The smartest argument formula manufacturers can make in favor of using formula is to imply, through clever marketing tactics, that it’s “just as good” as breastfeeding. But smart does not always means honest. The implications made by formula marketing tactics don’t have to be true, and in fact, they aren’t. The important thing, though, is that consumers believe the implications, that consumers believe the lie.

Analogies are imperfect; I’ve never met one that aligned exactly with what it was trying to explain, and because of this they can be a source of bitter quibbling over the details… Despite that, I will use one to describe what I mean: Formula is to breastfeeding as Coca-Cola is to eating a freshly picked ripe organic orange. There is NO COMPARISON.

So, for a formula manufacturer to say, for example, “Brand X formula now contains DHA and ARA, just like breastmilk,” is like saying, “Coca-Cola now contains the addition of Vitamin C, just like a freshly picked ripe organic orange does.” In both cases, an unfair comparison is made by association, implying that the addition of one discrete item (or two) makes the manufactured product “enough” like the original that it’s “just as good for you (or your baby).” It’s NOT.

I’m not trying to demonize formula itself. There are many legitimate cases where formula use (as in my own personal case) is necessary. However, that necessity has been grossly distorted by formula manufacturers and the trickle-down effect their marketing practices have exerted on the medical community. As a brief example, look at the formula give-aways at hospital discharge in most Western hospitals, maternal-infant separation at birth, and other baby UNfriendly practices that pervade the medicalized birth experience. These routines and practices are no accident or mere coincidence. They are couched as “safety” concerns, but the truth is they have come about out of fear of malpractice suits and the desire to control as many variables as possible in order to avoid being sued. Formula companies LOVE this and exploit it for their own ends, reassuring the medical community that one more variable can be controlled precisely: the baby’s nourishment. Most doctors, ignorant about breastfeeding (medical school dedicates about 1.5 total hours to breastfeeding education, out of FOUR YEARS), are happy about this control, because they perceive that it reduces the risk of malpractice suits, and one hand (medical establishment) washes the other (formula companies), willingly.

My point here and now is that the aggressive marketing of formula has convinced too many people, some of them doctors, that formula is “just as good” as breast milk. It is NOT. Not by far. This nonsense needs to stop right now. It never should have started.

Unfortunately, this is one of the primary goals of formula manufacturers, and they will stop at nothing to convince the entire world that formula is “just as good” as breastfeeding, even if it means lying about it. They have lied before and gotten away with it. Rest assured, they are not deterred by ephemeral negative publicity, and they will lie again. Negative publicity to a huge multi-billion-dollar corporation like Nestle, for example, is a mere trifle, a nuisance, like a gnat flying in its face it can swat away or squash with its hand. They can always buy back the hearts and minds of the public by (grudgingly and dismissively) paying lip-service to “breast is best” while talking out of both sides of their mouth and emphasizing that “our formula is ‘like’ breast milk.” It matters not to them that that comparison is a gross misrepresentation of the truth, as long as there is money to be made.

The real truth, that the difference between formula and breast milk is worlds apart, is the reason why I am skeptical when I read about claims that breastfeeding performs “like” formula for a given data set, even if these claims are published in a prestigious medical journal. It’s not that I’m not inclined to believe it if the science is sound. It’s that I’m not certain I know enough information about what happened behind the scenes to believe what I’m reading. And since it’s happened before, my skepticism remains intact.

On September 11, 2007, I was remembering that fateful day six years before, which changed the course of our history. I didn’t read until a few days later that a breastfeeding study had been published on the very same day. This study on breastfeeding made a surprising discovery. It claimed that “breastfeeding provided no protective benefits” for allergies and asthma (PDF). The story was featured in many online news sources, including an online TIME magazine article entitled “What Breastfeeding Can’t Do.”

Hm, I thought to myself when I read that. Maybe I should read the original study (PDF) to see what I can find.

So I read the study, and it looked pretty solid. But I did notice something strange. The study explained about how it was unethical to create a control group by asking women to formula feed, so they instead had two groups: one in which the mothers were encouraged to breastfeed and actively helped postpartum women as per the WHO and UNICEF baby-friendly hospital initiative guidelines (they called this group PROBIT), and the other in which the women were treated as most women are treated when they give birth in a hospital: as though formula were the “norm.” Unsurprisingly, the group that was encouraged to breastfeed had larger numbers of women breastfeeding exclusively and for longer. This was, in fact, the only thing that could be concluded definitively after reading the entire study: that the WHO and UNICEF baby-friendly initiatives work to encourage breastfeeding (and to thus increase the health and wellbeing of women and their babies universally). But that part was glaringly absent from news and media reports. The other part, the part about breastfeeding offering no protective benefits against allergies and asthma, wasn’t really as crystal clear, yet it made the headlines.

I had a few problems with this study. For starters, the control group and the experimental group both contained mothers who breastfed exclusively. It’s just that one group contained more of one than the other. The experimental group, the one where mothers were encouraged to breastfeed more, had higher incidence of family history of asthma and allergies compared to the control group, as well as a higher incidence of smoking. The difference was statistically significant enough that I wondered why that difference wasn’t noted explicitly when they were drawing their conclusions. It was actually spoken of as though the difference were trivial enough to be ignored, when it’s not. It could have invalidated the findings by introducing too many variables.

The way the data is presented, it’s not clear which of the children who suffered from allergies were the ones that were breastfed and which ones were the ones that were formula fed. Nor was there any mention at all about introduction of solids, which has been shown already to influence allergies. It was really a mess of an experiment, with the doctors aware of who was breastfed and who wasn’t (which could introduce a potential bias) and like I said, the only thing that can be definitively concluded from it is that creating baby-friendly hospital initiatives as per the WHO/UNICEF guidelines increases the initiation and continuation of breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding.

