I visited Mothering.com today (Hi, Kimber! :)) and discovered a gem of a video entitled “Substitute Abuse” from South Africa. Kudos to the iThemba Lethu Milk Bank (founded by Anna Coutsoudis and run by Penny Reimers) for putting their energy to good use!

This humorous take on breastfeeding education has an audio track that doesn’t aways synchronize with the video, but it is worth watching and listening to the message and intent behind it. Beautifully done. Thanks for uploading it to YouTube, pokenny.

I just noticed that The Lactivist’s Tuesday, June 05, 2007 post on The International Breast Milk Project accurately reflects the current reality with the IBMP and Prolacta now (Hm. I recently noticed Prolacta.com looks different — different colors and different pictures and different overall format — kind of annoying since before it was more technical and straightforward — though woefully incomplete — and now it’s more “soft” and “vague” and “wishy-washy” — and still missing a lot of really important information. When someone’s primary motivation is making a profit, you gotta wonder about these things…).

I want to thank her (The Lactivist) personally for updating her original, breakthrough thoughts on the IBMP with this thorough post: Thank you, Jennifer.

Please read her post. She has captured a lot of the concerns I’ve been writing about with regard to Prolacta and the IBMP. As a recipient (Jennifer is writing from the perspective of a donor), I can agree with most of what she has to say. I am not a capitalist at heart. I have learned to work within The Patriarchal Machine, and I do it really well, but I really do believe in a true democracy, where money doesn’t really matter (and everyone is equally important). But that information is not really that relevant to this particular post of mine. It’s really important that y’all read what Jennifer has to say regarding “What This News Doesn’t Change” and “Where Does This Leave You?” if you’re thinking of formal milk donation (unlike informal milk donation — like MilkShare, which for me as a mother who has desperately needed breastmilk for my child on numerous occasions and gotten it through there, has been a Godsend).

Please read her post. It’s very important. Don’t miss it.

Thank you. The International Breastfeeding Symbol Website and Blog thanks you.

December is traditionally a very holiday-heavy month. From Christmas to Hanukkah to the revival holiday Kwanzaa to the Winter Solstice (the astronomical observation which became the inspiration for the original pagan celebrations that inspired what we now call Christmas) and Newton’s birthday (December 25 or January 4, depending on who you ask), no matter who you are, if you live in a Western-influenced society, you’re probably celebrating something this month. And if you’re celebrating a holiday, chances are, you’re probably buying a gift or two (or several dozen) for family and friends.

I discovered this mini-documentary recently, entitled “The Story of Stuff,” made by a woman named Annie Leonard, and I feel compelled to share it with as many people as possible. I think it’s very appropriate for the consumer-driven holiday season. It has inspired me to make all my gifts be as homemade and thoughtful as possible this year. Maybe I should just drop the idea of a having a thing represent the value of the relationships I have with others. Perhaps I should just focus on making time for the people in my life, instead of finding a thing for them. Or, if I feel compelled to hand a real, tangible object to someone as a token of my affection for them, perhaps I should make sure it’s at least going to be something they can appreciate for many years, rather than chuck in the garbage within a month of receiving it. It’s hard to articulate into words what I’m trying to convey, but I’m just really tired of the hectic consumer December holiday season, with all the expectations and guilt involved in making sure everyone has a gift, even if it’s a completely useless one. It focuses on all the wrong things: the pretense, the petty superficialities, the ego… And it generates SO much waste and environmental damage in the process.

Anyway, I know this post isn’t about breastfeeding, but the video called “The Story of Stuff” is very important and contains a tiny bit of breastfeeding information in it that is important to know. It mentions that breastfeeding is “the most fundamental human act of nurturing” and that it “should be sacred and safe.” I totally agree, of course. What the movie doesn’t show (but can be easily inferred from its content) is that formula, since it is a part of this artificial system known as the materials economy, also causes harm and exploitation (the factory-farmed dairy cows and the people who tend them are exploited, for example, and the metal used for the cans themselves had to be mined from some exploded mountain somewhere), and that we shouldn’t be surprised to find toxic chemicals in our formula because of the whole “toxics in, toxics out” phenomenon of manufacture.

For example, even though nobody thought of it for years, finally someone figured out that the linings inside most cans (including all cans used for infant formula) contain bisphenol A (BPA), a toxic plastic. Contrast the exposure of a human baby to BPA amounts from canned formula compared to the amounts typically found in breastmilk and there’s NO QUESTION that there are much higher toxicity levels in infant formula — in fact, if you compare all commercially prepared foods, even those for adults and canned infant formula, to human breastmilk, the one food that contains the least amount of BPA toxicity is human breastmilk. This fact may not be apparent from the film, and the mention that “the highest level of many toxic contaminants,” might sound like it’s the opposite of what I just wrote, but it really isn’t (not for bisphenol-A, anyway). The point of Annie Leonard mentioning the breastmilk is to point out that this materials economy violates the basic human right to have clean, pure human milk free from contaminants, not that breastmilk is any more poisonous than the rest of our intoxicated foodstuffs. Infant formula, as it turns out, is way more damaging to infant and mother health than breastfeeding, in the vast majority of circumstances, whether the infant formula is canned or powdered (as one of my previous posts pointed out, powdered infant formula has many health risks and disadvantages).

