Monthly Archives: March 2011

Formula Ads

I have formula ads on my blog.

Yes, I am absolutely outraged. It was pointed out by a reader who was reading my blog on a mobile device. After contacting WordPress, I found out that they use Google Adsense to generate revenue for the “free features” you get with your WordPress blog.

Obviously, I apologize for these ads. I could pay $30 dollars a year to not have them on my blog, but right now that’s not financially plausible for my family. I’m assuming that all of my talk about how breastfeeding is so much better than formula feeding tells Google Adsense to put formula ads up. I understand the mechanism behind it and think Google is very cleaver for using such a system, but it still infuriates me.

Honestly though, this all goes back to the formula companies. Formula companies should not be advertising. Whether a mom chooses to formula feed or breastfeed doesn’t even equate into this. It is simply that formula companies are being unethical by putting these ads up to begin with.

The World Health Organization expressly prohibits formula companies from advertising. Of course, this holds no ground in the form of law, but it is certainly unethical. Other countries (such as Saudi Arabia) have followed with the WHO code and actually put into law bans of breast milk substitutes advertising, but the United States is obviously not one of them.

The claims made of these formula companies are absolutely outrageous within themselves. The ad that I just saw on the mobile page of this blog is Enfamil telling me to “Solve my baby’s feeding problems” with their product. Or how many formula companies are now boasting that they have DHA and ARA and are “closer than ever to breast milk”. Of course they realize what they’re implying here. They are trying to say that their formula is just as good as breast milk when formula will never be as good as breast milk.

The fact is that we don’t even know everything that is in breast milk. The fact is that another 5 years down the road the formula companies will come up with another thing that breast milk has and formula doesn’t (remember the big deal about iron a few years ago?), they’ll synthetically produce it, slap a “New and Improved” label on their cans and try to pretend they made some huge advance in the realm of infant feeding. This will go on and on and they will still never be able to reproduce breast milk. Simple fact, even if they’ve synthetically produced Every. Single. Ingredient. in breast milk, they still can not ever compete. Breast milk is living. Breast milk has antibodies. Breast milk has all of the nutrients your baby needs and they’re in the form that is best for your baby to absorb them.

These companies continue to advertise their formula, even when it’s not ethical to begin with and even in severely unethical ways because they want to make money. No one makes money when you breastfeed (beyond if you possibly need to pump or things like that). So they try to trick moms into thinking that their formula is just as good as breast milk. That mom thinks that maybe it is just as good as breast milk (or good enough) and switches under the pretense that it will be so much easier than dealing with the sore nipples and engorgement.

Little does she know that it’s not easier. Rather than putting baby to breast in the middle of the night, she’s up in the kitchen making a bottle while baby screams. Rather than carrying around just diapers in her bag, she has to carry huge cans of formula. Rather than spending nothing beyond what she needs to nourish herself on baby’s food, she spends thousands even on the cheapest formula over the baby’s first year of life. Rather than having a happy, healthy baby, she has one with constant illness, ear aches, and other health problems that go well into that child’s adult years.

And what’s the purpose to all of this? So some companies can make money.

Formula advertisements are unethical and should be stopped.

We’re Not Trying to Hurt You

Photo courtesy of bestpregnancytips.com

It seems like every time I turn around, I’m offending someone. I try to word things in ways that aren’t offensive to formula feeding moms, but it’s difficult to get the point across without causing moms to go on the defensive.

I never judge a mom for formula feeding. I would never try to tell you that you’re a bad mother. Two of my best friends formula fed/feed their children and they know that I don’t see them as lesser persons for it. I think it’s different for them because they know me and we have a friendship. When it’s a stranger it’s much easier to misinterpret what they mean and get offended.

The simple fact is that in our society, breastfeeding is the underdog. In the United States, about 75% of moms try to breastfeed at all, but only about 44% of moms are breastfeeding at six months. Luckily these rates keep getting higher, but a big part of it is educating moms on why they should breastfeed and how to do it.

The biggest factor on whether or not you’ll breastfeed is education. More than income level. More than race. Education is the key to getting more moms to breastfeed. Since we can’t force every woman 18-35 to get a college degree, we have to try to educate them on this one subject. So that’s what I try to do: educate.

