Sure, those things have their place. In some cases, these modern things are a necessity and a great blessing, e.g. bottles for premature babies who can’t latch. Bottles are also quite handy for babies whose mothers must work outside of the home. It is certainly not wrong if a mother chooses to use any of those things even if out of convenience, but aside from those situations of necessity, she shouldn’t feel like they are absolutely necessary in normal circumstances to mother her child. If Mary didn’t need those things, then we’ll be OK without them. And if our Lord didn’t require those things as an infant, then I think our children have a shot at turning out all right without them, too.
This is one reason I like the book Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing. It’s something that any mommy can do no matter how much money her family has or how big her house is or where she lives in the world, and she really doesn’t even need this book to tell her how to do it. The book is simply a description of what happens when you take away all that stuff.
In chapter 2 of Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, Sheila Kippley describes how breastfeeding meets your baby’s sucking needs, both for nourishment and pacification. She describes the supply and demand process of breastfeeding, which amazes me every time I read about it. How God made babies with their sucking reflexes and mothers with their breasts to work together to nourish babies with exactly what they need is so awesome. Yes, there are times when a mother or baby has problems with this process (and thank God for those things in these cases!), but it does work correctly a great majority of the time.
Not only does breastfeeding provide baby’s nourishment, it also provides comfort. Kippley writes:
The breast is nature’s pacifier for the baby…We tend to ignore the fact that these artificial aids – bottles and pacifiers – are merely substitutes for the mother or her breast. The infant’s need to be pacified at the breast is nature’s way of bringing mother and baby together at other than feeding times. The breast can have a very calming effect upon the baby. This is why it is so easy to nurse a baby to sleep…This is why the nursing mother cannot really say how many times she has fed her baby during the day. Does she count the times she has pacified her baby into a deep sleep – even though her baby might have acquired little milk in the process? The breast, besides offering security and comfort, brings love and reassurance any time during the day or night. (9)When I first read this book, I pictured a little girl I used to know who, at almost four-years-old, still constantly had a pacifier in her mouth. Because of this, I had no idea what to expect of a baby who received pacification only from mother’s breasts. Would my baby be permanently attached to me (for four years!) as this child was permanently attached to her pacifier? Turns out, no. Because I used a nipple shield (another very helpful thing) for over four months with Nathan, I’m not really sure how much of my nursing during that time was nourishment and how much was comfort. I assumed a lot was comfort because of the frequency and duration of his nursing sessions. Once he was off the nipple shield, though, I realized most (if not all) of it was nourishment. As an almost 9 month old, he does still nurse frequently, but he is certainly not attached to me all hours of the day and night like I might have imagined.
This amount of nursing is what research has shown to be the most important factor in lactation amenorrhea (absence of menstruation). If a mother breastfeeds her baby in this way, she “will normally retain this infertile condition by experiencing a lengthy absence from menstrual periods following childbirth” (10). There are exceptions and variations in experience, to be sure, but this is normally what happens when you take away all that stuff everyone tells you have to have and use what God gave you to take care of your baby.
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