This is oh so brilliant that I have nothing to add- The Alpha Parent has covered pretty much every single thing that needs to be said!!!! This long article outlines EXACTLY what Infant formula companies do to convince you to use their product. Unethical marketing of infant formula has been going on a lot longer than most people think!!!!
It's Halloween!! Please Boycott Nestle!!!
"15 Tricks of Formula Companies"
Infant formulas were originally designed to be a medical nutritional tool for babies who are unable to breastfeed due to unfortunate circumstances such as maternal death or illness. Nowadays the formula industry accounts for US$20.2 billion (data for 2010). It doesn’t take Einstein to figure out that formula is now being used by more than the 2% of women who physically can’t breastfeed. What went wrong? Formula companies got greedy and laws didn’t keep up, that’s what. The greedier the company, the more strategic and underhanded their marketing becomes. This article exposes 15 tricks of the most popular formula companies, illustrating how greed is more powerful than concern for infant welfare.
Trick #1: Get your logo everywhere
FACT: Exposure to formula promotion increases significantly breastfeeding cessation in the first 2 weeks. Also, among women with uncertain goals or breastfeeding goals of 12 weeks or less, exposure to formula promotion results in exclusive, full, and overall breastfeeding duration being shortened (Howard C et al. Obstetrics and Gynaecology Vol 5, No 2, Feb 2000 p296-303).
This is bad news for babies, but great news for formula companies. The less women who breastfeed – the more formula is purchased. This means lots of wonga for the shareholders. To put this scenario in context, check out the following stats:
The advertising spend for formula companies in 2006/07 was £7,626,847, an increase of 36.6% on the previous year.
The UK Government budget for promoting breastfeeding was £729,011 in 2006/07, a decrease on the 2004/05 figure of £747,000. (Figures published by Save the Children).
The key to successful product marketing is to get as much exposure as possible, and the formula companies have got this down to a tee. They’ve been churning out hard sell marketing for decades. Here’s a Cow & Gate advertisement published widely in 1940s and 1950s UK:
“The best possible start in life”? Looks like formula companies’ lack of accuracy is nothing new. Nowadays they just find more covert and underhanded ways to mislead parents. They advertise in parenting magazines and, more recently, fashion and celebrity magazines. Here is an advertisement from Aptamil (right) featured in Pregnancy Magazine April 2008. It is a stitched insert so that the magazine naturally falls open at that page. I’ll talk more about advertising to pregnant women bellow.
With so many formula companies paying vast amounts of money to parenting magazines, is it any wonder the deputy editor of Mother and Baby magazine wrote an article describing breastfeeding as “creepy” (The Guardian ).
Along with magazines, formula companies also place their advertisements on third-party websites, forums and blogs, promoting their infant formula brand name and encouraging mothers to visit their company website. One of the reasons I am reluctant to activate advertising on this blog is the inevitability that a formula company will detect the parenting content and submit their advertisements to the server.
Not content with bombarding your computer when you’re online, formula companies want dibs on it offline too. The idea is that every time you switch on your PC or laptop you’ll see their brand. Here’s Aptamil’s free desktop calendar:
You’ll also be targeted in supermarkets, where Cow & Gate branded gifts such as dummies and growth charts are distributed. This photo was taken in Sainsbury’s, September 2007:
And here they are at it again in Tesco, August 2011:
Aside from these examples, there’s also leaflets in health centres, email spam, snail-mail spam, supermarket ‘shelf talkers’ (plastic signs that flop out at you), pamphlets in Bounty packs, billboards, posters on public transport, internet pop-ups, TV commercials, radio advertisements, text messages, newspaper ads, social network advertising, YouTube video advertising, and several other gems I shall reveal bellow. Formula companies have an array of arsenal in their fight to line your baby’s gut, and more importantly, their pockets. The more cash they make, the more surplus funds they have to pump into their marketing arsenal. At this point you may wish to ponder what arsenal the breastfeeding movement has, and whose interests it serves.
Trick #2: Exploit the lazy
The rise of the bottle-feeding culture has fundamentally distorted our perception of the normal biology and psychology of new motherhood. It has produced a growing number of women who do not want babies’ feeds to dictate their lives. They cannot cope with the frequency of feeds required to maintain a good milk supply; that is, they cannot content themselves to sit and feed.
Why do a significant proportion of women now find that they 'can't cope' with something that's a biologically normal part of parenting? Women coped sufficiently well until formula marketing kicked off in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They also coped during the Second World War when formula was unavailable.
By claiming convenience, formula companies tap into the psyche of the lazy parent. However as I described in my article “10 (Selfish) Things I Love About Breastfeeding”, formula feeding is anything but convenient and in many cases it’s tantamount to a pain in the arse.
No time is formula feeding more of a pain than during the night. Kettles to boil, powder to mix, milk to cool - it’s enough to wake the neighbours; so formula companies have produced ‘Goodnight Milk’. The name itself is an idealizing claim, as it suggests the milk is necessary for babies to sleep through the night. The suggestion itself is concerning, as sleeping deeper puts babies at higher risk of cot death. UNICEF has maintained that “Goodnight Milk is not necessary for any baby and there is no independent evidence to support the claim that they help babies settle or that they are easy to digest.” (UNICEF 2010).
Goodnight milks are thickened with cereals to make them harder to digest. Aside from the risk that they will be used to replace a night time breastfeed, another worry is that the products could encourage parents to put their baby to bed immediately after bottle-feeding which would rot a baby's developing teeth.
As with goodnight milk, the following SMA television advertisement plays on mothers’ insecurities and concerns about night feeding. It features a voice over from a man promising not to pretend to be asleep when his young baby wakes up and promising to do his share of night feeding. A scene from the ad shows a dad falling asleep next to a boiling kettle and a tin of SMA Progress in the middle of the night:
I’m sorry to burst SMA’s bubble but as Gabrielle Palmer (The Politics of Breastfeeding, 2009) has pointed out, “The reality is that few fathers actually do take the whole responsibility of infant care and most artificial feeding is still done by mothers”.
Click HERE to read the entire article on The Alpha Parent
If you've been following along here for the past week or so, or have been actively reading the latest news in the world of breastfeeding advocacy, then you're probably well aware of the battle of words that raged last week during the Babble Debacle. If you missed it, you can catch up by reading the 3 articles that I posted HERE, HERE and HERE. I"m not going to get into all the details of it all, but I do want to address the ever present topic of "Guilt" and "Shame" that seems to haunt just about every parenting debate.
Babies don't come with an owners manual. They don't come with instructions. They don't come with even a rudimentary FAQ to refer to when you suddenly have a desperate question to ask. It's up to each and every parent to figure it out all on their own. Now, having said that, we do have the option of doing research to help us along the way to making the best choices we can. Some times we learn things in advance of necessity, sometimes we learn things in hindsight. And sometimes, in hindsight, we learn that we screwed up. And we feel guilty. Sometimes even shame. That's life, and it sucks, but the reality is that we have to learn to live with our mistakes and get on with it.
But here's the kicker: In order to "get on with it" and learn to live with our mistakes, you need to own it. The mistake, that is. Because if you can't OWN your mistake, if you can't admit that you made a mistake, then you will never learn from your mistake.
