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by TeMPOraL 1274 days ago
My wife and I were warned about this by nurses. The effect is real, but it's absolutely not reliable as a contraception method, as it can easily break down for various reasons, including the mother not following a strict and consistent regimen of frequent breastfeeding. And, as it turns out, consistent and frequent breastfeeding is much harder to achieve than popular media would had you believe.
1 comments
ghostpepper 1274 days ago
> And, as it turns out, consistent and frequent breastfeeding is much harder to achieve than popular media would had you believe.

This myth is a huge cause of depression in new moms

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lazide 1274 days ago
There are massive issues with hiding the real challenges with children from potential mothers and fathers.

I suspect it's a combination of:

1) Prior/older parents worried about embarrassment or being shamed for going through what they did - a lot of it things that no one likes to talk about.

2) Folks worried (potentially correctly) that many folks would opt to not have kids, which is already a population problem, if they understood what it really meant.

It's the same about War and men returning from it, frankly, though war movies tend to be a lot more glamourous, even the gritty ones.

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ghostpepper 1263 days ago
I think 1 could also be parents actively forgetting how hard it was. I think I even read a theory that the mother's brain releases chemicals during childbirth that help her remember it as "not so bad"

I also suspect that older generations were less isolated socially and it was much more common to have parents/grandparents/cousins/etc in the same house who could care for the baby for an hour while mom caught up on sleep. It takes a village to raise a child but we have no more villages, so people try to do it on their own and discover it's incredibly difficult.

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gsinclair 1274 days ago
It’s sad that it’s so little known. I know that not everything can or should be taught at school, but I’d argue in favour of this: breast feeding is often not as easy as it seems it should be, so you should find out more about it when preparing to have a child.
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