Last week there was story floating around social media about Alyssa Milano, who was traveling through Heathrow Airport when their security staff confiscated the breast milk she had pumped and stored to bring home to her baby who wasn’t traveling with her at the time.
The story made its way public when Milano tweeted about it. Curious, I headed to her timeline to see what I could learn. While I was encouraged to see how many mommas could totally relate to how devastating it would be to see all that liquid gold tossed in the trash, I was saddened by quite a few as well.
Sure there were some who had a bit of a point that she could have made sure to know that Heathrow Airport has a policy to not allow breast milk past a certain threshold (the same as any other liquid) to go through security without a child present. This is a rule that I find to be asinine and completely bass ackwards, by the way, and hope this incident may lead to some discussion and revision of said rule.
But the one recurring theme that really touched a nerve were the many that indicated it was “JUST milk” and she could make more so there was really no harm done.
What this says to me is that many in the general public have NO IDEA what it takes to pump breast milk for your babies.
Boobs are not taps that turn on and off. They do not flow freely just because you have a bottle to fill.
With Brooke, I pumped 2-3x/day until her first birthday. At no point was she exclusively breastfed. Even with pumping that often, I couldn’t pump enough to meet her needs every day. We had no issues nursing mornings, nights & weekends but the pump just couldn’t get the same output that direct nursing could. I remember feeling completely defeated by that experience.
With Leah, I was ready. I wasn’t going to fall prey to the same Booby Traps that got me last time. I focused on establishing a good supply before I went to work and built up a pretty decent freezer stash. But still, at around the 6 month mark, I cried as I hooked up the boobs that once had an oversupply to the pump and saw the daily output dwindle more and more. I drank more water, took fenugreek & blessed thistle that upset my stomach and made me vomit, did breast compressions, increased my pumping sessions to 5 times a day. What finally worked was buying domperidone from an internet pharmacy overseas. I’ve worked hard to still be pumping enough to send breast milk to daycare with Leah every day at almost 22 months.
I’m in many mom/child related Facebook groups and one is specifically for “Working Pumping Mommas”. It breaks my heart to read the posts of all the mommas who, like me, see our supply drop because we’re meant to feed babies, not machines and our bodies don’t respond to them like babies. We forego sleep, time with our families, break times and deal with companies & coworkers that don’t support us, caregivers who are either uninformed or uninterested and insist on overfeeding our babies….
So no, you can’t always “just make more”. To suggest that completely disregards the time, effort and sacrifice that so many pumping mammas are willing to invest in order to provide our children with the best we can possibly give them.