Here's the thing about Guilt. Guilt is not something that happens to you from outside sources. Guilt is internal. Guilt is an emotion that we feel in response to something that we have said or done, or even thought about. No one can MAKE you feel guilty. No one can FORCE you to feel guilty. If you are completely confident in your choices and actions, if you feel in your heart that you have done exactly the right thing..... you will not feel guilty..... no matter what any one says to you!!! Only you, or at least, only that little voice in the back of your head, can make YOU feel guilty. A good friend of mine once said this about guilt:
~On guilt~
No one can make any one else FEEL guilty. Guilt comes from within. You either feel it, or you don't. And actually, guilt is a very good thing! It causes us to re-evaluate things, lets us know when we are no longer in line with our own principles, our core values. It tells us that something is off, motivates us to......change whatever it is we're doing. In other words, guilt makes us uncomfortable for good reason!Rather than blaming OTHERS for making us "feel guilty", we really need to look within ourselves for the answers, and stop deflecting our issues away from ourselves, stop projecting our issues onto others. We need to be 100% accountable for our feelings, we need to OWN them. Because they are no one else's *but* our own." Emma Kwasnica
"We need to be 100% accountable for our feelings (such as guilt and shame), we need to OWN them"
NO ONE IS PERFECT. Not one of us is the perfect parent. Not one of us has raised our children perfectly without making a single mistake. Making a mistake is really hard, and sometimes emotionally devastating, but it gives us the opportunity to do better. It gives us the opportunity to learn and to try to make better decisions the next time. We all make mistakes- what sets us apart as parents is what we do with that knowledge and how we deal with our mistakes. Guilt guides us to DO BETTER.
The same with Shame. No one can make you feel ashamed. No one can force you to feel Shame. Shame is a part of your internal watchdog and shares the same house with Guilt.
I'm not a perfect parent- not even close- and I have made some horrible mistakes in my life.
- when my eldest son was 3 days old, I allowed him to be circumcised. It was years later before I truly realized the magnitude of the mistake I made that day. When the realization came, I was emotionally devastated and I still live with the guilt in my heart.
-when my son was 12 weeks old I allowed him to "Cry it out" all night long.... because that's what my mom told me to do. I sat on the floor in the hallway, outside his room, and cried and cried and cried along with him.
- when my eldest son was 6 weeks old, I started giving him bottles, because that's what I was told to do. Suddenly at 4.5 month old, he refused to nurse. After struggling for over a day, I finally went to my doctor, who told me that my son had "weaned" himself and that he only wanted bottles now. I was crushed. I cried on and off for days. It was even worse though when I discovered a book in our Library called "The womanly art of breastfeeding" and found out that my baby hadn't weaned, he had classic nipple confusion, and that if I'd gotten help/support, I could of got him back on the breast again.
Just typing this out brings tears to my eyes, even though my eldest son is now 20 years old.
Guilt.
Shame.
Yes, I feel them both. BUT.....I have accepted my guilt and my shame. I do not blame others for my shame and guilt. When a good friend sat down and explained to me exactly what "Male Circumcision" was, and what it does, and how it's done, at first I wouldn't believe her. I couldn't believe her, so I researched, and realized that she was right. And I felt intense guilt. I was horrified and I felt completely ashamed. BUT.....
When "Intactivist" post articles about the truth of Circumcision I don't say to them "Stop!! You're making me feel guilty!!"
When "Lactivists" post articles about the risks of formula feeding and the truth that infant formula is a vastly inferior substitute to breastmilk, I don't yell "NO! Don't tell me this! You're making me feel shamed because I formula fed my son!!!!"
When AP parents post studies that show that CIO methods cause permanent emotional damage to babies, I don't throw my hands over my eyes and say "Don't show me that!!! You're making me feel guilty and ashamed because I let my son CIO as a small infant!!!"
Just because they are telling the facts- cold and hard- doesn't mean that they are "making" me feel guilty.
Yes, I feel guilty, and I feel ashamed of some of my decisions that I've made as a parent, but I accept that guilt and that shame and have turned it around. I have learned from it. I have dedicated myself to helping others to NOT make the same mistakes that I did. I OWN that guilt. I will never make those mistakes again, because I have fully accepted my guilt and shame.
Here's another thing about Guilt and Shame. Rarely are we the only ones responsible for our mistakes. I made mistakes but I also acknowledge that I can't shoulder ALL of the blame. I was let down by a system that didn't support parents to make informed choices. That's another emotion that goads me forward: ANGER.
So if you feel the emotions "Guilt" & "Shame" over parenting decisions you've made in the past, put it to work for you. Move forward and onward. Make the changes necessary to get rid of the guilt. Own it.
....Don't blame others for it. It's not their fault that you have emotional baggage to deal with. Blaming them doesn't make the truth go away.
........and it doesn't make you feel any better.
Attn: Canadian Parents- please take the time to read this message from INFACT Canada and respond to Health Canada's request for submissions and comments about their revision of Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations from birth to six months. It is vitally important that parents exercise their Right to tell the government that we have expectations that they must live up to. Please Read and share this widely!
Health Canada revision of Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations from birth to six months
Health Canada is planning the revision of Canada’s infant and young child feeding policy statement: Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants.
The first draft revision makes recommendations for infants from birth to six months.
It is critical that Canada’s revision reflect the evidence based, optimal feeding practices as recommend by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the WHO/UNICEF Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding.
INFACT Canada urges all those working with infants and young children to respond to the on-line request for comment. The time line to respond is very short: January 6 to February 3, 2011. INFACT Canada has prepared general comment on the overall draft revision and also specific comment to the proposed principles and the recommendations. You may wish to use the INFACT Canada comment or add to it, or prepare your own comment. Any way, we urge you to submit your comment to ensure that optimal infant feeding recommendations are protected. “As a global public health recommendation, infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life to achieve optimal, growth, development and health. Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues up to two years or beyond.” (WHO/UNICEF Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding, 2003)
The proposed draft revisions and comment form can be accessed at: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/consult/infant-nourrisson/index-eng.php.
INFACT Canada’s General Comments on the Proposed Draft
January 2011
Prepared by Elisabeth Sterken, BSc,MSc,Dt
Conflict of Interest declarations provided by the Expert Advisory Group
James Friel: Serves on the advisory boards of Heinz and Danone (Both Heinz and Danone are manufacturers of complementary food products and infant formulas and are in serious violation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and relevant resolutions of the World Health Assembly).
Sheila Innis: Researcher in infant feeding and infant formulas. Receives research funding from infant formula manufacturers Mead Johnson, Abbott Laboratories and the from Martek Biosciences the maker of fungi and algae sourced fatty acids, DHA and ARA. (All three industries are in serious violation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and relevant resolutions of the WHA).
Daniel Roth: Is a researcher in vitamin D and has received a travel grant to attend the International Congress of Nutrition from the Organizing Committee sponsored by Coca Cola.
The remaining five members of the Advisory Group have no competing interests.
Breastfeeding is the normative way to feed infants
Industrially manufactured infant formulas differ very significantly in nutritional and chemical content as well as the means of feeding. The lumping these two into one document creates a flawed impression that breastfeeding and formula feeding are similar and interchangeable.
INFACT Canada recommends that Canada’s Nutrition for Health Term Infants should make recommendations about the biologically normal way to feed infants.
The feeding of other manufactured “milks” should be dealt with as an intervention and the conditions for the use of these products should be addressed either in an appendix or in a separate document on the use of artificial feeding methods and products. Full information about the risks of the use of these products and the feeding methods needs to be stated. Parents should be fully informed when making infant feeding decisions.
The International Code and WHA
Canada’s government through its delegations to the World Health Assembly have endorsed the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and all the relevant WHA resolutions on Infant and Young Child Nutrition. It is vital that Health Canada take responsibility and leadership in realizing the implementation of the WHO provisions they have endorsed.
The International Code and WHA resolution measures are critical to protect the ability of mothers to fully breastfeed their children as recommended. The undermining interference on optimal breastfeeding practices resulting from the continued violations of the provisions of the International Code and resolutions, are extremely costly in personal loss, in health outcomes and in health costs. We all benefit when our children are breastfed.
This is a brilliantly written article. Not because of the information it provides, as we have read many many articles that outline the fact that formula fed babies are at a higher risk of so many sicknesses and diseases from infancy right through to adulthood. No, the reason this article is worthy of EXTRA attention is because it uses the correct language to get this message across! The Author, Dr. Alison Stuebe continuously through out the article uses the statement "the Risks of formula feeding", instead of "The Benefits of Breastfeeding".