Here’s a teaser video of “The Story of Stuff.” If you want to see the whole video, you’ve got to go to www.storyofstuff.com. Once there, it will play automatically in the top half of your screen. Enjoy it. If I don’t write again this month, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Kwanzaa, Happy Newton’s Birthday, Joyous Winter Solstice and Happy all other December holidays you might celebrate (whatever they may be)!

Annie Leonard: Brava! …For putting so much energy into making your project happen. It’s turned out great so far! Hopefully we can all come up with real solutions that honor and respect the environment instead of burning through it and shitting where we eat (so to speak). I hope many people see your work. It’s a giant step in the right direction.

When I was an adolescent, the country I was living in got caught up in a war situation, to put it mildly. Without revealing too much of myself I’ll say that my adolescence was not spent in the United States.

During the occupation the country I was living in experienced, which resulted in thousands of casualties, most of them innocent civilians caught in crossfires (as is the case with most, if not all, wars), the country’s economy shut down for a few months. Most grocery stores closed, and the tiny corner shops with food that had enough unlooted merchandise to sell would sometimes open, but only sporadically, and with very limited, mostly canned, products. Most supplies didn’t get to most places, so most places couldn’t open for business (not to mention most of the goods had long been ransacked from most stores during that time).

As a consequence of this, the United States military (which was there, and played an active role in the occupation) would issue to the general civilian population (of which my family and I were a part) MREs. What are MREs, you say? MREs are “Meals, Ready to Eat.” They are a food source, issued by the United States Armed Forces, that is ration-quality. At the time, my family, though thankfully not poor, was having considerable trouble finding places that sold food. So the free MRE packages, which consisted of food and other items hermetically sealed in brown plastic with no-nonsense black lettering describing the contents inside, came in pretty handy. We were grateful for them. Now I know in the military (and from talking to American military men and women who had to subsist on MREs), MREs are not popular. They are ration food, after all… Meant to be used in emergency situations, like wars (which should be rare, but sadly, are not).

My family and I ate the MREs; like I said, we were grateful to have them. They kept us from starving for a few days, weeks, however long it was that we ate them… But we also recognized that we could not subsist on them forever (they are not recommended for use beyond 21 consecutive days, probably because of the high sodium and other health reasons). Once the food supplies started coming back into our city, we were able to buy real food again, and we stopped eating the MREs. The ones that were left in our home became novelties (unopened and uneaten novelties, which we passed on to other people who needed them more than we did) after the real, fresh food started to come in.

I think of infant formula as MREs for babies. Both MREs and infant formula have most of the necessary nutrients, the baseline needed for survival, but they are not meant to be used exclusively when a better option is available (which in most normal situations, a better alternative usually is). The thing is, baby formula is a ration-quality product intended for special circumstances (mainly, the inability to breastfeed or pump). People were not meant to subsist on MREs for extended periods of time, not unless there is no other recourse (but if you had to subsist on MREs for a year or two, it probably wouldn’t kill you — you would likely survive). The same can easily be said for formula: babies were not meant (biologically) to subsist entirely on infant formula for extended periods of time.

Since it’s clear to me that infant formula is substandard infant nutrition (compared with the biological norm, breastmilk), and since it’s also pretty clear to me that way too many people in power (doctors, nurses, hospital administrators and personnel, etc.) seem to be confused about this, because they aren’t assisting new mothers with breastfeeding the way they should be upon the birth of their babies, and too many of them, furthermore, PUSH the use of infant formula inappropriately, I thought I’d start to make things a bit more truthful with a proper label.

Here it is:

Compare it to a can of formula anyone could buy in any supermarket in the United States:

The difference in visual information is huge.

Here are some caveats about my label: The label I created does not contain any nutritional information. I probably should have put that on there, but since I’m not actually selling formula, I don’t have to. I was going to give away some extra cans of formula to a shelter here, but I didn’t feel good about leaving the labels intact with all that formula marketing on them. I also didn’t feel good about ripping the labels off because then people wouldn’t know what was in the cans and might throw them away. I couldn’t bear to think of that waste, so instead, I created an alternative label that wouldn’t offend me as much. I simply designed it, printed it out, and pasted it on top of the existing label. That way, if anyone cares to look, they can still find the other one underneath, but they will first have to have read a differing point of view. I took a few artistic liberties with the part that says “Price,” where I said that it was free but available by prescription only. I got that idea from one of the commenters on this blog. The label I have on my download page for anyone to download is slightly different from the one pictured here because the final version has the volume information on it just under where it says “Cows’ Milk-Based.”

Anyway, I thought some of you might want to have this label as an option, so that you could, whenever Freecycling or donating excess cans of ready-to-feed formula to people who might need them, print some truthful labels out and paste them (or tape them, whatever) onto existing formula cans. But please be sure the information is accurate. Most routine formulas are 20 kCal/fl oz and cows’ milk based, so if you’re giving away soy formula or formula that is made with a different formulation, please do NOT use my downloadable label. Feel free to design your own alternative, truthful formula label, and please tell me about it so that I may link to your site and have others see your awesome ideas. Keep in mind that whatever label you create needs to mention that the biological norm is breastfeeding, and that formula is an MRE for babies, not an ideal food for long-term, exclusive use.