But I dropped it. I didn’t blog about it because I figured it was surely a fluke, and the study does look very tight at first blush, with prestigious McGill Universty as the University to claim it, I figured it was legitimate (and it probably still is, at least in part). It was hard to disprove its legitimacy, so I moved on.

And then today I found out about yet another study that lays a damaging blow to breastfeeding’s normally stellar reputation. Well, okay, not really damaging. But it’s not good news about breastfeeding. It’s a study that supposedly discovered that breastfeeding offers no protection for dental caries in school-age children. I thought to myself, That’s odd. The wording sounds almost like that other study. I wonder if… Nah, it can’t be. Surely it’s not the same people, studying the same two groups, coming to even more disparaging conclusions about breastfeeding. That would be quite the coincidence!

Well, it is. It’s the same PROBIT people, the gang’s all there.

Well, I started wondering who the heck funded these PROBIT people? It can’t be… Nah, not Nestlé. I mean, heh-heh, that’s almost like a cliché. You know, whenever something evil happens in the infant feeding world, some unscrupulous marketing maneuver in favor of infant formula, Nestle is always the culprit, right? Ha-ha-ha. It’s like a joke at this point. Surely they’re not still doing evil, sneaky deeds with the ole formula promotion, right? Surely.

Oh, I wish I could tell you it weren’t so, but I’d be lying. See, the PROBIT study (III) is being funded by two entities: The Canadian Institutes of Health Research and an entity that calls itself The European Union 6th Framework Programme. Oooo. Sounds official.

Why is it that nowhere on the website for the EARNEST Program (a division of the EU 6th Framework Programme, NOT the entire EU 6th Framework Programme, which is the “financial arm” of a lot of European research) is there any real positive mention of breastfeeding? Why is it that an entire website dedicated to “early nutrition,” complete with pictures of babies (none of them breastfeeding, but with one very young-looking baby being spoon-fed solid food), there isn’t really any talk of breastfeeding, but LOTS of talk about infant formula? What kind of an “educational” nutrition site is this anyway? Oh, wait. I think I know. After finding the members of the Consortium which make it up, I found one of the members to be Dr. Katherine Mace, from Nestlé, Switzerland. Nestlé’s headquarters are in Switzerland, and Nestlé is a multi-billion-dollar (or should I say multi-billion-franc? Eh, potato, potahto…) corporation which makes billions more every year selling infant formula and other foodstuffs around the world. You think that’s why, maybe, there’s no real mention of breastfeeding on the entire website? That breastfeeding is kind of an invisible afterthought, on a site that claims to specialize in early nutrition for goodness’ sake, and that lots of talk of infant formula, as though it were the infant feeding norm, doesn’t cause my hackles to go up? Yeah, it does. (EARNEST — “The Early Nutrition Programming Project” — is actually a consortium composed in part by European infant formula and cereal manufacturers, including: NUMICO, Ordesa, and Nestlé, S.A. It also includes other food manufacturers and food manufacturing research entities which appear to all be related to the food and/or drug industry in some capacity, along with a few neutral universities thrown in. You might also be interested in reading this “enlightening” and completely biased article, on the International Association of Infant Food Manufacturers website, by Alan Lucas, a significant player in the EARNEST program: Collaborative Research with Infant Formula Companies Should Not Always Be Censored. All I have to say to that is, “What the fuck kind of statement is that?!” And furthermore, “Yes, it should be censored.” And I am the sort of person that normally doesn’t like the idea of anything being censored, but I draw the line at having formula companies conduct their version of breastfeeding “research” and having people believe the conclusions they draw are unbiased).

You know what’s really interesting, though? The President of Nutrition for Nestle Canada, Ms. Marilyn Knox, sat on the advisory board of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in 2001-2002. Question: Why did the Canadian Institutes of Science Research allow the President of Nutrition for Nestlé Canada to participate as one of its advisory board members? I don’t know the answer to that question, but maybe the Canadian Institutes of Health Research does? Would be interesting to hear it. At the very least, I think there’s a conflict of interest in having an important employee of a multi-billion dollar international food corporation sit in on the advisory board of a national health institute. But that’s just me.

Oh, here’s another interesting tidbit. One of the professors in charge of securing funding for the study, Professor Michael Kramer of McGill University… Oh, wait, he’s not just one of the… He’s the first one listed, indicating he’s probably the main professor in charge of the study. He’s done research for The “Nestlé Nutrition Workshop Series” (PDF). Conflict of interest, much?

Nestlé is powerful enough to influence the truth. They’ve already done it (and continue to do it) fabulously well (for them) in their marketing practices in third world countries. For first world countries, a more sophisticated approach is needed, one that appears more credible than mere WHO-code-violating television commercials. The first-world approach seems to involve funding legitimate-sounding studies, and if not the studies themselves, then the conclusions drawn from them years later, with claims that they are the “largest randomized trials ever undertaken in the area of human lactation.” Pretty lofty, important-sounding claims! I suppose any conclusions drawn from them must be the truth, right?  Who knows?

Here’s an exercise to bring this concept of Nestlé’s pervasive influence around the world further home, especially for those of you who boycott Nestlé. These are some of Nestlé’s brands, some of which don’t say “Nestlé” explicitly on them. Can you honestly say you don’t have a single one in your home? Or that you haven’t bought one in, say, the last week?

Remember this: Always question. Never stop. If the conclusions drawn by a study were paid for (even if only in part) by someone selling formula (i.e., Nestle), those same conclusions may lack credibility.

(I am still finishing up that Breastfeeding Promotion Act action post I’ve been promising you, dear readers. Don’t despair.)

