The lactivist community is up in arms over an editorial by Kathryn Blundell that appeared in the UK magazine Mother and Baby. The editorial, called I formula-fed. SO WHAT? is a personal rant by a woman who chose not to breastfeed. When I read it, it immediately made me think of two other articles that I’ve read. The first is Katrina Onstad’s article Breastfeeding Sucks in the Canadian women’s magazine Chatelaine. The other one is Hanna Rosin’s infamous article The Case Against Breastfeeding that was published in the US magazine The Atlantic (which I responded to here and here).
What all three of these articles have in common is that they describe the societal pressure to breastfeed and include a woman’s explanation of why she didn’t want to breastfeed. They all focus on bullies (real or imagined) that make women feel bad for formula feeding. Where they differ is that while Katrina Onstad managed to talk about the horrors of her breastfeeding experience and candidly discuss implications of bad breastfeeding advice and sometimes insensitive mother-blaming forms of lactivism, she never comes to the conclusion (as the other two do), that breastfeeding doesn’t really matter.
When looked at objectively, breastfeeding does matter. The health outcomes of breastfed children and breastfeeding mothers are better. There is no doubt about that. When looked at subjectively, within the lens of any individual mother’s decision about how to feed her child, breastfeeding may not win out. While I think each mother has the right to decide how to feed her child, I do think that there are way too many societal barriers to breastfeeding and those barriers are what keeps breastfeeding rates much lower than they should be.
One of my beefs with Kathryn’s editorial is that it was peppered with breastfeeding myths. If women believe the things that she believes, it is no wonder that so many of them choose not to breastfeed. She said that she “also wanted to give my boobs at least a chance to stay on my chest rather than dangling around on my stomach“, perpetuating the myth that breastfeeding makes your breasts sag (not true at all). She also questions whether some women who didn’t breastfeed did it because they “felt like getting tipsy once in awhile.” If a breastfeeding mom really wants to get drunk once in a while, she should get a babysitter (because caring for your kids when you are tipsy is not a good idea whether you are breastfeeding or formula feeding) and pump and dump until the alcohol is out of her system (to maintain supply and avoid plugged ducts – pumping and dumping doesn’t remove the alcohol, only time does). Or if she just wants a drink or two here and there, she can do that safely while breastfeeding. A fact checker, even for editorials, is pretty important in my opinion (as I previously told Margaret Wente and the Globe and Mail).
But the biggest problem I had with the article was her characterization of breastfeeding as creepy. One of the biggest societal barriers to breastfeeding is the attitude among much of the public that breastfeeding is creepy. This is why women are constantly told to go nurse in the bathroom or to cover up. It is why women are embarrassed to feed their babies in public and feel like they need to hide at home or in their car or take a bottle with them when they go out. Our society doesn’t see breastfeeding as something that is natural and normal. Our society sees sexualized breasts as natural and normal. So attitudes like this one expressed by Kathryn Blundell in her editorial are not surprising:
They’re part of my sexuality, too – not just breasts, but fun bags.
And when you have that attitude (and I admit I made no attempt to change it), seeing your teeny, tiny, innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before feels, well, a little creepy.
What if Kathryn had seen just as many breasts feeding babies as she had seen in sexualized imagery in her lifetime? Would she feel the same way? I don’t blame Kathryn for thinking that breastfeeding is creepy. I blame society. But as an editor of a major publication she has, in my opinion, a greater responsibility than simply sharing her story. I think she has the responsibility to try to change how breasts are perceived. I think that her personal account, within a larger story about why the way breasts are perceived in society needs to change, would have been appropriate. But I think that her personal account, in an editorial about why formula feeding is fine, is damaging because it perpetuates and legitimizes the perspective that breastfeeding is creepy.
Breastfeeding may not be for everyone. But breastfeeding is not creepy. Our society is creepy for thinking that breastfeeding is creepy.
Image credit: scariepants on flickr
{ 7 trackbacks }
{ 100 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for the great article. i wanted to respond to one part
“If a breastfeeding mom really wants to get drunk once in a while, she should get a babysitter (because caring for your kids when you are tipsy is not a good idea whether you are breastfeeding or formula feeding) and pump and dump until the alcohol is out of her system. Or if she just wants a drink or two here and there, she can do that safely while breastfeeding”
because this is actually in error as well. it is not necessary to pump and dump after consuming alcohol. alcohol leaves your breastmilk at the same rate it leaves your bloodstream. pumping and dumping will accomplish nothing, except wasted time and effort.
Lyla you are right that as the alcohol is metabolized it leaves the milk. However if a mother is missing one or more feedings she should pump to protect her milk supply and prevent engorgement.
It depends on what phase of nusring, if it is a younger baby, pumping for those missed feedings to keep supply up and lessen engorgement related to missed feedings is necessary. For an older baby that sleeps through the night it isn’t quite so necessay unless you wake up still drunk. Either way, drinking isn’t healthy. It burns me up that some of these mothers are still in the id stage after having a baby and that is what is wrong with society today, that is what is making it so “creepy!!!”
actually, i need to add on to my previous comment – if you are away from your baby for very long, then you should pump to maintain supply (depending on the age of your baby), so maybe that is what you meant.
Lyla:
Yes – I meant that the mom should pump and dump both to maintain supply and to avoid getting plugged ducts (which can turn into a nasty mastitis infection).
yes, that makes sense, i just think there is a lot of misunderstanding about how alcohol is processed in the milk compartment, so it bears clarification.
ITA with Lyla. On reading this entry I thought the same thing. Glad to see the clarification, but I think it would have a place within the article for people who don’t read comments.
Robbin:
I edited the post to clarify. I hadn’t expected the post to explode like it did and my regular readership is fairly educated about that type of thing, so I didn’t feel I needed to clarify. But since it is out there in the general public now, I added the clarification.
I think what needs further clarfification is the erroneous belief that you can’t nurse a baby soon after you have consumed alcohol. If you drink until the legal limit, your breastmilk contains 0.08% alcohol, because alcohol enters your milk as it does your blood. So the myth that your baby will get drunk or harmed by drinking the breastmilk of a mother who is tipsy continues. (Outright drunk of course is a danger to the baby. But unless you are separated from your baby, there is no need to pump)
In fact, to drink to the level at which your milk would be at the level of a non-alcoholic beer or, say, fruit juice, you’d be dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content
I once in a while have 1-3 glasses of wine with my partner and then nurse my baby. One of my kids didn’t like the taste and got fussy, the other two showed no effects at all.
The misinformation on this issue is similar to the western attitudes that you can NEVER EVER EVER YOU BAD MOTHER drink while you’re pregnant, b/c we proscribe absolute abstinence to somehow protect those who don’t understand moderation.
And I also beg to differ with above commenters, there are many studies which show health benefits to moderate consumption of alcohol.
Donna:
The link that I provided in my post provides that information:
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2010/06/27/2009/07/08/you-should-not-be-drunk-while-caring-for-your-baby/
Essentially, if you are sober enough to be caring for your child you are more than sober enough to breastfeed.
I haven’t read the article (and not sure I’m up to doing so anytime soon — I don’t really need to get pissed off yet again right now), but I’ve been uncomfortable with a lot of the lactivist reactions to it. Why? Because I’m someone who gets uncomfortably sexual feelings while breastfeeding. Honestly, now that the Boychick has weaned (which he did at a bit shy of three years), I don’t much like looking at/thinking about explicit breastfeeding photos (not like the one in this post), because they make me uncomfortable. I don’t think they’re wrong (they’re not!), or aren’t beautiful (they are!), or are sexual (they aren’t) — it’s simply that I have a strong tactile memory, and the feelings they evoke in my body are not pleasant.
Which 1) is my issue, and IN NO WAY should be used to shame or discourage women from breastfeeding, and breastfeeding wherever they may be, and 2) is society’s issue, because while I think breasts are sexual, the way I feel and how I use them in my sex life is highly societally influenced.
