The Madonna with real breasts

I loved this when I read about it: the Vatican is calling for many of the paintings of Mary nursing the infant Jesus to be restored to their earlier glory (after the puritanicalites grossly defaced many of them in the name of censorship), and for new pieces of art to depict the very human act of Mary nursing her son.  It's not that I'm a Catholic- or even Christian- or that I applaud this for religious reasons, but when one of the worlds most conservative religious organizations publicly promotes Breastfeeding.... well, I'll happily stand on the side lines and applaud.

Vatican calls for more artwork showing Mary breastfeeding Jesus

"Virgin and Child" (artist unknown)

breastfeeding.com

The Vatican recently announced that it wanted more breastfeeding pictures of the Virgin Mary and artists around the world have been working to respond.
Many paintings depicting the bare breasts of the Madonna had been censored by the modern age because they were too "unseemly", according to L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See.  In 2008, the newspaper began running a series of articles calling for the restoration of these images.

Lucetta Scaraffia, a church historian, has called for the image of Mary as an human, tender and loving mother to be rehabilitated. She said: "Jesus was a baby like all others. His divinity does not exclude his humanity".

Father Enrico dal Covolo, a professor of classic and Christian literature at the Pontifical Salesian University wrote in another article, "The Virgin Mary who nurses her son Jesus is one of the most eloquent signs that the word of God truly and undoubtedly became flesh".
Historians say there were paintings of a breastfeeding Virgin Mary in the early years of Christianity but the coming of the conservatives diminished the production of such images.  L'Osservatore Romano reports that beginning in the 17th century, artists began covering up Mary because of criticism about the "carnality and unbecoming nature of many sacred images." 
Now people around the world are working to change that.
One work in progress is a sculpture showing a full-breasted Virgin Mary in the act of feeding the Baby Jesus.  It was commissioned by two breastfeeding experts, Dr. Elvira Henares-Esguerra, director of Children for Breastfeeding and a fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and Nona Andaya-Castillo, international board-certified lactation consultant.
The sculpture is expected to be completed next year and will show a “humanized” Mary looking lovingly at the Baby Jesus as she feeds him, in the proper, “full latch” breastfeeding position. 
Castillo says the image is meant not only to inspire, but also to teach mothers the proper way of holding their babies while breastfeeding.

They plan to bring the sculpture to the Pope for his blessing. 
Dr. Esguerra says, “We’re responding to the Vatican’s call."  She adds that it’s time to resurrect the image of Mary breastfeeding her Child to teach people that there is nothing obscene about the act.

“If breastfeeding was good enough for Baby Jesus, it’s good enough for our babies,” Dr. Esguerra says.

 HERE to read the original article and view the many breastfeeding Madonna works of art.

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.

HERE to read the entire article on the Ecologist

Other uses for Breastmilk

I found this list on the internet, but haven't been able to find out who the author is, so if you know, let me know so I can give credit where credit is due!!!  and if you have any other brilliant ideas for using breastmilk, please comment so that I can add them to the list!!

Other Uses for Breastmilk!!