Also, I want to say that I welcome constructive criticism of any of the content on this label. If you feel that something on it isn’t accurate enough or may be portraying infant formula or artificial baby milks in too favorable of a light, I need to know that so that I can alter it, or at the very least draw attention to that so that others will be aware of this. Thanks.

Here’s the label itself, which you can download off the download page here at breastfeedingsymbol.org:

(Welcome, Carnival of Breastfeeding readers! This Carnival of Breastfeeding, about parenting/breastfeeding book reviews, officially starts on Tuesday, November 27, 2007, but I wrote mine a little early because of personal commitments I need to make sure I’m keeping…)

There are a couple of parenting books I believe have really helped me along in my parenting journey. One of them is a general reference book, more of a refresher/affirmer of a lot of things I already knew (and some things I didn’t). This one is The Baby Book by William and Martha Sears. I will be reviewing it here.

The other book I’m reviewing was more of a revelatory, spiritual-experience, mind-altering sort of parenting book. The book’s title is Unconditional Parenting, and it’s written by a man named Alfie Kohn.

First I’ll talk about The Baby Book by William and Martha Sears. This parenting guide is written in the same spirit as the legendary Baby and Child Care book written by Dr. Benjamin Spock that was first published in 1945 under the original title The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. The major difference between The Baby Book by the Sears and Dr. Spock’s baby book is that the Sears book is much more mother and child-centered, whereas the Dr. Spock book, while it contains a wealth of information and was quite possibly the best parenting book available in 1945, is a little dated now in some of the assumptions it makes and the language it uses. For example, Dr. Spock’s book treats breastfeeding as important, yes, and highlights many advantages to the mother and child, but it also treats breastfeeding and formula-feeding as though they were pretty much equivalent choices. At one point in the breastfeeding chapter, Spock writes, as one example, “You may have heard that the baby gets some protection against disease from the colostrum. It may well be so, though it has not been conclusively proved.” Statements like this indicate to me that perhaps not enough attention and credit was given to the benefits of breastfeeding during that period of time, that the power of women’s bodies was, as a matter of cultural habit, dismissed, and this is reflected in the way Spock wrote about it. By contrast, the Sears book (original copyright 1992) states, “Colostrum, the first milk you produce, is the highest in white blood cells and infection-fighting proteins at the most opportune time, when your newborn’s defenses are lowest… Consider colostrum your baby’s first immunization.” This is a much more positive, life-affirming take on the very same subject!

The Baby Book by the Sears is clearly pro-breastfeeding, pro-mom, pro-dad, pro-baby, and pro-family. It goes into great detail talking about many of the known beneficial properties of breastmilk with reverence and awe at the miracle of human biology while also including discussion of the very important psychological benefits of lactation (for both mother and child). What’s even more remarkable about this book, though, is that it does all of this without alienating moms who should, for whatever reason, feed their infants formula. There is a chapter in the book dedicated to “Bottlefeeding with Safety and Love,” and it gives very good general advice regarding the proper and safe way to bottle-feed (breastmilk or formula).

Since The Baby Book is a book on general baby care, though, and not a book specifically on breastfeeding, the Sears have included lots of other really useful family-centered advice, particularly the advice on parental attachment to their children (and vice-versa: children’s attachments to their parents). It was the Sears family (not sure which of them — William or Martha — or both together) that coined the term “attachment parenting” sometime during William Sears’ career as a pediatrician and father before the first publication of their first book. Since the coining of this term, the philosophy of attachment parenting has evolved into a worldwide parenting movement, an organized yet relatively informal collaborative community effort among parents everywhere who agree that the attachment of the infant/child to the parent is tantamount to the child’s success at becoming an individual, independent being as an adult.

It is all of this together that makes this book, The Baby Book by William and Martha Sears, my #1 pick for a baby shower gift, especially for a first-time mom. No matter what a new mom may think of infant feeding before she has a child (even if it’s not her first), this book is an excellent, gentle encouragement in the direction of breastfeeding, without guilting, without shaming, and without any negative peer-pressure, especially since there’s so much more in it than just infant feeding. It’s got a lot of really valuable factual information that will help parents to trust and feel proud of their natural parenting instincts, and do it in a well-informed way.

Now for the other book… Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. This book talks about a very radical approach to child-rearing (when compared to the current dominant authoritarian paradigm), about how imposing contrived punishments and rewards as conscious disciplinary tactics is not helpful for growing children into adults who think for themselves. I went through a lot of mind-blowing realizations as I read the book, and I found myself wanting to disagree with a lot of it at first, but ultimately, I just couldn’t really refute the logic behind the intent of what Kohn was saying. I don’t think the book is perfect. Perhaps he could have worded some things differently, and maybe he could have provided more real-world examples of what an appropriately respectful parental response would be to a child in a situation that required parental guidance. But I’ve found now that I actually like the book better the way it is, without too many examples. I think specific examples would interfere with the message, because this isn’t so much a parenting guide of “What to do when X happens.” It’s more of an open-ended philosophical guide that informs you of the long-term (and short-term!) negative consequences of using punishments and rewards to try to manipulate your children into bending to your will… And then it assumes you the reader are intelligent enough to figure out how best to do that for yourself and your family. Really refreshing!