So please, don’t take what I’m saying as an attack on formula feeding moms. Please don’t assume that I hate all formula feeding moms. Please don’t assume I think I’m any better than you for breastfeeding. Just know I’m out here trying to inform people. I’m trying to give new and soon-to-be moms the information that will help them succeed. I’m trying to out the booby traps set up by hospitals, workplaces, and society. I’m trying to make breastfeeding be something that’s not socially taboo.

Know that lactivists are out there to help, not to judge.

Friday Fill-ins

FFI

And…here we go!

1. Why does it have to snow today? It’s supposed to be spring!

2. Two year old Peanut is equal whiny Peanut, if this last week is any indication.

3. My favorite breakfast includes an omelet made by my husband.

4. Shopaholic Takes Manhattan was the last book I read and I’m loving this series.

5. I am SO glad that the science teaching club I’m starting at my university is actually happening.

6. Cuddling with Peanut and watching Beauty and the Beast would make me feel better right now.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to sitting around reading the next Shopaholic book, tomorrow my plans include Curie’s playgroup (yes, a playgroup for dogs) and a friend’s birthday party and Sunday, I want to sit around and do nothing, but I have to go to a study group for my botany test Monday!

I also want to share this link to Kelly Rutherford’s (Gossip Girl’s Lily, my goodness I love that show) interview with Best for Babes. It’s a couple of years old, but it’s a great interview. I love stars that not only promote full-term breastfeeding, but also tandem nursing! Here you go!

How to Avoid Comments About Breastfeeding

This is a tricky subject, but one worth addressing. With my recent post about Kourtney Kardashian weaning and subsequent comments (plus the fact that it’s been on my mind with Peanut now two), I figured that I may have some information to share regarding the subject. I have managed to make it 2 years without any real negative comments about breastfeeding. I am constantly surprised that one fellow mom’s mother/mother-in-law/grandma/pediatrician tells her to stop. I am baffled by the stories of moms who are told to leave Target, Ikea, or swimming pools because they’re nursing. I am thankful every day that I haven’t had to be in one of those situations.

I know a lot of it has to do with luck. Yes, I am lucky for not being confronted about nursing Peanut. I am lucky that people around me are at least tolerant of breastfeeding. I am lucky that I haven’t been around the wrong stranger at the wrong time. Beyond that though, I believe there are some things that help you to avoid getting harassed for doing such a beautiful thing.

1. Get educated. As I’ve said many times on here, I am not a very verbal person. I think I feel the need to keep repeating myself because I am such a blab online, but if you’ve ever met me in person I think you know how little I actually speak up. Even in a one-on-one conversation, I am the person who often forgets words I’m trying to speak of, gets nervous and starts to do things like stutter, and even just avoid the conversation in general (watching a toddler is a useful way to do this). If you’re one of the people that hasn’t noticed this about me, you’re either one of the few that I don’t feel uncomfortable speaking around or you’ve caught me on a subject I have knowledge about.

That’s it, knowledge. Having actual facts ready and at your disposal helps immensely when dealing with a verbal opponent. If you walked up to me and started arguing with me about coffee beans that are destroying the rain forest, I would likely have some opinions about it, but not be able to back them up. This goes for even things that you feel so strongly for, but you don’t have the facts. So do yourself a favor and come up with at least one argument against any and all things people may say to you against breastfeeding. If someone were to tell me that nursing my toddler didn’t provide any nutrition, I would tell them that even if it didn’t, it would still provide immunities. If someone were to tell me that nursing my toddler will stunt her emotional growth, I would tell them that studies actually show that babies and toddlers who are securely attached are more likely to show independence later in life. I have little “comebacks” prepared for every reason someone could possibly come up with for telling me I shouldn’t nurse my toddler. Beyond these comebacks, I don’t really know where I’d go, but hopefully I never have to get that far. Which brings me to my second point.

2. Act more confident than you are. I’m sure it works to my benefit that I have this blog. I think most people who know me also know about it (and a few even read it! Ohaithar!). I don’t know if having the blog makes people understand I’m serious about this stuff or if they just don’t want me to talk bad about them on it. :-P You don’t have to have a blog about breastfeeding to avoid being hassled though. Just make your opinion known. I’m not talking about going around screaming “I breastfeed my child and you better not talk crap on it!!!!” There are simplier ways to make your opinions known. Being myself, if a conversations steers anywhere near breastfeeding, I tend to start awkwardly spouting facts about how great it is (I didn’t learn all these facts for nothing!). Simply making it clear that you’re not budging on your opinion may even help the “helpful” mother/mother-in-law/grandma/pediatrician/etc. understand that they can’t “help” you.

