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Nursing Mother, Working Mother: The Essential Guide for Breastfeeding and Staying Close to Your Baby After You Return to Work

By Gale Pryor

Bonding usually proceeds without our thinking about it much. We get pregnant, we give birth, we fall in love with our babies, we decide to breastfeed, we become mothers in tune with our babies. Voila. We have accomplished one of life's major transitions, becoming a mother. Unless we don't.

Sometimes women don't fully traverse the divide between childless woman and mother. They have babies, but they resist the bone-deep commitment that comes with motherhood. After all, becoming a mother is a frightening, gigantic leap into a new, all-encompassing stage of life. Motherhood threatens to submerge both accomplishments of the past and goals of the future, as well as one's present sense of self. The fear of losing oneself in its flood waters is entirely normal.

Besides, in American culture today, motherhood receives scant respect, especially among high-achievers. If your self-respect comes mainly from your success at work, especially if that work is competitive and pressured, reentering the world with mother suddenly attached to your identity can be dismaying, to say the least. Despite the impressive diplomacy and managerial skills with which motherhood endows women, the business world holds mothers in suspicion. We are widely suspected of not being truly committed to our jobs.

And, as nursing mothers will tell you in chorus, breastfeeding has the most marvelous calming effect on them. A recent study documents their experience: At one month postpartum, breastfeeding women were significantly less anxious than formula-feeding women. The breastfeeding hormones, oxytocin and prolactin, cause a feeling of well-being that tends to promote maternal behavior. Also, the act of breastfeeding requires a woman to relax. No matter how hectic her life, a breastfeeding mother must sit or lie down with her baby eight or more times a day. And we mustn't discount the simple joy and peace of mind that come with cuddling a secure, satisfied, comfortable baby.