It's all about the language. If we want people and society to truly understand and make the right choice in infant feeding, then we have to use the right words and statements to make sure that the information is absolutely clear and concise. When we say "Breast is best", that breastfeeding is the best possible way to feed babies because it provides their ideal food, perfectly balanced for optimal infant nutrition, the logical response is, "So what?" Our own experience tells us that optimal is not necessary. Normal is fine. Therefore if Breast is best, then formula feeding is just normal, so we have created the unconscious thought that therefore formula is normal and that makes it acceptable.
Breast is NOT Best. Breast is NORMAL!!
Language is so important, and to truly appreciate the differences and the perceptions that are created by using the wrong words and improper language, you should read the exceptional article "Watch Your Language"
The article below uses the correct language- it's not that breastfeeding decreases your child chance of getting sick, it's that formula feeding increases your childs risks of getting sick. I think that if more parents were informed of this- clearly, using the right language- then more parents would refuse to fall prey to the formula advertising and would feed their babies the normal way.
The Risks of Not Breastfeeding for Mothers and Infants
Alison Stuebe, MD, MSc
Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Health outcomes differ substantially for mothers and infants who formula feed compared with those who breastfeed, even in developed countries such as the United States. A recent meta-analysis by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reviewed this evidence in detail1:
For infants, not being breastfed is associated with an increased incidence of infectious morbidity, including otitis media, gastroenteritis, and pneumonia, as well as elevated risks of childhood obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, leukemia, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Among premature infants, not receiving breast milk is associated with an increased risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).
For mothers, failure to breastfeed is associated with an increased incidence of premenopausal breast cancer, ovarian cancer, retained gestational weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and the metabolic syndrome.
These findings suggest that infant feeding is an important modifiable risk factor for disease for both mothers and infants. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) therefore recommends 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding for all infants.2 The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)3 and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP)4 similarly recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, continuing at least through the infant’s first birthday, and as long thereafter as is mutually desired. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least 2 years of breastfeeding for all infants.
In the United States, breastfeeding durations fall far short of these guidelines.5 In 2005, 74.2% of US infants were breastfed at least once after delivery, but only 31.5% were exclusively breastfed at age 3 months, and just 11.9% were exclusively breastfed at age 6 months. These rates show considerable regional variation, with the highest rates in the Pacific Northwest and the lowest rates in the Southeast. Although some of this variation reflects cultural differences, recent data suggest that variations in hospital practices account for a considerable proportion of disparities in breastfeeding duration.6 This suggests that improvements in the quality of antenatal and perinatal support for breastfeeding could have a substantial impact on the health of mothers and infants.
This article reviews the health risks of not breastfeeding, for infants and for mothers, as well as the obstetrician’s role in counseling women regarding infant feeding and ensuring an optimal start for breastfeeding at birth.
The Risks of Formula Feeding Versus the Benefits of Breastfeeding
Public health campaigns and medical literature have traditionally described the “benefits of breastfeeding,” comparing health outcomes among breastfed infants against a reference group of formula-fed infants. Although mathematically synonymous with reporting the “risk of not breastfeeding,” this approach implicitly defines formula feeding as the norm. As several authors have noted,7–9 this subtle distinction impacts public perceptions of infant feeding. If “breast is best,” then formula is implicitly “good” or “normal.” This distinction was underscored by national survey data showing that, in 2003, whereas 74.3% of US residents disagreed with the statement: “Infant formula is as good as breast milk,” just 24.4% agreed with the statement: “Feeding a baby formula instead of breast milk increases the chance the baby will get sick.”10
These distinctions appear to influence parents’ feeding decisions. In 2002, the Ad Council conducted focus groups to develop the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign, targeted at reproductive-aged women who would not normally breastfeed. They found that women who were advised about the “benefits of breastfeeding” viewed lactation as a “bonus,” like a multivitamin, that was helpful but not essential for infant health. Women responded differently when the same data were presented as the “risk of not breastfeeding,” and they were far more likely to say that they would breastfeed their infants. Given these findings, this review will present differences in health outcomes as risks of formula feeding, using breastfeeding mother-infant dyads as the referent group.
INFACT Canada has an excellent handout titled "14 Risks of Formula Feeding"- every breastfeeding advocate should read this pdf and keep a copy on hand. INFACT presents the Risks clearly with little room for misunderstanding.
Unfortunately we live in a society where breastfeeding isn't treated as "Normal". Where a mother nursing her baby in a public place may be harassed. Where a mother nursing her toddler is almost guaranteed to be harassed. Where the average doctor doesn't have a clue about breastfeeding but can tell you just about anything you want to know about Formula. Where your mother is very likely to not have ever breastfed and therefore has no advice or experience to help you. Where even most of the so-called lactation consultants have minimal training and may be passing along information that is tainted by lack of experience and education.
How sad is that? What does it say about our society as a whole that nursing mothers are stared at, made fun of, harassed, and worst of all: left to fend for themselves. Has there ever been another time in history that mothers have been ridiculed for feeding their children? No, there hasn't been, and I'm sure that if any person from past history could see this future for mothers and children they would be beyond shocked.
I loved this article for it's pointed edge- straight truth, no velvet gloves or rose coloured glasses.
I Wish That Breastfeeding Was Normal by
Jenny Allen
August 18th, 2010
I wish that breastfeeding wasn’t such a “hot” topic.
I wish that formula feeding wasn’t so common place and normal that people assume that the way a formula fed baby behaves is the way babies should behave. So that long deep sleeps in very small babies were not expected, instead of the hourly feeds, short naps and light sleep that is actually normal baby behaviour. That people knew that vomiting was not normal, that baby poo shouldn’t stink to high heaven and that reflux isn’t to be expected. There’s a big difference between posseting now and then, and regularly chucking back large amounts of milk.
I wish people didn’t think that breastfeeding was the “Gold Standard”, but understood that it is simply the biological norm. What babies are meant to do, what boobs are for, and what gives our babies the things they need to grow up the way they were meant to. Physically, immunologically and emotionally.
I wish people didn’t think it was fair game to pass comment on the health of breastfed babies. Or to take the piss out of breastfeeding mothers. Imagine if a breastfeeding mother passed comment on the health of a non-breastfed baby, or belittled a woman who didn’t breastfeed? That people realised that childhood illnesses are just that, a part of normal, everyday childhood, that all babies and children get colds, and coughs and chicken pox, and that breastfeeding is not a Magical Forcefield which stops your baby ever getting ill, but what it actually does is makes your child able to resist a lot of infections, and means they can fight off the ones they do get. All babies and children get sick, the more contact they have with others the more likely they are to get sick, so a breastfed baby in a nursery will still catch infections, where as a formula fed baby that stays at home won’t be in contact with those infections, and that’s why they seem to get sick less often, not because breastfeeding makes no difference. I wish I didn’t have to defend the fact that I breastfeed. Ever. To anyone....
Walk down the baby isle of any grocery store and you will surely find bottles and cans of baby formula. It is everywhere, it is expensive, and unlike breast milk, it is a dead food. It does not change with the babies age, it does not contain enzymes, it is not raw. It is just formula, fake milk in a package. Keep on walking and you will come to the "baby food". It begins with the beloved invention rice cereal. The makers of this seem to know that this rice cereal is in fact useless because even they on the package mention that it should be mixed with breast milk or formula before feeding it to your baby.
You move on to find the jars of baby food. Pureed fruit or vegetables or "beef dinners" in runny form so that even the toothless four month old can consume his first food from a package.
Keep walking and there are the "toddler meals". Now, instead of sharing a healthy meal from your plate, your two year old can have his own food microwaved in a plastic bag and handed to him, all soft enough that little chewing is required.
Is it any wonder that we are a nation of sick, diabetic, obese people who love fast food?