Now lastly,

3. Expect the worst. Quite pessimistic, eh? Not really. I don’t sit around dwelling on the fact that I may be confronted, but I just let it cross my mind. It’s a fact. As I adjust myself for Peanut to latch on while we’re sitting in the rec center watching Daddy play basketball or she’s cranky at the store or she hurt herself or any other reason a toddler may suddenly decide that she needs milk right now, I acknowledge the fact that I could be confronted right then and there. Sometimes I think about the laws of my state regarding breastfeeding in public. Sometimes I just remember a couple of the facts that I know. Sometimes I do nothing at all beyond being aware.

It seems like most moms who are confronted about nursing in public by a stranger are taken aback. If you’re not prepared for “the attack”, you won’t ever see it coming. You’ll be bamboozled and even the biggest breastfeeding advocate may find herself at a loss for words. So just know that it could happen to you at any time. It doesn’t matter if you’re nursing a newborn or a 4 year old. It doesn’t matter if you’re using a cover or not. You could get some snarky comment from an idiot who thinks they know more than you, so be prepared to show them how much of an idiot they really are.

Have you been confronted when nursing in public? Have you dealt with “well-meaning” (or possibly not even attempting to be “well-meaning”) family telling you it’s wrong to nurse? How have you handled situations of being confronted? Do you think any of these things help to avoid getting confronted or am I just a very lucky Mama playing Russian Roulette?

Newsletter – 24 Months

Hello Little Miss,

I can’t believe that you are 2 years old. 2 years! Thinking back through this last year, I sometimes find it hard to believe that you are the same child you were then. You’re so much bigger. You’re so much less of a baby. You’re so much a tiny human!

Peanut eating her birthday cake 1 year ago.

You’ve taken huge strides in talking. A year ago, you were barely starting to sign. Now, sadly, you don’t even remember most of the signs. You barely stopped signing please every time you said it and that makes me sad. I was hoping that you would continue with signing and it would become a second language for you, but for now you’re running full force into speaking.

Peanut passed out nursing at 16 months.

Speaking of speaking, you’re an amazing little talker. I lost track of how many words you know months ago because you’re showing me multiple new ones every day. Sometimes I am absolutely surprised by the words that you do know. You use tenses (sometimes you say the kitty is “pur-hing” like it’s two syllables) and you even know some letters. Today you pointed to daddy’s shirt and told him he had an O. We asked you what other ones you knew and you pointed to the S and said “sss”. Wow, child, just wow.

Peanut passed out on Daddy's back at 18 months.

Of course with this being a blog about breastfeeding, I do have to mention how that’s changed. You still nurse and sometimes it feels like it’s a ton, but you’re much less reliant on it now. I thought we’d never get to the point where you didn’t nurse to sleep every night, but now-a-days you don’t nurse to sleep most nights. You don’t nurse during the night at all anymore. You either nurse and then unlatch and cuddle to sleep or you nurse and want either me or daddy to read to you until you fall asleep.

21 month old Peanut and Daddy at lunch on Christmas Eve.

You love to read Cat in the Hat. You call him “Cat Hat”. It’s almost like Pavlov’s dogs how you are ready to pass out the second we start reading that book. You love Dr. Seuss in general. You also love Clifford the Big Red Dog. Really, you love to read anything. I hope that you keep that love throughout your life. Nothing can replace a good book.

Peanut wearing Daddy's shirt at 24 months

You still love to dance, but now you love to sing too. We’ve taken Music Together for a while now and have just decided to stop, which is bitter-sweet. It’s just simply too far to drive every week and on top of that pretty expensive. You love music and you sing, but we will continue to sing at home. You absolutely love singing Marry You as sung by the cast of Glee. It is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. You sing “no no no no no” and “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah” and “go go go go go” and hold out all of the long notes. You even try to jabber along with the rest of the lyrics sometimes.

Peanut at the park at 24 months.

Along with no longer taking our music class, we decided to start you in tumbling. We just joined My Gym and you loved your first class. We took a tumbling class in the past and you showed everyone your new flip and roll for weeks. I’m certain that you’ll continue to enjoy this class and I hope that you grow to be a happily physically active adult.

