With my first baby Kelly, I had concluded I couldn’t nurse. All the old clichés fit my case. I was too nervous about being a good mother … I didn’t have enough milk … and, as my mother continually reminded me, “you’re starving her!”
I was born during the post-war “baby boom” at a time when only 7-10% of mothers in the United States were breastfeeding. The day my mother brought me home from the hospital – at 10-days-old – I was put on a regimen of three meals a day of baby food, plus formula.
In contrast, about 65% of the “back to basics” moms of the 80’s were breastfeeding, starting solid foods at approximately 6 months and some mothers began introducing cereals, fruits and vegetables as late as one year, with no adverse effects.
But my mother was concerned about her first grandchild’s wellbeing. With no personal experience at breastfeeding, she admonished me to “give it up” when I expressed any frustration.
When my second daughter was born, I decided not to put myself through the trouble. For the first two weeks of her life, she was bottle fed. But she seemed fretful all the time, had many stomach upsets and frankly, I didn’t like the inconvenience of bottle feeding. After medication dried up my milk, it was not easy to begin the lactation process over again, but I was determined to give it a second try.
We had moved into a new neighborhood by this time, and I had developed a close friendship with Joan. A successful nursing mother, she had breastfed her babies until they were twelve months old or older and couldn’t understand why I would even worry about something as natural and normal as providing healthy nutrition to an infant.
“Just do it,” Joan would say. “It will happen” while Joan urged me NOT to supplement with formula. She taught me about growth spurts at about 6 weeks and again at around 3 months when my baby’s need for more milk meant I’d pretty much be nursing all of one day to build up my milk supply to meet my baby's increased need … but what it didn’t mean was I no longer had any milk … a common misconception among new mothers and their doctors who often have little or no real understanding of breastfeeding beyond that of their own mother, wife or medical school professor!
With Joan’s encouragement, Stacy became a happy and contented baby, breastfed for almost a year without incidence.
On August 27, 1982 – my sixth child - Kaytee was born. She would be breastfed also but with a twist as I came to understand the economic principle known as the “law of supply and demand.”
The day I brought my 4th daughter home, my neighbor Vivian dropped by with a gift and a surprise of her own. During the two days I had been in the hospital, her family had been contacted by Utah State Social Services and asked to provide foster care for a 3-month-old baby girl named Kimberly. The baby had not been abused, but her very young mother, with no knowledge of nutrition or nurturing, and when there was no formula, had put only water – or Kool Aid – in her infant's bottle. The baby had not been seen by a doctor during her short lifetime, so when Social Services stepped in, this little blond, blue-eyed dolly, who’s original birth weight was less than five pounds, now weighed only seven pounds. Diagnosed as a “failure to thrive” the development of her motor reflexes had already been seriously affected.
When Vivian came to see me, we compared my 2-day old, 6 lb. 11 oz. infant to her 3-month-old foster daughter, noting sadly that they were disturbingly similar in size and ability.
For a week or so, I enjoyed being pampered and watching my little one grow. But as most breastfeeding new mothers know, engorgement is a common problem in the early days following a birth. On several occasions, I had to use the breast pump to relieve the pressure of having more milk than one baby could consume. Yet, I hated to throw it away when it is such a precious commodity in a hungry world. So, for what reason I didn't yet know, I put it in the refrigerator.
When a quart jar was full, I decided to call my neighbor, since she was the only one in the neighborhood at the time with a baby, but how to make such a delicate offering was a concern. Our conversation consisted of a discussion on the merits of breastfeeding. I led into the subject carefully, not sure how she would react. When I finally told her I had a quart of mother’s milk in my refrigerator and wondered if she could use it, she was elated. It seems, in addition to her other problems, Kimberly was also allergic to cows’ milk (commercial infant formulas are commonly made with small amounts of processed cows’ milk). Since we had last talked, Kimberly had been fretful, upset and hardly slept at all. The majority of infants have no problem and thrive, but a percentage of newborns – like Kimberly – cannot readily digest formula and alternatives must be found.
By this time in her young life, all the commercial brands had been tried, but Kimberly continued to cry as though in pain, could not keep the formula down and slept erratically. They had tried goats’ milk, which many grandmothers – through the years – have said is the “next best thing.” A day or two on soy-derivative formulas did not change the situation. Finally, they had found a formula substitute, but it was very expensive. This non-milk product cost about $13 per quart and although they hadn’t tried it yet, they were skeptical it would make any difference. Needless to say, Vivian was delighted to be able to try another option.
She called excitedly the next day. Her baby had slept for 2-3 hour intervals all during the night and had not spit up once. A real first for this little one. Of course, we knew it was realistically too soon to know for sure if my milk was the reason for this seeming improvement.
We worked out an arrangement. I would use the breast pump simultaneously with my nursing baby. The hormones stimulated when the baby nurses, allows the “let down” and the milk can then be easily pumped from the second breast. In other words, one side was for Kaytee and the other for Kimberly. Every morning, one of Vivian’s older children would ring the doorbell and collect the milk from the previous day.
At first, production was slow. I was getting about 1-2 ounces per feeding because that was all my baby needed. As her needs increased (normally at the 6-week point) so did my milk production. After seven months, I was producing about 25-35 ounces per day for each baby.
Kimberly and Kaytee had different pediatricians, but Vivian and I regularly compared progress notes. The two babies’ growth paralleled almost ounce-for-ounce. At her six-month check-up, Kaytee weighed 14 lb. 14 oz. and was 26 inches long. A full three months older, Kimberly was also 26 inches long and weighed in at 14 lbs. 12 oz.
In a society with almost universal acceptance of surrogacy as a means for having a family, views on surrogate nursing range from “strange” to “disgusting.” Hospitals, around our state, at least, have discontinued milk banks as a resource for “failure to thrive” infants. Many nursing mothers with milk to spare are discouraged from contributing or have no one willing to accept their excess because of the problems with storage and sanitation. But, my husband and our other children, as well as my co-workers were wonderfully supportive during the entire fifteen-month process.
While “wet nursing” is not a common practice in modern society, in extreme cases like Kimberly’s, where a child’s life might hang in the balance, it fulfills a vital need. Kimberly’s doctor talked with me several months into this unusual relationship. He told me, in his professional opinion, I had literally saved the life of this little girl. He is convinced she would not have survived without her own personal “cow.”
