It’s astonishing to me to think our little girl has more than doubled in size — and her one, her only source of nutrition has been her mother’s milk.
Amazing stuff. When my own mother visited us last month I discovered that I was breastfed, which was a surprise to me since I was born in at a time when bottle-feeding was all the rage. According to an article in The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology:
…infant-feeding trends have shifted dramatically over the last century. Bottle-feeding first started to gain in popularity around the 1910s, and by the 1940s it had become cemented as a main alternative to breastfeeding (Wolf, 2001). From the mid-1950s to about the mid-1960s–the height of bottle-feeding’s popularity–over 80% of mothers were feeding by bottle. By 1970, infant-feeding trends had started to shift in the other direction, and by 1978 nearly half (45%) of mothers were once again breastfeeding (Jelliffe and Jelliffe, 1978).
Those stats are from Canada, but I’m almost certain the same holds true in America. I recently read that breastfeeding has continued to make gains in popularity of late, especially among African-American women.
So thanks, Mom, for bucking the trend of the era. Maybe starting off with mother’s milk is why I grew up so strong and tall.
I’m very impressed by Xy’s efforts in this same arena. It was hard, even painful at first, and continues to be something of a hassle, but she’s stuck with it. She’s a trooper. I’m proud of her.
She produces more milk than the girl can consume, so we’ve been stockpiling it in the freezer. Here’s Xy with a month’s worth of solid gold:
A freezer/fridge can only keep the milk good for three months or so. Also we were running out of room. So we bought a deep-freeze, the smallest little one we could find. It’s just five cubic feet, the Frigidaire FFC0522D. We got it at A-1 Appliances for about $165.
It’s not the most energy-efficient appliance, but because it’s so small it doesn’t consume much electricity either. It’s supposed to run about 242 kWh/year or about $26. It’s chock full of mother’s milk now, but we’re thinking of selling it when this milky time ends.
And yes, out of sheer curiosity Xy whipped up some frozen breast milk smoothies (with strawberries) one evening. We choked them down. It tasted fine, actually, but we couldn’t get past the psychological factor. I haven’t drunk cow milk for many a year, and the thought of that grosses me out too.
Here’s a fun factoid: human milk contains 2-Arachidonoyl glycerol, which is an endocannabinoid. I guess that means mother’s milk gets baby high.
OK, all you crazy breast milk fetishists, please leave some creepy perverted comments on this post.
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Wow. A breastmilk smoothie. Ya’ll are brave, brave folks.
I breastfed Sydney for 14 months and really, really loved it. It was a singularly amazing experience–knowing, like you’ve pointed out, that this chubby little creature was growing from my own milk was just so unbelievably cool. Kudos again to Xy for sticking with it.
i’m envious of women who are able to bf. i wasn’t able to bf the boys (no surprise there, really, as they were preemies and, well, three of them) but i still wish i could have pumped more. oh well. great for xy for doing so amazingly with it!
and a breastmilk smoothie? oh dear. you are braver than i!
Can I be creepy?
Oh XY you so pretty. I’d love to have me a freezer full of your endocannabanoids? I’d never leave the house.
Can your man not satisfy your lactating urges? You are truely more woman than he can handle. Well if he is not willing to choke down your nectar I know of one good man willing to consume all you have to offer.
Oh Frog-Damn that is creepy. J/K
Some vegans have taken to consuming breast-milk. No BS. An enormous biological loophole that allows them to get their dairy.
So when are you putting Xy’s milk on ebay?
Infant feeding trends are very interesting. My mom got a lot of crap from my grandmother for breastfeeding me (circa 1974), because my grandma thought it was icky. That same grandmother developed rickets as a child because her mother had fed her commercial infant formulas in the 20s, which at the time were basically sugar water.
Unfortunately, there is SO much politics surrounding breast v. bottle. On the one hand, there are a few breastfeeding evangelists who practically consider it child abuse to bottle-feed, no matter what the reason. On the other hand, there are multi-national corporations who will say anything to sell formula (particularly in poor countries). Then, add to them the garden variety idiots who blanch every time they see a nursing mom in public, for fear that a breast is being used for something other than tassle-twirling. And just to pile on, there are lots of workplaces who harass breastfeeding moms, even if they just take a little time to pump.
Mamas have a hard job feeding their babies, even in the best of circumstances. Props to XY for her hard work!
Nature’s perfect food. Our daughter continued to nurse until past age 2, IIRC. She’s healthy and smart now.
I am glad to hear BF is on an upsurge in the A-A community. There is a weird vibe there sometimes that women must fight against: “Why are you BF? Aren’t you well off enough to buy formula?”
How about making cheese?
I work with a mother of two, and according to her she says her breast milk tasted like cantaloupe when she tried it once. Is that why they call breasts “melons”?
Strike that idea, breast milk won’t curdle…
A breast milk white russian. Hmmm….
Wow, I wish I had produced enough to keep going. I BF for 2 months, but I was not making enough so I started her on formula.
Dude, a breastmilk smoothie – blech!
I can’t wait to see the Craigslist post when you sell the freezer! “For sale: Small freezer. Perfect for storing breast milk.”
Sean,
I wonder about a breastmilk cheeseball? Ya say it won’t curdle what about harnassing “spit-up”? OOps should the question mark have gone inside the parantheses? Oh well Hey Our friend, Eric White, now Eric Spears (married name–changed HIS name) anyway would go to Kroger and replace cheese lables with “human cheese” labels that looked very similar to the barcodes and what not that Kroger used. Oh the possibilities of this liquid gold!
There is always the option of selling the Milk. Wouldn’t how to write that add though and would not be too happy to meet all the folks who might turn up to get it.