We are literally being taught from the earliest moments of life that dead food in a package is what is best for us. Then when we are adults and overweight we learn about fresh fruits and fresh vegetables and whole grains and how that is what we should be eating. By then, normal, natural, live food is so incredibly foreign to most people that they do not even LIKE healthy food.
This brilliant article from the Ecologist was launched in April 2006- It's one of my fav fav fav articles on the dangers and risks of Formula feeding, and well worth reading again.
Breastmilk vs 'formula' food
Pat Thomas
1st April 2006
Humans have been breastfeeding for nearly half a million years. It’s only in the last 60 years that we have begun to give babies highly processed convenience food called ‘formula’. Pat Thomas investigates
Women do not fail to breastfeed. Health professionals, health agencies and governments fail to educate and support women who want to breastfeed.
The health consequences - twice the risk of dying in the first six weeks of life, five times the risk of gastroenteritis, twice the risk of developing eczema and diabetes and up to eight times the risk of developing lymphatic cancer – are staggering. With UK formula manufacturers spending around £20 per baby promoting this ‘baby junk food’, compared to the paltry 14 pence per baby the government spends promoting breastfeeding, can we ever hope to reverse the trend?
All mammals produce milk for their young, and the human species has been nurturing its babies at the breast for at least 400,000 years. For centuries, when a woman could not feed her baby herself, another lactating woman, or ‘wet nurse’, took over the job. It is only in the last 60 years or so that we have largely abandoned our mammalian instincts and, instead, embraced a bottlefeeding culture that not only encourages mothers to give their babies highly processed infant formulas from birth, but also to believe that these breastmilk substitutes are as good as, if not better than, the real thing.
Infant formulas were never intended to be consumed on the widespread basis that they are today. They were conceived in the late 1800s as a means of providing necessary sustenance for foundlings and orphans who would otherwise have starved. In this narrow context – where no other food was available – formula was a lifesaver.... ...Many formulas are also highly sweetened. While most infant formulas do not contain sugar in the form of sucrose, they can contain high levels of other types of sugar such as lactose (milk sugar), fructose (fruit sugar), glucose (also known as dextrose, a simple sugar found in plants) and maltodextrose (malt sugar). Because of a loophole in the law, these can still be advertised as ‘sucrose free’.
Formula may also contain unintentional contaminants introduced during the manufacturing process. Some may contain traces of genetically engineered soya and corn.
The bacteria Salmonella and aflatoxins – potent toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, immunosuppressive agents produced by species of the fungus Aspergillus – have regularly been detected in commercial formulas, as has Enterobacter sakazakii, a devastating foodborne pathogen that can cause sepsis (overwhelming bacterial infection in the bloodstream), meningitis (inflammation of the lining of the brain) and necrotising enterocolitis (severe infection and inflammation of the small intestine and colon) in newborn infants.
The packaging of infant formulas occasionally gives rise to contamination with broken glass and fragments of metal as well as industrial chemicals such as phthalates and bisphenol A (both carcinogens) and, most recently, the packaging constituent isopropyl thioxanthone (ITX; another suspected carcinogen). Infant formulas may also contain excessive levels of toxic or heavy metals, including aluminium, manganese, cadmium and lead.
Soya formulas are of particular concern due to the very high levels of plant-derived oestrogens (phytoestrogens) they contain. In fact, concentrations of phytoestrogens detected in the blood of infants receiving soya formula can be 13,000 to 22,000 times greater than the concentrations of natural oestrogens. Oestrogen in doses above those normally found in the body can cause cancer.
Killing babies
For years, it was believed that the risks of illness and death from bottlefeeding were largely confined to children in developing countries, where the clean water necessary to make up formula is sometimes scarce and where poverty-stricken mothers may feel obliged to dilute formula to make it stretch further, thus risking waterborne illnesses such as diarrhoea and cholera as well as malnutrition in their babies. But newer data from the West clearly show that babies in otherwise affluent societies are also falling ill and dying due to an early diet of infant convenience food.
Because it is not nutritionally complete, because it does not contain the immune-boosting properties of breastmilk and because it is being consumed by growing babies with vast, ever-changing nutritional needs – and not meeting those needs – the health effects of sucking down formula day after day early in life can be devastating in both the short and long term.
Bottlefed babies are twice as likely to die from any cause in the first six weeks of life. In particular, bottlefeeding raises the risks of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) by two to five times. Bottlefed babies are also at a significantly higher risk of ending up in hospital with a range of infections. They are, for instance, five times more likely to be admitted to hospital suffering from gastroenteritus.
Even in developed countries, bottlefed babies have rates of diarrhoea twice as high as breastfed ones. They are twice as likely (20 per cent vs 10 per cent) to suffer from otitis media (inner-ear infection), twice as likely to develop eczema or a wheeze if there is a family history of atopic disease, and five times more likely to develop urinary tract infections.
In the first six months of life, bottlefed babies are six to 10 times more likely to develop necrotising enterocolitis – a serious infection of the intestine, with intestinal tissue death – a figure that increases to 30 times the risk after that time.
Even more serious diseases are also linked with bottlefeeding. Comparedwith infants who are fully breastfed even for only three to four months, a baby drinking artificial milk is twice as likely to develop juvenile-onset insulin-dependent (type 1) diabetes. There is also a five- to eightfold risk of developing lymphomas in children under 15 who were formulafed, or breastfed for less than six months.
In later life, studies have shown that bottlefed babies have a greater tendency towards developing conditions such as childhood inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, dental malocclusion, coronary heart disease, diabetes, hyperactivity, autoimmune thyroid disease and coeliac disease.
For all of these reasons, formula cannot be considered even ‘second best’ compared with breastmilk. Officially, the World Health Organization (WHO) designates formula milk as the last choice in infant-feeding: Its first choice is breastmilk from the mother; second choice is the mother’s own milk given via cup or bottle; third choice is breastmilk from a milk bank or wet nurse and, finally, in fourth place, formula milk...
...Professional failures
The same young doctors, nurses and midwives who were pioneering this medical model of reproduction are now running today’s health services. So, perhaps not surprisingly, modern hospitals are, at heart, little different from their predecessors. They may have TVs and CD players, and prettier wallpaper, and the drugs may be more sophisticated, but the basic goals and principles of medicalised birth have changed very little in the last 40 years – and the effect on breastfeeding is still as devastating.
In many cases, the healthcare providers’ views on infant-feeding are based on their own, highly personal experiences. Surveys show, for instance, that the most important factor influencing the effectiveness and accuracy of a doctor’s breastfeeding advice is whether the doctor herself, or the doctor’s wife, had breastfed her children. Likewise, a midwife, nurse or health visitor formula-fed her own children is unlikely to be an effective advocate for breastfeeding.
More worrying, these professionals can end up perpetuating damaging myths about breastfeeding that facilitate its failure. In some hospitals, women are still advised to limit the amount of time, at first, that a baby sucks on each breast, to ‘toughen up’ their nipples. Or they are told their babies get all the milk they ‘need’ in the first 10 minutes and sucking after this time is unnecessary. Some are still told to stick to four-hour feeding schedules. Figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics show that we are still topping babies up. In 2002, nearly 30 per cent of babies in UK hospitals were given supplemental bottles by hospital staff, and nearly 20 per cent of all babies were separated from their mothers at some point while in hospital.
Continued inappropriate advice from medical professionals is one reason why, in 1991, UNICEF started the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) – a certification system for hospitals meeting certain criteria known to promote successful breastfeeding. These criteria include: training all healthcare staff on how to facilitate breastfeeding; helping mothers start breastfeeding within one hour of birth; giving newborn infants no food or drink other than breastmilk, unless medically indicated; and the hospital not accepting free or heavily discounted formula and supplies. In principle, it is an important step in the
promotion of breastfeeding, and studies show that women who give birth in Baby Friendly hospitals do breastfeed for longer.