So I’m frustrated by this whole conversation, because I want to honor Blundell’s feelings, am really angry at her perpetuation of harmful myths, am annoyed by lactivists who don’t acknowledge that there’s something real there (one tweet I saw simply called her “disgusting” — am I, then, also? or did I earn a free pass because I breastfed anyway?), and am SO frustrated that we could be having a meaningful, nuanced conversation about sexual feelings and breastfeeding, but, once again, aren’t. Because we’re making it about sides, and morality, and myths, and scoring points, and not about the real feelings and real lives of real women. And that makes me want to crawl in a hole and give up on the world. (Or rant a lot. Or both.)
So thank you, for doing your part to pull back the conversation from trading barbs and skewering people, and making it about society, and how we can better serve women and their children.
Arwyn:
It is a very difficult topic to discuss, I think, because people in the “breastfeeding is sexual” or “breastfeeding is creepy” camp will use any admission of sexual feelings while breastfeeding as ammunition for their argument.
Annie,
That’s true, but I also see people rejecting breastfeeding, and rejecting advocates as zealots, when we pretend that it never happens.
And, personally, I’m not ok with the “let’s not mention it because they’ll use it against us” argument because that also means I have no support. It leaves me with nowhere and no way to talk about my feelings, and try to figure out how to get past them, and how to breastfeed anyway, and process how it went last time in preparation for a next time, should there be one.
I would rather be on the side of truth and nuance, even if it gives ammunition to the mudslingers. I don’t want to be involved at all in an argument between two sides both of whom will use nontruths and halftruths to make their “point”, even if I think/know one side is more “right”.
So yes, it’s difficult, and I respect any woman who doesn’t want to risk talking about sexual feelings (uncomfortable or pleasant or both or other) in breastfeeding. But I wish more would, whether they ended up breastfeeding or not — and I really wish the lactivist community would start taking us seriously.
Arwyn:
Just to be clear, because I wasn’t in my short reply earlier, I’m not suggesting that anyone should not mention their feelings. I support you both in sharing your feelings and dealing with them and would support anyone else who chooses to do so. What I was trying to do was to concur with your frustration that “we could be having a meaningful, nuanced conversation about sexual feelings and breastfeeding, but, once again, aren’t.” I think there is a justified fear that a meaningful and nuanced conversation would be used against us. But I don’t think that means we shouldn’t have the conversation anyway.
Personally, I don’t talk about sexual feelings at all on this blog (whether related to breastfeeding or anything else). It just isn’t a topic I’m comfortable venturing into in this space. But I do think that if people want to talk about it they should be supported in doing so.
I have very mixed feelings about this. Because, like you, I have had those feelings. I’m usually able to suppress them, but I don’t enjoy it. It’s uncomfortable for me. And while I’m committed to breastfeeding, deeply, I’m not sure I would call it enjoyable for me. And I think my inner conflict is why.
I suspect that there are many more of us, but most of us are afraid to discuss it. I don’t discuss sexuality in general online, for a number of reasons. And I definitely don’t want to contribute to the argument that somehow I’m breastfeeding for sexual reasons, because that’s not true. I just feel so conflicted about this, and to me it’s just another example of how we need to foster a breastfeeding culture that allows us to discuss all of the many shades of breastfeeding without it being used as negative fodder.
Arwyn,
I know how you feel. I remember a week or two after my son was born we fell asleep while nursing and I had a very strong and vivid erotic dream. I woke up to my son nursing away.
Now that IS a very uncomfortable thing to go through, and I totally understand what you mean. It freaked me out at the time and freaks out the very few people I have ever told. It is definitely not something commonly, or in my experience, EVER talked about in the lactivist community. Just had to throw in my two cents. (And yes, I did go on to breastfeed my son until he self-weaned at about 18 months or so.)
I also had very uncomfortable sexual feelings with breastfeeding. I think it’s part of why I took advantage of what seemed to be a fairly natural weaning point at 12 months (although it quite possibly was just a breastfeeding strike or a period of being easily distracted).
“It is a very difficult topic to discuss, I think, because people in the “breastfeeding is sexual” or “breastfeeding is creepy” camp will use any admission of sexual feelings while breastfeeding as ammunition for their argument.”
But the thing is, we don’t have to admit it; they *already know* (the science is clear) or intuit it, as Blundell alludes to. Denial only invites scorn because we’re either being disingenuous or ignorant. We’re screwed either way, yeah? And worse, if the former, it implies that we really *are* perverts because we’re acting like we have something shameful to hide. The only thing that can be done, it seems to me, is to talk about it from a clinical perspective; to explain, without embarrassment, that lactation is scientifically known to be a hormonal process that shares physical space with sex (and birth for that matter,) so that, yes, there is the possibility of some shared physical sensations, and that there is normally a psychological boundary that keeps the things distinctly separate, so that, for instance, a mother can feel a clitoral zing from nipple stimulation yet not for a heartbeat associate it with her relationship to her baby. If a person experiences those sensations and has trouble finding that boundary she may be conflicted about breastfeeding or reject it entirely. But that’s not the fault of the natural system. If it’s perverse but yet our bodies are designed that way, then humans, motherhood, and the breastfeeding relationship are inherently perverse. And that’s absurd; it makes a mockery of motherhood. It can only be, rather, that it is this culture’s perceptions that are perverse, and that we misunderstand and misinterpret what is going on in our bodies, laying artificial conditioned mental associations over it.
I am sorry about the discomfort you have. I hope when weaning is finally done you have lots of happy memories.
The making, having, and feeding of babies is all inherently – *viscerally* – sexual. Acknowledging it is a million worlds away from, like, being pervy about it, people!!
That is a really good point. And you don’t often hear women saying “my vagina is just for sex, I’m not willing to deliver a baby through it”…
Channa:
In general, I think you are right. However, there was quite an uproar recently when the author of a book on sex post-children used the statement “lucky c-section bitches” in reference to the fact that their vaginas were still completely in tact and not all mangled and stretched out like the women who had delivered vaginally, which is insulting and insensitive to both women who did deliver vaginally and who think that their vaginas are just fine (thank you very much) and those who found their c-section birth to be traumatic and didn’t consider themselves “lucky” at all.
I have heard of women having terrible flashbacks from their experiences of sexual abuse during births though.. which is mind-blowingly awful.
And then there are those of us who have never suffered sexual abuse in the past, but felt as though we were being raped during childbirth. I still have nightmares about being drugged, stripped naked, tied to a table, and assaulted by a gang of strangers while I lay there crying and screaming hysterically – that was my experience of c-section. A birth doesn’t have to be vaginal to involve extremely visceral, extremely sexual implications. I am still trying to recover some sense of normalcy in sex two and a half years later.
“The making, having, and feeding of babies is all inherently – *viscerally* – sexual. Acknowledging it is a million worlds away from, like, being pervy about it, people!!”
Yup, I’m with Linda and FoxyKate. Those are perfectly normal sensations–and those “zings” to your southern regions are part of the healing process after childbirth.
And my “people” there was not directed at you. Not sure if that was clear!
The issue of breastfeeding and sexuality is an important topic that all too few experts address. One who does is Dr. Wendy Lee Walsh, a psychologist and attachment parenting specialist who writes for Momlogic.com. See the third heading in this article: http://www.drwendywalsh.com/articles/sex-and-the-breastfeeding-mother.php
Fun bags! I think my eyes crossed and my brain glazed over – I don’t remember reading that when I originally saw the article. I also didn’t realize the author is also the editor. Oof. Responsibility to your readers, man.
I know what breastfeeding culture (or the backlash of) is like here in the US; this makes me wonder what things are like in the UK. Similar to here? Do they have laws giving protection for nip?
Remember last year when there was that flapdoodle about the breastfeeding doll & nipple-flower harness? I was so surprised at how *shocking!* it was to so many people that children would mimic breastfeeding. Just the other day I was so surprised at the anger & vitriol in the comments section of a Salon article on placenta as food. I can’t tell if I’ve greatly misjudged the openness of the minds in the world around me or if I’ve just managed to isolate myself from “mainstream” culture that much.
