Interesting comments on breastfeeding, pumping and Milk banks from Rebecca Walker (Daughter of Alice Walker)

I am ashamed to say that I had no idea that Alice Walker had a daughter, let alone a grown daughter that is a writer. Ironically, I saw Alice Walker on TV the other day (yes I watch Book TV) and was struck again by how beautiful and interesting Alice Walker is. It also realized how I desperately need to learn to enjoy fiction again. All I read are breastfeeding textbooks and birth/breastfeeding/baby care books and articles. My brain needs a vacation!

So, Kimberly Traylor, the brilliant director of The Village in Texas, passed along this article by Rebecca Walker. She recently had a child and went on to breastfeed for 3 months before quitting due to work and antidepressants. You can read her full explanation and thoughts on pumping, her emotional response to weaning early and her revelations on the milk banks.

While I think it is great that 1) she breastfed at all, 2) she is even discussing breastfeeding and breastmilk and milk banks in the "black community" and 3) that women commenting on her site are speaking about breastfeeding positively, I can't help be a little saddened by her comments. I understand she has to work, has to eat, has to provide, but I just wished we could live in a "perfect world". A world with more support, guidance and acceptance of the postpartum feelings of anxiety, depression and disappointment that so many of us feel. I wish there was a better understanding of the "safer" mood medications so that mothers know how much is getting to their babies. I completely support her decision to limit her baby's exposure to any drug, but did she truly weigh it against the chemicals in formula and the drugs and chemicals often found in municipal water supplies, the water which would have been mixed with the formula to make her baby's food? Did she speak to a health professional (like an IBCLC) who could help her wade through all of those factors before removing the protective bubble of breastmilk for her baby? Probably not. We don't view formula as really that much different from breastmilk when it comes down to it.

As far as work as a reason for stopping, that is even more distressing. If a woman who is basically running her own schedule of speaking and writing can not able to pump...we live in a very sad society. I rent hospital grade breastpumps. I have had clients who are public speakers take pumps all over the country. They pump on planes, in cars, in closets, in offices, in dressing rooms. They send milk home to their babies, carry it on planes or tearfully dump it out in front of TSA officers who don't even understand their own regulations. There are mothers who make it work. Period. They are not willing to do less for their infant because of the demands of their jobs. Speakers, doctors, singers, saleswomen, teachers, nurses, etc. who make sacrifices because they are willing to step out on a limb and insist that their baby be taken into account as part of their "package". Again, I think had she had the support of a healthcare provider who worked with her to keep breastmilk as a part of her baby's life, perhaps things would have worked out differently.

I don't want to point fingers as part of the "mommy wars". She did the best with what she had. She now says she might have chosen the banked milk had she known then what she knows now. Maybe the answer is more IBCLCs, especially more African-American breastfeeding counselors, helpers and IBCLCs. She is a highly educated, probably affluent African-American woman though, surely she knew where and how to get assistance. Surely she read all the books. But for some reason, still found her options limited.

So on one hand I say, "Hooray!" We are talking about breastfeeding, milk banks and how important this all is. On the other hand, will moms look at Rebecca Walker and think if she could only do 3 months, with the resources she has, how could I possibly do more? Let's just hope this opens up conversation about breastfeeding, mothering, choices and more...just like any amount of breastmilk is good for a baby, any amount of discussion about these issues is great too. Right?