We’ve all heard about the benefits of breastfeeding — it’s natural, it’s healthy, it’s free-ish and, as celebrities like Kristin Cavallari and Beyoncé have said, for some lucky mamas it’s the best way to lose the baby weight. But it’s not as often that we hear about the difficulties of breastfeeding — and we don’t just mean leaky breasts or ravenous appetites (which are both accurate and unfortunate, by the way).
For every celebrity mom who’s shared how easily breastfeeding came to her and her baby, there’s another one (or five) who’s been candid about the issues she’s encountered with it: low supply, difficulty in latching, recurring mastitis (ouch) or, in some cases, just being plain over it. No judgment!
In honor of August’s National Breastfeeding Awareness month, click through these slides to see what Kristen Bell, Khloé Kardashian and more inspiring Hollywood mamas had to say about their struggles in feeding their little ones. Natural, sure, but easy? Not so much.
Kristen Bell
Kristen Bell, who shares two daughters, Lincoln and Delta, with husband Dax Shepard, revealed that she once suffered mastitis while she was weaning. So, what’s a mama to do when she’s without her child and her breast pump? Have her husband help out, obviously.
"I said to my husband, ‘I really need you to suck this out. We could talk about it, we could be weird about it, or you could just go ahead and nurse," Bell revealed on her YouTube series Momsplaining. "He pulled it out. He had a cup next to him. He was pulling out and spitting into this cup, and I’ve never been more in love in my life."
In an exclusive interview, Bell told SheKnows she also struggled with a different breastfeeding problem that had nothing to do with actually nursing.
"The one struggle was competing with the topic that women shouldn’t breastfeed wherever they want, because I just vehemently disagree," she said. "If you have a problem with the fact that I’m breastfeeding, you have this muscle between your shoulders and your chin that’s called your neck, and it works if you turn it to the left or right, and you’re welcome to do that. Nobody’s putting a gun to your head and making you watch me breastfeed. We all have necks. Use it!"
She didn't stop there. "If a woman was breastfeeding on a subway, that’s because that’s when her baby’s hungry. And do you know what’s not important? Whether or not the people on the subway are uncomfortable. What’s important is the fact that her child needs food. I just find it so comical that that’s something we even argue about or have to defend, because it’s the most beautiful, natural thing on the planet. And no one is making you watch me breastfeed [laughs]. That’s your baggage, not mine."
We so agree!
Jessica Alba
This Honest mama's breastfeeding problems stemmed from her babies' unrelenting need for her.
"I think what’s difficult about it is you’re tethered to the baby," Jessica Alba exclusively told SheKnows in an interview. "And babies… they’re not really on a schedule. They're just growing and sleeping and eating, and we're so programmed to have a schedule and kind of do what we want to do, so leaving the house when you have a completely unpredictable baby is, to me, what was difficult. It’s hard to leave the house. At home it’s easy, you’re just in pajamas… you can feed whenever the baby feels like it, they can sleep. But when you're out and they're falling asleep in the car seat, it's like, is that uncomfortable? How long does that last? And where can you feed or change them? Since there aren't a lot of public places to change your baby that aren't covered in gross germs."
Chrissy Teigen
Chrissy Teigen, mother to Luna and Miles, got candid with People magazine back in 2016 when she was discussing her journey with breastfeeding. For the always-candid celebrity, breastfeeding required a little more reading and preparation than she was expecting.
“I just think it’s so funny. Sometimes I’m Googling how to do (breastfeeding) better," Teigen told the magazine.“I’m like, ‘Is it working? Is it taking? I don’t think I’m feeling enough pain!’ You just get so confused about how it’s supposed to feel, and as hard as anyone said it was, I feel like it somehow managed to be harder.”
Khloé Kardashian
New mom Khloé Kardashian admitted she stopped nursing daughter True when she was about three months old because “it wasn’t working for my body.”
“I tried every trick in the book- water, special cookies, power pumping, massages etc. I tried so very hard to continue,” Kardashian said on Twitter. “It was really hard for me to stop (emotionally) but it wasn’t working for my body. Sadly.”
Lauren Paul
Aaron Paul's wife, Lauren, revealed on Instagram that she had mastitis — an infection in the breast that creates flu-like symptoms — twice within three weeks of their daughter Story’s birth.
“Yesterday I was fighting a fever that almost hit 104. It was the sickest I have ever felt. The pain and aches were unbelievable. For the mammas who have been there. I know you feel me,” Lauren said.
Kelly Rowland
Kelly Rowland also had supply issues when breastfeeding her son, Titan, and she admitted that the anxiety that came with having to produce enough milk only made it worse.
"I had my heart set on breastfeeding, but I wasn't producing enough milk,” she told Parents. “I got down on myself, which I think was mentally limiting my supply."