In Scotland, for example, where around 50 per cent of hospitals are rated Baby Friendly, breastfeeding initiation rates have increased dramatically in recent years. In Cuba, where 49 of the country’s 56 hospitals and maternity facilities are Baby Friendly, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding at four months almost tripled in six years – from 25 per cent in 1990 to 72 per cent in 1996. Similar increases have been found in Bangladesh, Brazil and China....
... Not good enough
After more than two decades, it is clear that a half-hearted advocacy of breastfeeding benefits multinational formula manufacturers, not mothers and babies, and that the baby-food industry has no intention of complying with UN recommendations on infant-feeding or with the principles of the International Code for Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes – unless they are forced to do so by law or consumer pressure or, more effectively, both.
Women do not fail to breastfeed. Health professionals, health agencies and governments fail to educate and support women who want to breastfeed.
Without support, many women will give up when they encounter even small difficulties. And yet, according to Mary Renfrew, ‘Giving up breastfeeding is not something that women do lightly. They don’t just stop breastfeeding and walk away from it. Many of them fight very hard to continue it and they fight with no support. These women are fighting society – a society that is not just bottle-friendly, but is deeply breastfeeding-unfriendly.’
To reverse this trend, governments all over the world must begin to take seriously the responsibility of ensuring the good health of future generations. To do this requires deep and profound social change. We must stop harassing mothers with simplistic ‘breast is best’ messages and put time, energy and money into re-educating health professionals and society at large.
We must also stop making compromises. Government health policies such as, say, in the UK and US, which aim for 75 per cent of women to be breastfeeding on hospital discharge, are little more than paying lip service to the importance of breastfeeding.
Most of these women will stop breastfeeding within a few weeks, and such policies benefit no one except the formula manufacturers, who will start making money the moment breastfeeding stops.
To get all mothers breastfeeding, we must be prepared to:
Ban all advertising of formula including follow-on milks
Ban all free samples of formula, even those given for educational or study purposes
Require truthful and prominent health warnings on all tins and cartons of infant formula
Put substantial funding into promoting breastfeeding in every community, especially among the socially disadvantaged, with a view to achieving 100-per-cent exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life
Fund advertising and education campaigns that target fathers, mother sin-law, schoolchildren, doctors, midwives and the general public
Give women who wish to breastfeed in public the necessary encouragement and approval
Make provisions for all women who are in employment to take at least six months paid leave after birth, without fear of losing their jobs.
Such strategies have already proven their worth elsewhere. In 1970, breastfeeding rates in Scandinavia were as low as those in Britain. Then, one by one, the Scandinavian countries banned all advertising of artificial formula milk, offered a year’s maternity leave with 80 per cent of pay and, on the mother’s return to work, an hour’s breastfeeding break every day. Today, 98 per cent of Scandinavian women initiate breastfeeding, and 94 per cent are still breastfeeding at one month, 81 per cent at two months, 69 per cent at four months and 42 per cent at six months. These rates, albeit still not optimal, are nevertheless the highest in the world, and the result of a concerted, multifaceted approach to promoting breastfeeding.
Given all that we know of the benefits of breastfeeding and the dangers of formula milk, it is simply not acceptable that we have allowed breastfeeding rates in the UK and elsewhere in the world to decline so disastrously.
The goal is clear – 100 per cent of mothers should be exclusively breastfeeding for at least the first six months of their babies’ lives.
British mothers are among the most reluctant in Europe to breastfeed their babies. In 1995, only 66 percent of babies were breastfed at birth, with rates dropping by 20 percent only two weeks later (Foster et al. 1997, 24). The reasons mothers give up breastfeeding include insufficient milk or a seemingly hungry baby, sore nipples, or painful breasts. Mothers' dissatisfaction with breastfeeding may be linked to the crippling effects of "Breastfeeding Nemesis."
Nemesis was the Greek goddess of retribution—or just punishment. In Greek mythology, lesser gods were often the personification of an abstract concept or emotion. Nemesis represented the concept of revenge and divine response to Hubris, another minor deity, who personified arrogance resulting from excessive pride. Nemesis lurked in the lairs of Hubris, ready to work the wrath of the gods and punish any mortal who dared trespass the measure of man....
In this essay the medicalisation of breastfeeding will be examined in an attempt to clarify how nursing a baby became a complicated observable behavioural science. In one short century, breast milk has been transformed into "a human biological product" (Rothman 1982, 186). At best, the act of breastfeeding now requires midwifery supervision and instruction, or more extremely, expert medical advice as soon as it is deemed to have deviated from the norms dictated by the technological experts. This fixed system has created Breastfeeding Nemesis.
The Scientification of Infant Feeding
The technology of engineering an artificial feed of cow's milk in a bottle with a rubber teat literally initiated an unprecedented event in human history. Human mothers are the only mammals who have a choice about whether to give their own milk to their infants. The decision to use cow's milk was not based on any scientific investigation to compare the suitability of other mammals' milk for human consumption. Expediency was the priority, and cow's milk became the substitute of choice, mostly for economic reasons, as there was at least one cow available in every village farm. During the first 30 to 40 years of the twentieth century, cow's milk was diluted with water, and sugar was added to make it palatable to the infant. Because the proportion of the basic constituents of cow's milk are inappropriate to human needs (large amount of protein and small fat content, with no long chain fatty acids), constructing a safe formula using cow's milk as a breast milk substitute became the subject of intense medical scientific investigation.
It was the pure arrogance of the situation that provoked a response from Nemesis. Divine retribution to this scientific hubris was immediate. Breastfeeding Nemesis stealthily crept in with her disastrous side effects, punishing mothers and babies through soaring infant mortality rates. But the vanity of Hubris would heed no warning, and it was not long before infant feeding changed from an activity of daily living that had required no expert advice to one requiring its own specialised discourse. Discourse, a term central to the work of French social philosopher Michel Foucault, is the language used to structure dominant ideas, thus shaping the boundaries of a particular area of knowledge. The discourse of infant feeding was produced by agriculturists, scientists, medical doctors and commercial manufacturers. Through the expression of their dominant ideas, a science of infant feeding was created based upon the imperatives of formalising a feed of cow's milk safe enough for human infant consumption.
We can imagine the scene: A scholarly-looking gentleman speaks with conviction to a group of male experts seated around a large table. He focuses attention upon infant mortality statistics and the urgent need to make artificial feeding scientific. He stresses the benefits of rigorous exactitude not only in the formulation of infant food but also in parenting techniques to produce hardy rigorous youths. He stresses "ignorance and fecklessness of mothers" as major contributing factors to the unacceptably high death rate of Britain's future citizens (RCM 1988, 5). He emphasises the convenience of bottle feeding and predicts that very soon many mothers will no longer need to breastfeed. "We all know," he says, "that cow's milk given in a bottle is preferable for those mothers who are sick or too frail to breastfeed. But any mother who fears the physical and psychological trauma of sore nipples, or that she won't have enough milk, should have the choice. Furthermore, mothers will save money because they won't have to pay the wet nurse."
Zeus was furious. "How dare they! Pompous, arrogant medical technocrats," he mumbled. "Did they really think they could create a scientific formula to replace the golden nectar of the gods?"
The impact of Breastfeeding Nemesis was recognised in the early 1970s. At that time, the World Health Organisation voiced concerns about declining breastfeeding rates. In Britain, a Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food Policy Working Party (COMA 1974) reviewed infant feeding and advised that mothers breastfeed for four to six months. Mothers agreed that they would try to breastfeed. They gritted their teeth and persevered because it had been discovered to be so good for their babies. But ever since technology opened Pandora's box, the pain and misery of a forgotten art continued to make the bottlefeeding choice easier. Nemesis wreaked havoc. Some mothers were severely punished by the side effects of reduced milk supply, others by sore and cracked nipples, still others by postnatal depression! By 1985, breastfeeding statistics had plummeted. Following a meeting organised by the Royal Society of Medicine, the devastating effect of Breastfeeding Nemesis was acknowledged, and hope was expressed that midwives would set the standard for successful breastfeeding (RCM 1988). Nemesis continued to be relentless in her punishment of mothers and babies, only now midwives were responsible!
