A woman from Louth has spoken of the pressure new mothers put on themselves to “spring back” shortly after giving birth.
usan McAlester, 32, and her husband Paul-André, who live in Co Meath, have a 10-month-old son named Finn who is exclusively breastfed.
Ms. McAlester said she found it difficult to “just do nothing” for the first few weeks of Finn’s life and pressured herself to get out of the house as soon as possible.
“I was a little hard on myself at first because it’s this idea of a ‘bounce back’ culture, which doesn’t really have to do with my body, but I felt like I had to get out of the house to take my baby out. to the beach for walks and stuff,’ she said.
“And if I couldn’t get myself together to do that, then I wasn’t doing my job well enough, but in reality I just had to sit on the couch and rest for those first few weeks.
“Letting Finn snap in and do his thing just to build up a stash and get to know each other and just move really, really slow.
“The first few weeks it was hard for me to just do nothing. You see new moms and they look amazing and it’s great that they can do that, but that wasn’t my experience so I just put that pressure on myself to get out there.”
Ms. McAlester said breastfeeding can be “mentally exhausting” and emphasized the importance of face-to-face interaction with other mothers.
Finn intervened immediately, but the mother of one said she still had doubts in the back of her mind and sought reassurance from a health care professional.
“He hooked up right away but I had no idea what I was doing. I had taken all the prenatal classes but during Covid they were all online so I didn’t find them that useful,” she said.
“I went in quite unprepared, I really didn’t know if he was getting milk or not.
“When you’re in the hospital you ask for support and the midwives are fantastic but they’re so tense in other ways that you really need that specialist support and I’ve asked a few times but there’s just been there no one available to come and talk to me.
“When you come home from the hospital it’s like ‘okay, we’re on our own’ and all of a sudden all those doubts creep in, so that’s what happened to me.
“I just had that nagging feeling in the back of my mind so I found a lactation consultant on site and booked an appointment, I just needed that reassurance. She gave me just that little bit of encouragement to just keep going and trust my gut.
“Those first few weeks are very hit and miss because you’re a little bit confident and then your confidence can be affected by something and it doesn’t make sense but your hormones are all over the place. We also went to the GGD to weigh him, but I was still in doubt.”
Ms McAlester said she is now confident in her breastfeeding journey and thanks support groups like Cuidiú for helping her get to that stage.
“Probably the most important thing was Cuidiú. I started going every week and there were counselors who could answer all your questions and even met a community of other women who are also breastfeeding,” she said.
The National Breastfeeding Week ran from August 1 to August 7