ABSTRACT
Unfortunately, some postpartum depression advocates consider breastfeeding a risk factor for depression. Based on this belief, mothers are often urged to quit in order to recover. Some of these same providers argue that even if mothers say they want to continue, what we really need to do is give them “permission” to quit. When actress Brooke Shields experienced postpartum depression, her family strongly urged her to stop breastfeeding. She adamantly refused because she felt that breastfeeding was the one thing that was helping her to hang on to her sanity.
Both my mother-in-law and my mother suggested that I stop breastfeeding to give myself a break. In fact, the consensus seemed to be that I give up the baby on the breast and move past that added pressure. But what nobody understood was that the breastfeeding was my only real connection to the baby. If I were to eliminate that, I might have no hope of coming through this nightmare. I was hanging on to breastfeeding as my lifeline. It was the only thing that made me unique in terms of caring for her … Without it, she might be lost to me forever.
(Brooke Shields, 2005, pp. 80–81)