Daddy, Mama, and 17 month old Peanut at a BBQ at home.

Sweetheart, I love you so much. You have done so many things to make my life better since entering this world. I could not have hoped for a better, more awesome little girl than you. The fact that you’re two simultaneously makes me feel like crying in sadness and delight. I am so excited to continue to watch you grow and develop into a wonderful human being.

Love, Mama

An Open Letter to Pediatricians

So a child walks into your office. Hopefully, in this circumstance, the child is old enough to walk. I’ve heard stories from mothers that their pediatrician told them to stop breastfeeding their infant, but that’s another topic for another time (Come on! It is so highly unlikely that an infant is allergic to breastmilk and if the infant truly is, it’s also most likely allergic to formula also. Sheesh!)

So this child walks in and you’re having your regular check up. Maybe the child asks to nurse. Maybe you directly ask the mother if she’s still nursing. Either way, you find out that their relationship continues on beyond the recommended minimum according to the AAP. So you’ve decided to tell the mother it’s time to quit. There’s obviously something wrong with breastfeeding beyond one year, right? Wrong!!!

One may think that, as a medical professional, you would have some facts about the health benefits of breastfeeding at any age. Yeah, one would think. The problem is that most pediatricians are grossly misinformed about the benefits of breastfeeding. Either they don’t want to upset a mom who chooses not to breastfeed or possibly they just don’t have enough information, but either way it’s a big problem. Many moms go to their pediatricians for breastfeeding advice because it makes sense that their baby’s doctor would have a little knowledge about how to feed said baby. Yeah, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?

The problem is that pediatricians aren’t lactation consultants. (Actually, you can go ahead and add all the nurses on the postpartum floor in most hospitals to that list too, but don’t tell them that because they certainly think they are experts.) Many new moms don’t realize this. Many new (and not-so-new) moms see their pediatricians as an authority figure, which comes along with not questioning them and thinking they have all the answers.

The problem is that they don’t know all the answers. Hopefully, in the case of full term breastfeeding, that is what this post is attempting to remedy. So here we go

Dr. says: Breast milk doesn’t have any nutritional value beyond X months.

Facts: Breast milk changes as a child grows. Breast milk changes day by day depending on what the child needs. That’s the beauty of a supply and demand relationship. During the connection of nursing, that baby’s saliva actually communicates with the mom’s milk production. The simple act of actually nursing more often increases the mother’s supply within 24-48 hours.

In the case of nursing a toddler, the fat content actually increases as the child grows. You know how it’s recommended that children drink whole milk because they need that fat to grow? Guess what? Breast milk is whole human milk.

And what about the picky eaters? Virtually every toddler goes through at least one stage of not wanting to eat much or only wanting to eat certain things. Peanut, for example, will only eat noodles if whatever you put in front of her has noodles in it. I have to actually tell her “Take one bite of that (pointing to the food she’s shoved off in the corner to get to more noodles) and I’ll give you more noodles.” If she weren’t nursing, I’d be a lot more concerned about her getting all the nutrients she needs. As of now, she doesn’t take any sort of vitamin and is growing like a champ.

Dr. says: There are no immunological benefits of breastfeeding beyond X months.

Facts: Antibodies are in milk always. Every. Single. Time. You nurse, your kiddo gets the antibodies your body is producing. So when I’m at school and I catch a cold bug from another student, before I even get sick my body is starting to fight it. Probably pretty much simultaneous to me passing it to Peanut, I’m giving her the antibodies to fight it. Before even an adult system, let alone a immature system of a toddler, would produce antibodies, she already has them coursing through her system.

Toddlers get sick a lot, but in general, breastfeeding toddlers get sick less often. When they do get sick, it’s generally not as severe or as long. In industrialized nations like ours, this may be taken for granted, but in countries that still don’t have regular access to medicine, it can be life-saving.

Dr. says: Breastfeeding beyond X months harms a child emotionally.

Facts: Breastfeeding will never harm my child. I really, really hope no doctors ever say this. I feel it still needs to be discussed though because so many people who are against full-term breastfeeding bring this up as an argument.

You are putting sexual connotations onto our breastfeeding relationship that imply that it could harm my child. That is your association that you are imposing onto our relationship. It is simply not a fact. When my child falls down and is crying her eyes out and nothing can calm her, I offer her my breast. She is soothed. She immediately stops crying. Most of the time, she absolutely forgets about her scraped knee. How can something that makes her so incredibly happy damage her emotionally? How can that even make sense?

