Breastfeeding & Healing From Sexual Abuse

Today I read this post at Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog about breastfeeding and sexual abuse, which links to the site of Penny Simkin, a doula who has written a book about childbirth for survivors of sexual abuse. I also discovered Penny's writing about sexual abuse survivors during the postpartum period, in which she writes that one of the possible impacts past sexual absue can have on a woman during the postpartum period is "revulsion with sexual implications of breastfeeding".

Below is my journey with healing from sexual abuse and it's relevance to my experience of the breastfeeding relationship. I will include some more online resources about breastfeeding and sexual abuse at the end of this post....

When I was nineteen weeks pregnant with my daughter my breasts began leaking colostrum and at that moment, at twenty-four years of age, I discovered that I had breasts. Prior to that moment I had lived in denial about my womanly bust, ignoring it because to think, see, or touch them was to acknowledge the sexual abuse I survived as teenager.

My abuser had a particular fascination with my breasts and the more his interest grew the more I pretended they weren't there. Until I was twenty-five I never wore a bra that fitted me correctly or supported my large breasts. I stuffed them into smaller bras, at the time not realising this was what I was doing, because I could not allow myself to recognise their blossoming size.

I might have lived in this denial and carried the hand prints of my abuser on my breasts my whole life, had I not decided to have a child and read extensively about raising healthy children prior to becoming pregnant.

My daughter and I have been breastfeeding for almost 14 months. There have been challenges throughout that time, but none greater than being confronted by the sexual abuse of my past.

Sometimes her suckling at my breast, or tweaking the nipple on the other breast while feeding (which is one of her methods for prompting milk production in that breast) causes me to have flash backs and I confused her presence at my breasts with his; the abuser. There have been moments when I have cried and begged her to stop, feeling the fear and shame from a decade ago. But she doesn't stop, of course, because she knows that her life depends upon my breasts and I don't force her to stop because I am her mother and accept my responsibility to do right by her and meet her basic human needs.

I seek help to heal from the abuse, because that is the real problem, not breastfeeding. Why should I let a pervert from my past abuse my daughter through me by denying her what is her birthright?

Were it not for breastfeeding I would not have sought help. It is so easy for women to mistreat themselves as others have done and to continue abusing themselves long after their abusers are gone. Breastfeeding has brought an end to this for me, because with a hungry baby to care for, it's not just about me anymore.

A friend of mine sent me a link to an article by Kate Joester, another feminist mother who discovered the healing power of breastfeeding. Like me, this woman survived the sexual abuse of her breasts and like me she discovered the power of reclaiming her breasts through breastfeeding:

"The first thing I did for my children as babies was provide for them, all by myself. Physically, I had it in me to give them all they needed. I hate that so many women don’t believe that of themselves and bemused that handing that capacity over to someone else is seen by some as liberating...After 28 years in a culture where women’s bodies belong to pretty much anyone but them, it was only my children that showed me that my body, even mine, belongs to me to give." (Emphasis added).

As I read that exert I was struck by how easy it would have been to quit breastfeeding and tell myself I was free. Free from the pain and free from the flashbacks. And what a great reason I would have had to justify my "choice" not to breastfeed! I could have said defensively to breastfeeding mothers: "It's great that you can breastfeed, but you didn't have my problems."

There I could have sat, fattening my child up on artificial milk that increases the liklihood of her developing all kinds of allergies and diseases and other health problems later in life (that would have forced her into an unnaturally deep sleep because her body simply couldn't cope with the massive task of breaking down and digesting all those artificial chemicals while awake). All the while my breasts safely hidden away in a bra that doesn't fit, still securely the property of a sexual predator I once knew.

Related Resources

Beyond The Abuse: breastfeeding after sexual violation by Gwen Morrison

Breastfeeding After Sexual Abuse by Le Leche League

Breastfeeding and The Sexual Abuse Survivor by Penny Simkin

Breastfeeding as a Survivor of Sexual Abuse by Morgan Gallagher

Breastfeeding: radical, feminist and good for you by Kate Joester

The Long Shadow: adult survivors of childhood abuse by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Ph.D., IBCLC

More links here at Breastfeeding Made Simple

Note: I really can't thank my lactivist friends enough for their genuine support throughout my journey.