Breastfeeding for beleaguered beginners

While most of you were out schmoozing on Valentine’s Day, I spent part of mine in a hospital waiting room with the woman on my right talking about (and showing off) her swollen legs, and the woman on my left trying to hock up a lung. The lady in charge of the breastfeeding workshop I was booked in for was running late, so I had a full twenty minutes of trying not to let the actions of the women waiting either side of me make me vomit.

I was already somewhat aggrieved from what had taken place at my pregnancy yoga class the hour before. Our instructor had, in an effort to demonstrate what contractions would be like, got us to hold our arms straight out at our sides for a minute. The whole idea was that it was supposed to be uncomfortable, but bearable if we took deep breaths. I was a little put out by the comparison being drawn between being able to hold my own arms aloft, and my whole womb contracting to push something about the size of my head out of my body.

Another technique she recommended was that we hold ice-cubes in our hands for a minute – the same technique they use to try to help people who cut themselves to quit. I wasn’t overly impressed that my brain was now being forced to make a connection between getting pregnant and self-harming. All in all, I don’t think I’ll be continuing with yoga after the baby is born. Any deep breaths I’ll be taking during labour will be to try to assuage the anger I feel at being led to believe that I could get through the whole ordeal with some stretchy pants and a smile.

The instructor also suggested some books we should read, one of which was called, “Birthing From Within”. I mean, where the hell else would you be birthing from?! Another was called, “Hypno-Birthing”, describing how you can use self-hypnosis to relax during labour. Not only will that not help me, but I’ll now be picturing Paul McKenna continually clicking his fingers while my baby is being born.

So I was sitting in the waiting room, starting to suspect that relaxation techniques have the opposite effect on me. Far from calming me down and lowering my blood pressure, I find my eyeballs wanting to pop out of their sockets and my fists wanting to clench until my fingernails machete their way through my skin. And by the time the breastfeeding woman arrived, I was so wound up that I could barely even summon up relief when I realised that Susan Swollen-Legs and Sarah Smoker’s-Cough wouldn’t be joining us.

We shuffled into a room that was so hot it was like sitting in a furnace with Satan himself breathing down the back of your neck. And then it got worse – she wanted to go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves. It took all my strength to refrain from saying, “My name’s Laura, and I’m here to learn how to use my breasts in the fight against the evils of bottle-feeding, not to make small talk”. (What I probably should have said was, “Hi, I’m Laura and I think I’m in the wrong room – I’m here for anger management classes”.)

What followed was an hour and a half of learning how to hold a doll. And, you know, various bits of advice on feeding your baby. Admittedly, I was of the “the baby’ll feed when it’s hungry and stop when it’s full” school of thought, but it seems there actually is a bit more to it than that. The one thing that stood out to me, though, is that the hospital has a policy of not letting the baby go for more than five hours without feeding. So, after hours and hours (possibly days) of gut-wrenching agony and exertion during childbirth, the most sleep I’ll get is five hours. That’s at least four short of what I need to be a halfway functional human being. So now I’m worried about punching the person who comes to wake me.

Overall, these classes, which were designed to help put my mind at ease, have only served to open up a whole world of undiscovered anguish. What if I do the wrong sort of self-hypnosis and end up clucking like a chicken throughout childbirth? What if simply lowering my arms doesn’t prevent the pain of contractions? What if I slap the midwife? All valid concerns, I’m sure you’ll agree. No wonder pregnant women have to be monitored so closely for high blood pressure.

My next class discusses birthing positions and the dreaded ‘relaxation techniques’. One way or another, someone’s going to end up flat out on their back.