Welcome to Mothership: Parenting stories you actually want to read, whether you're thinking about or passing on kids, from egg-freezing to taking home baby and beyond. Because motherhood is a big if — not when — and it's time we talked about it that way.
Motherhood can be beautiful, frustrating, momentous, and exhausting — in a word, it's difficult. Whitney Port uploaded a video to her YouTube channel where she, through tears, shared her experience with something that can be a challenge for some new moms: breastfeeding.
Port had her first child, Sonny, in late July according to E! News. The former Hills star expressed her desire to breastfeed her son, admitting that it's been difficult from the beginning, saying, "...I obviously want to breastfeed. I don't know [why]. I honestly think it's, I guess because that's what people say, like, is the best bonding experience."
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The new mom thought things were going well before they left the hospital. "...the nurses there said that the latch was good and I was like, really surprised but after about 24 to 48 hours of doing it, I just started to get so incredibly painful, and we came home and I just like hit a breaking point and said, 'I can't do this. It feels like someone's like, slicing my nipples with glass,'" Port said in the video.
She tried pumping at the suggestion of her family's "amazing baby nurse," she tried formula, she even met with a lactation consultant who told her that her son might need minor surgery to correct a tongue tie problem which may be the reason for the painful breastfeeding. "I just don't want to be regretful that I haven't tried everything," she said. While Port said that she felt less discomfort while pumping, she still found breastfeeding to be painful even after her son had the procedure.
Frustrated, Port said that she felt pressure from others to continue to try and make it work. "I just don't know if it's something that is going to get better or not, so that's why I feel anxious about it," she confessed. "Like, how much longer do I continue to try it before I just give up on it and just pump and give him the bottles and be OK with it?"
Port hits on an instantly relatable feeling. Breastfeeding is often a divisive topic amongst parents, whether they are directly involved or not. Is it necessary? Are you a "bad mom" if you don't? "I think I'm a pretty strong person and I go with my gut and I don't really compare myself to other people or what other people are doing," she shared, saying that she never thought the pressure to breastfeed would get to her.
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In the end, Port thinks it's all part of the process. "I think some of those things I'm feeling, I'm right for feeling—I think that they're real issues, and some things are probably being magnified by my hormones and like, these post-baby blues that people talk about, you know, that could last anywhere from like a week to months," she concluded. "But I think it's all normal."
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