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Sunday, May 19, 2002“Of nursing children. Oh! what a raket do authors make about this, what thwarting and contradicting, not of others only, but of themselves. What reasons do they bring why a woman must needs nurse her own child? Some extorted from divinity. Sarah nursed Isaac, thereof every woman must nurse her own child. Why is it not as good an argument, that because David was a king and a prophet, therefore every man must be a king, and every king a prophet. And on the other side: it would make a dying man laugh, or a horse break his halter, to hear how they thwart all this again. Say they...the child draws his conditions from his nurse...Alcibiades being an Athenian, was so strong and valiant because he sucked a Spartan woman. Cornelius Tertius strained all the wits to find out the reason, why the Germans are such strong boned men: and the result of his weak and tired brains was, because they had sucked their own mother. And why had not Alcibiades bin so if he had sucked his.” The World Health Organization, which has long been a watchdog for the infant formula industry in the developing world, now turns its attention to the use of infant formula in North America. Two Western breastfeeding advocacy groups, the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy (United States) and the Infant Feeding Action Coalition (Canada), presented reports at the recent WHO annual general assembly decrying the advertising of infant formula in the United States and Canada. They blame the formula manufacturers for the fact that only one in eight women in the US still breastfeeds by the time her baby is six months old, and they want the United States and Canada to adopt the rules and regulations governing formula advertising as set forth in the World Health Organization’s 1981 International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. The code is so draconian it’s easy to understand why the United States voted against it. Among other things it says that: Formula companies may not promote their products in hospitals, shops or to the general public. They can not give free samples to mothers or free or subsidised supplies to hospitals or maternity wards They can not give gifts to health workers or mothers.(those handy little diaper bags and cute little teddy bears are forbotten) They can not promote their products to health workers: any information provided by companies must contain only scientific and factual matters (no detailing doctors, no free samples for the poor) Baby pictures may not be shown on baby milk labels. Now, we’re not talking about the advertising and promotion of a drug, here, we’re talking about the advertising and promotion of food. Why should there be any restrictions on its promotion? The use of infant formula over breast feeding can pose problems in developing nations where safe water is hard to come by, and where an available supply of formula isn’t always guaranteed. In Armenia, in 1988, after a devastating earthquake, infant formula was shipped to the country for relief purposes, and its use heavily promoted, but contaminated water and an inadequate supply of formula led to an increase in infant mortality. Of course, these conditions aren’t seen in most Western countries. The United States and Canada have abundant supplies of safe water and easy access to plenty of formula. We also have a lot of mothers who must work outside the home to keep kith and kin together, making it impractical and often almost impossible to continue breastfeeding for the WHO recommended six months. Don’t get me wrong. I favor breastfeeding, both from a medical and a personal standpoint. Medically, I feel it’s by far the most nutritionally sound choice for a baby. Breastmilk, after all, is designed for human infants, and formula companies are continually striving to improve their products by making them closer to breast milk. Studies suggest that breastfed babies have fewer ear infections, bond more closely with their mothers, have fewer allergies, and have less colic. Recently, one study even suggested that breastfed infants grow up to be smarter than their formula fed peers, albeit by only a few points on the IQ scale. Personally, having breastfed three of my children, I can say that it was by far the best method, for the sole reason that it allowed me to be as lazy as I wanted to be while feeding the baby. Those night time feedings could be done in my sleep. I didn’t have to get out of bed and warm up a bottle. I just picked the baby up out of his crib, put him in bed with me, and went back to sleep while he nursed. I didn’t have to spend time in the evenings preparing bottles for the next day’s feedings. I didn’t have to spend time washing and sterilizing bottles. I didn’t have to exercise regularly to lose weight because lactation burns up an average of 500 calories a day. (I always weigh about twenty pounds less than my usual weight when I’m breastfeeding). Best of all, I could read books and breastfeed at the same time. Everyone respects the privacy of a nursing mother, so some of my best reading was done during my maternity leaves while the children nursed. Having said all of that, though, I have to acknowledge that breastfeeding isn’t for everyone. If breastfeeding came to us all as naturally as breastfeeding advocates would have us believe, how do you explain the existence of wet nurses throughout history? If breastfeeding is everything it’s cracked up to be, why did formula ever come into existence? For whatever reason, be it the physical design of their breast, their lifestyle, their family situation, or just personal preference, some women just aren’t able to or don’t want to breastfeed. This, too, I know from personal experience. For, although I nursed three children, I have a fourth that was exclusively bottlefed after the first week of life. Of the three I did nurse, only one took to it readily. The other two were a constant struggle for the first several weeks. Neither of them were easy to nurse until they were about two months old. In the meantime, I nearly drove myself, and my husband, insane trying to get them to breastfeed. I was too stubborn and too invested in the idea that “breast is best” to give up the effort. Suffice it to say that I turned to bottlefeeding in my second child only after the most difficult and harrowing experience with breastfeeding I’ve ever had. And you know what? He did fine. His infancy was uneventful. He was my most complacent baby. He’s the only one of our children who doesn’t have allergies. I can’t remember the last time he was sick. He’s never had an ear infection. He’s emotionally closer to me than any of the other three, and as far as his intelligence goes, he’s on or above par compared to his siblings. In short, he explodes every preconceived notion about the benefits of breastfeeding. He is not alone. The truth is, if clean water and formula are available, babies do just fine on formula feedings. That's why our government spends as much as it does on infant formula, so it can be provided to poor women under the WIC program if they choose not to breastfeed. So, why all the fuss about formula advertising and promotion, especially in the West where formula can be used safely and effectively? The formula companies actually bend over backwards to acknowledge the benefits of breastfeeding. Just click here to see what the makers of Enfamil have to say on the subject. Similac doesn’t approach the subject with quite as much breast boosterism, but it does acknowledge the superiority and advantages of breastfeeding. This is truth in advertising to a degree rarely seen in most products, and never seen in drug advertising. But, of course, breastfeeding advocates have an agenda. They believe with all their hearts that breastfeeding is not only the best choice, it’s the only choice. If given the chance, they would impose their views of parenting and motherhood on every woman. We would all be forced to nurse our babies for the requisite six months. Work and family and personal preference be damned. Witness the appointment in Wales of a "breastfeeding tsar" last week. Their language betrays their intent. Luckily, we live in a nation that is free to ignore the WHO and doesn’t have to rely on it for healthcare money and assistance, unlike developing countries. Otherwise, we too, would be forced to live by the breastfeeding militants’ rules. posted by Sydney on 5/19/2002 09:42:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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