Midwifery failure is often evoked to account for consistently low breastfeeding rates. Rothman (1982), from a sociological perspective, observes two fundamentally different models in the provision of maternity care. The medical model focuses on the medical management of birth and originates from a male profession in the context of patriarchal society. This perspective can be seen to reflect a "man's eye view" of women's bodies (Rothman 1982, 23). However, it is the complete antithesis of Foucault's observational "gaze": "The purity of the gaze is bound up with a certain silence that enables the clinician to listen…the gaze will be fullfilled in its own truth and have access to the truth of things if it rests on them in silence" (Foucault 1973, 107-8).
The "man's eye view" perceives a body machine, and the male body is portrayed as the norm. From this perspective breastfeeding is, at best, a stress on the body system requiring medical management and treatment. At worst, the body machine breaks down, resulting in pathology ranging from sore, cracked nipples to mastitis and breast abscess. Expert doctor comes to the rescue with discourse, intervention or both. The "Anatomy of Infant Sucking," written by Dr. Michael Woolridge (1986) is an example of how male-dominated scientific discourse responds to the technologically created need for instruction in regard to infant feeding. Woolridge summarises his intention in the abstract to his article: "…armed with an appropriate understanding of the underlying processes by which milk is transferred from mother to baby, a midwife is best equipped to advise a mother regarding the correct technique for achieving trouble-free breastfeeding."
The term "trouble-free breastfeeding" aptly illustrates the technological quest for "better health" described by Illich. The Oxford dictionary defines technology as that branch of knowledge that deals with the mechanical arts or applied sciences and its discourse. By definition, technology is a means to enhance the quality of performance.
We must assume that the aim of Woolridge is to facilitate breastfeeding, but his metaphors speak of weaponry and equipment. The entire article reflects a technological perspective. Management and the mechanics of sucking are highlighted. In conclusion, the reader is reminded that a "sound understanding of the mechanisms of milk removal from the breast is essential if one is to advise mothers correctly on feed management." Milk is processed and transferred from mother to baby in the same fixed system of rigorous exactitude as the technology that underpins bottle feeding.
Before this technological takeover, breastfeeding had been an activity of daily living based upon mimicry and learning from family, as well as the hit and miss of the experience itself. All of a sudden it turned into a scientific battlefield requiring strategic study, with male experts demarcating the normal and the deviation. The mother-baby relationship of nursing is dismissed in favour of trouble-free achievement. The medical model redefines not only how the mother should experience the event but also how the midwife should teach the mother to experience the event.
In contrast to the medical model, Rothman (1982) extols the virtues of a "holistic, naturalistic" midwifery model that is the antithesis to the dominance, power and control inherent to the medical model. Rothman stresses that midwifery care embraces an integrated approach to women as they experience childbirth. Furthermore, this model views the female body as the norm and the woman and fetus as one. In that way, it aims to provide integrated care that satisfies the needs of both. In Britain, with the implementation of Changing Childbirth, midwives and mothers have worked together to tailor this kind of service to respond to perceived needs. What about midwifery hubris? How much of the "man's eye view" has been integrated into the midwifery model? To address this question, let us examine some midwifery breastfeeding discourse.
Written by three experts, BestFeeding, Getting Breastfeeding Right for You (Renfrew, Fisher and Arms 1990) is considered to be one of the most knowledgeable breastfeeding books to date. Let us examine the approach: "Breastfeeding is by far the best way to feed a baby. Most women know this…. But many women find it difficult to do without help, and it can be hard to find the right help" (Ibid., 1). Yet, "Many health workers do not really understand breastfeeding, even if they are supportive" (Ibid., 25). Nevertheless, "When you are ready to breastfeed her, ask for the help of a midwife, nurse or family member" (Ibid., 31). And then, if you do ask for help, the most likely thing to happen is: "Sadly, the most common remedy today is to give the baby a bottle, rather than try to solve the real problem" (Ibid., 3).
The constant warning that help is needed decreases a mother's confidence in her capability to even hold her baby, let alone breastfeed it. This discourse also classifies breastfeeding as one of those activities that requires help from an expert. In that way it expropriates breastfeeding and causes Nemesis.
A textbook for midwives, Management of Breastfeeding (Sweet 1997), addresses the reader this way: "The mother should feed her baby in whatever position she finds most comfortable" (Ibid., 807). Is it appropriate to have prescriptive advice like this in a midwifery textbook? Does the inclusion of this directive mean that some midwives have advised mothers to breastfeed in uncomfortable positions?
Further down the page: "The baby's body should be close to the mother's body with his head and shoulders facing her breast and his mouth at the same level as her nipple. To achieve this position the baby may be supported on a pillow on the mother's lap…. When properly fixed on the breast, the baby's mouth should be wide open with his lower lip curled back and below the base of the nipple. When feeding the baby's jaw action extends back to his ears with little movement seen in the cheeks…. The milk is then stripped from the ampullae and propelled toward the back of the baby’s mouth by peristaltic waves along the surface of the tongue" (Woolridge 1986a).
This whole passage reproduces the "Mechanics of Sucking" and indeed is referenced Woolridge 1986.
Breastfeeding is a relationship, and as in all relationships, there is no one way to do it. A midwifery black bag of instructions takes control and often conflicts with mothers' own ways.
Caesarean Birth in Britain (1993) is a book for health professionals and parents written by health professionals and parents. It includes advice on breastfeeding as part of the natural continuum of giving birth and is meant to be reassuring: "The woman will need help getting into a comfortable position so that the baby can feed without resting on the wound. This can be achieved by the woman either sitting up or lying down. Hospital beds are not ideal places to breastfeed, so she may need to experiment to find comfortable positions, with pillows and lots of help. If the woman needs to be propped upright following a general anaesthetic, she will need help with pillows to be able to feed in a good position without pulling the breast out of the baby's mouth. The back rest of the bed should be in its upright position with a pillow across her lap and the baby resting on the pillow. The pillow can be at her side and the baby lying on the pillow with its feet tucked under her arm (also known as the ‘rugby hold’ or under arm position)." Another way for the baby to feed in hospital is lying on a pillow on the meal table that fits over the bed (Francome et al. 1993, 87).
The constant reference to the need for help reinforces a sick patient image. The text paints a frightening picture of a passive recipient of midwifery care. Of course, any mother who has had a caesarean section will need help; that is common sense. But saying it over and over again creates uncertainty and anxiety. Almost every midwife has seen a mother jump out of bed soon after caesarean section to have a cigarette in the day room! Karen Pryor, marine biologist, highlights a rewarding aspect of lactation that helps a mother take a personal and growing interest in her newborn. She discusses a flooding sense of peace and joy that some human mothers describe as their milk lets down. One mother says, "It's much more relaxing than a cigarette and just as habit-forming" (Pryor 1963, 70).
American Academy of Paediatrics recommends marketing breastfeeding to reduce the risk of SIDs..... how about they throw in reducing the risks of certain cancers, obesity, juvenile diabetes, asthma and allergies, ear infections and digestive disorders.... to name but a few. How about they market breastfeeding as the NORMAL way to feed your baby? Even better, how about they just tell the truth about the risks of infant formulas?
...or better yet, how about they push to have the WHO code put into law and protect the lives of babies from unethical marketing and the propaganda from infant formula companies?
Well, I guess it's a start. Baby steps forward are better than giant steps backwards.
Does Breastfeeding Reduce the Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome?
BACKGROUND. In the last 20 years, the prevention campaigns toreduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome were very successful.In some countries the advice to breastfeed is included in thecampaigns' messages, but in other countries it is not.
