Jerhona Patena Mompreneur When I was pregnant with my first child, it never crossed my mind that I will be breastfeeding. Nobody has introduced breastfeeding to me and this led me to purchase a lot of feeding bottles, sterilizers and formula milk. Two days after I gave birth, with no surprise, I didn’t find myself lactating.My baby was crying nonstop because we shared the same frustration. Everyone in the family was so anxious to the point that I nearly wanted to feed my baby with the formula milk that we bought. The following day, with God’s grace and my mom’s constant support and reminder that ,"It’s okay, lalabas din ‘yan ang gatas mo. Ganyan talaga minsan", I finally produced...
Eva Ocampo-Balbuena Client Services Director in a digital advertising tech company We’re based in Makati but we’ve decided to give birth in my home province, La Union, so I can be with our family and other relatives, and have them as support system. I initially planned on breastfeeding my baby for 3 months, as I knew I was going back to work after my maternity leave. But due to the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, we had to stay longer in the province, and were not able to go back to Makati. My first 2 to 3 weeks of breastfeeding was hard. It was painful to breastfeed.I cried and stayed up awake in the middle of the night. I was...
Glenna Christina Duch Ramas- Uypitching Stay-at-home mom and work-from-home mother doing content marketing I have two children, one is four years old and another one is a newborn.Unfortunately, with my son and firstborn, I wasn’t very successful with breastfeeding. So when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, my second-born, I prayed hard to have ample milk supply. Thankfully, my prayer was graciously granted and now I have enough to breastfeed my daughter. Some days I have more than I need that, along with some other breastfeeding moms, I’d share extra milk for preemie babies. Breastfeeding is hard, but it’s very fulfilling. The biggest challenge that I encountered with breastfeeding during the pandemic is that we...
Danah Iceal Lim IT Consultant One of the most real moments of breastfeeding was two weeks post-partum.I had been exhausted from the constant latching. My husband was trying to hand me our newborn son but I held out my hand, asking for a minute. Then, I muffled my cry because I couldn’t take it anymore. My nipple was sore and cracked. I was in pain.But I felt so guilty because I knew my baby needed me. The following week on our way home from a check up, I had to breastfeed with my cracked nipple and I punched the passenger seat. I broke down. I realized that it wasn’t about me and my vanity to satisfy the pressure of breastfeeding...
Beryl Jane Dela Cruz-Duterte Stay-at-Home Mom (Former Development Aid Worker) All the research I did during pregnancy convinced me that breastfeeding will give my child the best start in life. But apparently, I missed the part where they said it won’t necessarily be as best for the mom. I gave birth to my firstborn on the first week of December 2016. The weeks leading up to the "most wonderful time of the year" had been brutal on so many levels; from my crotch, to my breasts, to my sanity. And unlike back in the day when meltdowns were acceptable, this time I felt that I was failing my baby every time I cried in utter pain and exhaustion, frustrated...