A brief summary of what I learned from it is: Teach your children to be considerate, thoughtful human beings without using punishments or rewards. “Because I said so,” is not enough for us as adults, so it shouldn’t be for children either. Teach your children to question all authority, even your own. You should be able to explain to them (or at least to yourself) logically and reasonably why you’re taking a certain course of action. If you can’t, then why are you not permitting them to do X thing? The beauty of thinking in this way is that it gets you really in touch with your own motivations as a parent. It forces you to think if a certain course of action is being done because you’ve always done it/seen it/observed it that way or if it truly is what is best for a given situation and a given individual child. The natural result of this is that if you explain everything to your children (within reason, of course) from the beginning, they get an intuitive feel for your reasoning and internalize this logic and love into their own psyche. The logic, love, and acceptance becomes their own, and it results in genuine morality from within instead of just parroted, robotic moral pantomiming that relies on perpetual, extrinsic motivation (reward or punishment) to continue to exist.

These are tough realizations to ponder, and if you dare to read the book Unconditional Parenting through to the end, you will probably arrive at more questions than answers. And that’s the whole point. It is a very worthwhile read, but only if you’re ready for it. It’s not for everyone, but it was great for me, and I highly recommend this read for all mothers and fathers who wish to parent conscientiously.

Happy reading!

More Carnival of Breastfeeding blogs to whet your reading appetite:

• The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog discusses and recommends several parenting resources, including one I’ve been meaning to read: What Mothers Do, Especially When it Looks Like Nothing.
• Hobo Mama explores Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the way we Parent.
• Mama Knows Breast reviews Boobs: A Guide to Your Girls.
• BreastfeedingMums talk about several parenting and breastfeeding books, including the visually stunning A Child is Born.
• On School Street analyzes Blindsided by a Diaper, which discusses some of the changes relationships naturally undergo after a couple have a baby.
• Tales of life with a girl on the go writes about The Best Gifts, a beautifully illustrated and touching children’s book.
• The True Face of Birth reviews Mama Knows Breast, a pretty comprehensive, user-friendly breastfeeding primer.
• Breastfeeding 123 covers Baby Matters, a parenting guide that answers the “why?” of attachment parenting by explaining the science behind it.
• Crunchy Domestic Goddess asks, “What do babies want?” (Review for the book What Babies Want.)

Ladies, all these books sound fabulous!

If you know a person is lying and making lots of money by lying, but they’re also doing a little bit of good within all that lying, does it make the lying O.K.? This is an honest, open-ended question, which I still have no answer for.

Now, completely different topic (lest you think that question above has anything to do with what I’m about to report)… Jill Youse is in the news again! She is ABC News’ Person of the Week this week. I almost died… Hyperventilating with laughter… When I saw that. Congratulations, Jill!

You know what I found really funny about the second ABC News report on the International Breast Milk Project? There was NO mention of a few really important details (which makes me think ABC News either did a sloppy job with this one or that these important details were deliberately not mentioned — why, I don’t know; could be for any number of reasons):

1. Prolacta gets at least 75% of the milk donated to the International Breast Milk Project. According to the IBMP website, this 75% of the donated breastmilk is exchanged for a $1/ounce “donation” from Prolacta (in other words, Prolacta buys at least 75% of whatever is donated to the IBMP for $1/ounce). On an older version of the IBMP website, it used to say that 100% of this money would be donated to various African outreach organizations (like the Lewa Children’s Home in Eldoret, Kenya). None of that money was actually donated, and then when I (and another blogger) started asking questions about the “100%,” the IBMP website was changed to say that, actually, some of that money would go to “operational expenses” within the IBMP. How convenient. It was vague enough that now there’s no telling how much will go to “operational expenses” within the U.S. and how much will go to Africa.
2. The money received by the International Breast Milk Project in exchange for breastmilk, which, to date, is estimated at over $50,000 (probably well over double that figure by now, given how much time has elapsed, but let’s be conservative), was not mentioned in the ABC News report at all. The money the IBMP claims to have sent to Africa on its “September Update” page was donated privately, some of it by Prolacta’s other milk funnel, The National Milk Bank, to the IBMP. From the IBMP website:
   

   “Because of your generosity, in addition to shipping thousands of ounces of donor milk to iThemba Lethu in Durban, South Africa, we have donated $13,000 to the Lewa Children’s Home in Kenya, another $15,000 for clean water and health care projects in Tanzania, and $5,100 for hospital equipment in Cameroon through Dr. Peter McCormick’s Beryl Thyer Memorial Africa Trust.”

   All that money the IBMP allegedly sent to Africa? The IBMP sent it before May 31, 2007… Before the IBMP allegedly started receiving money from Prolacta in exchange for the milk (according to Jill Youse, through email correspondence). All that money was privately donated, some of it from the National Milk Bank (again, according to Jill Youse, through email). Any money the IBMP made and donated after May 31, 2007, there is STILL no mention of anywhere, not on the IBMP website, not from Jill Youse through email correspondence (I asked, and last I heard from her, none of the money had been donated yet), and certainly not in the ABC News report. I do not know if the money has already been donated, or if it’s being put in a bank awaiting donation for the “early 2008″ construction of the Lewa Children’s Home clinic, or if it’s being used mostly to cover “operational expenses” now. Speaking of “operational expenses,” it’s difficult to know what percentage of the money made from selling milk to Prolacta will make its way to Africa. The ABC News report didn’t even mention money, so it’s not like I’m looking at ABC News as a reliable IBMP update information source, kwim?

