03 August 2007

World Breastfeeding Week: to breast or not to breast?

It's World Breastfeeding Week (1-7 Aug) and I thought I should say a little something. As the media bangs on about how critical it is for mothers to breastfeed their babies (higher IQs! stronger bones! bonding!), I thought that instead of agreeing and being politically correct, I would post a link from the New York Post for all of those mothers of the world who are feeling the pressure to breastfeed when they can't or just don't want to. The WBW website suggests that new mothers should 'save one million babies' by breastfeeding within the first hour of birth as "the first and most vital step towards reducing infant and under-five mortality". Point taken, but this suggests to me that women who do not do this are somehow going to do irreparable damage to their babies if they don't/can't breastfeed straight away. That doesn't seem like a fair call. Babies born to mothers in Brooklyn that aren't breastfed are definitely not on par with babies born in Africa somewhere that you see on TV, starving with bloated little bellies. I think 'save the babies' is better suited to babies born in abject poverty or to neglectful parents, not for babies born to mothers who aren't breastfeeding. Although I agree that breastfeeding is critical, there are moral panics surrounding 1) saving children 2) breastfeeding 3) being a 'good' mother. What are we we really anxious about? And why are 'non-breastfeeders' the precipitating factor of blame?

Apparently, NYC has banned the free formula given to new mothers on their way home from hospital. Journalist and mother Andrea Peyser thinks this is just another strike by the 'breastfeeding gestapo'.

Note: Please don't send me nasty emails about how I'm promoting the downfall of society by suggesting that breastfeeding isn't important or beneficial. Let's give the other side of the debate a little air time.

Source:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08012007/news/columnists/breast_feed_gestapo_in_a_milk_bilk_columnists_andrea_peyser.htm
http://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

At last - an Australian commentator who is not a breast feeding facist!

Thank you so much for posting this article. I breastfed my first child for the 'recommended' 6 months (which now appears to have been extended to 2 years). For the most part it caused me nothing but misery. Primarily this was due to lack of sleep which lead to low milk supply. This lead to a lot of other secondary issues - not having enough energy to get out to exercise, eating too much of the wrong things at the wrong time, putting on too much weight, feeling lethargic and unhappy, the list goes on. My self-esteem as a mother didn't improve until my son weaned himself at 6 months.

I am now 32 weeks pregnant with my second child and am absolutely dreading the prospect of breastfeeding again. I will give it a go again because my gut feeling is that it is the right thing to do. To be quite honest though I could see it far enough.

My main gripe is that there is a *lot* of pressure on women to breast feed but precious little support or encouragement. (E.g. just try finding someplace quiet and private to breastfeed in a shopping centre). The breastfeeding helpline that I called was worse than useless as was the advice given to me by my doctor and local baby health centre.

It would be a big help to have someone in the health care profession say that formula is not the work of the devil. Actually, would be good to feel that, as an autonomous human being, that I had a right to choose how to feed my child...

Tsismosa said...

I'm sure their intention is to get women to breastfeed, not to shame mothers who don't or won't. I do find it really shocking how few mothers breastfeed their babies. Out of all the mommy friends I've made after having my daughter, only one other girl breastfeeds her children. 1 out of at least 7 or so. I know some woman are unable to breastfeed. But it surprises me that the majority of the women in this country seem to have SOME excuse not to breastfeed.

 
Creative Commons License
The Baby Bump Project by Meredith Nash is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.