Granai della Memoria

Benedetta comes from Bari, she lived until the age of 12 in her town but then, for reasons related to her father's work, she moved with her family to Novara, where she still lives. She works as a clerk, is married and is the mother of two children.

Approaching the moment of the birth of her first daughter, Benedetta has a great fear: not being able to breastfeed. This is because she had a breast tumour that led the doctors to remove her entire right breast. And instead, when her first daughter was born, she managed to breastfeed her for 19 months, after an initial period of difficulty due to the baby's short frenulum. She coped with the pain and fatigue with all the remedies at her disposal, and with joy and pride Benedetta managed for a time to breastfeed her second daughter as well, both daughters from one breast. Then she stopped breastfeeding the first and continued to breastfeed the second.

Her experience of illness had a positive influence on breastfeeding: it made her realise how capable she was of overcoming obstacles, how much willpower kept her going, nurturing, enveloping and raising her girls. Proudness and pride did not erase the fear of that experience, but made her live and understand the sense of union and strength that is nursing, a union that binds her, her husband and her daughters: one, in the strength of the bond that is created day by day.