I’ve seen his stand-up. I’ve watched his show, “Politically Incorrect.” I never was much impressed with either. Sure, he was funny at times — who isn’t if given enough airtime? — But for the most part, he always struck me as a misogynistic ass.

I was not wrong, apparently. Last night, Bill Maher spoke out on breastfeeding and lactivism, making fun of the latter and criticizing the former. Apparently, in Bill Maher’s world, it’s totally okay to show tits if they’re being used ornamentally, but start feeding a baby and suddenly that’s totally inappropriate. He compares public nursing to masturbation… because…Well, because he’s an idiot. I’ll break it down into more digestible pieces for the idiots out there, like Bill Maher, that compare breastfeeding to masturbation because they are both “natural” acts.

Breastfeeding is compared to masturbation, defecation, urination, spitting, and a whole slew of unappetizing but ultimately natural acts by morons everywhere. Here’s a newsflash for you: breastfeeding is natural, yes, and those other things are also natural. Death is also natural, but lactivists are not advocating for public death. “Because it’s natural” is not the only reason to breastfeed. It’s a minor one, not sufficient to fully explain why breastfeeding is better than formula feeding for the infant, just the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, breastfeeding is natural, but that’s not why most people choose to do it. Women choose it for their babies, and work so hard to make it a reality for themselves, because it’s the best, most healthful feeding choice available to them. Many women who breastfeed successfully cannot pump enough milk to make a full bottle for their babies, a fact that is completely ignored by these (usually men) who criticize women who breastfeed in public by saying they “don’t plan ahead” or are “lazy.” Additionally, a lot of breastfed babies would refuse to drink from a bottle even if their moms did manage to squeeze out enough milk to feed them. You cannot force a baby to eat, either at the breast or from a bottle. What are these women expected to do? Stay at home for two years plus? Never go anywhere, because Bill Maher and others like him deem breastfeeding moms a “nuisance?” (Post-partum depression due to isolation…? Nah… Just tell those ‘whiny’ post-partum women to pop a pill to ‘deal with it,’ right, Bill?) Oh wait, I know what you really want… You want these mothers to wean their babies prematurely so that you don’t have to bother with averting your gaze when you see their babies eating in public. That’s more like it, right? (Remember, many babies refuse to nurse if you cover them with a blanket, so that’s not an option either.)

So, Bill, our cause isn’t “important” enough? This is a public health crisis, as far as I’m concerned, apparently a much bigger one than I initially thought with influential people like you poisoning the minds of your audience members with this dreck, yet you don’t think it’s “important” because you can’t appreciate the effect it has on society? At least tell me you received a check from the IFC, or that you have shares in formula stock, so that the selling of your soul actually made you some money. I wouldn’t be surprised either way, actually. Your stand-up has always had misogynistic overtones, so you probably did this (and gave the formula companies a foothold, probably without even intending to) for free.

Look, I’m all for global warming awareness. There’s definitely enough evidence to indicate that’s a real problem. This awareness of global warming and other salient issues does not preclude me from also being aware of the importance of getting more mothers to breastfeed, and for fighting for the rights of these same mothers to be openly accepted in society when they take their children out in public. How does one negate the other?! I don’t follow your line of (completely irrational) thinking…

Here’s video of Bill Maher making a complete ass of himself. The anti-lactivism segment starts when the YouTube counter reads 2:51. (Those of you in the know will notice Bill Maher is extra clueless since he states that the Applebee’s nurse-out was the “world’s first.” My previous post dispels that bit of fiction definitively.)

Update: The blog response has been overwhelming regarding Bill Maher’s anti-breastfeeding-in-public stance. Salon featured an article about it (in which this blog, as well as others, were linked) entitled “Bill Maher: ‘Don’t Show me Your Tits!’” So, is the next step a nurse-in at the “Real Time with Bill Maher” studio?  This ought to be interesting…

When I was post-partum, which, for those of you who don’t know what that is, means “just pushed a baby out your hoo-ha,” what I wanted more than anything was for someone to care for me. From all the conversations I’ve had with other women who have experienced the exquisite delight that is caring for one’s own beaten body, one’s new baby, one’s spouse, one’s household, and one’s other various duties simultaneously the first month after giving birth, I think this desire is resoundingly universal. Post-partum women want to be cared for.

A lot of people think they know what that means. Many people erroneously believe that when a woman who’s just given birth says, “I just want someone to take care of me,” she means, “Take care of my baby.” Well, I hate to break it to these people, but that’s not what she means. When she says, “I just want someone to take care of me, she literally means, “I just want someone to take care of ME.” (emphasis added for clarity)

So, how does one go about this…this…”care of The Post-Partum?” (”The Post-Partum,” I know, sounds like a description for a legion of zombies in a horror movie… The really scary part is that if you were to amass together a large enough group of post-partum women, the resemblance to this would be striking.)

I don’t want to generalize too much, so instead of saying how all post-partum women wish to be cared for, I’ll just share with you what I wanted when I was post-partum. (”I” statements can be very empowering, or so I have heard.)

