Lasting impact: the loss of community knowledge

(AKA: Why your local peer support group is so important.)

For most of human history, feeding knowledge lived in communities. Mothers watched other mothers, Grandmothers helped, and neighbours offered what worked for them. Knowledge was embodied, relational, passed along. (It worked pretty well, although I’m not going to pretend it was perfect - another post for another day…)

Now, infant feeding support has moved to clinics, books, apps and percentile charts… 3am Google spirals. Our society loves numbers because they’re concrete. But the problem with numbers is they can't sit with you at 2am when you're not sure something is normal. So much of breastfeeding support (and early parenting support in general) Is in talking, and listening, and sharing.

“Oh yeah, my baby used to pull off the breast and scream like that at 5pm, too.” opens a conversation data can’t. It helps us to feel heard and connected, and valued. Our apps and weight charts can’t do that. They’re often a great tool, don’t get me wrong, but they’re being used instead of community support and the embodied knowledge of generations of women who have done this feeding thing before.

We live in a world that trusts algorithms more than our peers, and we're paying for that in isolation, anxiety, and a lot of unnecessary (unwanted by the parent) formula supplementation.

Go to your local peer support group!