• Acne Treatment and Facial Cleanser Wash face with a mild soap, rinse, and gently pat a breastmilk-saturated ball of cotton (not a synthetic material) over the entire face. This process is great for removing eye makeup as well.
• Burns and Sunburn Apply breastmilk gingerly to burns and they will dry up and look much better the next day. A burn treated with breastmilk and mashed-up blueberries will dry up within an hour, wrote one mom on a Midwifery Today online forum.1 Elena Michaels, PhD, CCH, LMFT, a traditional naturopath in Santa Clarita, California, told me that she often applied her breastmilk to her kids' sunburns. The soothing milk would stop the pain immediately," she said. "I believe the lauric acid found in breastmilk is antiviral, antibacterial, healing to tissue, and contains analgesic properties. Besides human breastmilk, virgin coconut oil is nature's most abundant source of lauric acid.
• Chapped Lips Dab a bit of milk onto dry lips, leaving them wet. Apply often, and lips should take only a day or two to heal.
• Cold Sores and Fever Blisters Place milk directly on a cold sore with a clean finger or cotton ball. This should speed the healing process and also help relieve some of the pain.
• Cuts, Scrapes, Scratches Clean wound first using breastmilk if you don't have soap and water. Drip milk onto the wound, then let it air-dry. You can also use a cotton ball or a 4-by-4-inch gauze pad soaked in breastmilk. If the cut is on a baby's lips or mouth area, allow him or her to nurse. An upset child will be calmed by the gentle, loving act of breastfeeding, and the milk will help heal the wound. I'll never forget when my 15-month-old daughter was bitten by her grandma's dog right on her face." says Nancy Levesque, a former La Leche League leader. "I immediately put her to my breast and nursed her as we were deciding what hospital to take her to. I'm so glad that I was able to comfort her during this traumatic time, and I believe the act of nursing did help to begin to heal her wound.
• Diaper Rash Gently pat baby's bottom with breastmilk, being especially generous when applying it to reddened or rash areas. Leave baby's diaper off for a few minutes and let the bottom air-dry.
• Ear Infections Place a few drops of breastmilk in the ear; follow with warm (not hot) olive oil and garlic, or bottled garlic mullein oil (sold at natural food stores).
• Red or Puffy Eyes Place two cotton balls saturated with breastmilk over closed eyes for a few minutes - works better than tea bags or cucumber slices!
• Insect Bites With a clean finger, dab breastmilk on the bite; this will help stop the itching.
• Skin Rash/Wounds Apply breastmilk on itchy spots - even chickenpox - for soothing relief. One woman claims that she used her breastmilk to clear up an elderly relative's leg ulcers. It's also possible that breastmilk helps heal skin wounds in nursing women themselves.
• Sore or Cracked Nipples Gently rub milk onto nipples or area of soreness and let air-dry. Another option is to bathe the sore nipple by dipping it into a clean, shallow dish of breastmilk.
• Sore Throats Baby can benefit by directly nursing.
• Warts Leave a breastmilk-saturated cotton ball on the wart for a few minutes twice a day. Continue for several days until the wart dries up.

Breast Milk Gives Infants a Protective Coat

Breast Milk Sugars Give Infants a Protective Coat

By NICHOLAS WADE

Published: August 2, 2010

...The details of this three-way relationship between mother, child and gut microbes are being worked out by three researchers at the University of California, Davis — Bruce German, Carlito Lebrilla and David Mills. They and colleagues have found that a particular strain of bacterium, a subspecies of Bifidobacterium longum, possesses a special suite of genes that enable it to thrive on the indigestible component of milk.

This subspecies is commonly found in the feces of breast-fed infants. It coats the lining of the infant’s intestine, protecting it from noxious bacteria....

...
Dr. German and his colleagues are trying to “deconstruct” milk, on the theory that the fluid has been shaped by 200 million years of mammalian evolution and holds a wealth of information about how best to feed and defend the human body. Though milk itself is designed for infants, its lessons may apply to adults.
The complex sugars, for instance, are evidently a way of influencing the gut microflora, so they might in principle be used to help premature babies, or those born by caesarean, who do not immediately acquire the bifido strain. It has long been thought there was no source of the sugars other than human milk, but they have recently been detected in whey, a waste byproduct of cheesemaking. The three researchers plan to test the complex sugars for benefit in premature infants and in the elderly.
The proteins in milk also have special roles. One, called Alpha-lactalbumin, can attack tumor cells and those infected by viruses by restoring their lost ability to commit cell suicide. The protein, which accumulates when an infant is weaned, is also the signal for the breast to remodel itself back to normal state.
Such findings have made the three researchers keenly aware that every component of milk probably has a special role. “It’s all there for a purpose, though we’re still figuring out what that purpose is,” Dr. Mills said. “So for God’s sake, please breast-feed.”

HERE to read the entire article 

This is an older article from Midwifery Today Magazine, 1998, but the message hasn't changed nor has the importance of the information diminished.

Breastfeeding Nemesis

by Suzanne Colson

[Editor's note: This article originally appeared in Midwifery Today Issue 48, Winter 1998.]