FoxyKate: In the UK, there is a law protecting nursing in public until the baby is 6 months old. Having an age limit is ridiculous if you ask me.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026604/Mothers-win-right-breastfeed-public-places.html
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but your baby turned 6 months 3 days ago. Can you please discreetly place your fun bags under a Hooter Hider so as not to offend the passers-by?”
Lol! (and the “fun bags” comment pretty much tipped me over the edge, too.)
Actually, that article is misleading and 100% wrong in some places. The Daily Mail is an *appalling* newspaper.
“Under current laws, women who breastfeed in places such as restaurants or bars can be charged under public order or indecency legislation.” is complete and utter nonsense. Women in the UK have always been free to breastfeed where they like. The change in law (in England and Wales) allows women to take legal action against people who try to stop them but it will require you hire a lawyer and bring a civil suit. In Scotland it is an offence to harass a breastfeeding mother so if someone tried to stop you, you could call a police officer to deal with it.
At the moment, if you nurse a baby under 6 months in public you’re protected by legislation designed to prevent discrimination on the grounds of *maternity*. After 6 months, a woman breastfeeding her baby is protected from discrimination on grounds of Sex Discrimination.
You put into words what has baffled me all along, the issue so many women have with nursing in public, feeling they need to hide, or being made to feel that they should. It never crossed my mind until I attended an antenatal breast feeding class. For my part, I never even contemplated anything other than breast feeding, seeing it as the most normal thing to do – but obviously it is not for so many in our society. And yes, I struggled with a good few problems and had to persevere to get there in the end, but at least the starting point was one of seeing breast feeding as the norm. I’m not sure if attitudes are different in other countries – being a German living in the UK, I always wondered whether in Germany breast feeding is the social norm and this has influence my intuitive feelings about it, in contrast to how women in the UK have been influenced, or if it’s not really a difference between the two countries. All I know is that everyone I know in Germany breast fed, whereas here I know lots of women who chose not to.
Here’s what I found curious:
“They’re part of my sexuality, too – not just breasts, but fun bags.
And when you have that attitude (and I admit I made no attempt to change it), seeing your teeny, tiny, innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before feels, well, a little creepy.”"
One’s vagina is also a sexual organ- in fact, it’s key to having PIV sex. What is the author going to do, never have a normal delivery to preserve her vagina’s status as a “love canal”? Good gravy!
Arwyn, the issue of the moms who find breastfeeding feels creepy, or disturbing or whatever is hardly researched at all, and seldom mentioned. Having feelings that one thinks are inappropriate as a mom is hardly conducive to relaxed breastfeeding, public or not. My hat is off to all the women who have gritted their teeth and breastfeed for however long they could stand it, for the good of their little ones, when they would have felt such relief to stop. Fortunately, the babies don’t much care.
The problem is that women are always in a double bind, about breastfeeding and any other aspect of mothering you can think of. It’s like the Japanese proverb about the nail that sticks up above the rest getting hammered flat. If a woman really enjoys breastfeeding, and welcomes several years of it instead of months, tongues will wag and she will be accused of selfishly prolonging a relationship that should be truncated for the sake of the child’s independence. If she can hardly stand the thought of the next breastfeeding, she’s called selfish for weaning. If she has no interest in breastfeeding at all, she will either be accused of being selfish, and/or she will take to heart each and every comment or article on how she has undermined her baby’s health for the long term, and feel like a pariah.
Oh course, it used to be the breastfeeding moms who all felt (and were treated) like pariahs, like Banquo’s ghost at the party. They were damned for wanting to feed exclusively, because they were starving the baby. They were given dirty looks because they expected to nurse the baby “anytime, anywhere”. They were attacked by other women simply for doing what they were doing, with no comment; other women who had bottle fed took these “unseemly displays” of breastfeeding as some kind of criticism. I could never quite understand that one. I’m breastfeeding, so you feel guilty because you’re not? How does that even work?
It’s never easy to separate oneself from one’s culture. That’s why parenting “subcultures” are so popular, groups of like-mined parents. Soon you have “us against them”. Since in anthropology, perception is all, it’s hard to argue with moms who are doing what they firmly believe is the best for their babies. It’s easy, however, to argue with practices based on whatever the cultural norm happens to be, which have little or no basis in fact. Of course, facts that contradict culture are not very popular. People who contradict culture are not popular. It’s just getting very tiresome to feel that the whole breastfeeding culture is lumped right in there with creepy things. How very Victorian and status conscious we are.
It is so unbelievably ass backwards to me that anyone would find breastfeeding creepy IN GENERAL. If they’re personally put off by it or uncomfortable, we can’t judge them. But painting the entire process as something unnatural is, well, unnatural.
I am not sure that we’ll ever be able to “fix” the way nursing is perceived in this country. Breasts are hyper-sexualized to a really freakish extent in so many forms of media and advertising.
I’m so grateful I was able to have a great experience nursing both my kids. Most of the ignorance I’ve encountered has been online.
Found your article from Lyla (the first commenter above). Very well said. I wholeheartedly agree with your concerns about Ms. Blundell’s opinion piece. I, too, found her comments about breasts and sexuality particularly disturbing. How sad that her view of her own body has been so twisted that she cannot conceive of her breasts being used for their biological purpose. How sad, too, that our culture has damaged the way women value their own bodies, and the role their bodies play in sexuality and mothering.
So, she’s the editor of the magazine? Is the publication by chance filled with formula ads? Just wondering. The marketing departments of formula makers must just love “articles” like that.
Good point Andrea. It probably is filled with formula ads.
Advertising ‘first milk’ formula (i.e for babies under 6 months) is illegal in the UK, but the magazine is filled with ads by formula companies really pushing the limit of the law here.
Something else you may not be aware of is that it was just National Breastfeeding Awareness Week (where there is a lot of breastfeeding promotion) in the UK and this article was published just in time for it. We get a lot of anti-breastfeeding press in the UK around this time. Mostly embittered journalists who use it as a chance to get their own back on the ‘Breastfeeding Mafia’ during National Breastfeeding Awareness Week.
Wow. The formula marketers really are winning if they’ve got the journalists doing their job for free
(I should ad, I have felt since my rough start nursing my first that moms SHOULD be honest about the realities of bf. It doesn’t come easily to many of us (what with all the misinfo out there), and we don’t all get the warm fuzzies. But I’d love to see more success stories e.g. bf sucked, but then I got help! Here’s how you can too! Or, I don’t love every second of it, but here’s why I’m doing it anyway.)
Uh, I meant “add” of course. Freudian slip?
Well said, as always. Our society is damn creepy in a lot of ways, and this is one of them. We live in disturbed and dysfunctional times.
Her whole rant was filled with misinformation. No wonder she hates breastfeeding – if it was like that, none of us would do it.
It pains me to think that her child would grow up and see what she wrote though. She acts like the child is a parasite who’s not worth feeding or touching if it means disrupting the rest of her day. All of this makes me wonder what happened during her birth to cause her such a disconnect from her child.
THANK YOU for this informative article! Breastfeeding is NOT creepy. As you know, I am an avid (extended) breastfeeding supporter and encourage any woman to at least try it. Once you run into problems, I want to be there as a resource and supporter via my blog. My article that asked if women who choose not to breastfeed are selfish got the most comments I ever got on a post. http://dagmarbleasdale.com/2009/08/mothers-who-choose-not-to-breastfeed-selfish/
I just spent a weekend on Nantucket with my large, extended family to attend a wedding, and I breastfed my 3 year-and-8 month-old son in a taxi, on the beach, and on the ferry. No one around us even had a clue I was doing it. I will be posting a picture of him breastfeeding on the ferry on my blog tomorrow
Best,
Dagmar
Dagmar’s momsense
@DagmarBleasdale
Following that reasoning, actually HAVING babies should be creepy too, since at least half of them come out the vagina, into which the male organ presumably went to conceive said baby.
