Month: March 2009

I breastfed Young C for just over 18 months and I am currently enjoying breastfeeding L’il I as well. My mother breastfed all four of us and I have always assumed that was the only way to go. (To this day I’m not quite sure if I know what I’m doing when feeding a baby from a bottle.) I have offered up tips and encouragement to new mothers struggling with latch or milk supply problems and I firmly believe that a successful breastfeeding relationship makes for a happy baby and happy mom.

Why then, when I started to read Hanna Rosin’s “The Case Against Breastfeeding” in this month’s Atlantic, did I feel a giddy kind of glee? Is it just my instinctively contrarian nature? The anticipation of an intelligent argument against the Holy Grail of motherhood being published by a prominent American magazine? Yes, that was undoubtedly a big factor. But there was more to it, too. I’d become a bit disillusioned with the pro-breastfeeding overkill that is dominant in cities like Toronto. There are mothers I know who can’t hold their babies for several hours a week because they are hooked up to elaborate milking machines. These women are so determined to do the right and “best” thing for their babies that they set their alarm to wake them up every three hours so they can pump and keep up their milk supply and then feed their babies defrosted breast milk from a bottle. There are mothers who feel incredible depths of shame and failure at resorting to formula when breastfeeding doesn’t work for them. Hell, I even felt personally responsible for Young C’s bout of newborn jaundice because he wouldn’t latch for one day and then my milk came in late. I had to feed him formula for a whole two days while my milk came in and was made to suffer the special kind of nipple trauma that only a hospital grade pump set to high can bestow. The hospital policy was if you supplement, you pump. No matter that he was feeding at the breast before I gave him the formula and that pumping would diminish the amount of colostrum he got. Women are made to feel like physically inferior mothers when they aren’t able to breastfeed. As one mom put it, “No wonder I have such a hard time conceiving; I can’t even feed my own babies.” Never mind the social stigma attached to choosing formula over breastfeeding. Surely the only people buying formula can’t be those who are unable to breastfeed for at least a few months? But I’ve haven’t met anyone else recently — or at least not anyone who admits to it.

Rosin’s article argues that the benefits of breastfeeding have been greatly exaggerated and distorted. The elixer-like claim to prevention that spans from ear infections to diabetes is tenuous at best. It is impossible for studies to fully control for the sociological factors associated with breastfeeding. Factors like education, class and race can have a great impact on the likelihood of contracting any number of diseases and, of course, on IQ scores. Yes, breast milk is better for babies than formula. But not as much as you think.

This comes on the heels of a New Yorker article that came out last month. In “Baby Food: If breast is best, why are women bottling their milk?”, Jill Lepore casts a critical eye at the state of breastfeeding in America. In a country where mothers are assured a whopping 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave — compared to 50 weeks of parental leave at 55% of your income in Canada — the breastfeeding dialogue largely revolves around pumping. A baby-friendly company is one with a pumping room in which breastfeeding mothers can express themselves. Lepore argues that there is much more to breastfeeding than the milk itself and laments the medicalization of the breastfeeding relationship. I tend to agree; breastfeeding is about so much more than simply feeding my baby. It is about continuing a physical relationship and having a subconscious and instinctive response to her needs. It demands that I take the time to hold her and nurture her in the most physical way possible, no matter how busy I might be. It regulates my moods and is a constant source of comfort and security for my baby.

Taken together, the two articles suggest that it might be time for women to put down the pumps and breathe a sigh of relief. If you can’t breastfeed, that is too bad, but formula is almost just as good. Of course, if you want or need to be away from your baby, then the breast pump can no longer assuage your guilt. (But did it ever, really?) We still want to have it all: careers and babies and home-baked goodies. But however you slice it there are choices to be made and it would be nice to have all the right information. As Rosin says, “If the researchers just want us to lick and groom our pups, why don’t they say so? We can find our own way to do that.”

Still reeling from Rosin’s accessory argument that breastfeeding makes mom the de facto go-to for all things baby-related, daddytypes.com’s post, Shapely Science-Distorting Lactivists Annoy Pump-Hating, Stressed-Out, Guilt-Ridden, Haranguing Shrew, jumps right into the name-calling with both feet. Methinks he’s missing the point. How the science is presented and how it makes mothers feel is what determines whether or not they spend countless hours hooked up to milking machines. And it is what will fuel a push toward maternity legislation in keeping with the rest of the developed world.

(Image courtesy of The Patent Prospector.)