Breastfeeding Journey

Hello! My name is Stephanie Silva and I am a married 23-year old mother of three and full time college student. My two oldest are 4 and 3 and they were FORUMLA fed! I believe I formula fed them for two reasons: 1. being a young mom at 18 I was more concerned with why the baby wouldn’t stop crying then weather it was breastmilk or formula that was filling the tummy and 2. I believed all the myths; I wasn’t educated about breastfeeding at all! I knew it was “better” but no one ever explained to me WHY! When...

When I was pregnant, I read everything I could about natural births, a birth plan, midwifery, labor, doulas, the whole shebang...but I didn’t even begin to prepare for what it was going to be like once my son was actually born. I knew we would breastfeed though & I always pictured myself breastfeeding for 12 months. For some reason, that always sounded like the magical number--12 months; a whole year, an even number, what most US doctors recommend. But our journey lasted 27 months, more than double what I had planned, and it truly was such an amazing experience. I...

Breastfeeding saved my life. I don’t know how else to put it. I know we as humans have fallen into the habit of saying things and people “saved my life” more frequently and metaphorically than we may realize (“this coffee saved my life.” “Thanks so-and-so, you really saved my life.”) but really, breastfeeding saved my life Let me back up a little bit and give you some back story. I was fortunate enough to find the love of my life when I was only 18 years old. I was also unfortunate enough to find the love of my life when...

Why educating our young children about breastfeeding is so important. Right now, Wendy Williams is getting a lot of attention because of her "negative" views about public breastfeeding. In a recent airing of her show, she sat down with actress and mom, Alyssa Milano. Milano is a breastfeeding mother who shares pictures on social media in hopes to help Normalize Breastfeeding in a world that sexualizes it. Milano defended her right to breastfeed in public as Wendy stated "I don't want to see that." Wendy went on to say that public breastfeeding makes her "uncomfortable."  After seeing the episode myself, I realized that changing Wendy's opinion now, was close to impossible....

When my first baby boy made his appearance I was overjoyed! I wanted to breast feed but was clueless! I was not prepared for the intense pain I felt and mistook that pain as abnormal. Surely the stabbing pain was not something every new mom felt!! I talked with the hospital lactation specialist who spent just a very short time with me. I ended up pumping half the time which decreased my milk supply within 3 months. My second child had a severe case of being consistently hungry (weighing in at 9 lbs., 2 oz and 22 inches long at birth) as well as reflux. With the doctor's approval, we moved him to soy formula because he could not tolerate regular formula. This gag reflux problem that caused vomiting did not go away until he was five years old.