I knew I wanted to breastfeed.

I had been referring to it as chestfeeding, but as my pregnancy progressed, the fleshy glands above my growing bump seemed more and more like ‘breasts’ to me, and I didn’t feel any dysphoria about that. They had started to symbolise nourishment for my child, and a lot of the sex (as in sexual acts) and gender-related trauma and dysphoria I had around my chest started to sort of ‘step aside’, to allow for a new experience and relationship to these parts of me. I, of course, respect every individual’s right to refer to their own bits however they feel comfortable. Whether chest or breast, I knew I wanted to do it.

I wasn’t sure it would be possible. I had corrective augmentation surgery when I was 17 due to extreme asymmetry. In theory the surgery itself wouldn’t/shouldn’t cause any problems, but asymmetrical breast/chest growth can be a sign of insufficient glandular tissue, or IGT, which would mean I literally didn’t have the physical capability to produce enough or any milk. When I spoke to midwives and even lactation consultants about IGT, most had never heard of it. As my baby’s birth drew nearer, my head swam with worries, hopes, concerns around whether I would be able to produce food for my child. For some reason, it never occurred to me to consider how I might respond to the sensory experience of breastfeeding. And in retrospect, the reason is most likely because Autistic Breastfeeding is not a subject being talked about very commonly. With the volume of information I was consuming around birth, home birth, caring for a baby, feeding a baby, as well as doing the work of actually growing the baby, it is no wonder I didn’t have the space to consider all the ways my autistic needs might be impacted.