Moms of the World: Brenda, 27, Colombian

“I stop, I can’t take it anymore! », I say that to my mother and my grandmother who look at me amazed. Gabriela is 2 months old, the two oldest children are running around the house, my breasts hurt and I no longer feel the strength to breastfeed. “She will catch diseases, she will no longer have immunity!” », They say to me in chorus. I then feel guilty and think back to the Colombian women of my small town of Pereira who breastfeed for two years, put their lives on hold as soon as they know they are pregnant and will not return to work until their little one is weaned. I tell myself that it’s easy to judge me when I don’t live in the same house or the same neighborhood as my family like there. In France, I have the feeling that everything is accelerating. I can’t seem to ask myself. We live at a hundred miles an hour and the schedule is timed.

” I am coming ! », Mom told me when she heard that I‘was expecting my first child. In Colombia, the mother and the grandmother take you under their wing and watch you with a magnifying glass for nine months. But no sooner do they begin to explain to me what is allowed and forbidden when I ask them to stop. I am suffocating! In France, pregnant women are allowed to make their choices and pregnancy is not a drama. I liked this freedom, and if at first my mother got angry, she ended up accepting it. To please her, I still tried to swallow grilled brains, the dish traditionally served to pregnant women to boost their iron intake, but I threw up everything and did not try the experience again. In Colombia, young mothers force themselves to eat organ meats, but in my opinion the majority of them hate it. Sometimes my friends make fresh fruit smoothies because it is also recommended when pregnant, but they mix it with the tripe to pass the taste. After childbirth, to recover our strength, we eat “sopa de morcilla” which is a soup of black pudding with rice in a black blood juice.

The women in my family gave birth squatting. In Colombia, this position is said to be the most natural.I asked the midwife here if I could continue this tradition, but she replied that it was not done. Even in Colombia, it is being done less – Caesarean sections are booming. Doctors manage to convince women that it is more practical and less painful, since it suits them financially. Society warns them all the time and Colombian women are afraid of everything. When they return from the maternity ward, they stay at home for 40 days without being able to go out. It is the “cuarentena”. It is said that if during this period, the young mother falls ill, these ailments will never leave her again. So she washes quickly, except for the hair and puts cotton pads in her ears to prevent the cold from entering. I gave birth in France, but I decided to follow the “cuarantena”. After a week, I broke down and got myself a good shampoo and an outing, but I was wearing hats and even balaclavas. My father’s family comes from the Amazon rainforest and traditionally, women also have to live the “sahumerio” rite. She sits on a chair placed in the center of her room and the grandmother turns around her with myrrh, sandalwood, lavender or eucalyptus incense. They say it’s to get the cold out of the new mom’s body.

Esteban tasted his first foods at 2 months like any Colombian child. I had prepared the “tinta de frijoles”, red beans cooked in the water of which I gave him the juice. We want our little ones to get used to our very salty food early on. Infants are even allowed to suck on meat. At the nursery, I was looked at strangely when I said that my son was already eating small pieces at 8 months old. Then I saw a documentary on allergies. So, for my two other children, I no longer dared to depart from the French rules.