The public health nurse helped Kalli see bonding in a new way.

Transcript

And I remember seeking out some support from a public health nurse about a month-and-a-half ish after my first son was born to help me with the nursing – if we could try, like, you know, with other interventions, maybe using a nipple shield or something like that. And she’s, like, she said what is your goal? And she – and she was actually – I’m like, my conversation with her and, like, I only saw her that one time but, you know, she heard me say that I feel like I’m not bonding with my child. I feel like, you know, that, you know, in the first few weeks of his life that, you know, because I was giving him formula that I was causing a gastric distress because all I was told was that the baby will function – needs your breast milk and that’s what is best for your newborn, not formula, because that causes your newborn harm.

So the messaging that I was hearing in that early stage where, like, that’s, like I said, new moms are very vulnerable, it sent to me, like, for a tailspin afterwards. And, you know, she told me that – the public health nurse that I saw told me that, you know, “are you not holding your child? Are you not, you know, playing with your child as a way to bond? Do you think that nursing is the only way to bond with your child? How about your husband? His father. Is he not bonding with him?” This – he doesn’t have to nurse the child to bond with him is essentially what she was saying. She was saying it in a very gentle and very compassionate way. She wasn’t, you know, like, bluntly saying you are wrong for thinking what you’re thinking. But she was trying to, you know, reframe and having me try to see the other side of it. Right? That, you know what I was doing with my son, aside from trying to nurse, you know, I was interacting with him. I was bonding with him. Right? So, that had me, you know, kind of reshift my thoughts and stuff.

---

Go back