Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Partner Support

Milk Mentors encourages husbands/boy friends/baby daddies or whoever the mother lives with to come with the mother to our breastfeeding class.

Here is an article about how supportive partners increase breastfeeding rates http://www.online-ambulance.com/articles/grp/Your/art/Husband.htm

When Micah was born I went to a breastfeeding class on my own. I don't remember any men being in my class. Kevin didn't seem to have any opinion about how the baby was going to be fed, and perhaps I never asked him. I was planning to breastfeed with or without him. I read several books. I talked to mothers.

Micah was born at 9:05 PM and latched on fairly easily. The hospital was packed and we were moved to a room we had to share with another new mom with a curtain between us. There was a rocking chair, but no decent place for Kevin to room in with me and the baby, so I sent him home around 1 AM.

When I had trouble and was in pain Kevin said that I could quit if it was too hard. I actually hear a lot of fathers say this when their women are in pain and they want to protect their loved one from all the pressure they are putting on themselves. Usually these women just want to hear that its going to get better and that help is available, but the husbands feel helpless and angry that their wives are suffering.

When Micah was about a week old my dad came to visit. Micah pulled away from my breast after he started eating and the milk shot across the room onto the other couch. I cracked up laughing and  Kevin said, "Eww". My dad scolded Kevin for being grossed out by breast milk, and I realized then that my mother had made my father a believer in breastfeeding, too.

Anytime something is hard for Kevin he says its because he wasn't breastfed. It's become a joke. Now, when he sees a mother mixing formula he says it makes him sad for the baby. I sometimes find myself defending moms who choose formula because sometimes they don't have a choice or the support they need. That's why I started Milk Mentors: to help the women who want help. And hopefully to help the men help, too.

My friend Becky wrote her breastfeeding story for me, and this is the line she wrote about her husband's support.


 "Byron was very key. Seriously, I couldn't have done it without his help.

Also, just his words of encouragement and his desire for me to breast  
feed helped just as much as him sitting beside me and holding her!  "

So, what about you? Did your partner support your choice to breastfeed? How? How not? 

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