This is Andrea

German, age 34
Location A shopping mall in Tableview, Cape Town, South Africa
Feeding her one-year-old child
Photographed June 2017

People forget that breasts are not just sexual, but have a function for a baby as well. Just like all breastfed babies, my baby boy loves to put his hand under my shirt and play with my nipples for comfort, especially when he is tired. I have received comments such as, “Well, clearly he is a boy,” and, “Girl babies don’t stick their hands in mommy’s shirt.”

When I had my first baby, I felt like it wasn’t “normal” to breastfeed for more than six months, just because none of my “mom friends” were doing it. I felt like I had to slowly start weaning at six months, and then felt the pressure to introduce formula at some stage, which I did when he was nine months old. I stopped breastfeeding at ten months. I actually knew babies needed milk until they were two years old. I followed this route because it seemed to be the way to go; I just wasn’t confident enough to continue breastfeeding as I didn’t have a support group at that stage.

Now it feels ridiculous that I changed to formula and cow’s milk even though I loved breastfeeding! Seeing other mothers breastfeeding toddlers looked so natural. My second son is still breastfed at the age of two. It seems a way more natural choice: to keep it up rather than wean him.

Now it angers me when I see new mothers not even trying to breastfeed because they’ve been told that formula is just as good – or even better. My sister’s friend who lives in Germany was advised to buy a special formula for her daughter who’d been born ten weeks premature. The doctor convinced her that breast milk wasn’t mild enough for a premature baby!

When my second son was about five months old, I decided to start donating breast milk to babies who needed it*. I donated just over seven litres of frozen breast milk to Milk Matters over a few weeks. I wish I’d done it when my boys were newborns, as my milk would then have been used for newborns; the most important time for babies to build their immune system. It was more difficult to donate than I thought it would be as I didn’t have as much milk, but I am glad I tried.

<sidenote>
Breast milk helps bolster a child’s immune system and milk “banks” collect milk for mothers who cannot produce their own.

In 2019 I published my first book, Breastfeeding 101, which features candid portraits of 101 breastfeeding women as well their honest stories. In this blog post you see one of the mothers represented with her blurb from the book.

The idea for this book was unexpectedly sparked three years ago when I started seeing a lot of controversial social media content about breasts, nipples and breastfeeding.

Looking forward I hope my book can help normalise what is already a women’s most natural act. I would love to see the breastfeeding percentage rate in South Africa double. It came as a surprise to learn that, according to the 2018 statistics of the World Health Organisation (WHO), our country has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world.

Breastfeeding 101 features mothers from South Africa as well as around the globe and serves as a first-hand body of information – an unintentional handbook – directly from the women it captures.

Breastfeeding 101 is a book that wasn’t intended as a manual but may serve as one.

Basic info about the book:

Title: Breastfeeding 101
Publisher: Self-published via Staging Post
Format: Hardcover, 22 x 27cm, 224 pages
Price: ZAR385
Available for purchase via Exclusive Books, The Book Lounge and directly from the author.

This is Annah

Malawian, age 29
Location A street corner in Lotus River, Cape Town, South Africa
Feeding her six-month-old child
Photographed November 2018

All the people who live here [in this compound] are also Malawian. They give me wonderful support and are so happy to see me breastfeed. Sometimes they’ll bring my son back to me when they see that he’s been playing for a long time. They’ll say, “The child is hungry now, you must feed him.” It’s the best thing. This morning I was bathing, and my neighbour was playing with my son. When he got sleepy, she came to me and said he must drink before he went to sleep. She said: “Hey sisi, he’s hungry; you must give him the breast, he’s hungry now.” They help me a lot.

It felt very easy when I first gave him my breasts. I was still young, and shy, but when I gave birth, I was so happy. Right at the beginning my breasts were so full. They told me to take some of the milk out [express it] and put it in a bottle, because the baby was still so young and only drinking little by little. I still like to breastfeed. My son drinks nicely and I’ve never had to worry that he hasn’t got enough food. Yoh! He drinks a lot of milk. He gets really full [laughs].

In 2019 I published my first book, Breastfeeding 101, which features candid portraits of 101 breastfeeding women as well their honest stories. In this blog post you see one of the mothers represented with her blurb from the book.

The idea for this book was unexpectedly sparked three years ago when I started seeing a lot of controversial social media content about breasts, nipples and breastfeeding.

Looking forward I hope my book can help normalise what is already a women’s most natural act. I would love to see the breastfeeding percentage rate in South Africa double. It came as a surprise to learn that, according to the 2018 statistics of the World Health Organisation (WHO), our country has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world.

Breastfeeding 101 features mothers from South Africa as well as around the globe and serves as a first-hand body of information – an unintentional handbook – directly from the women it captures.

Breastfeeding 101 is a book that wasn’t intended as a manual but may serve as one.

Basic info about the book:

Title: Breastfeeding 101
Publisher: Self-published via Staging Post
Format: Hardcover, 22 x 27cm, 224 pages
Price: ZAR385
Available for purchase via Exclusive Books, The Book Lounge and directly from the author.

This is Annemarie

Namibian, age 35
Location In the desert south of Swakopmund, Namibia
Feeding her 14-week-old child
Photographed July 2018

I was feeding on demand but she wasn’t gaining weight. I couldn’t stick to exclusive breastfeeding because sometimes she’d be crying for food within one to one-and-a-half hours. The kiddies doctor also said she was not severely underweight but still a bit under for her age and so I could maybe give her an extra feed. I started giving her an extra bottle [of formula milk] in the morning and in the afternoon. Now if she sees me she knows she’s getting milk from the boob but otherwise she takes the bottle happily.

I’ve learned when she’s hungry now: She wiggles around on me until she gets her head closer to my breast. It can get super funny – she goes crazy and behaves like she has rabies [laughs], then she’s totally happy when she latches. It was like that in hospital as well actually. I had an emergency caesarean section which means it’s not really possible to get up and down from your bed in those first days, so I couldn’t place her back in the crib. I just kept her with me and had pillow supports all around me. If I put her on my tummy she would wriggle, by herself, all the way up to my breast to feed.

My husband and I joined an antenatal class in preparation for her arrival. The class covered many topics. When it came to feeding, the advice was that it didn’t matter if you give your baby formula or breastfeed, you are still a good mom – but breastmilk is the best. They explained that breastmilk is always [nutrient] rich enough, a perfect product. I was happy to feed her but even on demand she didn’t put on weight, she picked up so slowly. Formula helped us.

In 2019 I published my first book, Breastfeeding 101, which features candid portraits of 101 breastfeeding women as well their honest stories. In this blog post you see one of the mothers represented with her blurb from the book.

The idea for this book was unexpectedly sparked three years ago when I started seeing a lot of controversial social media content about breasts, nipples and breastfeeding.

Looking forward I hope my book can help normalise what is already a women’s most natural act. I would love to see the breastfeeding percentage rate in South Africa double. It came as a surprise to learn that, according to the 2018 statistics of the World Health Organisation (WHO), our country has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world.

Breastfeeding 101 features mothers from South Africa as well as around the globe and serves as a first-hand body of information – an unintentional handbook – directly from the women it captures.

Breastfeeding 101 is a book that wasn’t intended as a manual but may serve as one.

Basic info about the book:

Title: Breastfeeding 101
Publisher: Self-published via Staging Post
Format: Hardcover, 22 x 27cm, 224 pages
Price: ZAR385
Available for purchase via Exclusive Books, The Book Lounge and directly from the author.