The thing is, breasts are dual purpose. I breastfed both my babies, but not in a really long time. And I’m married to a boob man who really loves mine. Breasts are capable of feeding a child AND providing pleasure for both man and woman. I don’t think it’s that difficult to separate the two though.
On a related note I’m in the process of writing a piece for API Speaks on what women can do when they really dislike breastfeeding, but want to continue it anyway. I’ve been looking for a doula or LC to get a few quotes and am having a hard time, because when the topic comes up, most seem to suggest that I was abused or did not have a proper support system, or was suffering from mental disease, and none of those were/are true. And I know I’m not the only one. Since I know Annie has a large pro-bf readership, if anyone out there can help, I’d appreciate it.
But breastfeeding IS sexual, just like every other part of reproduction. Not in a turn-you-on kind of way, but conceiving, gestating, birthing, and sustaining a mammalian offspring with your own body is all connected. Sex=reproduction=babies. In a perfect world, each of these parts would happen exactly the way our bodies are designed to make them happen. In the case of sustaining a human baby, the normal, biologically accepted way to do it is with your boobs. The same boobs that attracted your mate and may have helped convince him to have sex with you. Anything other than mother’s milk is, biologically speaking, totally inferior. It’s not that artificial milk is acceptable and breastmilk is best. Breastmilk is normal and artificial milk is not.
But we make choices all the time that we know perfectly well are not meeting the basic needs of our families. If you need to make a sacrifice in feeding your baby, fine. Whatever. I’ll choose to make inferior choices in other areas, you can choose to do so there. Your family, your health.
I do agree with your interpretation of the article, as the case needs to be made loud and clear for breastfeeding mothers! Well written.
Our society IS creepy for thinking breastfeeding is creepy. What is even creepier is a society that has been brainwashed to think that something artificial is better than, or just as good as, something that is natural.
I am becoming so frustrated with our society and am beyond all good words and logic, so I won’t even try an intelligent comment. Love reading your blog, Annie, even when it gets me going.
Since you mention Margaret Wente, you should see the crap that is her latest piece “Motherhood – the new Oppression” (last week on theglobeandmail.com) – I don’t even know where to begin on this one…
becky:
I’m almost scared to look it up. I’m increasingly convinced that she can’t come up with interesting enough topics to write about, so she has to purposely write about things that are offensive in order to generate page views for the Globe and Mail.
PhD in Parenting,
While I am not suggesting your statement below is wrong, in fact I believe it to be correct, I think it would be helpful to your case and quite informative to your readers if you could provides some evidence that proves your statement.
You said:
“The health outcomes of breastfed children and breastfeeding mothers are better.”
I look forward to this information, thank you for a good article and for fighting for what should be obvious to anyone with half a brain.
In Good Health
TAGarran:
I linked to the evidence that proves that statement in the sentence prior to the one you quoted. You can find the information you are looking for here:
Scientific Benefits of Breastfeeding
OK, but your citation is your blog….I’m not saying your blog is not good, but can you cite the references? The actual places this information comes from. I look forward to the citations, it will be invaluable to me and all the readers of this blog, as well as those who may read what we might write, which is to say I encourage all those who champion this idea [truth] to write their own blogs, editorials, etc. to show the general public why breastfeeding is best.
The citation is an article on my blog that cites specific references. I write a lot about breastfeeding and I’m not going to repeat all the research in every single post. That is why I link to other posts.
I come from the UK and live in Germany. I also feel that in Germany breastfeeding is much more enjoyed/ celebrated than in the UK with less silliness about it. From the outside, I feel that women in the UK are much more “sexualised” than in Germany – there seems to be quite an expectation of women in the UK to wear clothing which is deemed “sexy” (usually revealing as much skin as possible) when going out – also for the benefit of each other (and being in with the girls). In Germany there seems to be more of an emphasis on being “cool” – which involves clothing which is relatively unisex. My impression (based on a very limited sample!) is that it is more expected in the UK for young women to be promiscuous whilst in Germany, I get the impression that longer term relationships start earlier.
Completely aside from the feelings you get while breastfeeding, I think you’re absolutely right that society plays such a huge role in this attitude to breastfeeding and I think that in the UK women are sexualised in bizarre ways. But it has become like a club where members get strong feelings of identification being a part of it. The celebration of membership being the “hen’s night” – cum weekend, where girlie activities are explored to the full (pampering, dressing up etc. – not to forget alcohol).
I’ve also heard some awful stories from friends in the UK about the lack of support they got when they were having trouble breastfeeding in the first few days after the birth… this is something which could be improved pretty easily, even if society can’t change overnight. Preventive health care is one of the strengths of the British health service after all.
I nursed my son until he was 13 months old, and weaned too soon. I had a few, scattered and fleeting thoughts about the sexual nature of breastfeeding, wondering ifI should feel guilt…
Instead I felt pride and amazement at the beauty of my body, and it’s ability to sustain and nourish my child. I adored beastfeeding so fully, I became passionate about nursing in public, refusing to join a friend in the bathroom when I said it was time for my son to eat. “But why?” she asked, “they have a beautiful nursing room with couches.”
“Because,” I told her, “It took me a long time to feel comfortable nursing wherever I am when it’s time, and I’m not going to sit in a bathroom just because it makes someone else upset.”
Also, my husband is a boob man, 100%. He is all about the “fun bags”. He can watch my child nurse, amend amazed at the beauty and simplicity of feeding his child… And 20 minutes later be engaged in sexual acts that vert much include breasts. To HIM, they can both be sexual and non-sexual… But either way – BEAUTIFUL. There is no reason for nursing women to need feel their breasts should not be sexual, and NO reason for anyone to believe that breastfeeding IS TOO sexual.
Also, please forgive the typos… I tapped this comment out on my phone!
I think the fact that society thinks its creepy is going to take a little while to work its way out of the system. Too many people grew up thinking babies eat from bottles, and it’s hard to change that perception later as adults. A friend of mine has a 10yo boy who thinks the fact that her new baby breastfeeds is super creepy. He’s never seen his mom doing anything like that before (or anyone doing anything like that before) so yeah, it freaks him out. My 8yo boy on the other hand, doesn’t bat an eye. He’s seen his younger brother and sisters all breastfeeding so to him it’s not creepy in the least, it’s normal. He’ll even come up and start rubbing his 6 week old sister on the head and kiss her on the head while she’s nursing (which is creepy for ME because, geez, give me a little space, but it’s good that he’s not embarassed by me breastfeeding).
I can understand the “creepy” feeling, I guess. The breasts are sexual first and anything else very very last in my American society. My inability to breastfeed stemmed from my own thoughts of my breasts and also my family’s thoughts on what my breast should and should not be doing. I had my first child at a very young age (I was 15). I bought a breast pump, pads, the little pillow, I was totally ready to breastfeed. As soon as I gave birth, it seemed like everyone was against me breastfeeding. My husband, my mother, the nurses were even a little wary calling the lactation consultant when I ran into problems. I had some inhibitions as well, of course. It made me giggle when my baby latched on the first time and I was abruptly quieted by my husband because he was embarrassed by it. Anyway, I had 2 more children, also at relatively young ages, and I tried again with the both of them but ran into the same problems. As a matter of fact, with my last child, we were vising my mother and the baby was fussy. I told her I was going to try to breastfeed her and she seemed so disappointed, in that quiet mom way. The only person who was so completely supportive of me, and by supportive I mean she made no “deal” out of it one way or the other, was my grandmother. She actually helped me help my youngest latch on in the hospital. It was a very beautiful moment. My point is, after all of the preparation I did for all of my children, buying crap, reading up on breastfeeding, telling the nurses, doctors, everyone I was breastfeeding, I never did for more than a few days. I never really received help or support. I read all the books, made sure I was prepared but maybe I should have spent more time preparing everyone else. I felt like a total outsider. I would give anything to turn back time and be stronger and breastfeed my children. I know now that if I had just followed my instincts and breastfed, I would not be missing this vital part of motherhood. I was a mother albeit, a very young mother, and my instincts were strong. I knew what was right. It may have felt odd to feel the suckling but I had no reason to be embarrassed when I smile and laughed. I thought it was beautiful to watch my children take what was naturally, biologically theirs. My children are healthy and just perfect but that special bonding we should have had never came to be. I tried my best to replicate it. I made sure we were skin to skin, all of that stuff they tell you to do. My youngest is turning 4 this year, my oldest is 8 but to this day it kills me that I did not breastfeed. I had to spill my guts, sorry!
