Six things everyone gets wrong about nursing a baby

At Thanksgiving, Talia's aunt leaned across the mashed potatoes and told her, not unkindly, that with breasts as small as hers she'd never manage to nurse. Talia went home and worried about it for a week before she found the answer in Heidi Murkoff's book: breast size and nipple shape have nothing to do with a woman's ability to produce or deliver milk. Milk production runs on glandular tissue and hormones, not on cup size, and even nipples that don't stand up when stimulated usually need no special preparation at all.

That one myth has company. Some people believe nursing ties a mother down more than a bottle would, but Murkoff points out it's actually the reverse for daily life: breasts don't need to be packed, warmed, or checked for spoilage before a day at the beach, and a mother who expresses and stores milk can be away from her baby for a full day or weekend without missing a feeding. Some believe breastfeeding will ruin the shape of your breasts, but it's pregnancy itself, not nursing, that changes breast tissue in preparation for lactation, whether or not a woman ever puts her baby to the breast. Some believe a rough first experience means a woman is simply not built for it, but Murkoff notes that research finds most women produce more milk and have an easier time the second time around, because they and their bodies have already learned the mechanics once. And some believe bottle feeding is the only way a father gets to be involved, but a dad can bathe, rock, hold, diaper, and eventually feed expressed milk or supplemental formula just as easily either way.

None of these myths are foolish to believe; they travel by word of mouth from people who mean well. But each one has quietly talked a capable mother out of even trying. The gap between what people assume about breastfeeding and what's actually true is often the only thing standing between a woman and a feeding relationship that would have worked fine.

Start by writing down every warning you've absorbed about your body's suitability for nursing, and trace each one back to where it actually came from, an aunt, a friend, something half-remembered online. Take the specific ones to your practitioner instead of guessing: ask directly whether your nipples or breast size need any preparation at all, because in almost every case they don't. If the worry is that nursing will trap you at home, test it once by expressing and storing milk before you rule the whole thing out. And if an earlier attempt with a previous baby went badly, don't treat that as a verdict on this one; approach it as a fresh try, since most women find round two considerably easier than round one.