A few days ago Lola explained that less than half of the mothers breastfeed their babies until six months, commenting on the figures of the "National Survey on Breastfeeding Habits" that has been carried out by the Spanish Working Group of the Global Initiative of Breastfeeding Initiative (Global Breastfeeding Initiative).
In this survey the mothers were also asked what are the three main disadvantages of breastfeeding and I wanted to bring you the answers they gave to comment a bit.
Complicate the combination with work activity
The first inconvenience they explained, in which 48 mothers agreed, is that breastfeeding a baby is difficult to combine when the mother has to return to work. Well, I do not take reason, because when mom disappears from home eight or more hours it is clear that exclusive breastfeeding on demand is very difficult, but this is not an inconvenience of breastfeeding, but an inconvenience of working: Returning to work four months after giving birth is inconvenient because it makes breastfeeding difficult.
This highlights that mothers need more help in this regard, being necessary that they can stay longer with their babies to get to give their children six months of breastfeeding, as recommended, and so that, at least, they are a little more mature and can already start eating other things. A four-month-old baby is not much more autonomous than a newborn, honestly.
It is uncomfortable to breastfeed in a public place
The second problem, which was named by 43 people, was related to breastfeeding in public. Apparently many mothers find it uncomfortable to breastfeed in front of unknown people and it seems more normal or more natural to bottle feed. Again in this case who has the problem is not the baby, nor the mother (well, the mother a little who prefers not to), but the environment, the outside, those outside.
They are people who can get to look with disapproval, people who invite you to feed your child in the WC, as if eating were like crap, people who explain with disgust that they saw one, there with all the tit out in the middle of the bus, breastfeeding his son and I don't follow, because I think you already have an idea.
Again, society and the environment, including the family, must make a change so that the natural and normal is what is really natural and normal, that it is to breastfeed a baby and that he receives the milk from his mother. It is unfortunate that a woman feels uncomfortable breastfeeding in a public place, so both mothers and others should begin to internalize that the food of babies is breast milk and that they have to take it whenever they want.
The breasts lose firmness
The third inconvenience that the mothers explained (37 of them) is that the breasts lose firmness. The reality is that women's breasts do lose firmness, but not because of breastfeeding, but for pregnancies, for weight changes, for age and for other things like smoking.
This being so, and for years that has been said, information is lacking in mothers, who see something as a myth as an inconvenience, since it is not real. I also add my opinion: the breasts have as main objective to produce breast milk for babies, which then are more or less firm is secondary, it is something aesthetic. I don't know what you will say or what your partners will say, but if they really lost firmness for this reason they would seem to me equally precious for being the breasts that fed my children.
The nipple cracks
The fourth inconvenience that 33 of the mothers said is that if you breastfeed the nipple cracks. As you know the cracks appear when something goes wrong, so it could not be said that it is an inconvenience of breastfeeding, but a side effect of breastfeeding, or what is the same, is a disadvantage of not knowing that cracks usually come from a bad position and not asking for help or to ask for help and not find anyone who knows Solve the problem that causes the cracks.
Again it is clear that more training is needed in professionals and more information to mothers, so that babies can drink breast milk without problems.
It is painful
Up to 27 mothers said that an inconvenience of breastfeeding a baby is that it is painful, and again I say the same thing: it is possible that it hurts, the first days above all, but then it should not hurt. On more than one occasion I asked a mother in the nurse's office about how she is doing with her breast and they said "Good, very good" and then I asked them "Doesn't it hurt? You don't have any cracks?" and they told me "Ah, yes! Yes it hurts, but I'm holding on".
No, I repeat, it shouldn't hurt, so pain is again an inconvenience of not doing well and of not knowing that it doesn't have to hurt.
I don't have time for me
The fifth inconvenience they explained, commented by up to 22 mothers, is that they don't have time for themselves, although really more mothers should have said it, because the sixth convenient, which I comment here too, is "I have to dedicate all the time to the baby", said by 18 mothers and that it is the same.
I don't know, every mother knows how far she goes and how far she doesn't and every mother knows her expectations before having a baby. I am quite clear that human babies are terribly dependentSo it seems logical that babies do not allow time for parents or mothers to breathe. Stop breastfeeding makes it another person who can feed the baby and the mother has a little more time, but this can be achieved without leaving breast milk. It is as simple as making the father spend more time with his baby when he is not being fed (as if we could only spend time with them to feed them ...).
The rest of the inconveniences
The rest of the inconveniences, which I group because of having been mentioned by fewer mothers are: "Delays the recovery of the figure" (7 mothers), when it is known that mothers who breastfeed lose more weight than those who do not, "helps to gain weight "(5), it will not be," it interferes with my sexual relations "(4)," others "(2) and" there are no inconveniences "(6).
Conclusion
In conclusion say what I have been saying throughout the entry. It takes that professionals are better trained to give better support to breastfeeding mothers, it is necessary that women are better informed, so that they know what are the real inconveniences of breastfeeding and which are not, and how to solve the problems or who to go to do it, it is necessary, of course they want to be informed, that this is another, and it is necessary that the whole society begins to become aware that breast milk is the norm, the logical, what a baby expects to take to develop optimally.
Oh! And it is necessary that in the courses of preparation for childbirth, fathers and mothers are told that having a child is not to take care of it and give birth to it, that then you have to take care of it, feed it and raise it and that it is very hard and very tiring, especially the first months.