Aak! Re-reading this made me realize that I may be a little off-topic for most of this post. So so sorry!
Not at all. I welcome stories from women about their breastfeeding experiences, good or bad. I think there are some great lessons in your story for other moms who might be preparing to breastfeed. I often talk about how important it is to have the support of others and your story helps to reinforce that. Thank you.
Maybe it’s too difficult for me to wrap my mind around someone thinking it’s creepy, because I just can’t accept it! It’s in our NATURE, it’s how we were created to nurture our babies. Fine if someone doesn’t choose to feed their baby that way, but they absolutely should not continue to belittle those that do breastfeed- we know most people are doing so just to validate their choice NOT to.
Steph
Just to let you ladies know that Scotland protects NIP up to 2 years of age. I don’t know why England plumped for 6 months.
I have read the article on line and was extremely disgusted by her attitude. She seemed completely irresponsible and didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. The only positive I can see from the article is that a lot of people from both sides of the debate are in agreement for once, she has painted ALL mothers no matter their feeding choice in a very bad light.
Arwen – I read your blog and found it very interesting. It’s not something I have ever experienced myself but I quite imagine that it does happen. It’s pleasurable when partner touches you in that way, your body doesn’t know the difference. Maybe it’s a natural response to further bond us to our babies, the hormones released during breastfeeding are the same but in different quantities as the hormone released during female orgasm, which bonds us to our partners to allow us to build a relationship in which to raise the resulting children. Maybe I’m the weird one for not experiencing what you did, or maybe I did but didn’t notice it – sorry to embarass anyone with this but since having my children and nursing both of them (I was a c-section with both), while having erotic dreams I have been able to orgasm in my sleep with no stimulation at all, maybe this is a side effect.
We like to think we’re a modern society who has moved on from our basic natures but maybe if we were more in touch with these basic urges and drives then we would have less problems.
Great article. Society is warped – I responded to a tweet this weekend about a woman whose SIL was told that breastfeeding wasn’t done “there” by another woman. It was some amusement park – Kings Island.
Very well thought out and written and I’ve found everyone’s comments and reactions to be very insightful.
I guess I’m in the camp of believing that we are sexual beings through and through–there is no separation. I was raised strict Catholic and had to do a lot of work over the years to let go of guilt associated with sexual feelings and my sexuality in general and have arrived in a place where simply being alive feels like a creative, sexual expression. I’ve had all sorts of feelings breastfeeding: calmness, contentedness, frustration, sexual, guilt, anger, sadness, nostlagia, joy. I try to just honor whatever comes up, explore it if need be and check-in to see if I’m still comfortable with the nursing relationship we have created at the given moment.
I’m not saying it’s not tricky. We are set up in quite the taboo of a society and I’m really glad we are here exploring these tough topics. It’s not as easy as black and white. There is no right way to feed your baby. There is no right way to feel while you are feeding your baby. I think nursing is the normal, biological continuum of birth and being alive as humans and therefore I support a society who sees it as normal and healthy.
Yes, the magazine makes its money from ads from formula companies – not for under-6 months formula, that would be illegal in the UK, but for follow-on (after 6 mths) formula and weaning ‘foods’ etc. This article is the usual backlash to our UK Breastfeeding Week: it’s becoming a ritual! I wonder how the journalists and formula companies choose who to write it each year? Boozy dinner party, short straws? (answers on a postcard please!)
Those who want to see research and facts and mothers’ feelings honoured around sexual feelings whilst breastfeeding – read Breastfeeding Older Children by Ann Sinnott! Ann talked to thousands of women in many countries and got varied responses, her book is scholarly, passionate and fascinating. You can get it from http://www.babymilkaction.co.uk (anywhere in the world).
“Fun bags” sounds like something a nursing preschooler would come up with. Just sayin.
Also, I agree with every point you’ve made in your post.
You are so right – society is creepy and we should strive to change the way breasts are perceived. Breasts are dual-fuction body parts, like mouths or penises, and we shouldn’t have to sacrifice sexuality to feed our children.
That said, I’m getting most upset by the constant comments of “it’s a woman’s personal choice.” With the plethora of choice in our world comes the responsibility to choose wisely. When you look at all the health benefits for both mom and baby, PLUS the long-term health, environmental and economic consequences on a global scale, formula is not a product that should exist. Heck, it was only invented within the last century and a half due to the advent of pasteurization to line the pockets of whey producers!
If you want to help change the way society perceives breasts, visit http://www.no-cones.blogspot.com or join No Cones on Facebook.
No Cones:
There are plenty of products that shouldn’t exist if this was a perfect world. However, it isn’t. Just as no one is able to make perfect choices all the time about what they eat, how much exercise they get, how they treat the environment, and so on, I don’t expect mothers to be able to make perfect choices all of the time about how to feed their babies. In a perfect world, all babies would be breastfed. This is not a perfect world.
Of course this isn’t a perfect world, but we can strive to make it better. This is one thing (increasing breastfeeding rates) that could have so much ripple effect on a macro level – for better health, for a greater respect for the wisdom of nature, for environmental sustainability – right down to the micro level of a more balanced body image for individual women who feel they don’t measure up because they don’t have melon-like “fun bags” attached to their chests.
Please know I am not and would never disparage any individual women’s choice or opinion, because I recognize it was made in this imperfect world. But as a citizen who cares about our world, I am compelled to try to open the eyes of both men and women to pay attention to this issue.
The “but I use my breasts for sexing!” argument just falls so flat for me.
We use a lot of parts of ourselves for sex, and they have other functions too, even the overtly sexual “private” parts of ourselves. Is a guy supposed to feel creeped out every time he whips it out to pee? Am I supposed to be creeped out by inserting a tampon? What about holding a flashlight?
But that may bring up an interesting divide between how sexual acts and parts are viewed differently between the genders. I haven’t asked a guy if he feels confused, or or like peeing is stealing from the sexual nature of his penis when he pees, but I do know that they can’t really do “turned on” and “urinating” at the same time. I do know that tampons are stigmatized, and it probably has to do with ideas that the vagina belongs to the penis for sex, and anything else is an intrusion.
So to me, the idea that breastfeeding is creepy is part of a continued notion that women’s bodies are for sex, and other functions that interfere with that need not apply. If a woman does not want to breastfeed, or does not feel comfortable doing so, I am not going to tell her she has to, but the woman making that comment freely admits that she hasn’t even taken the time to think about or challenge the notion that her breasts are fun bags and the child is entering a realm that only belongs to the sensual.
We owe it to ourselves to at least think through why we feel what we do about our bodies.
Annie, I love this post.
You make so many excellent points. I cringed while reading the article in question. Arrrg. I mean, I am all for honesty, but I agree with you that as an editor or a major publication, she needs to take some responsibility for the cultural memes she’s perpetuating. Just because I formula feed does not mean I get any less angry at the mixed messages women are sent about breastfeeding. It KILLS me. How the hell can we tell women to breastfeed for no shorter than a year and then make them feel uncomfortable doing so in public? And I hate the people assume, just because I try and write from a formula feeder’s perspective, that I agree with their ignorant, sexist, close-minded attitudes towards breastfeeding. I am so glad there are smart women out there like you changing public perception.
Also, thank you for acknowledging that while breastfeeding has definitely shown to be superior in a myriad of ways, that the decision to do so is not made in a vacuum. That is honestly all I am asking from anyone.
