ParentLine

Dear ParentLine, Breastfeeding seems to be in the news lately and we are wondering what the real news is about this.  Is breastfeeding your baby the best?  If so, why?  How long should you continue to breastfeed?  If you stop before that time, does it weaken your relationship with baby?  And, last but not least, is it okay to let our eight year old son see mom breast feeding his baby sister?  Signed, Wondering What’s Right in Mid-NH.

 

Let’s start with a basic fact of life.  According an article titled “Ten Reasons to Breastfeed” ParentLine found, Gabrielle Palmer, author of  “The Politics of Breastfeeding,” states, “Breast feeding is such a spectacular survival strategy that we call ourselves, after the mammary gland, mammals…animals that suckle their young.”  So what could be more natural, more nurturing for your baby than to be breastfed?

 

Unfortunately for women, many “modern” societies have “sexualized” breasts to the point where mothers don’t feel comfortable breast feeding. Take, for example, our culture’s double standard when the subject is women’s breasts.  Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl half-time “breast flash” is one thing.  The fact that laws are in place to ban breast feeding in public in some areas of the country is quite another. 

 

As for the older male sibling seeing his baby sister breastfeed, you can make this be a beautiful, natural, and modest thing to observe.  Again, how you look at breastfeeding, how you feel about it will be communicated to your son and to others you come in contact with.  Again, because we live in times of conflicted cultural attitudes, taking into consideration others in public settings may be reasonable.

 

Jennifer Taylor, author of an article titled, “North American Culture: Undermining Breastfeeding,” (www.obgyn.net) says, “Our language influences how society sees breastfeeding. There are no ‘benefits’ to breastfeeding - breastfeeding is a normal and necessary part of life. Optimal, perfect, and ideal are words often used to try to promote breastfeeding but may actually be discouraging it.”

 

Taylor observes that no mother is perfect and probably doesn't expect to be, so formula, which is perceived as second best, is seen as an acceptable alternative. The truth is that there is no [equal] alternative to human milk. She adds, “When society can again start to see breastfeeding as the norm and bottle feeding as abnormal, there may be a dramatic increase in the number of babies in the United States and throughout the world who receive their mother's milk.”

According to Taylor, the duration of breastfeeding is greatly influenced by social factors. Many people have negative attitudes toward long-term breastfeeding. "Long-term" means different things to different people. For some, "long-term" means six months, for others it means one year, and for still others "long-term" means two years or more. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all babies be breastfed for at least one year, and the World Health Organization recommends at least two years.

However, the choice to breastfeed or not is a very personal one and one about which a woman ought not feel she has to be defensive and/or militant in defending. The idea here is to make an educated choice; one that is best for both you and your child.   Some of the other reasons for breastfeeding listed “Ten Reasons to Breastfeed” are:

• Breastfeeding helps promote the bond between mother and child.  When a woman breast feeds, hormones are produced in her body that help her relax and bond with her baby.
• Breast milk composition changes from week to week, day to day, from hour to hour, and during a feeding.  It is always the perfect food for your child.
• Breastfeeding raises children’s IQs.
• Breastfeeding reduces your chance of getting breast cancer and your daughter’s chance of getting it as an adult.
• Breast feeding is great for the environment.  The production and consumption of formula uses a great deal of resources and produces a huge amount of waste.
• Breastfeeding lowers the risk of SIDs.
• Breast milk tastes great.  Have you tasted formula?  It’s awful.  Try drinking an eight ounce glass of it before you give it to your baby.
• Breast milk is free, always available, always at the right temperature, and never goes bad.

To help inform your choice, ParentLine offers the following medical consequences of artificial feeding cited by Taylor in her article that give the glib ad “Got Milk?” new meaning!  Based on this information, you will want to make the choice between breast milk and formula with care.

• About four out of every one thousand babies in the U.S. dies every year as a direct result of not being breastfed.
• Children who were not breastfed are eight times more susceptible to childhood lymphoma. Artificial feeding deprives infants of immunities which fight off carcinogens.
• Many studies have confirmed the increased rate of allergies in children who received cow's milk or synthetic human milk substitutes in the early months. These allergies include ulcerative colitis, food allergy, respiratory allergy, eczema, and hay fever. Breastfeeding for at least one month without other milk supplements significantly reduces the incidence of food allergy. Formula fed infants suffer from higher rates of wheezing, diarrhea, vomiting, and prolonged colds.
• It is estimated that up to 30% of type I diabetes cases could be prevented by avoiding cow's milk in an infant’s diet in the first three months of life. Cow's milk is the main component of most infant formulas. Exposure to the protein in cow's milk has been implicated as a trigger for the autoimmune response that results in type I diabetes.
• The absence of human milk in an infant’s diet contributes to increased incidences of gastrointestinal infections.
• Crohn's disease is more prevalent in children who were not breastfed. Adults affected by Crohn's disease were more often not breastfed at all or breastfed for a shorter duration than controls in research studies.

For more information, call La Leche League International, 1-800-525-3243.

ParentLine is a free and confidential service of Child and Family Services, a statewide, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the well-being of children and families.  Call ParentLine, 1-800-640-6486;  write ParentLine, c/o Child and Family Services, P.O. Box 448, Manchester, NH; email parentline@cfsnh.org or visit our website at www.cfsnh.org.