3. The ABC News report did not mention the dates of the milk shipments, or even how many total shipments to Africa have been made since the IBMP was founded. According to my tally (which was established by calling South Africa and asking Penny Reimers at iThemba Lethu how many shipments she received), there have been a total of four shipments already sent to Africa, not including the one that allegedly will be done now. If the 50,000+ ounces of breastmilk actually make their way to Africa (which I am confident that they will, since it’s so highly publicized), that will bring the grand total of shipments the IBMP has made since April 28, 2006 (the date of the first shipment) to FIVE (please, Anna Coutsoudis or Penny Reimers, if you can confirm or correct this, write me and I will). The total number of ounces donated by the IBMP to Africa would then be around 62,000 ounces in a year and six months. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, in absolute terms it is a lot, but if you compare it to the amount of milk the IBMP has received from generous breast milk donors, it’s actually a pittance. The IBMP received an estimated 65,000 ounces of breastmilk from its generous donors in just two months (June and July 2007)!!! From the IBMP “August 2007 Update” letter: “In June, we collected over 30,000 ounces of milk, and in July we collected over 35,000 ounces of milk.” If you assume the IBMP only receives half the lowest amount (30,000 ounces) for August and September, that’s an additional 30,000 ounces, also not going to Africa (because, according to the IBMP, the 50,000+ ounces of milk going to Africa right now were all donated before May 31, 2007). Details, details…

The first ABC News report on the International Breast Milk Project (aired October 4, 2006) also had a few important details missing. For instance, the report aired on October 4, 2006 and there was no mention of Prolacta. The milk that arrived in Africa for the second shipment (the one filmed in the first ABC News report) was raw breastmilk, unpasteurized. That shipment was delivered free by DHL. Prolacta had not officially partnered with the IBMP when the footage was filmed, but the partnership with Prolacta was in effect by the time the report aired (October 4, 2006). Oh, but it’s just details, and nobody will notice, right? Nobody except anyone who’s paying attention.

Look, I have nothing against a project that sends breastmilk to African orphans. Who would have a problem with a program like that? It’s altruism; it’s a beautiful, touching concept. More importantly, it gets people talking about (and therefore, normalizing) breastmilk (and by proxy, breastfeeding and lactation). Does the IBMP do more harm than good? I don’t know. More good than harm? Hard to say. Does the IBMP do some good in the world? Clearly, yes, in many ways. Is the harm is does worth it? I don’t know. That’s the part I have trouble with. The partnership with Prolacta cannot be ignored, and is not without negative consequences.

My only point in writing any of what I write is so that people become more informed and more aware of what’s really going on behind the scenes. If you have all the information at your disposal and you still feel like it’s a net benefit to donate to the International Breast Milk Project (and you are fully aware that if you do, you will forfeit any rights to your milk and that the majority of your milk — very likely ALL of it, statistically speaking — will actually go to Prolacta and be sold for a profit here in the United States and NOT make its way to Africa), I have NO problem with that. The part I have a problem with is the NOT knowing. The part that bothers me is that some really generous women will donate their breastmilk thinking that what they’re signing up for is not what they’re actually signing up for. …If you catch my drift.

Imagine this: You’ve just had a baby. It was a wonderful homebirth, very peaceful. Breastfeeding was established the way it should be, without interference. You were never needlessly separated from your baby. About five weeks go by, and you get a phone call from a government worker who looks over your child’s birth certificate and tells you you forgot to get your baby’s blood drawn for metabolic testing. “Oh that,” you say, “I didn’t forget. I have no plans to get my baby’s blood drawn. Thanks anyway. Good-bye.” For that, guess what happens? Child Protective Services shows up at your door and takes your baby away.

O-kaaaay. (NOT.)

So your baby is kidnapped from you (but it’s legal ’cause the government is doing it) and taken to some stranger’s house, a foster home. In order to make sure your baby is still being breastfed, you visit the foster home and breastfeed your baby — not the government’s baby and not the foster home’s baby, but YOUR baby — the one you gestated for nine months and then birthed, with much pain, from your body. And then the judge in charge of hearing your case finds out that you are spending time with your baby and forbids you from visiting YOUR baby for the purposes of breastfeeding because, as every ignoramus knows (and I mean “ignoramus” literally), formula is “just as good.” And that silly breastfeeding thing, eh, that’s not so important to a baby’s health and emotional well-being, right? Not to mention, you must not love your baby if you don’t make him bleed for an arbitrary test imposed by the government, so you should be punished and not have any right to see him. …WTF?

Can anybody else see what’s wrong with this picture?

