Before commenting on this blog, I'd like to point out that I am 100% pro choice when it comes to infant feeding. My problem stems from the lack of education in the health system. Countless money and time goes into teaching women about labour, what pain medication is available, what will likely happen etc. Pregnant women get taught by NHS funded ante-natal classes different breathing techniques and local hospital visiting hours. All this "education" for something that will last, at most, a few days of your life. The pitfalls of formula can have detrimental effects that last a lifetime for both mother and baby. During the ante natal classes I attended, 15 mins was "dedicated" to pros and cons of both feeding options. Listed on the positives of breastfeeding were: easier bonding with baby and easier maternal weight loss. On the list of cons for formula feeding were: having to wash and prepare bottles and having to be more organised before leaving the house. SIDS wasn't mentioned, nor were diabetes, breast and ovarian cancer, childhood obesity... you get the gist. My point is, I'm pro choice when it's an educated choice! If a woman armed with, and is accepting of all the facts still chooses to formula feed then so be it. I'm not that mother, I've not walked her path and Lord knows I make far too many mistakes myself to be worthy of judging another human being!
Anyway, lets get back to the reason for this post:
I found this blog a real interesting read. The first paragraph was pretty intense but necessary. Some of the comments on it however made me a little sad.
There was a comment regarding how the number of breastfed infants who died was not published. The person who made this comment clearly misunderstood the statistic quoted. The 1000 babies cited were not the total number of formula fed infants who died, that's the number of formula fed babies who died because they were formula fed. i.e. when looking at the data and research collected, and removing all other variables, these 1000 babies would not have died had they have received their mothers' milk. So, if people wanted a direct comparable for breastfed babies, the statistic would have to relate to breastfed babies who died because they were breastfed. I'm not sure if a statistic like this even exists and if it does, the number would be far smaller and relate not to the milk or effect on the digestive and immune systems, but more to the circumstances brought about by breastfeeding (i.e. falling asleep while nursing in an upright position etc).
A family member told me a while back while I was on another formula bashing rant that "statistics can be manipulated". I was and still am fully aware of this but who on Earth would manipulate statistics to show formula to be worse than it is? Who would stand to gain from promoting breastfeeding (other than countless mothers and babies that is)? It all comes down to money at the end of the day and there's no money in breastfeeding but formula on the other hand...
The "breast brigade" or "breastfeeding Nazis" or "lactavism mafia" have nothing to gain from prattling on about the ills of formula. We do it because something fundamental deep in our core tells us that artificial feeding is wrong! Human milk is what is physiologically expected from the human infant - logic alone should tell us that anything else isn't going to cut it.
People seem to forget that formula was invented as a life saving tool to prevent infant demise when a mother is physically incapable of producing sufficient milk to sustain life (and FTR, this is estimated to be around 1% of mothers). I for one wish it had stayed in it's rightful place - I would never have willingly fed it to my innocent, non-consenting son had I not have lived in a culture that so readily reaches for formula at the earliest breastfeeding hurdles.
As for making mothers feel guilty by citing hard facts, I'd like to refer to "Watch Your Langauge" where this issue is addressed much more eloquently than I could portray: http://www.bobrow.net/kimberly/birth/BFLanguage.html
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