Meg: Nursing Mother

I asked Meg to be one of my “nursing on film” models this summer; I had a hunch she’d be interested as I met her at the La Leche League conference in April where she was coordinating the exhibit hall. She met me at Westmoor Park, one of the treasures here in West Hartford, and she and her daughter nursed here, there and everywhere.

Tell me about your daughter.
The sweetest girl! She is everything I have been told about myself as a child, my mini-me. Boy, am I in trouble!

Less than half women are still breastfeeding at 6 months and the number drops under 20% at a year. Why did you decide to keep going? To what do you attribute your success when so many other women struggle with breastfeeding?
I didn’t really decide, its hard to believe she is 2 1/2, already. Not sure when that happened, LOL. I was determined, when things were rough I sought support from my doula, LLL, and my mom. It was so important to me that she was breastfed, that was my driving force. When she latched on and was suckling, in the early days, she was happy and at peace, it made the whole process worth it!

Why did you decide to become a La Leche League leader?
I attended LLL meeting with my mom as a young child. I thought about going to meetings and being a LLL Leader long before I ever had a child. I want every woman to be able to experience breastfeeding and know how important and wonderful it is!

What is the best part of motherhood?
Watching your child grow and learn, and become a little person. Everyday is something new. It’s amazing!

What do you think is the most challenging part?
The most challenging part, is having enough time and money! Having to be a working mother, I sometimes feel guilty but breastfeeding allows us to have a bonding time and spend time “just us”.

What does your daughter say and do that makes you melt?
WHOA! There is so much! When she says “I wube you” (I love you) that’s the best!

What makes you nuts?
The total defiance! When she doesn’t want to listen, she doesn’t…oh and probably when she response “NO WAY!” that could make me crazy!

What advice do you have from the trenches of motherhood?
Just go with it! Don’t worry about the right way/wrong way to mother. Just nurse and be happy! We are so stressed by everything, and the time line of mother-baby is so short and goes by so fast, don’t waste it being worried about everything! Take a deep breath and jump in!

Thanks, Meg!
Thank you so much, Stacie!

World Breastfeeding Week Poster

And VOILA. Having harassed asked people to tell me which were their favorite of my breastfeeding images I present the finished poster. I’ll be doing a final proofreading tomorrow to avoid embarrassing typos.

How embarrassing? I brought a stack of free postcards to the La Leche League conference in April touting the wonders of breasfeeding. I’d like to avoid that this time.

SO I’ll be doing a final proofread then send the file out to the printer. I’ll be giving them out to local breastfeeding professionals. You can order a personal copy as long as my extras hold out.

Downloadable PDF:
Please note that this is made freely available for you to print and distribute at will and am trusting in the basic goodness of people to use it as intended. Please respect that I retain copyright to these images and do not use them individually on your web site or in your materials even for the very best of causes. If you make the download available on your on web site please do it by linking back to this, original, post.

This file is very large so that you can make a very good print – you should be able to send this to a professional printer if you desire and have no issues with resolution, or just print it on the laser printer!

Breastfeeding on the Back Porch

This is part of an ongoing project to do a series of informal pictures of nursing women, all shot with toy cameras, in different environments.