Babies are born knowing how to breastfeed. In fact, as soon as they are born, when they have just been separated from the mother, they are waiting to join her again, almost with her mouth open about to cling to her chest. Mothers, however, do not have the same advantage as babies. They do not know how to breastfeed as soon as they are mothers, unless they have had some visual or communicative reference that has helped them learn.
It is said that one of the reasons that many lactations fail is that women today have not seen breastfeeding other women. As breastfeeding is not something instinctive, surely those mothers who have been with many other mothers breastfeeding will have part of the path already made and more facilities when it comes to breastfeeding their baby or, at least, more security and confidence, That is not little.
However, as I say, we are many, many, adults today who have barely seen mothers breastfeeding. In fact, I vaguely remember my mother doing it with my little brothers and I remember a woman, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, breastfeeding in a square, sitting on a bench, while my mother talked to her and her mother, who was sitting next to her.
I remember that was the first time I saw breastfeeding To a strange woman and I remember being dumbfounded, both because of the naturalness with which a woman showed her breast (it is what she has to be raised in a religious climate) and because of the incredible thing of seeing a baby eating from her mother's breast.
That was my first time and, although it sounds weird / sad, it was also the last. Well, let's face it, maybe I'm lying and I've seen other women breastfeeding and I haven't noticed them, I don't know, the fact is that she is the only woman I remember seeing breastfeeding besides my mother.
Memories of that time I have few left (I do not have a privileged memory, precisely), however that image is recorded in my memory, probably for how fascinated that moment.
Perhaps motivated by this memory I enjoy seeing young children (and especially girls) when they approach my wife breastfeeding and talk to her:
-What are you doing?
-He is breastfeeding. Is eating.
-Is eating?
-Yes, milk comes out of the chest.
And with a face of amazement and surprise, they stare for a while, watching my son eat sucking on his mother's chest, something that perhaps they had never seen or something that perhaps they had never thought was possible. Maybe that's the first time they've seen a woman breastfeed and maybe they remember that moment the rest of their life, as I remember it.