This actually happened to Nebraska resident Mary Anaya and her family. The test in question, a test considered invaluable by medical and government authorities for determining whether or not a child is born with rare metabolic disorders like sickle cell anemia and phenylketonuria, required a blood draw. The Anayas rejected the test because they consider blood to be sacred. Most other states allow parents to reject the testing for personal preference or religious reasons, but Nebraska does not.

Whatever the Anayas’ reasons for not wanting their child to get blood drawn (and regardless of my own personal opinion on getting this test done), it is unconscionable for the government, for any institution, to step in and remove a child from a family’s home when it is clear it is more harmful to the child to be removed than it is to just let him live with his family. Furthermore, okay, so after baby was already removed from his rightful home and forced to have his blood drawn anyway (which was presumably the whole point of taking him into state custody in the first place)…why, then, was the judge so callous about not letting the mother feed her own child??? I wonder how so many people in the Nebraska Supreme Court could have screwed this one up so badly. It’s a no-brainer, but I guess this means these people have no brains? Or no heart? I would imagine there have got to be far worse child abuse cases in the state of Nebraska for them to waste so many precious resources on this one, a case where it’s clear no abuse has taken place.

You know what would solve this? A provision in Nebraska’s law that would allow parents to sign an agreement with the government freeing the state of Nebraska from any legal liability arising from the development of an undiagnosed metabolic disorder, if the parents wish to forgo the screening. Problem solved. The end. Why can’t Nebraska state law just do that? Or is the prospect of tormenting future breastfeeding moms and their families way more satisfying than finding a real solution? Assholes.

Someone on MDC posted and linked to this wonderful video from Sesame Street in 1977. It’s so sweet and so wonderful I can’t NOT embed it here. Enjoy!

(And many, many thanks to the kind soul who posted it on YouTube. Whoever you are, THANK YOU for sharing this with the world.)

ETA: The woman who is breastfeeding her son is Buffy Sainte-Marie.  (Thanks, Buffy, wherever you are. You make the world a better place.)

This post is not about abortion. If you want to read about abortion, Google “abortion,” but don’t expect to read about it in this post. Nope, this post is about another “women’s ‘choice’” issue.

Ever heard of babyfeedingchoice.org? Me neither, before about five minutes ago. But after a quick perusal, I now know everything I need to know about it. Babyfeedingchoice.org is a website created by the International Formula Council (an infant formula lobby group). In it, you will find much lip-service about how “breastfeeding is best,” blah blah blah more politics, etc. They have a very craftily worded page dedicated entirely to “Support for Breastfeeding.” They have another one totally about “mother guilt.” (How’s that for political?) …But the main crux of the site is to convince the world that women WANT to feed their babies formula, and by golly, they have every right to, because women have rights! And freedom! And women need their formula! They WANT it! They ask for it! (Sounds kinda like what you hear some rapists say when speaking of their victims, coincidentally enough. Or is it a coincidence…?)

Let me be crystal clear about something: of course women have the right to feed their babies formula if they want to. But I’m going to spell this out just in case my point is lost: the formula “choice” debate isn’t about women’s freedom. It isn’t about feminism. It isn’t about women’s rights or even consumer advocacy. Women will always have the choice to feed their infants infant formula. Babyfeedingchoice.org isn’t about that, though, as much as they want everyone to believe it is. It’s really about rallying support for formula manufacturers in their quest to disenfranchise women and infants of their rightful biological norm by convincing everybody that what women really want (and spend all their time thinking about, apparently) are those “awesome” infant formula gift bags in hospitals. After all, everybody else is doing it. And furthermore, [insert some other contrived reasons here].

To help illustrate this, they have a whole page dedicated to “What do moms say?” Here’s a little gem from that page: “…mothers approve of receiving infant formula samples, and they do not believe samples have much, if any, impact on a mother’s decision as to what to feed her baby…” Replace “infant formula samples” with “free packs of cigarettes” and “as to what to feed her baby” with “to smoke” and see how it sounds: “…mothers approve of receiving free packs of cigarettes, and they do not believe the samples have much, if any impact on a mother’s decision to smoke…” Hmmm…

The thing is, marketing research demonstrates definitively that receiving free anything impacts consumer use, even if the consumer doesn’t believe he/she is being influenced by the free item(s). That’s why companies do it — because it works! They wouldn’t waste their time and precious money on paying to distribute free samples if they didn’t think it was going to result in returns ($$$) on their investment. It doesn’t really matter what the product is, if you receive a free sample of it, you’re more likely to try it (and if you’re a health care worker, you’re more likely to recommend it). For a lot of products, that’s not necessarily harmful, but for a product like infant formula (or cigarettes, or pharmaceuticals), it can (and often does) have disastrous consequences to the consumers. It does not matter if the consumer perceives the sample doesn’t affect them; the fact remains that receiving free samples DOES affect resultant consumer behavior.

