Today we will continue with the second part of our interview with the lactation and maternity consultant Graci Ariza. We will talk today about the role of breastfeeding support groups but also about the pressures and criticisms that parents, especially first-timers, receive about how they raise and care for their babies.
Why are support groups and lactation consultants so important?
We live in a consumerist and "plasticized" society that has left the natural, and therefore breastfeeding, in the background.
The culture of the bottle is still valid and many years ago since most women do not grow up watching breastfeeding. As girls, they give us dolls to give the bottle, and when there is a new baby in the family, milk, bottles and pacifiers are given to the new parents. They teach us how to make a bottle but they don't teach us how to breastfeed. That is why when a mother decides to breastfeed her children she is alone, lost ... she does not know how to do it and will not be able to do it. To top it all your environment does not help. The concept of "tribe" has disappeared.
Do the groups cover that need?
It is necessary that there are other mothers, advisors and support groups where these mothers come to solve their doubts about breastfeeding or to ask for help when a problem arises. But above all so that they find a place to feel supported, feel strong and feel empowered as women who can and know how to breastfeed their children. These support groups, like the consultants, are the counterweights to that lack of support that exists in today's society.
Have you noticed that first time breasts are treated to infantilize in their environment?
Yes and not only with regard to breastfeeding, but that paternalistic tone begins as early as pregnancy and lengthens throughout the upbringing of our children. All women, by nature, know how to give birth, we know how to breastfeed our children, and we know how to raise them by pure maternal instinct. However, since pregnancy they scare us and treat us as sick. They do not leave us freedom to give birth as we wish. The medical system treats us as ignorant that we should allow ourselves to do according to its protocols, even when our instinct and our body says otherwise.
That makes the puerperium harder, right?
Yes. To top it off when we get home with our baby, everyone sees the right to give us unsolicited advice, loaded with topics that only make us harbor even more doubts and make us feel vulnerable. This situation of paternalism is ignoring and nullifying the power and training of the mother as a woman and a mammal. He is being denied the right to do what he knows and needs. He is denied following his maternal instinct. He is being deprived of his freedom and is being treated like a girl who does not know how to do anything right if they do not tell her how to do it.
How can we help mothers empower themselves and feel safer?
The best way to empower yourself as a woman and as a mother is to be aware of our power, know what we are capable of and also know what our limitations are.
To empower ourselves as mothers we need support and support, we need to discover ourselves, know our body, our abilities. Know and believe that we can and do give birth, that we know and can breastfeed, and convince ourselves that the maternal instinct is the best tool to take care of our children, which guarantees that all their physical and emotional needs will be covered.
No one better than a mother knows what is best for her children.
If we know what we are capable of as women and we know how far we can go, no one can make us doubt, no one can childish us or treat us like fools. We know how to do it, we just have to be aware of it.
What do you advise mothers and fathers if they receive criticism of their environment about breastfeeding and parenting?
Criticisms are the daily bread of fathers and mothers. There is always someone from the environment who provides that unsolicited opinion that undermines the trust of parents. For them, the best advice is to let themselves be carried away by their instincts and put aside those fashions, the topics and those unsolicited advice. Fathers and mothers have their own instinct, which should guide them during the upbringing of their children and during breastfeeding. They will know when they need help and then they will seek that help they need, only then and not when they do not ask for it. Therefore, the best advice is to turn a deaf ear to those councils that do not give them anything useful, make them feel uncomfortable or make them feel useless.
It is not simple, sometimes it is difficult because these criticisms arise from the closest environment
But that is why we should not allow them to modify our way of doing things or what our instincts tell us. Parents can always find support from the tribe and other parents when they need it, whether in support groups, in their personal environment or even on the network.
And yet parents should not forget that there is no one better than them to know that it is better for their children; No one better than them to be aware of whether they are doing well or not.
We thank the lactation and maternity consultant Graci Ariza the time she has given us for an interview in Babies and more and we encourage you, as she says, to empower you of your upbringing and motherhood.
