Tag Archives: Choice

The Guilt

There’s a war going on in the midst of the mothering world—breastfeeding versus formula feeding. I may be biased as a breastfeeder, but I feel that the formula feeders have more hate. When advocating for breastfeeding rights, I never say “oh, you should have tried harder” or “you’re an awful mom because you formula feed” (because it’s the system’s fault, not the moms), but it seems like no matter what I say it is taken that way. I blame this on The Guilt.

Recently, I tweeted about a study I found:

I basically just shortened the title and posted a link. Immediately afterwards, I had a “Twitter argument” with @madamemenu about correlation versus causation and the like which ultimately ended in a “agree to disagree” type of thing. It was not until a week or so ago that I found out I was prominently mentioned in this post by Fearless Formula Feeder. Once again, it was misinterpreted that I was trying to make causation when saying “more likely” directly equals correlation in my mind, but that isn’t the point. The point is this constant war between formula feeding and breastfeeding moms.

Breastfeeding moms who often struggle to get to the point they are at with breastfeeding and formula feeding moms who likely turned to formula because of the same struggles—it would make a perfect team. So why do we decide to hate each other rather than band together to fight the system? I blame The Guilt.

I realize most of the people who read my blog breastfeed, but play along with me here. As a lactivist, I always look at breastfeeding and pregnancy and think about all of the formula ads I saw, the cans of formula that were sent to my house, the bag of formula they gave me at the hospital, et cetera. Imagine you formula feed/fed your baby. From this perspective, rather than being bombarded with ads for formula, you’re instead bombarded with constant messages that breast is best—implying you’re not doing the best for your baby. No matter what your reasoning is for chosing to not breastfeed, being told you’re not doing the best for your child will make you feel The Guilt. No matter how true it is, you start to resent those ads and eventually even the women who do breastfeed. You feel judged. You feel angry. You feel The Guilt.

As many of you know, I co-sleep. I have thoroughly researched the benefits of co-sleeping and have done everything I can to eliminate the risks. I am entirely convinced this is the correct decision for my family and I quite often discuss the benefits of co-sleeping with others as well as how to eliminate risks. That said, I still occasionally feel The Guilt. The American Academy of Pediatrics (the same organization I quite often cite for their breastfeeding recommendations) says it’s not safe. So does the Consumer Product Safety Commission. No matter how convinced I am that this is the right decision for my family, being told that it isn’t the best or safest makes me feel that same guilt, feel that same judgment, and feel that same burning fury in my chest that wants to kill any person who dare claim I am endangering my child.

In my lactivism, I never try to make a formula feeding mom feel guilty. Every time before I write a post, tweet, or even comment on someone else’s blog I contemplate two things: 1. Do I sound accusitory to formula feeding moms? How will my statements be read from the other side? While at the same time walking the fine line of 2. Am I sugar coating it for formula feeding mom’s benefit? Am I in any way implying that formula feeding is just as good a breastfeeding? I don’t want to tip toe around The Guilt and give soon-to-be or one-day-to-be moms the impression that they don’t even need to try. I want them to understand that sometimes breastfeeding is really, really difficult in the beginning and some moms don’t get the proper support to get to that point where it’s easy breezy, but that just means they need to try to surround themselves with the support and do as much as they can to educate themselves before they’re in the middle of it all.

Lactivism is not meant to cause guilt, it’s meant to prevent it.

Breastfeeding Prevents Death

I am very passionate about breastfeeding. Many moms do not realize the real risk you take when you chose to formula feed your baby. I know that this picture is intense. I know that it probably will cause a lot of emotion on either side of the breastfeeding argument. Sometimes you need to offend people to get your point across.

When you chose to formula feed your baby—and because breastfeeding is the biological norm, it is a choice to not do it—you take the risk of a variety of health problems in both immediately and in the future. Obviously you risk mixing the formula incorrectly. This can cause the baby to not gain weight properly or even contaminate the formula. If the formula is contaminated, the baby could get very sick or even die. This risk is incredibly high in third-world countries where they quite often do not have clean water. Even formula fed babies in developed countries have these risks. Moms are quite often not taught how to properly formula feed and even if they are it’s easy to make mistakes—especially when it’s 3am and the baby is crying. You can’t mix breast milk wrong or contaminate it.