Sorry, one more thing… while I entirely understand the anger directed at this article and its author, I’d ask your readers to please not throw all of us journalists out with the proverbial bathwater. Yes, for an EDITOR to write something like this is a bit strange, especially if there are a good deal of formula ads running rampant in her publication, but I don’t think we can/should write off every article that can be perceived as “anti-breastfeeding” (b/c in my opinion, something like “The Case Against Breastfeeding” was just a writer expressing a different POV, and it was, in the end, clearly an opinion piece, and one that gave voice to a shamed and silenced minority in this country of women who hated breastfeeding but still did it, or couldn’t and needed to hear that maybe, just maybe, their babies weren’t going to be significantly stupider or fatter or unhealthier because of it) as being a mouthpiece for the formula industry, or just some “bitter woman’s” attack on those who succeeded where she failed.
It belittles the debate at large, which is an important one, and one which I honestly believe will lead to happier, healthier nursing relationships down the line. These are growing pains for the lactivist movement, and the backlash, while very real, is against fear tactics/pressure/guilt, not breastfeeding.
I disagree. I think it’s vital to the debate to be aware of just how much influence marketing has over us (if it didn’t, the formula makers wouldn’t be doing so much of it), and journalists writing anti-breastfeeding articles in publications targetted at parents are feeding into the marketing machine. Saying breastfeeding is “creepy” is anti-woman, as far as I’m concerned, considering no matter what choice a mother makes, feeding infants IS actually what breasts are for. An article focusing on breasts as “fun bags” and nothing more is not a counter-measure to fear tactics of the lactivist movement. Breastfeeding rates are already appalling low, the majority of moms already use formula at some point in the first year, the last thing moms-to-be need to read about (again) is how much breastfeeding sucks from a perceived “parenting expert”, complete with misinformation and no suggestions for how to get past some of the not-so-awesome parts of nursing.
Andrea,
I agree with you – sorry if I wasn’t more clear in my comment. I think this particular article was atrocious, I really do. It’s a different animal, though, than “The Case Against Breastfeeding” or others of that ilk. I was just trying to plead on behalf of journalists (being one myself) and explaining that opinion pieces sometimes truly ARE opinion pieces and not simple propaganda from the formula companies. I think it’s an important distinction, b/c then you’re crawling over that line of censorship, and that ain’t good, no matter how you cut it.
I just think this particular piece was utter crap, and bad journalism. That’s a different issue, and an important one, but just as I wouldn’t let one of the hundreds of badly written/researched pieces/blogs/sites on breastfeeding destroy my opinion of all journalism/breastfeeding support websites, I would hope we could all give the “other side” the same respect. That’s all.
I had an acquaintance who weaned her baby (at 13 mos) so she “could drink.” I wondered how much she drank? I have no problem having a glass or two of wine – I just tweaked the timing of the nursing or drinking.
Besides, parenting with a hang-over really, really, sucks.
My mother and grandmothers never nursed. Their boobs hung just from pregnancy. But, ahem, my spinster child-free great-aunts – guess what? – theirs hung, too! I cannot stand that this myth is perpetuated – and was even published in “The Baby Whisperer” – which discredited her entire book, imo.
If someone bottle-feeds, for whatever reason, they should just own it, and not spread perverted misinformation. In fact, I take issue with the frequent alignment of breastfeeding as “just doing something natural.” While I agree that “it is natural,” the next statement by your opponent is that so is defecation and fornication – yet we don’t want to see that in public. Breastfeeding is merely how babies *eat.* Period.
Cheers – loved your article!
Paula:
That isn’t the only thing that discredits the Baby Whisperer book. It is horrible through and through.
Touche.
Really, the *only* way for babies to sleep is in a crib, in their own room? The notion of babies having their own rooms is a ridiculously elitist “modern” view. In all the “big” families I knew growing up, or my parents’ families, no *child* ever had their own room. Sometimes babies stayed in a drawer, or a cradle next to the parents. And if you were a guest, there was a “guest room:” the foldout sofa in the living room. I threw The Baby Whisperer in the trash – didn’t even want to donate to spare someone else the time.
My husband isn’t much of a boob man (which was part of the attraction for me – I was sporting a 32F when I started high school at age 14 so a guy who could tell me the color of my eyes on the first date was rather refreshing). Hands play a much larger part of our sexual play – touching, fondling, stroking, being sucked on, etc…. so… should I be grossed out every time I see him tenderly pick up our newborn or tickle our 3 and 6 year olds? Should I not be allowed to change my baby’s diapers or wipe my other son’s butts after they defecate, or bathe them, since they’re boys and I might accidentally (or by necessity) touch their not-yet-sexually-used penis while cleaning them? Seriously, we’re all made of multifunction parts and almost all of them are required for parenting at one point or another (conception onward). The most important of these erotic organs that needs to be frequently used in parenting? The brain.
I have to state that I nursed 3 babies for well over a year each and never had pain. Never had an orgasm during childbirth, either
I have to add, in regards to the possibility of sexual feelings while nursing, I once (many, many years ago) saw some stupid TV cop show in which the criminal had some warped relationship with his mother, who admitted to having orgasms when she’d nursed him as a child. I was horrified — I assumed I would breastfeed but was afraid of such a thing happening, I’d never heard of that. When I was actually pregnant, I read The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy, and again, read that bf felt good, as in “good sex good”. Why had no one ever told me this? Again, I was almost scared off by this information. So imagine my surprise when nursing was nothing like that FOR ME. In fact, I felt guilty BECAUSE I didn’t get any warm fuzzies, and was actually somewhat annoyed by nursing at times. What was wrong with me, what was I missing? I still nursed my first until 2.5, because it was what he needed, and am currently nursing my 2.75 year old. But I’ve been known to say I never loved the actual act of nursing
So I agree, there needs to be more study and discussion of what is “normal” when it comes to feelings and emotions around nursing, so we aren’t all wondering “what’s wrong with me?” when it’s not like the books say it will be.
Andrea, the lack of warm fuzzies is precisely what my stalled article for API Speaks is about! And no doula or LC will aknowledge, at least so far, that this is a way that MANY breastfeeding women feel. I certianly did, but it wasn’t until recently when I started asking around how much I realized that is DOES happen. I thought I was the only one. I continued for a lot of reasons–to lower my chances of breast cancer, to hopefully keep my kids healthier, and yes, because I didn’t want to pay for formula. I’d love to discuss it with you (and anyone else interested) if you’re game. greatwallsofbaltimore at yahoo dot com. I’d appreciate it.
That was seriously a badly-written article! Is she Seriously an editor? That is just really hard to believe.
ummm…’fun bags’. yeaaaaah. How old is this woman? She sounds kind of like a 17-year-old to me. Actually, that’s not fair to the 17-year-olds I know; they are more mature than that.
I don’t see why breastfeeding has to interfere with sexuality at all- it seems to me that all push-up bras are made to make a woman look like she’s lactating, so I might as well be. haha.
For me personally, breastfeeding doesn’t feel distinctly sexual, but it does make me happy and I get that warm/fuzzy feeling from knowing that my baby knows where she can go to be taken care of
.
Kayris and Andrea, Has anybody checked your babies for tongue-tie? I have a kind of hunch that mild undiagnosed tongue-tie could maybe give the mother a bit of discomfort and interfere a bit with the release of the ‘warm, fuzzy’ hormones. I’d love to know if my vague idea has any basis in fact! (We know how devastating tongue-tie can be if it has a severe effect on the breastfeeding and/or the mother’s tender parts!)
My babies are now almost 6 years and almost 4 years. But no, neither was tongue tied. Both thrived. Both were excellent nursers. I just didn’t like it.
Agreed. You state your points so intelligently and thoughtfully. Thank you for educating women about breastfeeding and why it matters so much to societies (and to individuals).
Amazing and intelligent conversation ladies. I’m going to link this to my FB account.
I nursed 4 children-why? Because when I was six I was washing the baby bottles and formula equipment for my newborn sister and thought “there must be a better way to feed a baby”.
For #1 I sat in toilet stalls in department stores and when I needed to nurse him at the local international fair I took one look at the washroom and turned around and sat in front of the exhibits of quilts and nursed. It was 1980 and I only had two comments about my feeding in public, from two older women who said something about it being nice to see. It is important that a mother has support, no matter what method is used to nourish the baby. Just make an intelligent choice that is right for you.
