The cold, snow and ice that has covered the country for the
last few days has caused traffic disruption, accidents, frozen pipes and I’m sure lots of individual hardship for
those dealing with the effects.
For a breastfed baby, so long as they have their mum, the snow
and ice will make no difference at all.
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| Derbyshire 23/01/2013 |
I can think of a couple of events that involved snow disruption for my family where breastfeeding stood out as very real factor in simplifying our temporarily disrupted lives.
The first was on a journey one afternoon in February, across
the Pennines from Liverpool to Sheffield. Our usual route would have been on
one of the Pennine passes, but all of those were closed due to snow. We were in
a hire car that broke down on the M62 just before that too was closed due to snow, for
the first time ever. We had managed to call for breakdown help, then just sat
and waited. The breakdown service was very busy that day and we were in the
cold car for hours. We were found by a patrolling police team, on the motorway
to make sure that everyone had managed to get down to a lower level before being
snowed in. The young policeman was very embarrassed when he worked out the reason
that the baby was fine without the offered trip back to the police station to
heat some water “So that you can feed the baby”.
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| Derbyshire 23/01/2013 |
The second time was when ice and snow took down the power
lines to our home; plus the power lines to the pumping station that piped our
tap water. We were without electricity for three weeks and water for a week. We
had just moved house at the time and the nearest supermarket I knew of was
seven miles away on impassable roads, I was away from family and friends and I
knew none of my neighbours. The local shop very quickly ran out of water and
other cold drinks, so we were getting our water from melted and boiled snow. I
remember thinking at the time just how traumatic it would have been to have a
baby that was not breastfed. My breastfed daughter experienced no change.
Compared to what some mothers deal with on a day to day
basis and on a world scale these were temporary, minor issues. Keeping warm is a great reason to cuddle your baby but, what I gained
most though, was a real sense of empowerment and self reliance to nourish
my babies. It is easy to think of the health outcomes of breastfeeding; many
times we forget that it is the practical issues are what skills us and give us
confidence as mothers.
Anne
