It Takes a Village to Nurse a Baby

By Linda Wilkinson

Most of us agree that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Children need the support of families, religious institutions, schools, community organizations, and friends. As a grandmother for the first time, I also have realized that it sometimes takes a village to support a new breastfeeding mother. My eldest daughter recently became a mother for the first time and wanted to nurse her son. Because she possesses an “ample chest” and because she and her husband had taken a breastfeeding class at a local hospital, I did not think she would have any difficulties. Yet she faced many unexpected challenges when beginning the “natural” process of breastfeeding.

I realized things were not going well the day she arrived home from the hospital. Early latch-on problems, related to large breasts and flat nipples, worsened; to make matters worse, the baby, who did not suck properly, was damaging my daughter’s nipples. That first evening at home found this new mother screaming in pain and full of anxiety that she was going to fail her baby by not being able to feed him. Because of my lack of personal experience breastfeeding, I could not provide any guidance except to insist that she contact the lactation consultant (Glenni Lorick at A Nurturing Moment) she had identified based on her cousin’s advice to line up support ahead of time “just in case.” Glenni, like an angel, arrived on our doorstep the next morning and confirmed that my daughter’s efforts were not going well. Her nipples were very injured, and the baby had lost significant weight since he had left the hospital and looked jaundiced; he was not taking in sufficient fluid or nutrition. (Indeed, the next day the doctor diagnosed him with jaundice and he spent three days in a phototherapy bed.) My daughter had to cease breastfeeding until her nipples could heal. During this period of healing, she pumped in order to stimulate milk production; the baby drank her milk via a syringe to prevent nipple confusion.

This “healing period” lasted almost a week. This challenged our family because as Mom pumped and worried, Daddy and grandmother (and grandfather when he arrived for a visit) syringe-fed the baby every 2.5 hours with “Mommy’s Magic” which is what we lovingly called what Mommy produced in her “laboratory.” After six days, the baby was again healthy as were my daughter’s nipples, and nursing resumed – albeit with continued need for professional advice, support, and assistance for several days.

During the highs and lows of this week, I was tempted to encourage my daughter to abandon breastfeeding. However, I saw how determined she was to do the best she could for her baby, and thus I did everything I could to help her. She said that this moral support – along with practical and logistical help with latching on, positioning, etc. — was the most important thing I could have done for her.

Because we as a family were as committed as my daughter was to make nursing successful, she was able to relax by knowing her “village” was on board with her. As a family we were delighted when Mom’s milk came in, when Thomas began gaining weight via syringe feeding, and that glorious morning when Thomas began to nurse properly from his mother’s breast. The early challenges in the breastfeeding journey also provided a unique opportunity for Daddy and grandparents to feel vital to the process of nourishing Thomas. It allowed us to bond with him in a way we had not anticipated.

We realize there may yet be problems from time-to-time, but for now seeing our beautiful sweet boy at my daughter’s breast is a sight to behold. I knew I’d be diapering, cleaning, and cooking while I helped my daughter in the weeks after birth, but I never realized I was going to help make breastfeeding a reality for my daughter and precious grandson.

Linda is a wife, mother of two daughters, and grandmother of Thomas Henry. She is a professor of communications at Marshall Community and Technical College in Huntington, VA.