I take exception to Blundell’s article also, I found it juvenile and ignorant. If it was a letter to the editor or a guest article she would still be considered off-based but by being an editor of a magazine for NEW mothers brings a whole new realm of irresponsibility to the article.
I just want to say that in my opinion the pleasurable sensations while breastfeeding are a positive thing! Why do we have to feel guilty or weird that the stimulation of a baby suckling can produce sensations throughout the body that could be perceived as quite lovely if we let ourselves?? I am a female. That is my sex. My breasts are sexual. Breastfeeding is part of my sexuality. Breastfeeding feels good.
I am coming to this late, as I came across it through another blog on quite another topic – oh, how the internet does drag one in!
I have to say something here, though. There have been a lot of talk on this comment thread about women’s ‘choice’ to bottle-feed their babies, including the person who thinks that formula should not exist. I, for one, am glad that it does exist, because without it, my healthy, happy 11 year old would have starved to death within weeks of her birth.
I wanted to breastfeed, I support breastfeeding and I tried to breastfeed – and I did. But not for as long as I would have liked, and not exclusively, because I simply didn’t have enough milk and on top of that, I had so many problems with it that it got to a point where it was a choice between both my baby and me being in tears multiple times a day, or just giving her the bottle.
Now, all you breast-feeding lovers out there, don’t start with me. I have had people – women – do it to my face. The supercilious, half-pitying, half-condemnatory smile, combined with the talk. The one that says if I had just known more, or tried harder, I could have made it work and that I am what is wrong with the modern world, one of those women who is too selfish, too interested in myself and too little interested in my baby to make the right CHOICE. (they didn’t always say the last bit, but it was definitely implied). I knew plenty and asked for and received help and tried cheerfully (and desperately, depending on the day and time) to increase my milk supply and to resolve the problems. IT DIDN’T WORK. And yes, I am saying that loudly because I know that there will be some out there, who no matter how loudly I say it, won’t believe me. I know it because I have met them in person.
I am thrilled for people who find breastfeeding easy or who find it difficult at first but that it gets easier. I am a passionate supporter of breast-feeding education and support programs. I am also a passionate and vocal advocate for breastfeeding in public, anywhere and any time the baby needs feeding. I admit to finding it a little weird and off-putting if the child is over about 3 (years, not months). But I still support people’s right to do it if it is what works for them and their child.
And I would like the same respect shown back to me, if it’s all the same to you. I didn’t CHOOSE not to breastfeed – at least not in the perjorative sense that it is often used in these conversations. This wasn’t about falling victim to societal expectations, nor was it about my own convenience. Anyone who has spent a minimum of 90 minutes on ever single feed, because they have to breastfeed until they are dry, then prepare and heat a bottle to comp feed, then start up again less than an hour later, because they are not over-feeding, so the baby will feed more often to try to stimulate their milk supply, is not motivated by their own convenience. Anyone who has cut their diet back to the blandest of bland foods because their baby has (apparently) silent reflux and reacts to everything up to and including broccoli (it was the only possible thing, that time) is not motivated by their own convenience.
I didn’t stop breastfeeding becuase I didn’t have enough milk (although I didn’t, and no amount of demand feeding seemed to help). I stopped breastfeeding because my breastmilk made my baby scream in agony, even when it was expressed and given to her in a bottle (so it wasn’t about attachment). I stopped breastfeeding because my enjoyment of my baby and my ability to be a good mother was compromised by the physical and emotional agony experienced by both of us in trying to breastfeed. And yes, it was agony. I am in tears now, remembering what it was like and it was 11 years ago.
So I would like all of you who are self-congratulatory of yourselves for doing it and judgemental of others for not (I do realise it is not everyone here, but I bet it’s some of you) to consider that the breast-feeding/non breast-feeding line is not some kind of moral divide, with good people on one side and bad, selfish people on the other. Or smart/well-informed people on one side and stupid/uninformed people on the other. I would also like you to consider that mental health and emotional well-being are as important to the mother/baby relationship as the physical benefits of breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is natural and breastfeeding is good. These are facts. But it does not follow that those who can’t or don’t do it, or who have difficulty with it, or who struggle with, or can’t handle, the responses it elicits are unnatural or bad.
And that’s all I have to say, really.
PS – except that I also agree that breasts are sexualised – and, I would argue, objectified – in Western culture to the point where any use of them that isn’t for male titillation is seen to be odd and that this is a terrible shame and something to be fought, not just for baby’s benefit, but for that of our girls and boys who deserve better than to be brought up in a world where women’s bodies are objectified.
Imelda:
Thank you for your detailed comment. I do agree with much of it and you may also enjoy my post on why I won’t ask you why you didn’t breastfeed.
I did want to say, however, that I don’t think that being self-congratulatory and being judgmental of others necessarily go hand in hand. I am proud of my accomplishments. Overcoming significant breastfeeding difficulties with my son is one of my biggest accomplishments (everyone said it couldn’t be done, everyone said I should just give up and pump or give formula, it was a huge struggle). I am proud of that in the same way that I am proud of my educational and professional accomplishments. But I don’t think that means that anyone who hasn’t accomplished the same thing is a lesser person. I know that other people have accomplished other things that I never will. We are each unique and have different interests, priorities and abilities.
Thank you for replying. I realise that this boat (in terms of the coversation) has sailed, so it’s nice that someone paid attention.
You SHOULD be proud of making it work, if it was hard for you. I understand how big an achievement that is and I am pleased for you and your baby that you did it. Go you! You have earned that pride. I didn’t mean to imply that self-congratulation and judgement necessarily go hand in hand and I think it is probably less likely to in people who have struggled. That wasn’t the kind of self-congratulation I meant.
But I have found that this is like so many areas in parenting, where some people who find breastfeeding (or whatever it is) easy tend to think that those who don’t just can’t be trying hard enough. It’s like women who have never experienced a child who runs looking down their noses at the woman with the toddler on reins. I find it disappointing that women who would never dream of commenting on another woman’s career path feel perfectly free to judge them – and not just practically, but morally, and without any care for walking in their shoes – for their actions as mothers. My hope is that we can get past this. We will never achieve higher rates of breastfeeding while women feel that it is just another thing that they can fail at and be judged about. While the judging is out there, the embattled mentality will also be out there and we will continue to waste time and energy flinging abuse at each other, when we should be supporting each other.
None of which excuses the editor that this was originally about. I have edited a magazine and I took the responsibility of that position seriously. She dropped that responsibility ball badly in this instance.
Thank you for replying. I realise that this boat (in terms of the coversation) has sailed, so it’s nice that someone paid attention.
You SHOULD be proud of making it work, if it was hard for you. I understand how big an achievement that is and I am pleased for you and your baby that you did it. Go you! You have earned that pride. I didn’t mean to imply that self-congratulation and judgement necessarily go hand in hand and I think it is probably less likely to in people who have struggled. That wasn’t the kind of self-congratulation I meant.
But I have found that this is like so many areas in parenting, where some people who find breastfeeding (or whatever it is) easy tend to think that those who don’t just can’t be trying hard enough. It’s like women who have never experienced a child who runs looking down their noses at the woman with the toddler on reins. I find it disappointing that women who would never dream of commenting on another woman’s career path feel perfectly free to judge them – and not just practically, but morally, and without any care for walking in their shoes – for their actions as mothers. My hope is that we can get past this. We will never achieve higher rates of breastfeeding while women feel that it is just another thing that they can fail at and be judged about. While the judging is out there, the embattled mentality will also be out there and we will continue to waste time and energy flinging abuse at each other, when we should be supporting each other.
None of which excuses the editor that this was originally about. I have edited a magazine and I took the responsibility of that position seriously. She dropped that responsibility ball badly in this instance.