Without further ado, here’s my personal diatribe wish list, in no particular order, for the post-partum period (the “you” in it is whoever has the temerity to attempt to fulfill my wishes):

• Don’t touch my baby. Just… don’t. Don’t ask to touch the baby, either. Also, don’t ask why I don’t want you touching the baby. Furthermore, I don’t care if it’s irrational. Some things just are. It’s my baby, so deal with it gracefully. And! …No guilting me for not letting you hold my baby either. Your attitude about this is supposed to reflect absolute understanding and sensitivity. I want to hear you say, with complete sincerity (no sarcasm, or I will personally claw your face off with my filthy post-partum fingernails), “Of course I wouldn’t even consider taking your beautiful, gorgeous, perfect baby from you. I totally understand how strong your biological urge and need is right now to keep your baby close. It’s so important for bonding and getting breastfeeding properly established, and I wouldn’t dream of trying to short-circuit that with my own selfish desire to hold a new baby, or for any other stupid reason, stupid being defined at your discretion.” I’m glad we have an understanding.
• I want food. Good food. Give it to me!! Not something from a fast-food restaurant, either, and certainly nothing with partially hydrogenated oils in it. I want something home-cooked, USDA certified organic, made with lactogenic herbs and foregoing the use of anti-lactogeni… You know what? It might be a good idea for you to read Mother Food from cover-to-cover before preparing me a meal. I have, and I insist that you learn about galactagogues so that I don’t have to keep explaining to you what I can and can’t eat. Once you bring me my meal, which should actually be equivalent to at least 2.5 normal meals in portion size (or I will put a gypsy curse on you and your family), you will cut up all my food into bite-sized pieces for me so that I don’t have to. And then you will lovingly feed it to me as I concentrate on figuring out how to breastfeed my new baby. You shall do this every day — more than once a day, if need be — for at least a month, possibly longer.
• While we’re on the subject of breastfeeding, I would really like you to bring me an experienced, sensitive, knowledgeable, non-judgmental, woman-friendly person to show me how to breastfeed, and I’d like her to show up the instant I need her, preferably well before the first feeding, and not when my child is already so frustrated with the effort of eating that he/she completely refuses to come near my breasts. This woman need not be a lactation consultant, because that title unfortunately does not guarantee competency, but she certainly can be. She would preferably have a baby of her own of a similar age to mine and she will show me with her baby how she does it. This person will also magically know exactly how to fix all my breastfeeding problems and additionally, will imbue me with this knowledge (and magic) in less than a week. This person is allowed to touch my baby, but only for the purposes of aiding me with breastfeeding.
• I need water. Lots of water. Bring me glass after glass of water, filtered. The water doesn’t need ice, but — oh heck, I might as well go all out — It needs ice. Not ice cubes, either; I want that deliciously fun crushed ice, the kind that gets pulverized almost instantly when you hold it firmly between your molars, but not the kind that feels glassy and sharp. I want continuous free refills of this iced, purified water left at my bedside, with a bendy straw, and I want you to bus all used dirty dishes and glasses away as soon as I’m done with them, without me asking. Also once you’ve taken all the dirty dishes to the kitchen, wash them, dry them, and put them away for me, as I don’t think I’ll be up for that task anytime soon.
• Unless you’re a disease-free, drug-free lactating mother with a good milk supply, don’t offer to feed my baby for me. However, even if you are a disease-free, drug-free lactating mother with a good milk supply, there is no guarantee I will let you feed my baby. Please refer to the “hands-off the baby” policy outlined above.
• Under no circumstances is anyone to tell me to feed my baby formula or to “just give the baby a bottle.” You don’t want to know what will happen to you, and all of your descendants, if you should try to defy this wish.
• If after weighing the baby and accounting for poopy and wet diapers, it is determined that the baby isn’t getting enough milk, and after I’ve done everything reasonably within my power to increase my milk supply and deemed that it still isn’t enough for the baby, wash your hands and fill my Lact-Aids for me with donated breastmilk or formula and, only if you are extremely knowledgeable and experienced in this, help me latch the baby on while I wear one.
• Tell me what a great job I’m doing, and what an excellent mother I am, even if it’s clear that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and I just put the diaper on the baby inside-out. And backwards.
• Encourage me to rest with my baby. Help me learn how to latch the baby on while lying down. Help me learn how to consistently get a good latch, and not a shallow one that will soon turn my nipples into raw ground chuck.
• When you see that I’m using cloth diapers and that the diaper pail is looking full, say, “Hey, let me throw those in the wash for you,” and then do it. Do it like I would, and make sure you don’t ruin any of my diapers. It’s not likely, but if you do ruin any of them, get me equivalent replacements, pronto, without me asking. Also, when the diapers are done, throw a load of regular laundry in the washing machine too. The dirty clothes and linens will probably have piled up since the birth, and I don’t really have the extra energy reserves to do laundry right now.
• Remind me gently when I need to take all my 30+ daily pills (pain medication, iron tablet, laxative, prenatal vitamin, calcium, galactagogue, galactagogue, galactagogue, omega-3 oils, other supplements, etc.), galactagogue tinctures, and any other necessary medication (salves, ointments, unguents, etc. if applicable), throughout the day. Also, make sure to keep my supplies of witch hazel pads, clean panties, ice-pack sanitary napkins, and ordinary sanitary napkins refreshed.
• You know what else needs attention? The bathroom. I’ll bet, what with all the bleeding I’ve been doing, that it’s not at its “freshest.” So, if you would, please scrub it down for me: toilet, tub, sink, floors…take out the trash… Just… everything. It all needs attention, which I don’t have the energy to give right now since I’m focused on (1) learning to keep my new baby alive with my breasts and (2) trying to mend my torn body back to health.
• I was lucky enough to not have needed a cesarean, but if I’d had a C-section, I’d also want someone to: clean, dress, and monitor my wound (several times a day), help me get out of (and back into) bed whenever I needed it, and keep the baby’s diaper changed for me so that I can concentrate fully on breastfeeding while recovering from my surgery (the “hands-off-the-baby” policy makes an exception for this situation as well). Also, if I’m too weak to hold my baby, please put the baby to my breast for me. In this and all Mama Bear postpartum situations, let’s pretend formula and baby bottles don’t exist. This means you and I work hard and do what we can to keep the baby nursing as often and as much as possible from my breasts, even if I am not conscious. Capisce?