Even if it doesn’t benefit her emotionally (though studies have shown that it does), it certainly doesn’t harm her. So why tell a mother to stop? If you’re telling a mother that her breastfeeding is damaging her child, I think you need to go talk to someone professional, because there’s obviously something wrong up there.

So, I hope that helps set some of the facts straight. I hope that none of you are ever confronted by a medical professional about breastfeeding. I hope that doctors and nurses learn the facts and who to refer mothers to when they have questions. I hope that there will be a day where breastfeeding is such a norm where the doctors that tell a mom to quit is chastised for the fools they are.

I’d like to mention that not all pediatricians have this problem. Not all pediatricians are grossly misinformed about breastfeeding. There are many that are incredibly supportive of breastfeeding and beyond that, many that just don’t care enough to try to interfere with a breastfeeding relationship. The problem is that there are any pediatricians (or nurses in pediatrician’s offices for that matter) that spread such awful lies about breastfeeding and actually attempt to make a mother quit breastfeeding. For more information and links to the studies mentioned in this post, visit kellymom.com or llli.org.

The Myth of the Saggy Breastfeeding Boobs

Image courtesy of Lourdesoftheflies

There are a lot of myths about breastfeeding. Some say it will always hurt and there’s nothing you can do about it. Some say that after X amount of time the nursling doesn’t get any nutrition from it. Some say that formula is just as healthy for baby.

One that I seems to consistently hear is breastfeeding makes your breasts sag.

(in the voice of Dr. Cox from Scrubs) Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You’re wrong. You’re wrong.

Seriously, breastfeeding has nothing to do with making your breasts saggy, floppy, deflated, etc. I was reading a blog post from a mom who recently stopped breastfeeding. The post wasn’t even about how her breasts look afterwards, but about sex after breastfeeding. Though the post-breastfeeding saggy boobs myth was of course mentioned in passing:

And since nursing can permanently change your breasts, which left me, for one, feeling less sexy, a little lace and lift couldn’t hurt.

This couldn’t be further from wrong. Yes, your breasts will look different after breastfeeding, but it’s not the breastfeeding that caused that. Having that baby in your belly to begin with caused it. Yeah, that’s right, pregnancy (along with smoking and age) is the thing that causes your breasts to change. Breastfeeding just delays the process.

So what’s the problem with moms thinking it’s breastfeeding? In the United States, the national average for moms just trying to breastfeed even once is 75%. That’s 1/4 of new moms who don’t even attempt to breastfeed. While I’m all for choice, I do feel concerned that some of those moms aren’t making an educated decision. No, I’m not saying they’re stupid, we just live in a society where we’re not given the facts about breastfeeding. Almost everything we hear about it is from other moms who tell us it hurt or they didn’t make enough milk or various other things. If you don’t know the facts, you may just decide it’s not worth it. Even if you do know the facts (with various ads saying “breast is best”), they’re still abstract facts. Do you think a soon-to-be mom fully understands the concept of their baby having less ear infections? It’s hard to even comprehend that your child will one day be a grown adult (I still can’t do that with my toddler!), let alone picturing them as a {more likely to be} healthier, smarter adult than without breastfeeding.

You know what it easy to comprehend? Your boobs. I remember being enormously pregnant and feeling like a beached whale (that also ate too much and was pregnant with probably quadruplets). Yeah, I felt that big. If you’ve ever been pregnant, you know how it feels. I loved that my body was holding something to precious and wonderful inside of it and simultaneously absolutely hated how it looked. One {very selfish} thing I was anticipating with the birth of my child was “having my body back” and actually being able to feel sexy again! Who knows, maybe in a different world where I didn’t know the facts, I would have thought that breastfeeding somehow hurt my chances of feeling like myself again.

What are some of the worst breastfeeding myths you’ve heard? Do you know anyone who chose not to breastfeed because one of these untruths? How can we stop the spreading of these lies that put breastfeeding into a bad light?

Also, check out this awesome article from the Montgomery Advertiser that contains zero breastfeeding myths! It’s a rarity for a non-attachment parenting newspaper, online source, etc. to actually get all the facts about breastfeeding right. Yay!