Thank you Imelda for your honest and well-written account. I’m the “one who doesn’t think formula should exist” and just wanted to let you know by no means am I implying a death sentence for your child. If formula weren’t invented, just as in the eons previously, any woman experiencing any kind of difficulty nursing her child would have been supported by wet nurses or other lactating family members. Of course now there is a taboo against any woman other than an infant’s mother nursing them, but if we broke through those taboos then at least all children could receive human milk. Or re-institute breast milk banks, like blood banks, rather than use a sub-grade commercial product.
Imelda, please know that I hold no judgement over individuals for how they feed their babies. We are all products of the times we live in, and as you aptly put, the breast is oversexualized and having children has become medicallized (is that a word?), so as a society we have lost touch with the natural way of caring for our children. My war is with this overall mindset, not individuals. I just hope to spark thoughtful and respectful debate on the issue. I commend you for your courage to post on this somewhat biased forum!
Thanks No Cones (although my goodness it’s hard to actually address someone by that ‘name’).
It’s nice to have the clarification and in some ways, I like the idea of joint nursing or breast milk banks.
I have some reservations about the implications of such a system, though. In times gone by, wet nursing was not something that was done out of the goodness of a woman’s heart – at least, not exclusively. It was frequently a position provided to women of lower class and money by well-off women who didn’t want the ‘inconvenience’ of nursing their own children. The ideas that nursing babies interferred with men’s pleasure, caused sagging breasts and interferred with a woman’s social or professional duties are not new. Nor is the desire in some women to avoid all of those problems. The difference is that now, those who feel that way can purchase convenience in a can, rather than in the form of another person.
(Please note that, given my story, I am the last person to suggest that all women who don’t breastfeed do so for convenience. And if they do choose to formula-feed for convenience, I am not going to condemn them. Breast milk is better. This is a fact. But I don’t feel it is my place to judge. Moving on…)
Transferring wet-nursing to the modern world would mean, I fear, adding yet another low-paid, low-status job to the lot of poor women of the world. And yet another job that would be outsourced to the poorest, most vulnerable communities. How many rich families in America have illegal, underpaid South American maids and nannies because those people are desperate? Asia’s the same. People cross borders to work in households with poor pay, poorer conditions and no hope of recourse because they need the money. Too often, for the women, it is a poor, but better, alternative to selling their bodies. Do we really want to create a different kind of body exploitation to add to this mix? If the mother who was wet-nursing didn’t have enough milk for both babies, whose baby do you think would go hungry? Maybe the women would be better fed while they were feeding their employer’s baby. Maybe. But what happens when they stop? What’s to stop them being dumped in their street with their child once their usefulness is over? This idea is fraught with social justice issues which can’t be ignored.
And as for family members and friends helping, I, for one, would happily overcome that taboo, as I’m sure people did in times past. But in the modern, western world, how could we make that work? I have three sisters and 5 female cousins – a fairly good haul, by modern standards – and all but two of them has had children. But none of them was lactating while I was. Neither were any of my close friends. In times past people married or paired up much younger and we didn’t have birth control – meaning that there were a lot more women in any given community lactating at any one time than there are now. So sharing the feeding of babies would have been easier, as well as more common and accepted. Maybe it’s something that the new forms of community provided by the internet could help with. Maybe we could use the ability to form like-minded groups that it provides to link people who were able and willing. I think it’s a lovely idea, but we would have to overcome more than taboos to make it work.
Anyway, I’ve probably said enough, except to say that I think you hit the nail on the head with the word ‘respectful’. The problem I have always had with these discussions is they too easily descend into name-calling and judgement. If we could all remember that, even when we are discussing a subject in which we feel there is a clear ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, we are talking to other people and they deserve of our respect, I think we would get further.
Hi again Imelda! My name is actually Marla but I’m using No Cones on a lot of forums and comment pages as I’m trying to “brand” the blog/Twitter/Facebook I manage under that name. It comes from “Silicone = silly cones = No cones”; my hope (in a nutshell) is to re-acquaint Western culture with the natural form and function of the human breast. There are TONS of resources and organizations doing a great job at supporting breastfeeding, but I haven’t come across any that go deeper into the over-sexualization of breasts which IMO contributes so much to why bfing rates are so low, and why this debate even exists. When you have 16-year-olds asking for implants for their birthdays without a second’s thought to how they are later going to feed their children, or the fact that they are laying out thousands of $$$ on a potentially harmful surgery thinking it will improve their self-esteem – things are pretty out of whack with our society’s priorities!
For sure, I don’t support reverting back to the wet nursing system of yesteryear which you articulately describe. I’m just trying to remind everyone who cries “formula is necessary for women who can’t breastfeed” that that is not necessary the only option. I haven’t figured out all the mechanics of how such a system would work or the potential pitfalls, but it is good to put forward ideas for those who perhaps even haven’t considered the possibilities before. In her amazing book “The Politics of Breastfeeding”, Gabrielle Palmer talks about the fact that women’s bodies naturally create this miraculous liquid and, except for within their own families, receive absolutely no credit or reward for it. Imagine how cool it would be if women could get paid to contribute to a breast bank?!? Again, I haven’t thought through this all and I’m sure there are lots of economic holes in the argument, but I just want to put it out there to make people go “hmmmm…?”
Supermodel Gisele Bundchen started a firestorm of controversy this past week by suggesting there should be an international law mandating that all women breastfeed for at least six months. Of course there were the usual cries of outrage…”You’re a supermodel, what do you know?”, “Don’t tell me how to raise my child”, “No every women can breastfeed”, etc. I think it’s sad that the essential meaning of her comment was lost, and so too the opportunity to examine and respectfully debate her suggestion.
Hi Marla
Thanks for giving me your name, it feels better! But I completely get what you are trying to do with No Cones and I agree wholeheartedly. The idea of a 16yr old having ANY cosmetic surgery is sickening, terrifying and horrifying. That their parents are paying for it is even worse.
I hope you didn’t think I was raining on your parade. I wasn’t suggesting that you had worked out all the details, nor that you should have. I guess I was just saying that there is a place for formula, an imperfect product, in an imperfect world. Maybe we can turn it around to being a support to breastfeeding, by making it a back-up, as it was for me, when I didn’t have enough milk. If it can make people less frightened about trying to feed naturally, because they have a back-up, that’s a good thing. I happily breastfed, then ‘topped up’ with formula and would have continued, if I hadn’t had other problems which made it untenable. And if I had had the option of buying breast milk, rather than formula, I would have. But then, I can afford it. I still have reservations about who would be being paid for that breastmilk, in a bank system.
But you’re right, we need to keep talking about options and I think the point you raised about how formula started (which I think was on your blog) is an eye-opening one and one worth raising regularly. We do tend to take the state of the world as a given, without questioning how we got to this point and that can be dangerous. A position is not necessarily right just because many people hold it, nor a state right because it is the status quo.
Good luck with the fight. This is a race we all need to run to the finish, for the benefit of our daughters – and sons – as well as ourselves.
Thanks Imelda – so nice to “meet” you. Amazing the power of the virtual world – which I’m still wrapping my head around! I so appreciate your comments and our interaction – it’s been eye-opening. And honest, and I love honesty!!! Best for now, Marla
Hi Imelda, Maria and all,
I’m really appreciating your communications! Thank you for being so open and honest and non-defensive. I work supporting mothers as they learn to breastfeed and overcome difficulties – and I take my hat off to those who have horrendous pain, or babies not growing well, for all kinds of reasons, whatever they decide to do. Often, formula is really useful to help a baby who needs extra food – and yes, banked mothers’ milk would be better, especially if the mothers were getting a decent payment for it. Or healthy, reliable wet-nurses.
The problem with formula is not the product itself – it’s the way it’s promoted. Can I say that again? It’s the way formula is promoted that is the problem!
For example, the ‘Protect’ logo on Nestle formula tins, in big letters.
Other brands also have health claims, despite the World Health Assembly ruling against them in May this year.
There’s lots of useful information on the Baby Milk Action website and links on the Nestle Boycott Baby Milk Action Facebook pages, including the page about protecting babies fed on formula.