Beware The Scorn of the Dutiful “Breastfeeding Malcontents”
‘Breastfeeding Malcontents’ are everywhere these days. Those of us who advocate for breastfeeding need to come to terms with this reality. The scorn of the dutiful women who have breastfed but ended up feeling disempowered or unhappy with their experiences must be addressed.
These mothers are typically well-educated, well-heeled women who have literally bought into breastfeeding; they have attended classes, purchased books, pumps, gadgets and other products designed to facilitate a positive breastfeeding experience. Many of these mothers may have even paid lactation experts to help them, but still ended up being dissatisfied with the pressures and constraints associated with breastfeeding in the 21’st Century.
The core idea of La Leche League, mother-to-mother support, which fueled the renaissance of breastfeeding over the last half century, is beginning to backfire. There is a new wave of mothers whose angst is channeled into active discouragement of their friends and peers and an ever increasing need to disprove the value of breastfeeding.
Helen Rumbelow, the author of “Exposing the Myths of Breastfeeding” is one of these women with a need to ventilate. She claims that she wrote this exposé because she wanted, “…to get to the bottom of the medical evidence”.
Her thesis centers on this quote from Joan Wolf, an American academic writing a book on breastfeeding in the West, “The evidence to date suggests it probably doesn’t make much difference if you breastfeed.”
There is no doubt that this comment has stuck in Ms. Rumbelow’s craw as she shares this personal note, “For someone who prolonged my breastfeeding more out of duty than desire, this made me feel slightly nauseous.” Apparently she is not alone. She adds, “Many women — the ones who feel that they jeopardised their jobs, marriages, or sanity for the boob — have a right to feel angry about that”
Ms. Rumbelow does not directly tell us about her own experience with breastfeeding. I am left wondering if these comments might give us a clue:
“…under the weight of this advice from the Department of Health, doctors, midwives, and breastfeeding activists, millions of Western women bow their heads and unclip their Elle Macpherson Maternelle bras.” or “Dark thought at 3am, when one’s nipples feel like shards of glass. ..”
She can’t seem to make her mind up. She criticizes the public health authorities for “heavy-handed encouragement of breastfeeding and then facetiously asks us, “the medical establishment can’t be wrong, can it?”
Lest we forget, breastfeeding is the biologic norm. Whether or not “Breast is Best” has not been a concern of women until the past 50+ years. The existence of relatively safe, commercial artificial baby milks to be used in lieu of breastfeeding does not negate the fact that human milk is species specific and designed by nature for human babies. голова болит секс
Apparently the Chinese Melamine debacle of 2008 was not relevant enough science to be included in the discussion. The “confounding” effect of which Ms. Rumbelow and her “experts” speak could just as easily be applied to an analysis of formula-feeding with regard to its safety and value in human nutrition.
Medical science is only as good as those funding it and doing the research. It is interesting to note Dr. Kramer was a speaker at a Nestles conference on infant nutrition held in Beijing, China in 2004.
If doctors were truly that influential in inspiring modern women to breastfeed, why then are the global rates of breastfeeding so abysmal? Being risk adverse, many doctors do little more than pay lip service to the idea of breastfeeding. Operating in a managed health care system that stresses conformity, they are often more comfortable managing the intake of formula.
Breastfeeding promotion efforts could learn much from this lesson taken from retail marketing, “…a brand’s worst nightmare is of being hijacked by disgruntled customers with plenty of attitude, heaps of time, and a high-speed Internet connection.
The rancor expressed in Ms. Rumbelow’s article should be a red flag for all of us who support breastfeeding families. The issue of concern is not about good, bad or indifferent science being applied to breastfeeding vs. formula-feeding. It is about the experience of breastfeeding in our modern world.
How would you describe your breastfeeding experience?
July 25, 2009 9 Comments
Conscious Breastfeeding Food For Thought: Where’s Our Saint Francis?
Today, they are blessing animals in many churches here in the States and most likely around the world in honor of the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the Patron Saint of Pets and the Environment.
It is doubtful that many cows will be waltzing in for a blessing, but you never know.
In India, no thanks to St. Francis, cows are sacred…
It makes me remember a funny incident that happened to me two decades ago when I was the first lactation consultant in a major hospital here in New York City. On the lapel of my lab coat I wore a button that I had bought to support the Florida Lactation Consultant Association. It was simple and powerful…or so I thought.
This button depicted a cow with a big red slash through it. The International Symbol for a warning not to do something. Travelling up to the maternity floor one afternoon a fellow passenger queried me on my button. Shockingly, it was not the comment/question I had been expecting. “Don’t kill the cows…are you Hindu? ” was what he asked. I laughed and pointed out that my freckles were not Bindis and that the purpose of the button was to spark a conversation about breastfeeding. He got off the lift to go see his wife and child and I went back to work.
A few days later, I was called into the office of the Director of Maternal Child Health and told to stop wearing my button. I was shocked, but refrained from going ballistic at that moment. I asked meekly why she was giving this directive to me. Her answer was incredible. She told me that, “by wearing this button you are offending formula feeding families.”
I would not be long for that job as the “Powers to Be” in that hospital did not truly support breastfeeding mothers. As I began my resignation letter in my head, I told her what was the true intention of my wearing that button. It was simply to open up a light-hearted dialogue about species specific milk…Cows milk for calves and human milk for human babies.
Here in the Western world, cows are valued merely as a source food. These cows are often horribly mistreated in an effort to maximize their production of milk and meat for consumption by humans. Ironically, there are growing numbers who question whether the consumption of a cow’s milk is a valid option to promote human health.
Fast forward twenty years to 2008. PETA, people for the ethical treatment of animals, continues its crusade to protect animals a la St. Francis. Recently in their blog, The PETA Files, attention was focused on cows when they spoke of a letter they had sent to Ben and Jerry’s, a major maker of ice cream, asking them to substitue human milk for cow milk in the production of their ice creams.
All of this made me wonder…
Breastfeeding has all of us Breastfeeding Advocates and Lactivists.
Would Breastfeeding fair better if it also had a Patron Saint?
October 4, 2008 1 Comment