Booby Traps: It Just Isn't Cool

A breastfeeding support and advice column looking at breastfeeding challenges, problems and solutions from a slightly less serious angle. This column pokes fun at the sexualization of breastfeeding in our culture and encourages other moms to be an example and to not be ashamed about breastfeeding in public.

Breasts. Boobs. Boobies. Tits. Rack. America loves 'em… but not for feeding! You can wear a skimpy two piece bathing suit at any beach, pool or lake in America. You can flash them from a boat on the Missouri or on a street during Mardis Gras. If you're a Victoria's Secret model, you can show most of your wears on a prime time fashion show. Heck, if you're a junior high school girl you can show them off at the mall. But you better not feed a baby (or heaven forbid a toddler) with those things! That's gross… that's lewd conduct… cover those up… hide in a dirty stinky bathroom stall if you're going to conduct that behavior.

If you ask me, our society is very weird when it comes to sex. Sex is all over our media and pornography abounds. On the flip side, we also have a prude, puritanical streak. That's where breastfeeding comes in. Our oversexed side has completely sexualized the breast and dismisses its nurturing capability. So, when you take it out to feed your poor starving infant, our puritanical side panics because breasts are only for sex (so put that thing away!) Using your breasts to whip a man up into a sexual frenzy; now that's cool! Using your breasts to feed and nurture your infant; now that just isn't cool!

OK, if you're going to successfully breastfeed you're going to have to get over the "it just isn't cool" booby trap. Your breasts are still sexual, but they're also nurturing. Just imagine that your breasts are multi-tasking. Multitasking is usually feminine territory anyway, right?

Another facet to the "it just isn't cool" booby trap is that not everybody is doing it. Despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for at least one year and the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding for at least two years, the statistics in the U.S. show that only 31% of women are nursing at 6 months and only 17% of babies are nursing at one year. I can't even find the statistics for babies nursing at two years! So, if you have to be doing what everyone else is doing to be cool, then breastfeeding is not cool. But if you consider cool to be marching to the beat of a different drummer, then breastfeeding is very cool!

So, why are breastfeeding rates so low? You may be thinking to yourself, "surely its not because our whole country has a sexual hang-up." Well, I doubt that's the only reason. I just decided to start with sex to get your attention! However, I do think the sex issue becomes an even stronger reason when you get into the arena of toddler breastfeeding (but that's another subject altogether). There are a whole host of other booby-traps that contribute to low breastfeeding rates- misinformation, no information, lack of support, lack of breastfeeding-friendly workplace policies, and the nefarious marketing practices of formula companies to name a few. (OK, nefarious is a strong word, but hey, I have a flare for the dramatic!) Everything works together in a discordant symphony keeping breastfeeding rates low and the practice ever so uncool.

So what can be done to change the trend? I think pretty much everybody knows that breastfeeding your baby is a healthy thing to do. After all, even the formula companies acknowledge that breastfeeding is the best way to feed your infant. What we need in this country is some momentum. An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. To borrow an advertising cliché, we need to "just do it". If you are a breastfeeding mother, you can make a difference by letting your friends and family see you doing it. I would even encourage you to breastfeed in public. Gasp! No, I don't mean ripping off your shirt and showing everybody your nipples. There are ways to nurse discreetly. If you are willing to let others see you nursing, you might give some other mom the courage to do the same. Then she might pass that courage on to another. See, momentum. You might be a quiet, shy type who thinks that you should leave the public nursing shenanigans to the rebel lactivist nipple nazi types. Perhaps you shouldn't look at this as rebellious behavior, but as an opportunity to set an example. If you are a nursing mom, you are in a unique position to set a positive example for new moms to follow in your footsteps. You have to be willing to take the walk and leave the footprints, though.

It would be wonderful if a woman could nurse her child and nobody gave it a second thought. You know, like walking. If you see someone walking down the street, you don't think to yourself "hey, that guy is walking, he is using his legs one in front of the other to move himself forward". No, you don't think that, you don't even give it a conscious thought. I remember an incident at a nice restaurant where I used to work. There was a woman who dragged a chair into a corner next to the bar to nurse her baby. I thought it was a shame that she felt like she had to leave the table with her delicious dinner getting cold and the conversation going on without her. I also thought she called more attention to herself by moving off into a corner. I've found that you can nonchalantly put your baby to the breast (provided you're wearing the proper clothing), continue what you're doing and hardly anyone is the wiser. I was right about her calling attention to herself because the young bar staff later were debating whether or not she should have gone into the bathroom to nurse. I of course had to pipe up with the comment, "why don't you go eat in the place where people poop?" I can't wait for the day when a baby can eat at a dinner table with the rest of her family and friends and nobody, including the nursing mom, even gives it a second thought. Now that would be cool!

So what can a nursing mom do to not feel like such a social pariah? What can a nursing mom do to satisfy that hidden adolescent need to be like the other kids? Find others like you! I have found La Leche League meetings to be a great source of encouragement, not to mention being a great place for answers if you are having a nursing problem and are in need of tech support. My husband playfully teases me about attending a monthly breastfeeding "support group". He says he didn't know there was so much to talk about. I explained to him that it is more than talking about breastfeeding, but about being with a group of moms who are making the same kinds of mothering decisions. It is very validating for one's insecure side. I've never attended one, but I know that the lactation nurses at many hospitals also sponsor support groups.

What if you're like my friend, Kathy, who seemed to take to breastfeeding with relative ease and without the need of a support group? What if you're a nursing mom who made the decision to breastfeed as a matter of course and doesn't see any social stigma? Well then, great! That's how it should be. Please ignore anything I've said about breastfeeding being uncool. Because the truth of the matter is that its not uncool; breastfeeding is actually the coolest thing in the world. Nursing is beautiful, nurturing, healthy and the most natural, unique gift you can give to your beautiful baby.