often feel like they have to fix themselves. Some of us will have supportive mothers who apologize for their bodies. A breast that hangs down and points towards a woman’s legs is not a breast that you will see in a maternity clinic. We meet them often. These mothers may feel that they have to hold and move their breasts to adapt to the best way: so that they can use the nursing pillow that they ‘should’ do or that they can create a ‘pregnancy for the mother’. In fact, proper breastfeeding may involve the baby facing the ceiling and ‘tummy to mummy’ simply means that the baby should turn its head comfortably.
As breastfeeding advocates, we must bring answers to the mother and her body and her baby’s body. We look at the ‘dangle angle’. We don’t try to twist (or distort) the mother to fit what breastfeeding should look like.
We can meet new parents with breast tissue. If 1 in 18 (about 6%) have breast tissue, it will not take long. It is rarely discussed. Chandler from Friends has a nubbin and it’s pretty much what most of us know.
Some of us will have breast tissue but may not know we have it. It can be during lactation, when the mole on your stomach starts to do strange things. You may be used to feeling engorged during your period, but you are surprised when you experience postpartum engorgement there. It can be scary when everything you read, at your most vulnerable time in your life, will tell you that you need to clear this ‘blocked duct’ or you could end up with mastitis. It may be that time and cold are all you need.
I attended an event in August led by doula Ruth Dennison (@121doula). It was focused on Black Breastfeeding Week and one of the speakers, Nehanda Truscott Reid (@soulamamajourney), led us through a breastfeeding meditation session that was powerful even though few of us were breastfeeding. Ruth also assured us of breastfeeding. It’s easy to dismiss trends as ‘hippy’ or ‘cheesy’ but this is missing the point. It can’t hurt to focus on positive messages. All day long, and in the years before motherhood, we absorb the negative. We are told that our bodies are deficient in external forces. Why can’t we begin to think of ourselves as inferior? When we repeat encouraging messages and visualize the good news, that can be a good thing. We are not used to that.
Of course, breastfeeding cookies, taking handfuls of capsules and buying the most expensive pump you feel is necessary when you believe you are hard-wired to not fit. When a child seems restless, we start to doubt our body. Every time we carry our phones they lose their light. So we have to shine another light.
As lactation consultants, we not only provide helpful information but also document and solve nipple problems. We are helping new parents see themselves differently.
We need to connect the youth with Chidera Eggerues and Jameela Jamils. Having discussions about the founders of Instagram and Snapchat filters and advertising images is not just about making teenagers happy. It makes for a happy 50 year old. We need to connect all the dots between celebrating body diversity and our ability to be successful human beings and that includes successful breastfeeding.