If the thought of breastfeeding one baby has ever seemed overwhelming to you, imagine what it’s like to breastfeed twins or triplets. Believe it or not, it can be done.
Today’s New York Times has a beautiful essay written by a mom who delivered her triplets prematurely at 26 weeks.
At the incubator, I stared through the plastic cover, unsure if I was allowed to put my hand through the side window. A nurse appeared, urging me on: “It’s O.K., you can touch them. Just be gentle and don’t rub. And talk to them — they definitely recognize your voice.”
I opened the window and placed my finger on Baby A’s leg. His knee was the size of an acorn.
The nurse also told me the boys needed my highly nutritious colostrum and pending breast milk and that she would return with bottles and suction cups.
The story is more focused, however, on the mom’s decision not to “reduce” the fetuses from three to two, as her doctor counseled her to consider.
“You need to consider reducing to one or two fetuses. In triplet pregnancies the babies often are born very premature with a lot of complications. You may be saving the lives of the other two by eliminating one.”
While I am a feminist who believes in abortion rights, this was not the choice I had in mind. To spend years and tens of thousands of dollars trying to conceive a baby only to end with discussions of an abortion seemed to me an especially cruel twist of fate. But what would we do if the triplets were born with serious handicaps? It seemed an impossible choice. …
What hasn’t weighed on me, as our boys have grown healthier and bigger (they’re now 4 and thriving in preschool) is our decision not to reduce. I often look at them and ask myself that impossible question: Which one wouldn’t be here?
But I feel no righteousness about our choice, only luck. Time and again I run into mothers at the playground with twins who notice my triplets (it’s hard not to) and gently ask whether I faced that decision, only to then confess their deep guilt at having reduced from triplets themselves.
On a totally different note, at the Oscars last week, Melissa Etheridge’s wife, Tammy Etheridge talked about breastfeeding her twins. The Celebrity Baby Blog had this story:
Joan Rivers asked Tammy if she had exercised to get back into shape after giving birth to the twins. Tammy said, “No, I’m breastfeeding, I don’t have to do anything else.” Joan said, “Your breasts look great, so keep nursing!”
If you want to learn just how to feed triplets or twins, here are some good links from Kellymom, Mothering magazine and La Leche League.
To the moms out there who do breastfeed multiples…I’m in awe.