OBJECTIVE. To examine the association between type of infantfeeding and sudden infant death syndrome. METHODS. The German Study of Sudden Infant Death is a case-controlstudy of 333 infants who died of sudden infant death syndromeand 998 age-matched controls. RESULTS. A total of 49.6% of cases and 82.9% of controls werebreastfed at 2 weeks of age. Exclusive breastfeeding at 1 monthof age halved the risk, partial breastfeeding at the age of1 month also reduced the risk of sudden infant death syndrome,but after adjustment this risk was not significant. Being exclusivelybreastfed in the last month of life/before the interview reducedthe risk, as did being partially breastfed. Breastfeeding survivalcurves showed that both partial breastfeeding and exclusivebreastfeeding were associated with a reduced risk of suddeninfant death syndrome. CONCLUSIONS. This study shows that breastfeeding reduced therisk of sudden infant death syndrome by 50% at all ages throughoutinfancy. We recommend including the advice to breastfeed through6 months of age in sudden infant death syndrome risk-reductionmessages.
... OK I know that many of you are going to shake your heads and say "Here she goes again..." but I have to pull out my soap box and rant on this topic some more.
Two recent articles in the Globe & Mail talk about breastfeeding in Canada (although this articles could seriously be about about the US or England just as easily). One is the usual media propaganda about how mothers are made to feel guilty for not breastfeeding their babies, and the other one is about Canada's abysmal breastfeeding statistics.
Lets talk about the ridiculousness of the first article: What’s wrong with feeding your baby formula?
Laura Leyshon for The Globe and Mail
Women who feed their babies formula face guilt – not to mention the unkindness of strangers.
*Before I even start reading the article my hackles are immediately up. Why is there this instance that there are finger pointers hiding around every corner and why are Breastfeeding advocates the usual suspects?!
From the day he was born, Alison Evans breastfed her son Christopher with the understanding that breast milk is the most nourishing, natural and healthy thing a mother can feed her baby. So when, at four weeks old, he suddenly began rejecting her milk and stopped gaining weight, Ms. Evans was distraught and uncertain about turning to infant formula.
“I’d had this ... idea [breastfeeding]’s what I’m supposed to do,”
...Followed by the comment that her son's health immediately improved on a formula diet.
This is the story that we hear constantly. Parents-to-be take a class in childbirth, read books about all the important things you're suppose to know about babies, they give birth to these wonderfully beautiful beings and are sent on their way home to enjoy their new family life...
Mothers know they're suppose to breastfeed their babies. They know it's the healthiest choice and will give their babies the best start in life- offering them some of their mothers immunities and some vital protection from diseases, lessening their risks of diabetes, certain cancers, obesedy, and maybe even increase their IQ by a few points along the way. As an added bonus, mom's are offered some protection from breast & ovarian cancer, post partum depression and might even loose that baby wieght a bit faster!! And it's FREE!! Over all it's a "win-win" situation, right?
But what happens when that mother gets home? She probably tired, maybe sore from the birth, perhaps dealing with unexpected trauma from the birth of her baby: inductions, forcept/vacuum assisted birth, episiotomy, Caesarean section..(all of which are known to have a negative effect on breastfeeding)..? Is the baby sleepy because of medical interventions used during his birth? "How is he feeding? Does he have a good latch?" are the questions a new mum might hear, but how the hell is a new mom suppose to know?! One book said that breastfeeding is hard and it can hurt, another book said that breastfeeding is natural and only hurts if there is a problem with the baby's latch. One book says to nurse the baby for 10 minutes on each side every 2 hours, one book says to nurse the baby on demand when ever they want to eat. One web site says that this is the best nursing position, one site says that that position will cause blocked ducts and will cause problems because you can't see the baby's latch. One nurse in the hospital told her to use this method to get the baby to latch, but the night time nurse told her that it was wrong and she should use this method instead. This is what we call a recipe for failure- before this baby is even a week old, he's already on the road to bottles of formula because his exhausted stressed out mother is unsure of anything to do with breastfeeding. She can't get any support to make breastfeeding work for her or give her the confidence to persevere and keep nursing regardless of any issues that might arise. The emotionally wrung out mother goes to the doctor with her crying baby and begs for help and advice. The doctor is affraid to cause her guilt about breastfeeding, or has no interest/education in lactation management, so instead of sending her to the right people to get proper support and advice, he pats her on the back and tells her it's ok, some women/babies just can't breastfeed and that formula feeding would be so much easier because then her husband/mother/sister could feed the baby and let her sleep. He gives her a perscription for some sleeping/anti depressants/anti anxiety pills and sends her on her way with a gift pack of formula samples and a book of coupons for free baby bottles and matching diaper bag.
Then the Media make s a big production about how women are MADE to feel guilty about not breastfeeding.
Guilt?! The last thing this mother should feel is guilt!!!!
This woman should be rip roaring mad!! She should be stomping her feet and demanding WHY she didn't have the support and information she needed to do something that women have been doing for a millennia!! She has nothing to feel guilty for- she was failed by every single person and place she went to to look for information and support and advice!
A good friend of mine once told me something very important: "No one can make you feel guilty. Guilt is an emotion that is caused by internal struggles" Don't believe me? How about this:
guilt
Pronunciation: \ˈgilt\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, delinquency, guilt, from Old English gylt delinquency
Date: before 12th century
1: the fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty; broadly: guilty conduct 2 a: the state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously b:feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy :self-reproach 3: a feeling of culpability for offenses
It's also been my experience that it's the mothers who've had to struggle under severe pressure and unbelievable situations that feel this "breastfeeding guilt" the most. I have a friend who has gone through one of the worst nightmares a parent can possibly live through. Her son was born just weeks before her older child had to have cancer surgery. This mum had to travel 3 hours every day to be with her child at Sick Kids Hospital... with a newborn. Then during the ensuing weeks, she had to leave the baby with her husband to care for her child during chemo.... and the outcome was that her little baby became use to the bottles and refused to nurse any more. So she pumped, and pumped.... but when her supply dried up she turned to formula. This mum feels "guilty". Its makes me want to cry. Here is a woman who has been through so much and done so much for her children, and SHE feels guilty about not breastfeeding longer. This Mum should be MAD. What support did she get to continue to breastfeed? None. Yet she feels the guilt that the media says she must feel. ....and that makes ME mad!!
And it's the inflammatory articles like this one in The Globe & Mail that really make me angry, because they feed the flames of the breastfeeding vs formula feeding debate: "What's wrong with feeding your baby formula?" goes on to say:
"While research clearly shows the benefits of breastfeeding, the intense demands breastfeeding places on a mother are not captured by the medical studies. The messages mothers receive about breast milk versus formula are “phenomenally black and white and unequivocal,” she says.
Breastfeeding lobby groups have become increasingly influential on social policy, and they have put the onus on individuals to “choose health” or else risk becoming a social burden, Dr. Lee says.
“The moral dimension, I think, comes in with babies where people say, ‘Well, actually it isn’t just your choice, Mum. What’s at issue is another person – a particularly vulnerable person – so actually it’s not right to say, ‘Well I just don’t want to do this.’...
The bottle-feeding taboo is especially strong when it comes to women who choose not to breastfeed for non-medical reasons. Recently, an article by Kathryn Blundell, the deputy editor of Britain’s Mother & Baby Magazine, caused a stir because she said breastfeeding was “creepy,” she wanted her “body back,” and her “fun bags” were part of her sexuality. The piece sparked criticism from online commenters who called her “selfish,” “self-centred” and “vain.”
Sparked criticism?! Oh please, if the shoe fits....
When it comes to parenting debates, formula vs breastfeeding is the pinacle fight. This article is yet again tryign to play the guilt card for formula feeding mothers. But you have to ask the question WHY the debate exists to begin with? I think that Dr. Jack Newman's thoughts on Breastfeeding and guilt hit the mark, a bullseye that the media seem to miss entirely:
Breastfeeding and Guilt
Written by Dr Jack Newman , MD FRCPC
One of the most powerful arguments many health professionals, government agencies and formula company manufacturers make for not promoting and supporting breastfeeding is that we should "not make the mother feel guilty for not breastfeeding". Even some strong breastfeeding advocates are disarmed by this "not making mothers feel guilty" ploy.
