The first time I casually mentioned I wasn’t planning to breastfeed, I got an hour-long lecture about how formula was poison—complete with the charming observation that, since small boobs make less milk, I’d be absolutely fine. The woman doing the lecturing—a friend of a friend I had only met once before—finished by admitting that, for her, breastfeeding had been physically painful, emotionally punishing, and terrible for her marriage. “But,” she said, “it’s one of my biggest accomplishments.”
This was a few months into my first pregnancy, and suddenly horror stories about breastfeeding were everywhere. Friends told me about weeping as they pumped, glaring at their snoring husbands, white-knuckling their way through mastitis to squeeze out every last drop. Around 70.3 percent of mothers report breastfeeding difficulties—cracked nipples, fatigue, low supply. About 10 percent of American women who are nursing get mastitis, a painful inflammation of the breast tissue. And then there’s dysphoric milk ejection reflex—a particularly bleak condition that causes some women to experience rage, anxiety, and dread while lactating. All in all, 60 percent of women stop breastfeeding sooner than they had planned to. Sure, I had a couple friends who took to it straightaway. There are women who find it easy and convenient, even joyful. Lucky them! And I heard from women who chose to push through the difficulty because it feels worth it.
But I decided that breastfeeding simply was not going to be my thing. After a Las Vegas honeymoon at 25 followed by a botched attempt at natural family planning, I wanted to control the few things I could.
And so I was initiated into one of the most toxic debates in the momosphere: breast milk versus formula.