Whitney Port
The Hills alum’s YouTube seriesI Love My Baby But… is a refreshing glimpse into first-time parenthood, and one episode in particular focuses on the harsh — and painful — realities of breastfeeding.
“After about 24 to 48 hours of doing it, it just started to get so incredibly painful,” Port said of breastfeeding Sonny. “And we came home [from the hospital] and I just hit a breaking point and said, ‘I can’t do this. It feels as though someone is slicing my nipples with glass.’”
Meghan King Edmonds
Former Real Housewives of Orange County star Meghan King Edmonds recently gave birth to twin sons Hart and Hayes, and she shared that she suffered from painful breast infection twice over and had four clogged ducts at a time, even after taking medication.
“I didn’t know how I was going to take care of my babies, every joint ached and I couldn’t sleep because of how terrible I felt,” Edmonds wrote on her blog. “I finally woke up a few hours later drenched in a puddle of sweat so soaked that [husband] Jimmy asked me what the heck happened. And this was AFTER two rounds of antibiotics.”
Emily Maynard Johnson
The former Bachelorette admitted the pain she felt from mastitis, which she suffered after son Gibson was born, was “worse than childbirth.”
“I didn’t want to tell anybody that I quit. I was trying to hide formula,” Maynard Johnson, now a mom of four, told People, adding she felt shame in quitting. “I saw all of these beautiful breastfeeding pictures, I don’t know if I would post a picture like that, but I would love the option. I wanted to so bad.”
Jamie Lynn Sigler
The Sopranos star admitted she had to stop nursing her younger son Jack because of the medicines she was taking for multiple sclerosis.
“All my fellow mommies that deal with MS or anything that causes them to have to make choices they didn’t necessarily want to.. this is for you,” Sigler captioned this sweet Instagram selfie. “I’m having to stop breastfeeding soon so I can get back on meds. The truth is, the toll of two kids and a newborn lifestyle is not the easiest on me.. and I need some help.”
Jillian Harris
This HGTV host and Bachelorette alum, now expecting No. 2, also felt stressed at the thought of having to pump often and produce enough for her son Leo, so she stopped when he was five months old.
“We were doing lots of traveling and I had anxiety about the amount I was producing,” Harris told Us Weekly. “I didn’t want my baby to feel that anxiety… I was always stressed and I was always saying to Justin, ‘I have to pump, I have to pump. Nothing is coming out! I’ve got to go! Now I’m late! Now the baby is crying!’"
Haylie Duff
Like many other moms on this list, Haylie Duff had supply issues with her older daughter, Ryan — but only under certain circumstances.
"I had sort of an interesting situation when I was nursing where if I was working out too much or cutting my calories, my milk supply really went down," the Real Girl's Kitchen host told Wonderwall. "So for me, it was a struggle because I really wanted to focus on losing weight and getting my body back. But at the end of the day, I had to sit down and make the decision that meant the most to me — and that was breastfeeding my baby."
Jana Kramer
The Dancing With The Stars alum, who’s expecting her second child and first son, admitted that breastfeeding did not come easily with her daughter, Jolie, because of her low milk supply.
"[It] never came in," Kramer toldPeople. "I had trouble with that… there's so much mommy shame about not breastfeeding."
Molly Sims
Molly Sims’s breastfeeding struggle is unique, to say the least — she opted out of nursing her son Brooks because he was born with a tooth!
"I did nipple shields, nipple guards, supplemental nursing system, it was horrible," she told Anderson Cooper on Anderson Live. "He was literally like a vampire on me for three months; it was unbelievable. Cut to: I'm not breastfeeding and I'm proud of it." Yikes.
Cameron Eubanks
The star of Bravo’s Southern Charm got tons of backlash when she admitted on Instagram that she stopped nursing her 3-month-old daughter, Parker, merely because she just didn’t feel like it anymore.
“You see, I'm not quitting because my milk supply dried up or because I'm sick… I'm quitting because I'm just plain OVER IT. By CHOICE,” Cameran Eubanks wrote. We, on the other hand, commend her for her honesty.
Adele
This Grammy winner keeps it real, especially when it comes to motherhood. Though Adele didn’t specify why she nursed her son, Simon, for a limited time, she shared that it was difficult for her to do so.
“Some of us can't [breastfeed],” Adele said on-stage during a concert in London. “I managed about nine weeks with my boobs… Some of my mates got postnatal depression from the way those midwives were talking. Idiots.”
Chelsea Clinton
Any working mama can relate to Chelsea Clinton, who admitted her supply dipped dramatically when she went back to work full-time and had to pump after having her daughter, Charlotte.
"I still was breastfeeding and I was pumping and I was so committed to ensuring I could keep doing that for Charlotte, and balancing those logistics were really hard," Clinton told TODAY Parents. "I figured it out, but it took a while to figure it out. It also just took lots of, like, swallowing my pride and being comfortable with pumping in airport bathrooms and kind of wherever I needed to get it done."
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