Beyond the immediate dangers, formula feeding has many lifetime repercussions. Formula fed babies are more likely to have asthma, lower I.Q. scores, and are even more likely to be obese later in life. Moms who don’t breastfeed are more likely to get reproductive cancers such as breast and ovarian cancer.

New moms are not informed of these facts. Instead, they are bombarded with formula companies giving them coupons throughout pregnancy, free samples at the hospital, and ads in all of the parenting magazines. These formula companies have slogans that insinuate that they’re just as good as breast milk. In reality, we have yet to figure out all of the “ingredients” in breast milk so formula companies don’t even know what to copy. Of the things we know are in breast milk, there are things like antibodies and even stem cells that formula simply can not duplicate because it is not living. Even the vitamins and minerals that are in breast milk are easier for a baby to digest than the ones in formula.

Since our hospitals and politicians receive money from the formula companies they’re obviously not going to tell these new moms the truth—you are putting your child at risk by formula feeding—I decided to create this image. I hope that it will make more pregnant and new moms investigate the risks to formula feeding.

Peanut’s Vaccine Schedule

I’ve been “writing” Peanut’s vaccine schedule in my head for a long time now and I finally got it down on paper. I’ve talked before about how we want to do a modified schedule and I’ve read The Vaccine Book over and over. Finally it is done. I feel like a huge weight has been taken off of me.

So, obviously we’ve made some of our decisions already since Peanut is 7.5 months old. We’ve mostly decided to spread the vaccines out rather than entirely forgoing them. It feels like the vaccines that are for the scariest and most common diseases are the ones that have the scariest ingredients/reactions.

Here’s a copy of the 2009 American Academy of Pediatrics Recommended Immunization Schedule

2 Weeks: Hepatitis B

We purposefully didn’t get the Hepatitis B shot in the hospital and the only reason we got it at 2 weeks was there was some confusion at the pediatrician’s office. I felt confused and bombarded. I went to the library and checked out The Vaccine Book right after the appointment. Next time around, we wont be getting this one so soon.

2 Months: Rotavirus, DTaP, and HIB

We talked with our pediatrician and he said that we can’t request specific vaccines, so I asked the names of the ones they carry. We worked with those vaccines to create a list that: 1. Didn’t have too many vaccines at once so that her body could deal with only a few at a time. They expected me to give Peanut 6 vaccines at once and that just feels wrong. 2. We wanted to do the “most important” vaccines first. The ones that would be the most devastating if she got the disease before getting vaccine immunity. 3. We wanted to limit the amount of aluminum she got at one time. This round has 330 micrograms of aluminum.

3 Months: PCV, Polio, Hep B

I felt kind of guilty making Peanut go through pain twice as often as recommended, but I quickly decided that I’d rather have her be in a little more pain than possibly have bad reactions or long term side effects. To reduce the amount of pain she has to go through, I nurse her while she’s getting the shots. At first, the nurses were quite baffled, but now they don’t even notice. I would recommend you wait until your milk lets down until they start getting poked–though not too long after let down. You want it to still be on that big rush of milk so that they’ll notice that milk is coming out and start sucking and calm down. This round has 375 micrograms of aluminum.

4 Months: Rotavirus, DTaP, HIB

5 Months: PCV, Polio

It was too early to do Hep B. If I could change things, she wouldn’t be getting Hep B at 2 weeks and she would be getting it at 5 months.

6 Months: Rotavirus, DTaP, HIB

7 Months: PCV, Hep B

We could do Polio here, but since we don’t have anything to do at 9 months and she will be going in for a well check, I figured we might as well space them out.

9 Months: Polio

12 Months: MMR

I’m feeling the most conflicted about this one. No, it’s not about autism–it’s the fact that they’re live viruses. When The Vaccine Book was written, you could get M, M, and R as three separate vaccines. Since then, they’ve decided to stop making the separate ones for some reason. Though after the recent outbreak of measles, I’m afraid of not getting the vaccine. So, for right now, I’ve planned MMR at 12 months. I may or may not change my mind and I’m really hoping that they just start making them separate again. If we do get the MMR at 12 months, we plan on making sure Peanut is really, really healthy. If she’s had any illnesses for a few weeks before, we’re going to delay. Also, we’re going to give Peanut vitamin A and D before and after the shot.

