Woman refuses to do MIL's breastfeeding exercises, says, 'they trigger past trauma.'
When this woman is upset with her MIL, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for not doing my MIL’s breastfeeding exercises?'
This pregnancy isn’t planned. I have trauma that makes it painful for me to have others see my breasts and no one can touch them including myself. I’ve been to therapy and the solution is “then don’t let anybody touch them.”
My husband has become obsessed with the idea that babies must be breastfed (I think he’s getting it from his mom) and wants to prep me by getting me comfortable with it.
I’ve told him the nightmare it will be if he does it to me and how it will make me feel like he’s a danger to me. So his solution has been the idea of my MIL doing it. It’s wrong on so many levels to me but he’s freaking out telling me I’m “never going to live a normal life.”
I feel like nobody touching my breasts is more normal than my MIL doing it. I could be biased on this because I’m clouded by trauma which is why I’m asking here.
I know I can act crazy sometimes because of it but this seems totally unreasonable to me. Just to clarify, it would involve touching my breasts fully clothed. AITA?
Let's find out.
wadoc1 writes:
NTA. It’s totally ok to bottle feed. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. Don’t feel guilty about it. The baby will be fine. Your partner doesn’t get to dictate how you use your body.
favoriteodds writes:
Fed is best, NTA….but… and this caveat is for your benefit only, you may want to continue therapy to learn to touch your own breasts. Regardless of intent, your milk will come in and you will need to find a way to express it and avoid infection.
I would also recommend making your wishes very known to the hospital. Nurses and lactation specialists are usually great with consent, but with your existing trauma, it would be horrifying to run into the handsy exception.Best of luck to you and your baby.
throwaway325 writes:
It's OP's choice. If she doesn't want to breastfeed or have her (unplanned) baby touch her breast, that's OK. Her body, her choice. What I find very worrying is that husband and MIL are ganging up on OP.
I'm not sure what unplanned means here and if any sabotage was involved, and I don't really want to know, but it seems as if OP is not regarded as a person by her husband and her MIL anymore and has been degraded to baby container and future baby feed provider.