I write this on the first day of the rainy august month ,
which also marks the start of the breastfeeding week this year. Its rainy yet
sunny today in Hyderabad,
and hence the spirits have lifted up.
This story will be part factual and part experiential and
may be a useful read for new mums, and a trip down the memory lane for
experienced mums.
Today morning , I see this nestle advert in the TOI with a
smiling baby and a tagline “ Superbaby”: when breastfed, it shows. What it does
for me is, take me down the memory lane to 25th December’2012. While
people were getting merrier, celebrating the spirit of Christmas, I was taking
my then 7 days old daughter to the hospital, due to severe dehydration.
Don’t stop reading if you feel this is a sad account of what
happened then, because its not. This was just a trigger for me to start
expressing my experience with breastfeeding my darling, who is now 7.5 months
old. We are still going strong, yet the journey has had its own share of pricks
and needles.
Lack of proper lactation counseling, and my ignorance (
absolutely no reading on breastfeeding) led my daughter to a case of extreme
dehydration within one week of birth. She was in the hospital for a week,
within which I read up all I could, and was counseled by all who could.
I learnt to express, to feed in 7 different positions due to
my baby’s illhealth, and most importantly I learnt the positive impact of a
rested emotional state on our physiology.
While I struggled with a low milk supply , and a dehydrated
baby who was being top fed to restore her back to health, one thing which kept
me going was my resolution to breastfeed my baby.
While there were many around me loosing hope that I will
ever be able to breastfeed, especially after this debacle, there were the
godsend nurses , and my hubby who kept me going and pushed me to keep
expressing. The saying” boond boond se heen sagar banta hain” was so apt in my
case, and this resolve helped me to keep pushing all mental/emotional/physical
barriers and continue with my efforts to express.
I am proud to share that now ar 7.5 months old, my baby is
completely breastfed along with her solids intake ( barring an occasional top
feed, when we step out for longer hours). The joy of seeing a satiated smile on
your baby’s face, after she is fed, is priceless, and makes my resolve to
continue BF becomes stronger and stronger.
I work from home, and hence she does take BM expressed in a
bottle 2-3 times a day, when I need to step into virtual meetings for work.
My closing thoughts :
- Most of the limits/boundaries we lay are self made, and if we push them the sky is just limitless, so don’t loose hope and keep trying.
- Its essential to have a GOAL, so that one can always remind oneself on that, if faltering ( in my case my GOAL was to breastfeed my baby)
A year back on the same day and
date, if someone would ask me “ what is satisfaction to me”, I would probably
have had the classic troll and say work life balance, good family, good health
etc etc. But now, in real and deep terms, SATISFACTION to me is “ When I see my
doll well fed, healthy, with her toothless grin, thanking me with her eyes for
a stomach fully fed, and a job well done !!