It is, in fact, nothing more than a ploy. It is an argument that deflects attention from the lack of knowledge and understanding of too many health professionals about breastfeeding. This allows them not to feel guilty for their ignorance of how to help women overcome difficulties with breastfeeding, which could have been overcome and usually could have been prevented in the first place if mothers were not so undermined in their attempts to breastfeed. This argument also seems to allow formula companies and health professionals to pass out formula company literature and free samples of formula to pregnant women and new mothers without pangs of guilt, despite the fact that it has been well demonstrated that this literature and the free samples decrease the rate and duration of breastfeeding.
Let's look at real life. If a pregnant woman went to her physician and admitted she smoked a pack of cigarettes, is there not a strong chance that she would leave the office feeling guilty for endangering her developing baby? If she admitted to drinking a couple of beers every so often, is there not a strong chance that she would leave the office feeling guilty? If a mother admitted to sleeping in the same bed with her baby, would most physicians not make her feel guilty for this even though it is, in fact, the best thing for her and the baby? If she went to the office with her one week old baby and told the physician that she was feeding her baby homogenized milk, what would be the reaction of her physician? Most would practically collapse and have a fit. And they would have no problem at all making that mother feel guilty for feeding her baby cow's milk, and then pressuring her to feed the baby formula. (Not pressuring her to breastfeed, it should be noted, because "you wouldn't want to make a woman feel guilty for not breastfeeding".)
Why such indulgence for formula? The reason of course, is that the formula companies have succeeded so brilliantly with their advertising to convince most of the world that formula feeding is just about as good as breastfeeding, and therefore there is no need to make such a big deal about women not breastfeeding. As a vice-president of Nestle here in Toronto was quoted as saying "Obviously, advertising works". It is also a balm for the consciences of many health professionals who, themselves, did not breastfeed, or their wives did not breastfeed. "I will not make women feel guilty for not breastfeeding, because I don't want to feel guilty for my child not being breastfed"....
So how should we approach support for breastfeeding? All pregnant women and their families need to know the risks of artificial feeding. All should be encouraged to breastfeed, and all should get the best support available for starting breastfeeding once the baby is born. Because all the good intentions in the world will not help a mother who has developed terribly sore nipples because of the baby's poor latch at the breast. Or a mother who has been told, almost always inappropriately, that she must stop breastfeeding because of some medication or illness in her or her baby. Or a mother whose supply has not built up properly because she was given wrong information. Make no mistake about it—health professionals' advice is often the single most significant reason for mothers' failing at breastfeeding! Not the only one, and other factors are important, but health professionals often have influence and authority far beyond their knowledge and experience....
Finally, who does feel guilty about breastfeeding? Not the women who make an informed choice to bottle feed. It is the woman who wanted to breastfeed, who tried, but was unable to breastfeed who feels guilty. In order to prevent women feeling guilty about not breastfeeding what is required is not avoiding promotion of breastfeeding, but promotion of breastfeeding coupled with good, knowledgeable and skillful support. This is not happening in most North American or European societies."
And again I say: Guilt is internal. If a mother feels guilty for a decision she's made, then she needs to evaluate her guilt, find the cause of it, scrutinize the situations that lead to that decision and look at it honestly. Then either change the decision if possible, or make the changes necessary to make the best of the situation that she's choosen. But don't blame the Breastfeeding advocates or the medical recommendations that babies should be exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months and for breastfeeding to continue for two years and beyond. Giveing out facts and good advice are NOT a ploy to make mothers feel guilty and miserable.
If you failed at breastfeeding and you want to point a finger at someone, then point the finger at a target that deserves your anger and frustration: The government that refuses to adequately fund breastfeeding support services and education, and the media who creates a circus by pitting mothers against mothers and allowing authors to muddy the waters by writing articles entitled "What's wrong with feeding your baby formula?"
The Globe and Mail printed another article that at least touches on the real problems that face mothers.
Why aren’t more women breastfeeding?
Health experts are increasingly concerned about the lack of increase in breastfeeding rates in Canada, which they say is tied to a lack of support for mothers from the medical community and the influence of formula manufacturers.
Many mothers seek advice on breastfeeding from family doctors, but they often don’t have answers about techniques or other specific breastfeeding issues. “They don’t necessarily know how to counsel the mother on how to breastfeed,” said Catherine-Maude Pound, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Ottawa and consulting pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, who participated in a discussion of the challenges to Canada’s breastfeeding rates at a conference held by the Canadian Paediatric Society last month.
In Canada, about 90 per cent of new mothers start breastfeeding when their children are born – an excellent rate. . But by three months, only half of them are still exclusively breastfeeding, while about two-thirds combine breast and bottle feeding, according to a study of more than 6,400 Canadian mothers published in the journal Birth in June, 2009....
For the majority of women who do want to breastfeed, not finding support when they encounter problems - such failing to get the baby to latch on, or pain during nursing - can cause them to turn to formula. The situation needs to be addressed by policy-makers if anything is to change, experts say.
The key issue is that mothers often don’t receive sufficient guidance on proper methods of breastfeeding from the health-care system, said Jean Kouba, president of the Canadian Lactation Consultant Association. Although there are lactation consultants in Canada, there aren’t enough to meet the need, Ms. Kouba said.
That’s why Dr. Pound believes doctors should receive some formal training in breastfeeding techniques.
Hence the need for FUNDING. Funding for the Newman Breastfeeding Clinic & Institute (NBCI) so that they can keep their doors open to help mothers and babies reach their breastfeeding goals, and to educate the medical personell who are in contact with new mothers and babies and NEED to be able to offer REAL support based on scientific studies and facts, not on myths and personal opinions. Until our government steps up and starts providing the funding and the backing to breastfeeding support, our babies will continue to end up on a bottle of formula, and mothers will keep spiraling down in the abyss of guilt that is not their own.
Honestly? I'm surprized that more women don't give up within the first week after their baby is born. I'm not saying that they should, but it certainly proves the point that women are strong and resilient and capable of overcoming ridiculous odds to beat the obsticles thrown at them. How else would we be capable of breastfeeding our babies at all when most of the support women find is hidden though piles of old wives tales and incorrect information.
I have one last thing to add (which will probably get me verbally flogged by the Kathryn Blundell's of the world)..... We don't choose to use a car seat. We do it because it's the safest method of travelling in a car with our infants. Breastfeeding IS Best. Breastfeeding IS the Norm. Everything else is inferior.If you can't breastfeed- TRULY can't. Then Don't feel guilty. You can only do what you can do. Guilt is your internal monitoring system and only you can see inside and know the truth.
“The best possible start in life”? Looks like formula companies’ lack of accuracy is nothing new. Nowadays they just find more covert and underhanded ways to mislead parents. They advertise in parenting magazines and, more recently, fashion and celebrity magazines. Here is an advertisement from Aptamil (right) featured in Pregnancy Magazine April 2008. It is a stitched insert so that the magazine naturally falls open at that page. I’ll talk more about advertising to pregnant women bellow.
Aside from these examples, there’s also leaflets in health centres, email spam, snail-mail spam, supermarket ‘shelf talkers’ (plastic signs that flop out at you), pamphlets in Bounty packs, billboards, posters on public transport, internet pop-ups, TV commercials, radio advertisements, text messages, newspaper ads, social network advertising, YouTube video advertising, and several other gems I shall reveal bellow. Formula companies have an array of arsenal in their fight to line your baby’s gut, and more importantly, their pockets. The more cash they make, the more surplus funds they have to pump into their marketing arsenal. At this point you may wish to ponder what arsenal the breastfeeding movement has, and whose interests it serves.
50% at all ages throughout infancy.