• If my baby fusses, don’t automatically assume that he/she is starving. Instead, reassure me that my milk will come in if it hasn’t yet and that billions of women before me have breastfed successfully even though their milk didn’t come in for days after the baby was born. Remind me that colostrum is the only thing my baby needs in his/her digestive system in the first few days, that it is perfect in quantity and substance for his/her tiny, marble-sized sensitive newborn stomach, and that I produce enough of it to meet my baby’s needs. Also, remind me that the baby is still within normal weight range if he/she takes two full weeks after birth to get back up to birth weight (as long as the baby is urinating and defecating properly and also shows no signs of dehydration).
• Remind me to feed my baby with my own breasts every hour, on the hour, to help establish a good milk supply. Gently encourage me to wake the baby with this much frequency, if need be, round the clock until my milk supply becomes well-established. This takes some finesse and good judgment, and I can modify this request as many times as I want, so as not to exhaust myself nor the baby. It is because of this that I need to be encouraged to lie-in with the baby, to stay all day (and all night) in bed with him/her if need be, because establishing a milk supply can be very exhausting, especially with a precarious milk supply situation.
• It should go without saying that I want my baby with me, in my arms, from the instant he/she is born to forever. It makes no sense to separate me from my child, none at all, for any reason other than for a grave life-threatening emergency. “Washing off” the baby is not a grave emergency, and neither is “observation” nor is “hospital policy.” Kangaroo care isn’t just for preemies. All babies like it, and I think all babies should have it. Babies aren’t born expecting a cold incubator or bassinet, nor do they expect to be fed with anything other than a breast. Babies, when they are born, expect to be held by their mothers and breastfed. If their mother is not available, they still expect to be held by someone, so if I’m not available to hold my baby, give the baby to my husband, teach him how to hold the baby if he’s not sure how, because he’s the father and he has way more right to hold his own child than even the highest-paid hospital worker there is. If my baby’s father is not available, the baby should still be held by someone who cares for him/her, has no contagious diseases, and can properly hold a baby (preferably a loving adult relative), until I am able to hold my child… That is, unless everyone’s arms are occupied or unable to hold the baby. If that happens, then, as a case of last resort, the baby should be put in a bassinet or incubator. (I’m still confused, though, as to why the bassinet is the first choice in hospitals, and not kangaroo care. Kangaroo care is better for the babies and cheaper for the hospitals, so why is it not the dominant medical paradigm’s first choice whenever possible?! …Don’t answer that; I can warrant a few guesses.) I feel that bassinets/incubators (and formula, i.e. artificial feeding) should be the option of last resort, only to be used when no better option is available or possible, but I guess that’s just way too much to ask of most hospitals in the United States.
• Unless I am dead, if you want to feed my baby, put the baby to my breast, even if I am passed out unconscious. If you don’t want to do it yourself, teach my husband how to put the baby to my breast. Whatever you do, don’t feed my baby with a bottle, and definitely not formula.
• Don’t even think about giving my baby a pacifier
• Take care of any other household duties for me, child care of older children, pet care, plant care, lawn care, and guest-care, etc. Ward off obnoxious, clueless, oblivious-to-the-needs-of-postpartum-women guests as needed. Tell them that I said to fuck off, especially if they show up without food for me and even moreso if they are showing up just to see/ogle/touch/hold the baby. If they expect to be catered to by me while I’m recovering from having just had a baby tear out of my body, as in, “I’d like a glass of water,” that sort of thing… Ask them if they’d like some of my lochia in their water. I cannot guarantee, because I’m recovering from a pretty physically traumatic event, as outwardly ordinary as it may appear to them, that I’ll have the wherewithal, between caring for my newly born infant and my own pain-wracked body, to remember to wash my hands after using the bathroom and before preparing their glass of water. After you inform them of this fact, then I’d like you to call the cops and report them as intruders. Seriously. I don’t want people like that in my house. Also, even though you could get them their water, I’d rather have you take care of me, and not cater to able-bodied, ungrateful, oblivious houseguests that, frankly, could get their own damn water on their own time and don’t deserve the privilege of meeting my baby or even stepping foot in my house.
• Listen to me when I want to talk about, well, …anything. Listen with your whole heart and mind, and nod in all the right places with genuine (not feigned) sincerity and interest. Tell me what you think, too. Share with me, without judgment or criticism, what you feel. Keep the lines of communication open.
• Don’t patronize me by telling me that I must be suffering from post-partum depression because I sob from the depths of my soul at unpredictable intervals. It is normal to cry at the life-changing event of having a baby, to acknowledge that the unbelievably perfect and beautiful angel in my arms is a complete miracle of the universe, and to be awed and humbled and completely taken by surprise at the sheer incredibleness of this life-altering realization. It is to be expected that I sob at the terrifying reality that this exquisite creature has been entrusted to me, and that I am now in charge of his/her life and well-being, forever. Trying to minimize this emotional upheaval and necessary mental/emotional processing by telling me there’s something wrong with me that needs to be medicated out is unconscionable. If watching me cry and experience the natural range of human emotion (which includes sadness, anger, and even — *gasp* — rage) makes you uncomfortable, do me a favor and put another load of laundry in the wash for me or go out and get me some more food. If you can’t do that, at the very least practice what you preach and take a pill that will make you not care how emotional I get. That alone would do heaps more for me (and my baby) than paying lip-service to the knee-jerk response of “getting help” for PPD the PhRMA way. You want to know what real help for a postpartum Mama Bear looks like? Re-read this list.
• You know what else? If you were to actually fulfill all of the above recommendations for me, I think the probability of true postpartum depression entering my postpartum world would be next to nil. Just FYI.
• Let’s see… What else can you do for me? A foot massage every once in a while would be nice, too. But I wouldn’t want to overburden you. Looks like you’ve got enough on your plate.