15 Months: PCV, HIB

Only 125 micrograms of aluminum in this round.

18 Months: DTaP

4 Years: Dtap

They recommend Polio, MMR, DTaP, and Chickenpox (we’ll get to that one in a minute) at 5 years. Since you can give them any time between 4 and 6 years, we’re spreading them out.

5 Years: MMR

6 Years: Polio

11 Years: Test for Chickenpox and Hepatitis A

Both of these diseases aren’t serious to children, but can be pretty bad for teens and adults. You can get a test to see if you’ve been exposed to them enough to get immunity, so that’s our plan. If she doesn’t have immunity, we’ll give her the vaccines.

12 Years: HPV (3 doses), Meningococcal

There is some controversy with the HPV vaccine, but as a cervical cancer survivor, I would like my daughter to get the vaccine. Meningitis is scary enough that I feel the Meningococcal vaccine is required.

14 Years: Tdap (and every 10 years after)

It’s important to get a tentenus shot every 10 years, but if you’re already doing that you might as well get immunization to pertussis (whooping cough). Pertussis isn’t serious to adults, but adults who get it expose babies to it and that can be very serious.

We still haven’t made a decision regarding the Flu or H1N1 vaccines. Keep an eye out for a post about that decision soon. If we do decide to get them, we won’t be doing them at the same time as the other vaccines. Spacing is good.

I’d like to stress here that every parent makes the choice that is right for their family and my choice is not necessarily the right one for you. I would also like to stress the point that being educated is part of making that decision. Good luck with your vaccination journey.

http://www.askdrsears.com/thevaccinebook/index.asp

Just a Stay at Home Mom

We’ve all heard the story of the woman who is wasting her education being just a stay at home mom. I can’t tell you how offended I feel when people say I’m just a stay at home mom. I don’t understand the purpose of that word. Why do people feel the need to downgrade what I do? Yet even when I feel this way, I find myself slipping at calling someone just a stay at home mom. Being a stay at home mom is so much more difficult than people realize, but I already make noise about that particular subject too often. I want to examine where this word just comes from.

When people think of the word feminism, they likely think of women who want to be treated like men. There are many stereotypes of the woman with short hair who wants to work in manual labor or be in the army. What you don’t probably realize is that feminism is actually about choice. Once upon a time, women couldn’t get an education. Women couldn’t work outside the home. The only option for women was to stay home and take care of the children and the home. Feminism came about because some women wanted to do more. Emphasis on some.

Don’t get me wrong, I do want to work outside of my home one day. I also want to be the one to raise my children. I never want to look back and regret that I was working instead of watching and helping my children grow. Being a mother and wife is my first career. The majority of people change their occupation multiple times throughout their lives. This is just my first occupation–and the most important of them all.

Back to feminism. While there were women out fighting for the right to chose what they do with their lives, there were women in the background that were happy with staying at home. Not to say that they didn’t want a choice–it’s just that if they were given the choice, they would still chose to stay home. The purpose of feminism is having the choice.

In our society, young girls are brought up being told that they can be anything. You could be a doctor! You could be a lawyer! You could be The President! So what do you want to be? How often do you hear a little girl say “I want to be a mommy!”? Almost all little girls do, but they don’t see it as a career choice. They just assume that they’ll be a mommy and have a career. No one thinks of being a mother as a career. What other hobby do you do that takes your whole heart, requires your full attention 24 hours a day, and make you want to pull your hair out? If anything, it sounds like a job to me.

So please, try to make an effort to stop saying just a stay at home mom. Being a stay at home mom is so much more than sitting on the couch watching TV. As for those women who are “wasting their education” being a stay at home mom, did you ever stop to think that part of parenting is being educated so that you can educate your children? Also, having a degree means you’re more likely to make educated decisions about regarding your children–which I believe is a very important part of parenting. There is nothing just about being any kind of parent–especially a stay at home mom (or dad for that matter).