I asked Heather some questions about her breastfeeding experiences.

What are your very first memories of breastfeeding? I don’t mean breastfeeding your own babies, but when you were a child or teenager or young adult? As a youngster did you spend much time around nursing mothers?

I don’t remember spending anytime around nursing mothers, but I played ‘house’ endlessly. It seems like a LOT of my play involved babies but I was likely to give them a bottle and I don’t remember having any knowledge of breastfeeding. So, that being said, I don’t have any idea when it started, but by the time I was pregnant I knew I wanted to breastfeed and I wanted a ‘natural’ (for me, at the time, that meant no pain medication) birth. I had for many years been ‘avant guard-ish’ and I picked up on the fact that natural birth and breastfeeding were outside of the norm, a wee bit scandalous. That helped me choose them.

When you were pregnant with your first child what were your plans for feeding your baby. Had you given much thought to breastfeeding, e.g. how long you would breastfeed for? Did you do any preparation for breastfeeding?

My plan when pregnant with my first was to breastfeed for at least 3 months! I hadn’t given it any thought of planning and didn’t do any preparation. When I left the hospital after the birth I used the hospital’s little pamphlet on breastfeeding as my guide.

How did you find breastfeeding in the early days? Was breastfeeding what you expected it to be? What hurdles did you encounter and how did you overcome them? Did any of these experiences affect how you managed breastfeeding with subsequent children?

I had a LOT of difficulties in the beginning weeks, I had inverted nipples and I didn’t do anything to prepare (see above ;o) I became horribly engorged, baby had a bad latch, and by the 10th day I had cracks that went all the way around both nipples. It hurt like crazy! I talked on the phone with a lactation consultant who had me in tears and just kept telling me that position was important. And then I went to a La Leche League meeting. That’s when everything changed for me. I still had to heal, but I was able to nurse through the pain because I knew I wanted to keep going and that it would be better soon. And it was. With my other kids I have self-made rules, ‘lucky bras’ , and other rituals that keep the cracks away!

As a first-time mom learning to breastfeed, did you have a nearby breastfeeding-friendly support network in those early days/weeks/months? If so, what difference did it make to your early experience of breastfeeding?

I was so grateful to my local LLL meeting, the leaders and their lending library. I went to a meeting, and took home to book the continuum concept, that was it for me, I was an attachment parent! I made my first best-mom-friend and we whiled away the days walking and talking with our babies. It made it all good. I didn’t have a computer at the time, so I missed out on the massive amounts of support that are found there now, but maybe that was a good thing because I had to find local support and face-to-face friendship.

How has your own perception of breastfeeding changed from when you were pregnant with your first child, to now?

It’s hard to compare, it’s kind of like asking about the perception of life before kids and after, that’s the thing about having kids, every single perception changes. It’s one big super-hyper-overdrive-paradigm shift. At least if you’re doing it right. And then kids so fully insinuate themselves into your experience that you can’t barely remember yourself before them. Breastfeeding is like that, but I never guessed that I would be one of breastfeeding’s biggest champions, and yet, here I am.

What have learned about yourself, about your children and about the world though your breastfeeding experiences?

Breastfeeding taught me that I am very self-sufficient. That I am just right, exactly made. I learned that my kids are just right, too. They know when to eat, how much, how to be, how to learn, and knowing this makes my parenting different. I try and meet their expectations of me and the world as perfect for them. I know that they are always doing the best they can (given the circumstances) And that the world is made better by the things that they bring to it, simplicity, self-sufficiency, peacefulness, play, love…

Can you share with us the best piece of breastfeeding advice you ever received?

Don’t pull down your shirt ;o)

How would like the world to have changed with regard to breastfeeding education and support by the time your daughters are thinking about having children?

I really hope that there won’t be any issues with breastfeeding in public. It would be nice to have the whole breasts=sex thing struck from our cultural memory. And I really hope that the La Leche League model of mother to mother support will still be around, perhaps reinvigorated.

You’ve recently launched a new book “Simply Give Birth“, a wonderful collection of birth stories. Can you tell us about the book and your motivation of publishing it?

When I was pregnant with my last two births especially, I spent a lot of time on-line reading birth stories. I liked birth stories that weren’t bogged down in minutiae and were matter-of-fact, I also wanted to read stories that were safe and positive. (When you’re pregnant you have to protect your psyche from fear) so I collected stories that I would have liked to have read and edited, collated, and finally put them into a book. I’ve been in keeping in touch with most of the authors and they’re really great women, the stories are so great.

*This giveaway closed on 30th November 2009.