All in all, that about sums up my postpartum rant wishlist… This is what I would want, truly want (if I’m going to be brutally, tactlessly honest), during the postpartum period. It doesn’t have to be all from one person either. I’m guessing that in the ideal situation, a postpartum woman would have this kind of care and protection from a combination of sources: a supportive group of mothers, compassionate relatives, reliable friends, a loving spouse, competent health care workers, and/or paid help. I can’t speak for any other women, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if most women who’ve given birth would have wanted at least some of what’s on the above list. I also, sadly, wouldn’t be surprised to hear that too many women don’t get any of the right kind of help when they’re at their most vulnerable.

I’ve been sitting on this for a while, letting my thoughts percolate through my mind. Recently it has come to light, through a Washington Post report, that certain breastfeeding promotion ads in 2004 were toned down because of pressure from The International Formula Council (representing, as of April 2004: Ross; Mead Johnson; Nestle USA Solus Products; PBM Products, LLC; and Wyeth Nutrition).

The ads which were toned down depicted a rubber nipple placed on an asthma inhaler or an insulin bottle, with a syringe in the background. The images, in my opinion, are striking and definitely attention-getting. Some might even call them inflammatory.

When I first read about this on a few blogs, I was very upset about the original ads getting pulled because of pressure from the IFC. Clearly the incentive on the part of the formula companies is to make money, and a negative ad campaign like that one would make formula a difficult sell to any mother who thinks of breastfeeding as a mere “lifestyle choice.” But what bothered me the more I thought about it is that the inflammatory ads would disenfranchise a person like me, too, who does not bottle-feed by choice (my baby refuses to breastfeed). As it is, even with a mostly anti-breastfeeding culture, I find myself in the position of having to explain to perfect strangers why it is I’m feeding my baby with a bottle (because they ask me), or getting impolite stares when I pull out a bottle to feed my baby. I pump every day, eight times a day, for twenty minutes, using a double electric hospital grade breast pump (actually, two different ones), but I still manage to only produce about 16 ounces for any given 24-hour period. This means I must supplement with something else, some other, lesser milk, so that my child won’t starve. For various reasons, I’ve chosen this supplement to be formula. Yes, I have received donor breastmilk from extremely kind-hearted donors, but it takes a lot of milk to feed a baby, and now that she’s a year old, my donors have understandably “hung up the horns,” a euphemism that means they’ve stopped pumping for my baby. So I am left with the only viable option: supplement with another mammal’s milk.

I am not under any delusions that the formula companies make their formula better or “closer to mother’s milk” because they care about my baby. I know they are watching their bottom line, and any new marketing strategy, including improving the quality of their artificial baby milk so that it contains more components found in breastmilk, will improve their chances of making a sale. I know this, and as a consumer, I don’t buy formula because I want to help the formula companies succeed with their business. I do it because I need to feed my baby something that will sustain her, since the quantity of breastmilk I produce isn’t sufficient to meet her needs (notice that I said “quantity” and not “quality.” The quality of my milk is far superior to any formula or other mammals’ milk for my baby; I just don’t make enough of it).

So, within this context, here’s my take on the ad campaign bruhaha: I agree that the ad campaign which featured a rubber nipple on an asthma inhaler and insulin bottle is inflammatory and, because of its negative nature, would not be effective at convincing women to breastfeed. It would succeed in shaming women who aren’t successful at breastfeeding, and that would turn a large percentage of women against breastfeeding activists, which would in turn, slow or stop all progress toward getting breastfeeding recognized as a cultural norm.

I think the alternative, softened, ad campaign is also not effective at getting women to breastfeed, though.

Furthermore, I think trying to convince women to breastfeed using ad campaigns is like changing a tire on a car because the engine overheated and burned out. I think the problem lies much deeper than merely women “choosing” not to breastfeed, and I don’t think individual women should take the fall (in the form of criticism for their feeding “choices”) for a societal and poorly incentivized medical model problem.

The real problem? It’s very simple: doctors and nurses don’t have the right incentives in place to encourage women to breastfeed. Our United States “health care” system (and quite possibly, other health care systems around the world, with completely different medical models), is not about health. It’s about making money. Unfortunately, because most hospitals in this country and their affiliates (like pharmaceutical companies, which make and sell drugs) are for-profit entities, and because we as a society tolerate that in the spirit of democracy (which it really isn’t) and capitalism (which is definitely is), corporations that benefit from this broken system buy off a lot of politicians that could enact real social change but who choose not to because enacting real social change to benefit the majority of the population is not lucrative enough. Not as lucrative as, say, receiving a check from the IFC. Or, if need be, a threat, overt or implied.

This is what makes Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s recent decision to make hospitals more breastfeeding-friendly in New York City so incredibly revolutionary. It seems like such a small thing, especially with the negative way the media handled it, but it’s not. It’s HUGE. For a politician to stand up to such a powerful lobby like the IFC and say, “Nah, I’m not interested in your money or your threats. I’m going to enact this breastfeeding-friendly policy anyway, regardless of your negative media publicity because it’s the right thing to do,” speaks volumes about the sort of person Mike Bloomberg is. This is the sort of legislation that needs to take place in cities all over this country if our culture is to ever going to accept breastfeeding as the norm. An ad campaign is a nice idea, but it will not have the impact that enacting breastfeeding-friendly hospital policies will.

Now the only problem is figuring out how to do that in places that don’t have Mike Bloomberg for a leader.

Bravo, ABC World News! I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw the televised report tonight (entitled “Breast Milk Battle”) that I felt like I had to not only share a link to the video, but commend ABC World News for being the first news outlet I’ve seen to get this story right. It makes Meredith Viera and Dr. Nancy Snyderman from The Today Show (and Elisabeth Hasselbeck from The View) look like a trio of irresponsible, greedy alarmists in comparison, and rightfully so.