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).

 HERE to read the entire article on Midwifery Today's website

Message from WHO: Importance of Breastfeeding

Message from the WHO on the importance of breastfeeding to saving childrens lives:

Note for the Media WHO/16

30 July 2010

Breastfeeding Key to Saving Children’s Lives

Ten steps to successful breastfeeding highlighted during World Breastfeeding Week

Geneva | Friday 30 July 2010 -- During World Breastfeeding Week, celebrated from 1 to 7 August in more than 170 countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) reiterates its call on health facilities and health workers to implement ten steps to help mothers breastfeed successfully and improve their babies’ health and chances of survival.

Breast milk is the ideal food for newborns and infants. It is safe, gives babies the nutrients they need for healthy development and contains antibodies that help protect infants from common childhood illnesses. While exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life is on the rise in many countries, further improvement of breastfeeding rates is critical to improve the nutrition and the health of infants and children. For a variety of reasons, including the lack of breastfeeding counselling, still too many mothers stop exclusive breastfeeding within a few weeks after delivery.
“It is estimated that around 35% of infants aged 0 to 6 months are exclusively breastfed in the world today,” says Dr Elizabeth Mason, Director of WHO's Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development. “But if all babies and young children were breastfed exclusively for their first six months of life and then given nutritious complementary food with continued breastfeeding up to two years of age, the lives of an additional 1.5 million children under five would be saved every year.”
The “Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding” were developed by WHO and UNICEF to ensure maternity services are providing the right start for every infant and the necessary support for mothers to breastfeed. Today this check-list is used by hospitals in more than 150 countries.
The Ten Steps for health facilities to take towards ensuring successful breastfeeding are as follows:

1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
2. Train all health care staff in the skills necessary to implement this policy.
3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
4. Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within half an hour of birth.
5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants.
6. Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk unless medically indicated.
7. Practise “rooming in” allowing mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day.
8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand whenever the baby is hungry.
9. Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.
10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.

Malnutrition is responsible for one-third of the 8.8 million deaths annually among children under five. It can be a direct cause of death but is also the most important single risk factor for disease in young children. Over two thirds of these deaths, which are often associated with inappropriate feeding practices such as bottle-feeding or untimely and inadequate complementary foods, occur during the first months of life.
“Increasing breastfeeding rates is a key component of the plan to improve infant and young child nutrition,” says Randa Saadeh, Coordinator of the Nutrition in the Life Course unit at WHO. “A renewed effort to make more hospitals ‘baby friendly’ has the potential to give millions more babies a healthy start in life.”

For further information, please contact:

Marie-Agnes Heine, Communications Officer, Department of Making Pregnancy Safer, WHO
Tel: +41 22 791 2710, Mobile: +41 794 495 784, Email: heinem@who.int

Randa Jarudi Saadeh, Coordinator, Nutrition in the Life Course Unit, Department of Nutrition for Health and Development, WHO.
Tel: +41 22 791 3315, Mobile: +41 79 475 5530, Email: saadehr@who.int

Notes to editors:

For more information on World Breastfeeding Week go to: http://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/

All WHO information can be found at : www.who.int

World Breatfeeding Week

In Canada World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated from October 1 to 7.
INFACT Canada will be uploading fact sheets and other promotional tools to celebrate the Week on our website at www.infactcanada.ca.

Elisabeth Sterken
Director INFACT Canada

In honour of world breastfeeding week

In honour of world breastfeeding week I'm going to post as many Breastfeeding articles as I can...but unfortunately I won't be writing my own (unless you count this as one, lol!), as I had a bit of a tussle with a brickwall on Saturday while helping a friend move.  As a result I've got my right hand splinted and bandaged fron fingers to elbow.... and i'm not much of a left handed one handed typist!!!!  So you've all been saved from my soapboxing .... for a week or so any way!!

World Breastfeeding Week!

