Imag­ine that in to­day’s so­ci­ety, breast­feed­ing or nurs­ing as it is com­mon­ly called, an act be­tween moth­er and ba­by that has been around since the be­gin­ning of the hu­man race, one that many health pro­fes­sion­als say has great health ben­e­fits to both moth­er and ba­by, is still not be­ing nor­malised. In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, the month of Au­gust is de­clared Breast­feed­ing Aware­ness month where many ad­vo­cates take this time to dri­ve cam­paigns to em­pow­er women to com­mit to breast­feed­ing. In the lo­cal land­scape, many women are still bat­tling with is­sues such as not be­ing able to pump milk at the work­place and far worst be­ing looked down on for the sim­ple act of breast­feed­ing in pub­lic, all of which en­cour­ages them to sep­a­rate from this nat­ur­al be­hav­iour and turn to ba­by for­mu­la.

While the choice to breast­feed lies with­in the moth­er, and every moth­er is dif­fer­ent, in keep­ing with our aim to high­light the is­sues, we sought to share one moth­er’s ex­pe­ri­ence in the hope of nor­mal­is­ing breast­feed­ing along with our in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. First-time moth­er Sta­cy See­gob­in shares her breast­feed­ing sto­ry since hav­ing her ba­by boy who is now six-months-old with the WE Mag­a­zine:

Tell us about your de­ci­sion to breast­feed?

For me, the de­ci­sion to breast­feed came nat­u­ral­ly. I knew it was some­thing I want­ed to do and I knew it was best for my son. How­ev­er, I pur­chased for­mu­la and bot­tles just in case he

had dif­fi­cul­ty latch­ing on but I did not have that prob­lem (with him) at all. My lit­tle man latched on like a champ from birth and re­fused every­thing else at the hos­pi­tal. I plan to breast­feed for as long as my son wants to. When he is ready to wean then we will.

What’s the biggest chal­lenge you’ve had to over­come in your breast­feed­ing jour­ney?

I have to say I’m pret­ty lucky. My breast­feed­ing jour­ney thus far has been a great one. I did not have any ma­jor chal­lenges thus far. My sup­ply has been steady (with prop­er di­et) and my son

has no is­sues latch­ing on. One small chal­lenge I had though was not hav­ing enough sup­port in my jour­ney. I have con­stant­ly been bom­bard­ed by oth­ers in­sist­ing to feed him for­mu­la along with breast­milk. I have got­ten ques­tions like, “Yuh not giv­ing him bot­tle?” “Yuh should give him for­mu­la now and then.” “Yuh should wean him ear­ly oth­er­wise he will get ad­dict­ed to the breast and yuh wouldn’t like that.” When he was just a few days old, he was pret­ty fussy, as all ba­bies are at that age, and I was just get­ting the hang of breast­feed­ing. I had some re­al­ly sore and painful nip­ples and I was still re­cov­er­ing from a C-sec­tion. The thought of nurs­ing him made me cringe be­cause of the pain. My fam­i­ly in­sist­ed that I give him for­mu­la since I was in pain, and I agreed. I felt guilty. I felt like I let my ba­by down. Lat­er that day, I joined a Face­book group - Caribbean Breast­feed­ing Sup­port - and that is where I got so many use­ful sug­ges­tions on how to treat sore and painful nip­ples. I was back to breast­feed­ing my lit­tle one the next few hours. That was the first and last time my ba­by had for­mu­la.

Did you take any steps to pre­pare to breast­feed be­fore you had your ba­by?

I had very lit­tle knowl­edge about breast­feed­ing and what it takes pri­or to my ba­by. My mom didn’t have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to breast­feed me or my sis­ter so I didn’t have much in­sight. All

I knew was that I want­ed to breast­feed. I read a lot about it on­line but didn’t know any­one with ac­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence (breast­feed­ing). So I bought the first pump I found while ba­by shop­ping, some stor­age bags and nurs­ing pads. That was it. Every­thing else I learned on the jour­ney.

What has been the hard­est part about breast­feed­ing, and how do you man­age it?

I hon­est­ly en­joy breast­feed­ing. The hard­est part about it for me is pump­ing. I hate it or maybe, I’m ter­ri­ble at it, but I could nev­er get the hang of it. It drove me crazy but I need­ed to do it. I need­ed to have an emer­gency stash of milk in case I need­ed to leave my ba­by for a few hours. I still don’t pump and have ac­cu­mu­lat­ed al­most 300 ounces of milk over a three-month pe­ri­od. How did I do it? I found a nifty lit­tle sil­i­cone pump on­line that col­lects the ex­cess milk that leaked from my breasts while nurs­ing. It has be­come my favourite and most used breast­feed­ing tool to date.

How has your part­ner or fam­i­ly helped you with breast­feed­ing?

My hus­band has been my an­chor through­out my en­tire jour­ney thus far. When­ev­er we were crit­i­cised or en­cour­aged to give for­mu­la (to our ba­by) he (my hus­band) would en­cour­age me to keep at it. No mat­ter how hard it gets, he re­as­sures me that I am pro­vid­ing some­thing more nu­tri­tious for our ba­by.

Is there any­thing else you’d like to share with breast­feed­ing moms or soon-to-be moms?

Knowl­edge is pow­er. A lot of new moms give up try­ing or don’t even try be­cause of mis­in­for­ma­tion or not enough aware­ness of what breast­feed­ing is re­al­ly like. I urge moms to keep at it. It is hard and some­times frus­trat­ing but it’s worth it. For moms to be, I en­cour­age you to speak with oth­er moms who are breast­feed­ing or have breast­fed to un­der­stand what it may be like. The Breast­feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go pro­vides a lot of guid­ance through lac­ta­tion con­sul­tants.