What a lot of people don’t understand is that formula manufacturers are very well-versed and well-educated about breastfeeding. Formula executives learn about it, their companies even pay for research on it, so they “know their enemy” (their enemy being their most threatening competitor: breastfeeding) very, very well. Formula executives (those in charge of making marketing decisions) are very well aware of the deleterious impact on breastfeeding of interfering with a newly born infant’s suckling reflex by introducing an artificial nipple, and of separating infants from their mothers. They use this knowledge to push baby-unfriendly hospital practices — which they know will sabotage breastfeeding — to get the majority of their customers by marketing through the health care industry. Magazine and television ads are just marketing icing on the cake for them. The marketing cake for formula corporations is: the samples handed out by doctors during prenatal check-ups, the routine formula bottle-feeding of newborns separated from their mothers that hospital workers engage in every day in hospital nurseries, the free formula gift packs given to exhausted, convalescing postpartum moms, and last but not least, WIC program contracts with formula manufacturers which ultimately encourage formula use (WIC is responsible for over 50% of formula sales in the United States (PDF)). That’s where formula manufacturers get the bulk of their customers, ironically from the very people that should be encouraging breastfeeding the most! Formula executives push to short-circuit the breastfeeding learning process from the very beginning, encouraging mother-baby separation immediately after birth because it ensures them sales in the future — at least a year’s worth of formula sales, per baby! That is a lot of money, and whatever it cost the formula companies to provide the free samples in the hospital, per baby, is easily a write-off, after the first week or two the baby’s parents buy formula. The rest is pure profit (minus the tiny cost of manufacture and transport — miniscule in comparison to the profit), since formula is so grossly overpriced (even the “cheap” powdered stuff).

Recommended reading:

• Free Commercial Formula Discharge Bags and Their Association with Decreased Breastfeeding (PDF)
  
• The Rituals of American Hospital Birth (PDF)
• Is WIC Promoting Infant Formula?
• WIC and the Retail Price of Infant Formula (PDF)
• The High Price of Infant Formula in the United States (PDF)

So now you know. Babyfeedingchoice.org is full of marketing lies designed to convince the general public that the formula industry should be allowed to keep marketing to health professionals by fighting to keep formula samples in hospitals.

There is another website also full of lies you should know about: Momsfeedingfreedom.com. It is also paid for by the International Formula Council to further convince the general public that marketing through health care workers (doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and WIC employees) is not only OK, but that moms WANT it, and that therefore this woman-unfriendly and baby-unfriendly status quo should be maintained. Absurd, ridiculous, and completely diabolical are words that come to mind when I see websites like this, but what can you do? At the very least they’re open about their funding, which is more than I can say about some researchers who conduct infant feeding studies.

Actually, that’s a good question: What can we do as lactivists to make things better for other moms and their babies? At the very least, we should work hard to get the Breastfeeding Promotion Act passed, which is something every American over the age of 18 can do (link provides ideas and plans of action). Beyond that, it is possible we can beat formula companies at their own game. They “know their enemy.” We should (at least) do the same, so that we become aware of what we’re up against. Knowledge is power. Let’s put the knowledge (power) about destructive formula marketing practices in the hands of women so that they can make truly informed, REAL choices for themselves and their babies. Let’s promote real breastfeeding education so that the formula pushers don’t win.

I’ve used powdered infant formula maybe two times in the entire time I have supplemented for my daughter (I have supplemented with formula for over a year, out of necessity due to breast hypoplasia and breast surgeries). The main reason why I was never keen on using powdered formula is because of the theory of free radical damage from using a powdered reconstituted animal product. Now, I don’t know if the ready-to-feed and concentrate forms of infant formula I’ve been using contain reconstituted powder in them. If they do, I’ll probably feel like the world’s biggest schmuck. But the more research I do on the subject, the more I realize the oxysterol powdered-milk theory isn’t the only reason why using powdered infant formula isn’t a good idea.

Powdered infant formula is the most affordable form of infant formula there is. Every other form (concentrate, ready-to-feed cans and bottles) is significantly more expensive. This is why most people who for whatever reason decide not to continue lactation (or who can’t easily lactate because of a physical barrier which impedes it — think adoption or breast surgery) usually decide to buy powdered infant formula. It’s not cheap, but it’s cheaper than the already prepared stuff. Many people who would otherwise be able to breastfeed or pump milk for their babies for a lot less money (the price of renting a hospital grade breast pump can be as little as $35/month, or less; the service of a lactation consultant is often cheaper than the cost of one month’s supply of formula), instead buy the powdered infant formula because it is erroneously perceived to be a “cheap” and “good” alternative. There are many barriers impeding the success of breastfeeding for new mothers, but one of the biggest ones is the fact that it is easier (and less taboo) to learn how to prepare infant formula than it is to learn how to breastfeed or pump (also, figuring out how to prepare infant formula can be done easily in public; figuring out how to breastfeed, topless, for example, is unfortunately not acceptable in most places — and trying to figure out how to breastfeed while wearing clothing is like trying to figure out how to swim by practicing in a bathtub — it’s not very effective). Formula companies exploit this whenever they can, seducing women with the promise that formula is “just as good” for their baby and much easier to figure out than breastfeeding in the middle of the night when holding a screaming, hungry newborn and without anyone to help you.

Unfortunately for most mothers, formula companies don’t actually care (in deed; they always pay lip-service to “caring”) if the product is prepared properly or if it’s even safe before preparation. They feel that’s “not their problem,” legally speaking, so they sleep easily at night, even if infants who use their mislabeled products die.

