COVID-19 Is Making New Moms Feel Even More Pressure to Breastfeed

Jewel Pfaffroth could barely move while she pumped. She had struggled since her son was born in April to produce breast milk—he was underweight at his first doctor’s appointment, and she immediately had to supplement with formula. Her doctor had recommended she sit at specific angles while she pumped—“to let gravity do its thing”—but those positions caused her such intense backaches that she couldn’t do basic things like carrying her baby. Yet despite the debilitating pain, she was pumping twice a day to create less than one-tenth of what her son ate. It was crucial to her that he have some breast milk in his diet. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “Had COVID not been a thing, as soon as I found out that my body just couldn’t make enough milk, I probably would have gone straight to formula feeding,” she says. “Instead what I did was meet with a lactation specialist once a week, took a bunch of supplements and did everything single woo-woo thing that I could find that had even a tiny bit of science behind it.” Pfaffroth was desperate to find any way she could to minimize her chances of getting sick. Since getting pregnant, she had barely left her neighborhood near hadn’t even eaten outdoors at a restaurant and had chosen an out-of-the-way pediatrician in a less crowded neighborhood so that she would encounter fewer people every time she took her son to the doctor. After he was born, the 34...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 nationpod Source Type: news