Breastfeeding: My experience- theory vs. practice

My almost-one-year-old baby enjoys breastfeeding so much that breastmilk is the only thing that she takes without complaining. But that was not always the case.

Radio and television campaigns make breastfeeding sound easier than the ABCs. I found out the hard way that it is not. And no, there was no way I would have known it would be different for me. After all, I did everything by the book, only to discover that the theory was far different from what is practically possible. At least in my case.

First, I was in so much pain after the cesarean section that placing my baby on the breast within the first one hour after birth was the last thing I wanted to do. Eventually when I tried breastfeeding her, we both did not know what to do. The result was frustration for both of us. She was a heavy baby (4.3kg) and so she needed to start feeding as soon as possible.

The second reality was that even when she tried to suckle, there was nothing. Nada! That is when the midwife and paediatrician recommended formula. And so, formula it was for the next one and a half weeks. Yes. You read correct. All the time, I kept hearing the voices of my mother and sister saying, “the more you try to breastfeed the more you will stimulate the milk”. It did not seem to work that way for me. And no one believed me. I spent one and a half weeks without producing breastmilk for my baby.

And then, the third dimension to all this— diet! Everyone I spoke to said it was a matter of eating certain foods that would stimulate breastmilk production. Now, this is where it all became more confusing. I had seen my sister and several of my friends eat entula (garden eggs), offals, green leafy vegetables and the milk seemed to flow just like that! One colleague told me all she needed to do after giving birth was drink passion fruit juice and the breastmilk would start flowing like the Nile from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea. One auntie suggested I drink Coca Cola’s Stoney Tangawizi (ginger soda), while another suggested I eat roasted simsim (sesame) seeds. A colleague at work told me millet porridge- warm or chilled- did the trick for her. The list was endless, yet I tried all those things.

Needless to say, I was on a very high protein diet- as the books suggest. I will not even talk about the amount of water I was drinking. Naturally, I drink a lot of water. I was doing everything right but all these efforts came to naught and my frustration simply grew. Meanwhile, baby was getting fedup of catching nothing everytime she came “hunting”.

This became a family affair; everyone was concerned that I was not able to produce breastmilk for that long. And so, we called up a dietician who is a family friend. None of us could believe her recommendation: a herb called dill. “Make a tea of dill and keep sipping until there’s no more flavour,” she said. I had never heard of this herb but she sounded confident and so off to the market we went to buy dill. I vividly remember starting the dill diet at 4.00 p.m. and by 9 p.m. I had my own milk river flowing effortlessly. Alleluia! There was no turning back. And like Nell Frizzle, the freelance journalist who wrote about the support she has received for breastfeeding in public, I am breastfeeding everywhere except when I am driving :-)

Interestingly, when I started producing breastmilk, all these foods that people had suggested earlier worked to help keep the milk flowing.

As my baby approaches the first birthday milestone,(She will be one on Saturday 10 February) I look back at the beginning and see one major lesson to learn: Everyone’s body is different.