Watch ABC World News’ “Breast Milk Battle” and judge for yourself.

It’s amazing what happens when you get a really good policy change, one that will actually make a positive difference in the lives of so many babies and their mothers, and you mix it up with a bunch of sponsorship money, influential television shows, and biased health “professionals.” Well, what you get is the public believing that New York City has banned formula and baby bottles from NYC hospitals altogether.

If I were to hear that, I would be completely outraged, too! I would protest! I would demand justice! How dare Michael Bloomberg take away our womanly freedom of feeding choices! That man, he’s just a man, and what does he know about what women want or need anyway? And the government! What right does the government have to infringe upon women’s freedoms like this?! This is completely absurd!

It is absurd, because all of that is a big fat LIE.

Nobody is taking formula out of hospitals. Nobody is taking bottles out of hospitals. If a woman gives birth in a New York City hospital, she can ask for a bottle full of formula and it will be given to her. There is no infringement on anybody’s rights, and anybody that reports on this new policy change in that way is knowingly reporting inaccurate information. The official New York City press release makes the new policy abundantly clear.

Furthermore, it is not an inalienable right to have a free goodie bag full of formula when you leave the hospital. The fact that New York City is still handing out goodie bags with breastfeeding support information, and pumps to mothers who qualify, is a BONUS to the new policy change, yet another incentive to help new moms continue with breastfeeding (which, as everyone knows and even the formula companies acknowledge, is the BEST way to feed one’s baby). Nobody is saying formula-feeding is bad, only that breastfeeding is better (a well-established and scientifically proven fact, admitted even by the formula companies). Not only is breastfeeding better, it is the biological norm. In order to better set up NYC mothers to succeed at the way infants were meant to be fed, New York City hospitals are now finally taking the action all hospitals everywhere should.

There is no gestapo; there is no controversy. The controversy you are hearing about on the news is artificially created based on lies and deception and motivated primarily by money. Don’t think for a second that any powerful, influential person arguing against the formula sample ban cares about the welfare of women’s “rights” or babies. They will only do so as long as they have a stake in making some money off people believing they care.

I want to share with you a video segment from The Today Show in which a guest, Dr. (?) Nancy Snyderman shares her thoughts on the new policy change. I don’t know what world Nancy Snyderman is living in, but the alternate universe in which the government! and! men! are! making! feeding! choices! for! new! mothers! and! not! letting! them! decide! for! themselves! is not in accordance with reality.

An amazing reader of this blog and researcher, Melissa from Richmond, Virginia, Tivoed that show the day it aired and wrote down a list of all the commercials in between segments (she also located for me the link for the video below — Thank you, Melissa!). Not surprisingly, among the sponsors for The Today Show that day were: Juicy Juice Harvest Surprise, Purina Cat Chow, Purina Kitten Chow, and Lean Cuisine. Who owns these companies? Nestle, one of the biggest formula manufacturers in the world. Oh, but there’s more. There were also commercials for Ensure (made by Abbot Labs, maker of Similac infant formula), Centrum, Preparation H, and Caltrate (all three owned by Wyeth, maker of infant formula). There could be more, but if there are, they were harder to find. From just the aforementioned sponsors, the ones I was able to spot (with a little help from another blog reader and mom who wishes to remain anonymous) that’s eight commercials paid for by companies that have a stake in how well formula sells.

Based on what was discussed, the negative slant toward breastfeeding, the obvious denouncement by MSNBC’s own Chief Medical Editor (Nancy Snyderman) of the formula sample ban, and the evidence of conflict-of-interest presented by the parent companies of many of that show’s sponsors, I would NOT say The Today Show from the morning of August 2, 2007 was reporting on the NYC formula ban fairly and without bias.

My point in all this is, don’t let yourself be swayed by all the pretty window dressing. In the end, if you find controversy about any subject, look closer and you’ll find out all you need to know. The real controversy here is that most hospitals in the United States aren’t baby-friendly. Most babies born in hospitals in the United States are forcibly separated from their mothers immediately after birth and fed formula as part of the hospital routine. In order for a woman to try breastfeeding after giving birth in a hospital, she has to make special requests for her baby NOT to be fed with a bottle. How crazy is it that women have to fight to feed their babies the way they were meant to be fed and feeding them artificially is considered “normal?” How come no news anchors are protesting that?

Watch the formula segment on The Today Show yourself (there’s a random commercial at the beginning; wait it out and you’ll get to see the segment). Share your thoughts below.

Have you heard the news? (link includes video) New York City is doing away with all formula advertisements, posters, baby bottles, and formula samples in hospitals. Instead of formula freebies, which is what most hospitals across the country and in many parts of the world do (this is against the baby-friendly initiatives devised by the WHO and UNICEF, btw), NYC hospitals will now give away a mini cooler for breast milk, a baby outfit that says “I Eat At Mom’s,” breast pumps… And and and… This is the best part… The hospital policy from now on will be to put the baby to the mom’s breast in the delivery or recovery room within an hour after birth!! YEAH! No unnecessary hospital separations for mom and baby before they’ve gotten a chance to try breastfeeding! Woo-hoo! If I could re-elect mayor Bloomberg, the man responsible for making these new policies the law, I would.

