Tag Archives: Breastfeeding Versus Formula Feeding

TIME Widening the Gap

I’m sure that by now, you have all seen the cover of this month’s TIME magazine.

My initial reaction was “That’s awesome! Showing an older nursling on the cover of a magazine! I’ve always believed that the more people are exposed to nursing, the more they will accept it. But wait… there’s something wrong here.

I first noticed the camo pants on the child. He looks much older than the almost-4 that the article proclaimed him to be. Why does he look so much older? And this particular mom’s website is called I am Not the Babysitter. It’s supposed to be a play on how young she looks. So why a boy who looks older than she is an a mom who looks younger than she is?

And why on a chair? That’s a really awkward way to nurse. Being a mother nursing a 3 year old myself, I can see the problems with that. My child would bounce and wiggle and probably try to jump off the chair with my boob in her mouth! This doesn’t show a normal nursing relationship.

And, while I do it myself, nursing from over the top of your shirts is, by definition, more revealing. Most moms I see, even the ones who don’t use a cover, don’t do it. I obviously have no problem with it myself and think it’s much more convenient, but it certainly adds to the shock value of this photograph.

That’s just it: shock value.

That’s what TIME magazine was aiming for–shock value. They weren’t trying to get the message out there of this lovely relationship and older child can have with their mother. They weren’t trying to say that attachment parenting is a valid method of parenting. They were trying to shock us. They were simply trying to sell their magazines by making you either hate or love this mother based on this one photograph.

My initial reaction was excitement at bridging the gap between nursing others and those who find nursing to be private, disgusting, or even pornographic. The gap caused by a system who won’t help mothers nurse, but still touts it as “best”. A system that causes guilt and outrage and isolation.

Instead, TIME magazine was trying to shock us. They were trying to cause such a reaction that could cause more magazines to sell. They weren’t trying to bridge any gaps, they were taking advantage of those gaps and widening them. They were trying to put us against each other in order to make a profit.

Shame on you TIME magazine for causing more hate. 

Knowledge is Power

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is about how you influence others. Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!
 

 
As I’m sure you all can tell, I try to do a lot of things in my life to influence other moms to breastfeed. There are various things that I do on a regular basis just to try to help other moms see the need to breastfeed. I have already thought of about 10 equal, but different directions I could take this post and they all have one theme in common–knowledge is power.

So many moms just aren’t given the knowledge they need to succeed at breastfeeding. They don’t know that it’s not supposed to be excruciating pain in the beginning because every other mom who ended their breastfeeding relationship too early tells them it was. They don’t know that there are so many sources out there for help because they feel alone and isolated with our society’s bias against talking about breastfeeding. Many moms don’t even know how much of a risk they are taking with their child by not breastfeeding.

So what I try to do is spread knowledge.

When I find out a friend of mine is expecting, I try to give her the knowledge so many other moms don’t have. I try to give her reliable places to get information online, I try to tell her about the La Leche League meetings near her, and I try to offer my help if she ever needs it. I may just end up being taken as noisy, but I feel that every expecting mom needs to know those things before they are in the situation where they need them.

When I read a new study that, yet again, shows more reason that breastfeeding is necessary, I do my best to spread the new information. I tell the people around me, I post blogs about it, and I’ll even post it on my Facebook status. I’m sure many of my Facebook friends think that I’m weird because of the things I post and I’m sure that the single men I know could certainly care less, but maybe they’ll remember even just the fact that I was posting about so many benefits of breastfeeding and when they have a baby, they’ll be supportive of their wife breastfeeding.

I have a friend who didn’t breastfeed for long with her first child. By the time we started hanging out, her daughter was already a toddler and I hadn’t had Peanut yet. She told me about her blood blisters and how painful it was and how sad she was that she didn’t succeed. When she had her second child after I had had Peanut, I just knew I needed to help her. I gave her all the information I could think of and I even took her to a Lactation Consultant at the Breastfeeding Cafe (there is one there that’s free every Sunday of the Cafe). She recently celebrated hitting the two year mark for breastfeeding.

I certainly don’t take credit for her story. I’m sure that they biggest thing that helped her was her pure determination to make breastfeeding work the second time around, but I would like to think that what I did helped her. Even in the smallest of ways. And that’s all I’m seeking to do, help. I give information to help. That’s the goal of all of my lactivism, just to help, and knowledge is the place to start.
 

 
Here are more post by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

Pumps For Preemies

This is my second year raising funds for the March of Dimes March for Babies. Sadly, last year we were not able to actually walk because we were ill the week of the walk, but I am very excited to this year. I am also excited to beat my goal last year and I count on all of you faithful readers to help me do so.

Peanut was not born premature. Honestly, I only know one person who was born prematurely. Even at that, I never actually witnessed it because we were the same age. Last year when I started raising funds, people were amazed that I was doing so when I didn’t have a personal story.

Do you know why I care? Because I’ve heard stories. I’ve heard of women who have their babies long before they were planning to and the struggles they go through in the aftermath. Of course there are many hardships with having a preemie, but I always focus on breastfeeding. That’s why I have this blog, right?

I’ve heard of moms struggling throughout their entire breastfeeding relationships with pumping and feeding, nipple shields, and even ending their breastfeeding relationships much too soon. Sadly, these babies are the ones who need it the most. These babies not only need breast milk to heal the damage of being born before they’re ready, but they need the kind that comes from their moms. Yes, moms to babies who are born prematurely produce a different kind of milk. The actual composition of the milk is meant for these babies. Here’s a quote from La Leche League

The milk produced by the mother of a pre-term infant is higher in protein and other nutrients than the milk produced by the mother of a term infant. Human milk also contains lipase, an enzyme that allows the baby to digest fat more efficiently. Your breastfed premie is less likely to develop infections that are common to babies fed breastmilk substitutes. He will be protected by the immunities in your milk while his own immature immune system is developing.

That is amazing. Babies born prematurely are at an increased risk to infection and disease, both while growing in the NICU and for the next year or so of life. They need the immunity properties of breast milk even more than babies born full term. They also need that protein and fat to help them grow. It’s amazing how our bodies work to make milk that’s perfect for each of our babies at a specific point in time.

Many hospitals are realizing this and at least offering pumped donor milk to premature infants in the NICU, but this needs to go a step further. As the La Leche League article explains, the milk needs to be as fresh as possible. It needs to come from mom as much as possible. And while this may not be possible for weeks or even months, it needs to come directly from the breast as soon as possible. Moms need extra support to breastfeed their baby in these circumstances, but often we give them even less support than other moms.

This system needs to stop. We need to realize our priorities and get mothers of preemies the support they need to breastfeed. We need to help these tiny babies born too soon so that they can live longer, healthier lives. Whether or not a mom succeeds at breastfeeding should not be determined by protocol or routine. We should give them the absolute best chance to succeed, and then give a little more.

So here’s how you can help. If you can donate anything at all, please do so. Even if it’s a dollar. Anything helps. Here’s the link to our team page. If you’re reading this and you’re in the area, come join our team and walk. Proudly hold our banner saying that preemies need breast milk and we need to work our hardest to get it to them.

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.