Ive been waiting for just the right moment to post this story, and then that lovely photo I shared this morning of the black woman nursing twins (and the wonderful dialogue accompanying it) came across my Facebook site...so this is the perfect time to share this tale with my small world: Three In 1982 at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, Dahlia, a young black woman, had triplets when she wasn’t even expecting twins. One baby, just one baby, was her plan, but the Universe had other ideas for her, and the Universe could not possibly have chosen a better mother for those three little ones. The triplets, two boys and a girl, were born about six weeks early, and they quickly went into the NICU. Actually, the little girl, the firstborn, did really well. She was on room air in a day or two, and went home about a week later. Dahlia came back to the hospital with Baby #1 in a front pack twice a day to visit her sons and to try to get them to nurse. The baby girl had taken to the breast right away, but the boys required a little coaxing. Dahlia persevered…with variable success. But she pumped milk at home, artificially building up an excess of what her daughter needed so she would have plenty left over for the boys. Then Baby #2 was discharged. Dahlia continued to come to the hospital twice a day, now with two babies in tow, and she somehow managed to tuck both of them into the front pack. Of course, they were still smallish, but still… Anyway, she was nursing the two at home on demand, and she still came in to feed Baby #3, her late bloomer, twice a day. Finally, about six weeks after he was born, Baby #3 was discharged. By then, we nurses had all grown accustomed to Dahlia walking past those of us working in Labor and Delivery, and it was sad to think we wouldn’t be seeing her any more. But we needn’t have worried. She continued to drop by now and then for several more months, just to keep us updated on her progress. The last time I remember seeing her, the triplets were about six months old, and she was breastfeeding all of them. “How do you manage at night?” I asked. “Oh, it’s easy,” she said, casually. We all must have looked highly skeptical, because she said, “No, really, it’s easy. I just put ‘em all in my bed like a litter of warm little brown puppies, and then I crawl in between them. They climb all over me and all over each other, and I just put a titty in whichever little mouth is closest. Sometimes the one left out gets a little impatient, of course, but it all works out, and I think they’re beginning to figure out that there’s enough milk to go around for all of them. It’ll probably get even easier when I start them on solid food, but for right now, we’re all doing fine.” …and off she walked, one baby in a front pack, one in a back pack, and one straddling her hip. We just looked at each other, totally amazed. I don’t have much experience seeing black women openly and comfortably nursing their babies, and certainly no experience at all with moms, regardless of color, nursing triplets…but there was Dahlia, a twenty-year-old black woman, cheerfully, confidently, and proudly exclusively breastfeeding triplets - on demand! Whatever misguided preconceived ideas I had previously held flew right out the window. I’ve thought of her often over the intervening years, and I have no doubt that all three of those kids, now about 30 years old, are doing just fine in life.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:43:10 +0000
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