Cecilia Sousa spent her whole life babysitting, so she was very confident in her childcare abilities. “I thought I knew everything,” she said.
But soon after she left the hospital with her own baby boy, Sousa realized she needed more help learning how to nurse, a common discovery for first-time moms. She pulled herself out of bed, still bleeding, to visit a lactation specialist at their office; however, their one-size-fits-all advice proved unfruitful once she tried putting it into practice at home.
As the minutes and hours ticked by, Sousa began to worry she would never make it work. Her son was losing weight and showing little interest in eating. Panic and anxiety set in. “The hormones, the feeling of helplessness, the rawness of it all ― it was pretty intense,” she said.