Were You Breastfed As a Baby? A Poll
One factor that can influence breastfeeding initiation and success is good modeling — whether your own mother breastfed you as a baby (and told you about it, and encouraged you–or your wife–to breastfeed). I remember asking my mother whether she breastfed me. I don’t think I would have changed my mind about breastfeeding had she not breastfed me, but it certainly helped to know she breastfed me for a year. I knew she had made it work (which somehow made me feel I could too!) and she would support me in my efforts to breastfeed. Please vote in the poll and feel free to leave a comment about what your mother shared about her breastfeeding or bottle-feeding experience!
Were you breastfed as a baby?
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POSTED IN: breastfeeding, poll
6 opinions for Were You Breastfed As a Baby? A Poll
Rattling the Kettle
Jun 25, 2007 at 4:55 pm
As a product of “mainstream” 1970’s medicine, it was formula from birth for me. I like to blame all my problems on that. ;-)
Shelly
Jun 25, 2007 at 7:46 pm
My mother breastfed me until I was three weeks old and she had to return to work. She just didn’t have the support she needed to be a pumping mom.
Jen
Jun 26, 2007 at 7:52 am
I was breastfed for six or seven months. My sister was not breastfed at all. It was the era of “formula is great” (1970’s), so it isn’t surprising. She still feels very guilty about it, now, though.
My husband and his brothers were all breastfed. His mom said that right after he was born (in 1970), a nurse came in with a syringe with something in it to dry up her milk! She refused the injection, luckily.
Sarah
Jun 26, 2007 at 9:15 am
I was breastfed until I was 4 years old! I obviously self-weaned. I can barely remember breastfeeding, but mainly I remember loving my mother’s smell and wanting to be very close to it.
Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Jun 26, 2007 at 6:19 pm
I am enjoying reading all the comments — thanks everyone! The poll certainly reflects the effects of years of f*rmula marketing and how hard it is to overcome that. Seems like we’ll make progress in each generation, though.
Sarah, how neat that you have such positive associations with extended breastfeeding — that you remember your mother’s smell and not so much the act of nursing.
Matia, breast pump expert
Jun 29, 2007 at 11:27 am
My mother tells this story of something that happened when she was in the hospital after giving birth to me. The babies were brought out to the mothers to be fed by the mothers with their bottles of f*rmula. One time my mother so busy chatting with her roommate that she did not notice whose baby she was feeding at first. The baby was not me! That’s not the sort of thing you would expect to happen in a breastfeeding environment. Most mothers at least look at their babies when they are learning to breastfeed.
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