Something I found absurd: A quote by a woman who allegedly disagrees with the ban was, “That doesn’t mean that those people have the nutrition or the education to support it [breastfeeding]. It [formula] should be an option.” This comment was made by a woman who claims she breastfed her child for five years. I think her comment must have either been taken out of context or she’s not understanding the policy. The policy doesn’t mean a woman can’t choose whether or not to formula-feed her child. A woman living in NYC can choose to feed her kid whatever she wants, even with the breastfeeding-friendly initiatives in place. She can even still request to have her child be formula-fed in the hospital; that hasn’t changed. What has changed is that the formula isn’t being shoved in new mothers’ faces, giving the implication, since it is being given away by health professionals unbidden, that it is somehow better than what their own bodies can produce. Breastfeeding is the biological norm, not bottle-feeding, so it would only make sense for hospitals and other health care facilities to support it this way, which unfortunately, most of them in the United States do NOT.

The education for breastfeeding that the commenter says people lack is finally happening all over NYC (and New York state for that matter), which is part of what makes this program so brilliant. Furthermore, to address her “nutrition” concern, you could eat McDonald’s and breastfeed and your breast milk would still be of higher quality than even the best formula you could buy, which should tell you a lot about how inferior formula really is. I didn’t examine all the ins and outs of the program, so I don’t know if extra help will be given to women in the nutrition department, but I believe WIC provides low-income women with extra food allowances if they choose to breastfeed.

The more I think about it, the more I think the woman who commented was asked, “What do you think of the new ban on formula in NYC?” Which can be interpreted to mean, “What do you think of banning all formula in NYC and disallowing women to formula-feed their children?” If that were the case, then her answer is totally reasonable.

Another commenter said, “I don’t think that is something that should be held against the mother [if she doesn’t breastfeed].” I agree with this, definitely, 100%. As someone who has to supplement with formula, and who has to use bottles because the breastfeeding didn’t work out, I am painfully aware that some situations warrant bottle and/or formula use. No woman should ever have to explain why she’s using a bottle to feed her baby. However, a lot of bottle-feeding is initiated because of a lack of support at crucial times after delivery or what can be interpreted as a silent support of formula in hospitals (formula posters on the walls and in doctor’s offices, free formula giveaways, goody bags with formula logos on them, coupons for formula, etc.), which this new program will help to address.

Yay!

(Other blogs where you can find more thoughts on this subject: Women’s Health News, The Lactivist, banthebags.org, babygooroo, Human Lactation Information, Black Breastfeeding Blog. If you have a blog and have written in favor of this new policy, contact me, and I’ll include a link to your post here.)

Oh, this is sad. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is newsworthy. My aim in informing the world of things related to breastfeeding is in the hopes of effecting a positive change, not to bring anybody down.

But still. It’s very tragic.

According to a new report, the push by some groups to encourage HIV+ mothers in Africa to eschew breastfeeding for formula in the effort to reduce HIV transmission to their babies has backfired miserably. According to the report, the risk of a baby dying from being formula-fed in many parts of Africa is much higher than the miniscule risk of acquiring HIV from their mothers’ milk, had they been breastfed. Breastfeeding, even if it’s from an HIV+ mother, provides immunities and protection to the baby that formula cannot replicate. Moreover, improperly prepared formula in unsanitary conditions often leads to diarrhea, a common cause of death in many parts of rural Africa.

Thank you to Jennifer James of The Black Breastfeeding Blog for providing the link.

Unfortunately, it’s taking a long time for mainstream ideologies to catch up with what researchers in South Africa, like Anna Coutsoudis, have suspected for years: that exclusive breastfeeding is better for babies born to HIV+ mothers in rural Africa than formula. Coutsoudis, the South African hero responsible for creating the iThemba Lethu milk bank in 2001, is a professor of pediatrics and child health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban and has been involved in pediatric HIV research for over a decade. She has also been a prominent breastfeeding supporter and advocate for baby-friendly hospital policies. Additionally, she has helped to create educational programs to increase awareness of sustainable home pasteurization of breast milk for women who are HIV+, in an effort to increase the waning breastfeeding rate in South Africa.

Ahh, feels good to end on a positive note. It’s a great way to begin World Breastfeeding Week, which starts tomorrow, August 1, and finishes August 7. However, it’s important to note that for many families, every week is Breastfeeding Week.

Edited to add: All of the donations from purchases made in the store for the month of August will go to La Leche League International.

In the meantime, I want to share this UNICEF documentary I found on YouTube. It’s about formula marketing in the Phillippines. This is similar to the practices that led to the scandal in the 1970’s with Nestle, only now there are more companies at it than just Nestle. I’m beginning to think that the allure of money is just too seductive for big companies (and sometimes even small businesses, like some of the unscrupulous midwives shown in the documentary) to ignore. I suppose it can become easy for individuals with already shaky ethics to be swayed completely when confronted with the opportunity to make extra cash. I’m not saying I don’t understand that this is part of human nature. I just wish so many big businesses in the baby-nutrition industry would stop disappointing me with their questionable marketing campaigns.

As you watch this documentary (which is broken up into five parts that pick up one after another after you push the “play” button on each), note that what it portrays in the Phillippines with regard to formula is analogous to the situation here in the USA with Prolacta and the methods they employ to recruit breast milk donors (complete with midwifery/birth center recruitment as well). I guess one thing Prolacta has going for them is at least they’re not recommending that people formula-feed. It’s actually to Prolacta’s benefit that more women lactate, so that they can provide them with the raw material for their human milk fortifier. There are a lot of problems with the Prolacta-midwifery/birth center arrangement, though, which I’ll get to in later posts.

I hope you learn as you watch the video, entitled “Formula for Disaster.” (The beginning was a bit hard for me to watch, with the baby crying for sooooo long without getting picked up, but once you get past it, the information conveyed is very compelling.) Duration: about 30 minutes for all five parts together. If you can’t watch the whole thing, one part is better than nothing, and they all teach something valuable.

What can you do about this?  You can visit the Baby Milk Action “Campaign for Ethical Marketing” page and learn more about how you can write to the formula companies who are doing this.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, too. Comment below or contact me privately.