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, I thought I’d illustrate the many sincere reasons why we so desperately need such a week to promote awareness.  
My knowledge that others clearly need some enlightenment in the breastfeeding department began as soon as I aquired the Internet.  I had read many books about the benefits of breastfeeding & it was such a natural, easy notion that bottle-feeding never occured to me, but I had no idea how controversial the topic is until I got a computer for school & started exploring the World Wide Web & its plethora of opinions.
It started innocently enough– I joined a pro-breastfeeding group online because I was interested in the stories & the support.  There I found what I had been looking for, but I also found a lot of misinformation & what seemed to be rage directed toward breastfeeding mothers.  I read that breastfeeding is gross & lactating women shouldn’t leave their homes, I read that breastfeeding women who nurse in public are sexual exhibitionists, I read that breastfeeding is ok– as long as you’re covered up!, I read that breastfeeding is fine but not after six months, I read that many women “can’t” breastfeed, I read that formula is just as good, & a whole host of other incorrect statements.
The more misinformation I read, & the more I learned about the incredible value of breastfeeding, the more “militant” I became about spreading information & supporting breastfeeding women.
I learned through my own experience that breastfeeding in public is not only important for societal reasons, but necessary for the health of a child.  When my son was just a couple weeks old, I went grocery shopping while wearing him in his sling.  I had fed him before we left, but as we meandered through the store, he started to cry.  I knew he was hungry again, so I looked for a place to breastfeed (I wasn’t yet adept enough at using the sling that I could easily employ it to nurse him comfortably).  The only option was a bench by the main door of the store, which was surrounded by shoppers & cash registers & old dudes sittin’ around.  I left my cart with all of my belongings in an aisle & I decided to hide in the bathroom.  The stalls were tiny & absolutely filthy; I had to straddle the nasty toilet seat while balancing my newborn on my knee so I could adust my shirt & bra to latch him on properly.  I had visions of dropping him the entire time & the whole experience was disgusting & degrading.  I didn’t know yet that my right to breastfeed & my son’s right to eat normally in a safe & comfortable environment was fully protected by the law. 
You see, the government recognizes my son’s needs more than the delicate sensitivities of passers-by who might not want to see the same amount of flesh (or less) that is revealed by a low-cut shirt, but with a baby attached.
If I didn’t happen to be an extremely strong-willed woman with a passionate desire to do what is best for my child & for the world, I may have switched to formula because it is easier in public.  I may have decided that the hassle of breastfeeding in a repulsive bathroom stall was too much, or that people leering at me made me uncomfortable, & I might have quit breastfeeding forever.  But with the recent report that breastfeeding can save almost 1,000 lives in a year in the U.S. alone (http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/05/breastfeeding.costs/index.html?iref=allsearch), it is clear that education about breastmilk is important, but sensitivity & support for the mothers on the other end of the breast is equally crucial.
I have often heard the question “why not just pump milk for a bottle?” in regards to breastfeeding in public.  I have previously explained how very possible it is to need to breastfeed in public; it is also often impossible to pump milk.  I was unable to pump more than a half ounce after several hours of trying, so simply pumping milk for a bottle to avoid offending others with my breast was not possible.  In addition to this difficulty, it has been proven that it is not only the breastmilk that is beneficial for the baby, but the physical closeness & warmth is excellent for a growing child.  The act of breastfeeding releases hormones in a mother that assist bonding with the baby.
I have also heard the demand “cover up, for decency’s sake!” when discussing public breastfeeding.  I understand that the sight of a nipple may surprise some people, especially in the U.S. where we sexualize women to the point of shaming them.  I learned, as soon as my son was strong enough to move his limbs, that keeping him under a blanket would be no easy task.  I tried several times, but he managed to either pull it off or get so upset that he was unable to nurse at all, so I stopped trying.  It has become very clear to me that people who do not wish to see the act of breastfeeding can look away.
The fact that breastfeeding saves lives, yet less than 15% of women in the U.S. make it to the bare minimum recommendation of 6 months, tells us that we absolutely need to normalize breastfeeding instead of demanding that women use synthetic devices to feed their children, or hide them under blankets.  More paramount than insisting that women be ashamed of their bodies is making the act of nursing standard so that future generations will embrace this normal way of feeding & stop employing sub-standard methods.

 HERE to read the entire article on Mothering.com