How My Breasts Saved the World: Misadventures of a Nursing Mother [Hardcover]

Lisa Wood Shapiro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2004

Breast is best" in the 21st century; research supports breast milk as the best food for babies. But there's little said about the realities of nursing for the nursing mother. Is nursing an innate calling or a learned skill? Lisa Wood Shapiro assumes that she will be a natural-after all, hadn't Brooke Shields put baby to breast without a hitch in The Blue Lagoon? Surely after spending nine months gripped by labor fears, a brand new mom could count on the simple joy of seeing her newborn latch on and drink. Turns out, it's not that simple. Filled with panic and convinced that her breasts will explode, Lisa finally reaches out for help. Two lactation consultants, one support group, and a week's worth of cold cabbage leaves later, she learns how to survive-and prosper-as a nursing mom.

In this laugh-out-loud book, Lisa depicts her struggles and triumphs with humor and humility. She offers advice, addresses rumors, and breaks taboos with the candor of a best friend and the voice of experience. Among her discoveries: Breastfeeding doesn't really burn as many calories as running a marathon every day; the "Brest Friend" pillow really is a mother's best friend; new moms fib about nursing more than money or sex. And manual pumping? Forget about it!

How My Breasts Saved the World is a must-read for every expectant and new mother. Sure, saving the world might be a lofty claim, but civilization was built on breast milk. And if a reader learns anything from this book, it's that a nursing mother is always right.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like many mothers-to-be, Shapiro romanticized breastfeeding: "I envisioned tender mommy moments... nursing my baby." As a result, before daughter Sophie arrived, Shapiro followed the ignorance-is-bliss approach: "I remember thinking breastfeeding instruction was a waste of time. 'It's the most natural thing in the world.' " Surprise, surprise when she discovers it's significantly harder than Brooke Shields makes it look in The Blue Lagoon. Mimicking the frank, humorous style of The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy, Shapiro relates, in frequently graphic detail, the perils of breastfeeding: tender breasts, engorgement, sore nipples, nursing injuries and cluster feedings. Over the course of Sophie's first year, Shapiro, with the help of lactation consultants and a nursing support group, becomes a breastfeeding advocate, proselytizing to new moms ("I found it difficult to fathom how easy nursing had gotten. My instinct was to spread the word"). Shapiro maintains an easy voice, though the book turns startlingly somber as she writes of September 11, 2001, which feels starkly out of place in this breezy memoir. Shapiro is this book's star, and Sophie (never mind husband Peter) plays a surprisingly small role. At times, Shapiro seems shallow, obsessing about her appearance and the commonness of her daughter's name. Mothers who formula feed will find little in this narrative; those who have struggled with breastfeeding, however, will laugh with empathy at Shapiro's tales of weight loss (or lack thereof), cabbage leaves (used to relieve engorgement) and the unending fluids that emerge from a nursing woman's body.
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Review

"Shapiro's refreshingly comic voice pierces through the foggiest post-partum blues to commiserate, share advice, and point out the humor in those anxious days after a baby is born...In addition to being an undeniably entertaining read, this book gives readers a valuable advice and information about the first year of parenthood...Pregnant women contemplating breastfeeding will find the information in this book invaluable and Shapiro's account of her experiences motivating and inspiring. This entertaining and informative guide deserves a place right alongside the "Girlfriend's Guide" and "What to Expect" series on parenting shelves."--Foreword magazine

"Lisa Wood Shapiro's How My Breasts Saved the World is mother's milk for any new mama struggling with the confounding transformation from woman into human canteen."--Vanity Fair's

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Lyons Press; 1st edition (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592284035
• ISBN-13: 978-1592284030
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,667,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Awesome title, dissapointing contents, November 4, 2005

By 

Melanie C. Kollman (Bangor, ME) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How My Breasts Saved the World: Misadventures of a Nursing Mother (Hardcover)

I have to admit, I bought this book based upon its title alone. After breastfeeding continuously for over seven years, I really wanted to read a good, funny book about a nursing mother. However, I kept feeling that Lisa Shapiro was trying, really hard to be funny, but just kept missing the mark. I was prepared for the fact that the book might not be factually correct ( it isn't ), I was just hoping for funny. If you're looking for funny AND factually correct, I'd really recommend, "So THAT's What They're For!: Breastfeeding Basics" by Janet Tamaro

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not funny, just whiny and miserable., October 8, 2004

By 

Gwenn Moregato "Hudson's Mom" (Hoboken, NJ) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How My Breasts Saved the World: Misadventures of a Nursing Mother (Hardcover)

I'm pretty sure Ms. Shapiro fancied herself the next Vicki Iovine (author of the Girlfriend's Guides books) as she wrote this book. However, I found her to be far off the mark.

While Vicki's perspective is down and dirty, her writing is fundamentally infused with a great sense of compassion, generosity, and warm humor. Ms. Shapiro, on the other hand, just comes across as whiny and miserable.

As a new Mother myself, I'm currently dealing with the many ways nursing can be challenging, maddening, and downright weird. I would have gladly laughed along with Ms. Shapiro as she documents her trials. The problem is: I couldn't hear her laughing. Frankly, I just ended up feeling sorry for her. I didn't find this book funny OR inspiring OR hopeful. I'll stick with the Girlfriends Guides in the future.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Whiny and Resentful AND Self-Obsessed, January 28, 2006

By 

M. Schreiber "TV-free, Battery-operated-toy-s... (TinyTown, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How My Breasts Saved the World: Misadventures of a Nursing Mother (Hardcover)

Let me start by saying that the only reason this book was published at all is because (as it says in the Acknowledgements section at the back) the author's husband is a literary agent.

This book is amazing in that it manages to turn a very dull, very commonplace mother's very dull, very commonplace experiences with motherhood into a (as one other reviewer put it) "whiny and resentful" AND self-obsessed, narcissistic, ego-laden diatribe that never really lets up or has one redeeming qualiy from start to finish.

The author was admittedly so arrogant that she never bothered to do any research about breastfeeding at all, and instead decided that everything that went "wrong" with it when she tried it was actually FASCINATING enough to write a whole BOOK about. As other reviewers have already pointed out, she is blatant in her product endorsements. Her insistence that readers do things EXACTLY the way she herself did them, (as though there is only ONE right way to breastfeed), is so far from lightheartedly charming that it made this reader gag her way through the book. The only reason I finished it was that I was so hoping for some kind of redemption that never came.

The author tries far too hard to be self-deprecatingly amusing but fails ferociously, coming off as a spolied little rich girl who has been terribly inconvenienced by motherhood and can't quite figure out why. She describes her own pushiness, cattiness, and insecurity not with an air of mocking herself from the comfortable distance of one who now knows better, but with a tone almost of BRAGGING about what an awful, self-righteous snot she was to everyone she met.

The real kicker comes at the end of the book where she weans her baby at ten months because she is in a hurry to fit into lacy push-up bras again (everything is still ALL ABOUT HER, and HER convenience, not the health and welfare of her child), and then throws a huge first birthday party (complete with OPEN BAR, for pity's sake) for the unfortunate offspring. Bad enough to actually DO it, but then to BRAG openly about it in a memoir is frankly disgusting.

I should have been forwarned by the overblown title. Unfortunately Lisa Wood Shapiro's breasts did NOT save the world from this self-aggrandizing and poorly written "mom-oir". Save your money. If you are truly curious, get it from the library - at least then you won't find yourself trying to resell it on Amazon in a week.