I am half mind about changing from Nespresso to Bialetti again. Nespresso doesn’t satisfy me anymore. It’s good coffee but not for someone who enjoys the ritual of making coffee. And I need my caffeine after ten months of extremely clean diet!
Past month, since my child’s birth, has been a rollercoaster ride of new emotions and experiences. I’ve lost 25kilos of just water-weight from pregnancy, and still have quite a lot more to go. Extremely annoyed by the aesthetic bounceback that is expected of new moms but also relieved that none of my doula’s nor experienced advisers from the Mütter-und Väterberatung of my region frowns at me when I say I want to be back in the job market within a month or so (rather they were supportive and found me a really good daycare that comes with excellent reviews and recommendations). It makes me wonder… how-come younger generations these days (under 30) are so conservative concerning pregnancy and social bounceback post-pregnancy while older generations are way more relaxed about these things?
I wrote about this before, that I had more issues with women who didn’t see me fit to take positions of responsibility during and after my pregnancy while men were supportive (of course I am not ruling out the conservative men wanting women to stay home for good). Anyhow…. These days I am experiencing a new sort of stigma associated with a wide spread taboo that draws a lot of face-frown (from women) post-pregnancy. The taboo of formula-feeding a newborn!
At the end of my pregnancy (the last few weeks) I had a lot of unnecessary emotional stress caused by others. This led to hypertension, lack of contractions before heading to c-section, and many other physical and psychological health issues that prevailed after birthing. One of them being the lack of breast milk/lactation. Under such circumstances I can’t sit around being prissy little “Jane the Virgin” and insist on hamburger-shoving my nipple into my baby’s mouth with zero colostrum to feed my child! it’s impractical and potentially harmful to keep your baby starving!?!?! But that doesn’t stop some nipple-nazi’s from bullying and humiliating stressed-out new mothers with medical conditions.
So much so, that I had to ask if it was even safe to pump and feed tainted colostrum (miserly 5ml of total that 80minutes of pumping both breasts produced) when I was under heavy pain meds and hypertension meds! My motherly instinct was going off on high pitched alarm. Like – “this is bad for the little one”. But the nurses insisted it being safe so I did it for a week – mixed with formula.
Of course there are health benefits to both the mother and the child when breastfeeding is observed – but nothing should be forcefully made into practice, particularly when everyone experiences and reacts to birthing (and it’s side effects) differently. Especially when a new mother is under heavy medications, no matter how insignificant the amount, – these nurses at the hospital couldn’t guarantee that my colostrum was not tainted. Or that it wasn’t a reason for the jaundice symptoms that my baby experienced.
The mythological super-mum, up and running after birthing a newborn, and effortlessly breastfeeding is nothing but another method of controlling a woman’s body, to make mothers feel pressured and guilty about their children’s development that can be “potentially” affected due to lack of breastfeeding.
Let me be clear, I am supportive of moms who breastfeed their baby, at home or in public. But I am not going to let anyone demonise my choice and situation. Their frowns and judgement can be kept tucked-into their pants or shoved-up some dark alley that I needn’t have to explore. The super-mum myth going hand in hand with compulsive breastfeeding and shaming those who can’t do so – is unjustified. This might not be consonance to “Jane the Virgin”-type moms but this needs saying that I do not for once believe that breastfeeding counts for higher IQ in babies (not every mother can perfectly produce colostrum with all the vitamins, proteins, omegas etc that a newborn needs). So why shouldn’t I have freedom to choose caffeine and bottlefeed, over exhaustion and breastfeed?
Bialetti it is.
P.s. if you enjoy my content, keep it fuelled by buying me a coffee, and I will think of you while writing my next blog post.
ANTHROPOLOGY OF LOVE 