JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, July 25, 2025

Removing Shame

from Breast feeding

by

The WE Mag Team
2185 days ago
20190807

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.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored