What do you know about breastfeeding?

Before we continue with what breastfeeding entails, let us quickly detour around the word “latch.” We are going to do a little exercise purely based on the sound of the word mentioned.

Exercise

Latch is a monosyllabic word transcribed as /læʧ/ and pronounced as lach. For the exercise, we would close our eyes and then pronounce the word without thinking of its literal meaning.

Step 1: Close your eyes and pronounce the word Latch

Step 2: Open your eyes and think about how it sounded without thinking of the literal meaning

Step 3: Would it be a hot or cold word if it had a temperature?

The word latch has various meanings, but we will focus on the one related to breastfeeding. It simply means how a baby fastens onto the breast of the mother while feeding. I first heard the word Latch from an essay I read in secondary school. It was a thoughtful essay about friendship and how beautiful it can be when both parties fully invest in it. However, it did point out how certain friendships could mimic a parasitic relationship with the ingenuine person, latching on to the unsuspecting but available victim. I remember flipping through the pages of my dictionary to read the meaning and find its synonyms, which was a little hobby then.

I had not bothered to explore other meanings, but I always viewed the word as harsh and related to parasitism. This was my view until I had a baby; things worsened until it eventually got better.

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the act of a mother feeding her child with breastmilk from her breasts. It occurs in humans and other animals, which mostly have mammary glands as part of their biological constitution, except for whales. It entails a baby fastening its mouth onto the breasts of the mother via the nipple and sucking, which pushes the nerves in the brain to send a signal to the mammary glands to make ready the milk for the child to be fed. It is a beautiful process in most female species, allowing the infant to bond with the mother.

My earliest firsthand experience with breastfeeding was when our black dog named Tiger had just had six puppies. The labour leading to that was intense, and it involved her howling loudly in pain as my older cousins watched and waited on her.

I never got to ask anyone why it was in so much pain, but it seemed like it was the right thing to do, watching and waiting to let nature run its course. Tiger pushed out six puppies that day, and I remember being in awe of her strength because it was a Nigerian dog that wasn’t as big as other breeds of dogs, but it was quite tall for a local dog. I watched Tiger bathe its puppies with her mouth by licking them before we were told by our older cousins to fetch food and liquids for the new mother.

When I returned, Tiger was transporting her children to a space beneath my grandfather’s old car. I had been terrified seeing her pup in her mouth and wondered if it meant to harm it. My cousin had then told me that it was just their way of holding or carrying their babies, and I was relieved. We had purchased milk for Tiger and her puppies and fetched a hot soup to soothe her belly. Tiger finished transporting the puppies by evening, and I was more interested in playing with my siblings than watching, so I left.

The following day, my older cousins were filled with anxiety and a bit of frustration. Their faces were etched with lines of worry as they stared at Tiger’s back underneath the car. We noticed that the puppies were no longer visible as she enveloped them while turning her back to us.

“What is wrong with her?” I had asked

“She doesn’t want to breastfeed her babies, ” my cousin replied as he tried to draw Tiger out of her enclave.

He pointed at the barely touched bowl of milk and noted that the puppies had not taken any of it. “She needs to feed her puppies; they are too tender and will probably die if they don’t feed well.”

We heard a low growl and a full-blown bark from Tiger as one of her puppies made a move. The puppy cried out in pain, and we wondered if Tiger had attacked its own child. Enraged, my cousin yelled at it, and it whined a little before crawling out.

My cousin rubbed her head and back, and I couldn’t help but stare at her swollen breasts. My eyes went down to her nipples, and they looked quite inflamed. Puberty was still at bay, but I was fascinated by the development,

which made me wonder why I was flat-chested at the time.

My cousin laid Tiger on her back and massaged her belly. He also requested warm water, which he doused on her breasts before reaching out for one puppy. He kept massaging Tiger as he placed the mouth of the puppy close to one of her breasts before it started sucking.

Tiger growled a little and resorted to little whimpers as the little one fed. He did this for all the puppies, and in no time, they were well-fed.

“Good girl,” he kept calling Tiger as he led her to the bowl of milk, which she drank, and a little bit later, her bowl of food.

It was an experience I never gave much thought to, and when my mother had our first boy, I was too ecstatic to question if she had birthed with her mouth as my friend suggested she would or anus just like my cousin had said Tiger did.

I was hyped about the advent of a sibling and could not wait to hold him. I was probably too young to notice how my little brother was fed or if there were lines of pain etched on my mother’s face just like Tiger’s. I just knew that when the baby cried, he was changed into new nappies and fed after that.

What do you know about breastfeeding?

When my flat chest developed into two tiny bulbs, which in turn grew into breasts, I knew that I was now a young woman. I had never given any thought to breastfeeding, even though it was something familiar that I had seen so many times over the years. My knowledge of feeding babies with breastmilk was on the peripheral level, a mere thought in passing.

My breasts were two proud and standing generals in front who were just sizeable enough to fit in my palms. Childbearing was just a passing thought, and feeding a baby with my generals seemed to be something that was labelled for the future. A future that came soon when I got married.

My breasts remained the same over the years, and I preferred thinking about the pleasures elicited from the beautiful ministrations of my husband on them. But when we discovered that I was pregnant, I knew that breastfeeding was not going to be an afterthought anymore.

I had nurses and midwives letting me in on every gist about pregnancy and caring for my newborn. I had antenatal classes to catch up on and fatigue to deal with.

“Do you know anything about breastfeeding? It is your first baby, isn’t it?” The nurse had asked at one of my appointments, and I nodded sheepishly because I thought to myself, “It was simply having a baby sucking on my nipple, and if it’s that good with my husband, well, it won’t be that bad with a tiny mouth.”.

Pamphlets were given to me and videos about breastfeeding that were recommended on how to have a baby latch onto my breasts and how to breastfeed, which I paid no attention to. It never even occurred to me to question my mother or mother-in-law or even friends who were nursing mothers about the act.

My two small generals grew twice their sizes owing to pregnancy, and when I finally had my baby, I knew I was ready to be inducted into the hallowed halls of nursing mothers.

“She doesn’t seem to be getting anything from it”, I alerted the nurse when my baby burst into a loud cry after I had attempted to feed her.

“I don’t think there’s any milk in my boobs”, I told the nurse as she held my baby while I tried to massage my breasts as I was advised to do. My breasts were cumbersome and quite painful to touch, and the nurse tried to pacify me by describing how common it is for breastfeeding to be delayed in some mothers until a few days.

“She will need to be sucking regardless of whether the milk flows or not. It is the demand from your baby that will create the supply.” She handed my baby over to me and requested that I obliged

“Try breastfeeding her again while I am here. She needs to have the colostrum from your breasts, as it is vital for her immune system.”

I struggled to get my nipple in my daughter’s mouth as she was seriously distressed and kept rooting. The contact barely lasted seconds before she gave up. “Is she latched on properly?” The nurse had asked,d and I seemed hesitant to answer because I didn’t understand what it meant.

The nurse seemed of Jamaican descent, and I noticed a slight change in her accent when she leaned forward to teach me and aid my baby to latch on.

She helped guide my nipple into my baby’s mouth, who suckled on it so aggressively that I let out various cuss words that seemed entirely inappropriate.

I noticed a smile tug at the lips of the nurse, and she encouraged me to leave my baby on the breast, which I did. I was half expecting to see the milk and got concerned when I didn’t. She then told me that my baby had stayed on my breast longer than she usually would and that her suckling would have stopped if she wasn’t getting anything. “She’s getting something; that’s why she is still on it; you don’t need to see the milk to know that.”

It felt wholesome to watch my daughter feed from my breasts, but only then did I realise that what Tiger had dealt with was probably trauma from the first feed. Only then did I begin to wonder how the future feeds would be, questioning myself about what I truly knew about breastfeeding.

The first few weeks were traumatic for me as I would wince and sometimes scream when my baby was fed. My husband and I opted to get a breast pump, which felt slightly less painful than my baby feeding directly. However, I was worried that my baby would lack the chance to bond with me. I was advised to get a nipple cream by my midwife, which helped with my breasts being chapped but did nothing for the pain.

” The pores are not properly opened; when she keeps sucking, she will open them. But you have to keep breastfeeding her to avoid breast engorgement,” My mom had advised.

“You can give yourself massages with hot water while bathing, which will help with the flow and soothe you as well” ” my midwife had also advised. I kept at this every morning, with the fear of breast engorgement branded in my brain till eventually it became better. I now know just a little more about breastfeeding a baby, and as I watch my little one’s content face after each feed, I know that I will go through that pain again just for her in a heartbeat.

My answer to the exercise

Latch is hot because it sounds quite harsh to me