I do not recommend infant formula use at all unless there’s no other feasible option, but I especially do not recommend the use of powdered infant formula. Powdered infant formula is not sterile. Infants have already died from contaminated powdered infant formula (even when prepared according to the manufacturer’s directions). The United States’ Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration advise against the use of powdered formula in hospitals because of the contamination risk it poses. It is impossible to sterilize powdered formula in the factory in the same way that liquid formulas can be. Furthermore, if preparing the powdered formula with boiling water to kill the bacteria, some of the vitamins in the formula may be damaged beyond even what the sterilized liquid formulas undergo.

Even when prepared according to the manufacturer’s directions, however, powdered formula never dissolves completely. You can shake the powdered formula with the proper amount of water in a baby bottle until the cows come home (this is what the directions on most if not all powdered infant formulas say to do — shake the measured scoops and water together in the baby bottle), and you will inevitably be left with undissolved lumps in the resultant liquid mixture. These lumps mean the concentration of formula in the liquid is less than it should be, and the lumps often stick to the sides of the baby bottle and never get consumed like they’re supposed to.

In addition to powdered infant formula not being sterile, the possibility of free-radical cell damage from oxidized cholesterol/fat from the formula powder, and the problem with the formation of lumps upon reconstitution, there is also the very real possibility that the directions on the can won’t be followed properly. Most women in the third world don’t have schooling beyond primary school. Consequently, a basic understanding of weights and measures (like liquid measure and powdered formula scoop measure) is often not understood very well. This sometimes leads to formula being prepared at too high of a concentration if the powder is measured before the water is, or it sometimes results in a too-dilute preparation if the woman in question is trying to save money by using less powder than is called for on the can. A too-concentrated formula can lead to dehydration, renal failure, and death in the infant. A too-dilute concentration of formula can lead to malnutrition and a lifetime of health problems, in addition to the possibility of eventual death by starvation. While it may seem “affordable” in the short-run to provide a third-world woman with “free” formula for a time, in the long-run, the results are disastrous and not worth the true, human, cost. The woman dries up, no longer produces milk with her own body, and becomes needlessly dependent on a far inferior, even dangerous product. It becomes like a drug, then. A woman will do anything to get more of it for her baby, because it’s the only feasible option left to her for nourishing her baby once her milk dries up (her milk will start drying up as soon as she starts supplementing with formula if she does not provide stimulation to her breasts — often the woman is not aware of this consequence because not many people are aware of the supply-and-demand aspect of breastfeeding). Over more than one generation, this dependence on infant formula will lead to a loss of knowledge of breastfeeding for a given society (and increased breastfeeding ignorance), leading more women through the generations to become dependent on an external, purchased product rather than trusting their own bodies. It is unconscionable to provide formula to third world countries for free for these and other reasons. It’s also immoral to encourage people to buy “cheap” powdered infant formula when the truth is that the female body can produce a far superior (and practically free!) product, if only the proper education were disseminated about it.

Maybe if everyone had to pay the price of liquid formulas when choosing to formula feed (which is what would happen if everyone knew just how inferior — and even dangerous — powdered formula was), perhaps then breastfeeding and pumping wouldn’t be seen as “gross” and “too much trouble.” It would definitely incentivate a lot of people who erroneously believe formula and breastmilk are “just as good” as one another to at least try breastfeeding and/or pumping before the “easier” formula-feeding, and it may motivate new moms to stick it through the tough times for longer. At the very least, if no one were to buy the powdered formula anymore, it would incentivate those in the formula industry to charge less for their liquid “premium” products, which would be better for everybody — (except, of course, for formula manufacturers and their shareholders).

Formula does not have to be part of the cost of raising a child. It’s not a necessity like a car seat is (for those people who own a car). It is an artificially created need, artificially created through baby-unfriendly hospital policies, aggressive marketing tactics, and the unofficial endorsement of many health care workers (doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, some midwives, etc.) the world over. This artificially created need causes needless illness and death, and it’s all for the sake of making a buck. It is never about the health and well-being of mother and child.

The use of infant formula (homemade or commercially prepared) should be the option of last resort, to be used after all other (better) options have been exhausted. Breastfeeding should always be the first choice, except for the very rare case of severe galactosemia. Powdered infant formula should just never be used at all — babies have better options no matter where in the world they are; much of the time, it’s just a matter of allowing breastfeeding to succeed. Too often breastfeeding is sabotaged by the inappropriate introduction of formula by health care workers, misinformed and exhausted postpartum moms, or well-meaning but misguided family members.

Due to all the health risks associated with consumption of any type of formula, moreover, it is completely inappropriate for any hospital employee or volunteer to feed newborns infant formula routinely unless the mother of the infant is dead, has abandoned the baby, is HIV+, or does not have functioning breasts. And actually, for extreme cases like that, the infants involved should be fed donor breastmilk whenever it’s available (in the case of an HIV+ mom, the mom can try manually expressing her milk into a clean container and flash-pasteurizing the milk to kill the HIV before feeding it to her infant — it would still be far superior to any formula). Funny that if breastfeeding were considered as routine as formula-feeding is now, more healthy donor milk would be available to feed babies whose mothers cannot… Imagine that: A world where every baby is fed breastmilk, and where no corporation is profiting off the sale of human milk. That would surely be a beautiful thing.