Marie
Breastmilk is a truly amazing film that was screened October 4th at the Woodstock Film Festival. This film is so revolutionary that it is difficult to describe, so I will start by paraphrasing the film's official website: Director/producer Dana Ben-Ari, after the birth of her first child,
became fascinated with breastfeeding then decided to cover the subject
of breastmilk and breastfeeding, after the birth of her second child, on
film. The intent of the film is to provoke discussion and examine why,
while breastmilk is touted as the best thing for babies and mothers, are
there still so many women who are not successful at exclusively
breastfeeding for the recommended first 6 months or more. (www.breastmilkthemovie.com)
The
film followed the stories of several different families and
their experiences with breastfeeding, or obtaining breastmilk for their babies. In addition to the wonderful images of happy nursing babies and
toddlers,there were thought provoking and delightful images, like a
child drinking her mama milk with a straw while blowing bubbles into it and a
mother adding breast milk to her morning omelet. The film sadly shows however, that there are still issues in
our society surrounding the subject and perception of breastfeeding.
Nursing in public is sometimes seen as obscene, and all too many of the
mothers struggled with the fear of not producing enough milk. These mothers were
advised to supplement with or completely switch over to infant formula
by medical professionals or by well-meaning but misinformed
fathers. Some women simply lacked the confidence and support to
continue to breastfeed. One of the younger mothers, in the end, stated that going to school and working made it too difficult
to successfully breastfeed and pump even though she tried and her
initial plan was to breastfeed. She ended up exclusively using formula
fairly early on.
I
found the story about a lesbian couple from Australia who co-nursed
their daughter to be fascinating. The non-gestational mother was able
to induce lactation naturally and they both successfully shared the
nursing duties. It was amazing to hear their story. I knew that with
hormone prescriptions lactation could be induced ,but I had no idea that it could be done without any artificial hormones or drugs. This couple also shared their feelings on nursing and
how different Americans’ attitudes toward breastfeeding are from
Australians’. They couldn't understand how so many American women seem
to have supply issues. They speculated that it is a cultural issue because milk supply issues are almost unheard of in Australia.
The movie also gave a glimpse into the challenges low income mothers face by showing a
discussion between a WIC counsellor and a mother. The mother was at a WIC office to obtain a
new formula for her child because she had been allergic to a few of the
others she had tried. The counsellor asked the woman
if she felt confused about the messages sent by WIC about breastfeeding
because they offer free formula. The mother felt that her decision to use
formula was very clear and there was no confusion at all. A community
educator from WIC who is very pro-breastfeeding mentioned that it would
be interesting to see what would happen if WIC no longer offered
formula. Would it force more women to at least try to breastfeed? Did they really want to “force” women to breastfeed? She knows all
they can do really is offer the info, educate, and support the women’s
choices.
There
was also a wonderful montage of bountiful squirting lactating
breasts of all sizes, shapes, colors and amounts of milk. It was a
great representation of how every mother and baby are similar but
unique. We mothers have a kinship but we can all mother differently and
still have great thriving families just the same.
At
the Q&A portion of the evening with the film maker, one man stood up
to say that he thinks that men will LOVE this film. Secretly I groaned
inside thinking, “what a pig”…and then he redeemed himself by saying
there is so much a man can learn from this film. He felt that men will be
fascinated by the “mechanics” behind lactation that they might not
otherwise be informed about. I was excited to hear that, and I totally
agree that if more men saw this it would help society see breastfeeding
as normal and there would be more support for it. A successful
breastfeeding relationship between mother and child largely depends on
the partner’s comfort level with it and overall support. One family in the film
spoke about how when they became pregnant the father’s attitude totally changed.
This self described "rock and roll slacker" suddenly kicked into full gear to work hard and provide
for his family. Once the baby was born he did all that he could to
make sure the mother was taken care of so that she could do what she
needed to do for their child. That was the best example of fatherly
support I could imagine.
Overall,
I think the movie points out that in society ideas about breasts are
all over the place. Are they sexual, are they mothering, are they
comforting, are they for babies? I think that the answer is that they
are all these things and that’s wonderful.
Women helping women to be women, kids benifit.
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