Postpartum depression typically is of little concern, especially new moms who breastfeed. The ‘let-down reflex’ is a natural Xanax. No shame or embarrassment whatsoever is in her mind to give her newborn Mamma Nature’s best nutrition. Add to the fact that mother’s milk is natural and pure, breastfeeding is known to prevent breast cancer for the nursing mom, enhancing the new experience as a true gift for a woman’s protection.
Preventing breast cancer is usually beside the point for a nursing mom, because there is absolutely nothing in the world quite as soothing as relaxing with a suckling baby. 
All of the natural maternal shift of hormones happens like a clock’s mechanics; the internal machinery is so in tune to its biological purpose, so too the deep emotional aspect kicks in, developing her maternal nurturing instincts. Procreation and all its hormonal components rank right up top in the hierarchy of needs.
I do not regret one moment breastfeeding my children. It was the natural thing to do and filled me to the brim with a warm fuzzy adoration of the wiggling bundle of teeny tootsies, and fingers resting on my breast in my arms. Whether or not it inhibited my breast cancer or altered its severity was immaterial to me, even with physicians research now. Breastfeeding does appear to protect against breast cancer. It is also linked to lower rates of ovarian cancer, type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Research has shown that each birth can reduce a woman’s risk by seven percent and that the risk declines by another four percent for each year a woman breastfeeds her babies. Other research has shown that among women whose mothers or sisters had breast cancer, breastfeeding seems to reduce the risk of the disease by up to 60 percent.
A breastfeeding mother knows the uncomfortable feeling of breasts full of milk, the painful urgency to empty the milk. I recall that tenderness; however, the injections for the tissue expander could not be relieved by a suckling baby, its stretching discomfort was constant. My skin stretched with each injection, much the same as stretching from breastfeeding.
My plastic surgeon implemented the ’tissue expander’ with the mastectomy surgery for breast reconstruction. The tissue expander stretched slowly as 50 cc’s of saline fluid were injected weekly.
After a mastectomy, all of those hormonal shifts of maternal nurturing become lopsided. Of course, it’s easy to say just for logic’s sake, you know you aren’t having any more children, you can’t get pregnant after menopause, blah, blah… But because of biological instincts, the physiological self is so strong a mastectomy felt like the worst impediment of my productive nature.
I felt robbed. I could not squash that awful feeling. It wasn’t a logical rationale and because I’ve been a mother for most of my life, so deeply ingrained in me, my heart says I’m Mom before ‘me’.
That loss of my maternal sense threw me into the worst depression I’d ever known — so strong it felt physical! I could not reconcile the good over the bad. I prayed it would go away. Moms know the deep love in her heart and soul for her children does not diminish and moms understand how hormones affect womanhood. I hoped I would get over this hump of hormone havoc, feeling as though an emotional 18-wheeler hit me. I knew I’d kick the depression after awhile, but even a short-lived depression is misery. My emotions were thrown into 10th gear overdrive — indescribable torture.
My reconstruction surgeon prescribed Clonazepam for my breast muscle spasms, which simultaneously dealt with my anxiety as well. The medication I took for my muscle cramps had the same effect as the ‘let-down’ a lactating mother’s body produces. I was relieved my medication eased my maternal stress as well.
Eventually, my emotional upheaval settled more into dealing with the physical strain of my mastectomy. My implants transfer surgery was scheduled for mid summer, as my chest healed and stretched from injections. Progress would go according to how my own body and spirit healed … the long reconstruction depended on each succession of surgeries, not set in stone, but progressing how I felt … breathe.
Personal hygiene is a normal activity, a given, but mine turned into a major endeavor that felt more pain-in-the-ass than respectable care. I was self-conscious, worried I’d turn into a needy person. There is no delicate way to say it. I got very tired and loathsome of the whole ordeal that once the ball was rolling, once in awhile, to be kosher or not, it sure-as-hell-damned-well, really pissed me off.
Contrary to popular belief, all the treatments, surgeries and healing took not weeks, but months and continued through the winter of 2015, and longer, Dr. Jew and Dr. Korentager both agreed. That realization forced me into an attitude adjustment.
I have to be honest here, a woman in pain can be a real bitch — that wasn’t completely my usual, ‘biatchy’ normal self so I had to figure out ways to deal with the nuances of my everyday problems that arose from a damn mastectomy. Not the kind of problem solving I liked. Soon, I progressed beyond my depression.
All told, the more a women breastfeeds and the longer she continues it, the greater her long-term health benefits. Results of a University of Pittsburgh and Harvard Medical School study published in 2013 showed that if 90 percent of mothers were able to breastfeed for 12 months after each birth, more than 53,000 cases of high blood pressure would be prevented as well as more than 14,000 heart attacks and nearly 5,000 cases of breast cancer. Earlier calculations from the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer concluded that if women in developed countries had an average of 2.5 children and breastfed each one an extra 6 months, 5 percent of breast cancers would be prevented each year. If they breastfed each child for an additional 12 months, 11 percent of cancers would be prevented annually.
We know that breastfeeding is good for babies, and accumulating evidence suggests that is very good for mothers as well.
© Copyright P. L. Frommer 2020. All rights reserved.
WOMAN IN RECON 