1. Jessica Carlson

September 26, 2006 @ 9:11 pm

I have a different take on the whole breastfeeding vs. formula feeding issue. I started out breastfeeding my older son for only 10 days, until a raging infection took it’s toll on me and I switched (on my own accord) to formula. I remember going on a parenting site to ask the best way to make the switch from breast milk to formula and was immediately subjected to the world of breastfeeding zealotry. It was shocking actually. Fifty responses later, much of which were doomsday warnings and scenerios; scary stories and admonishments that warned (if not threatened) me that my baby would most likely succumb to cancer, be stupid, sick, inferior, abnormal and my favorite, the suggestion that giving formula was liken to child abuse. This was my hazing into the dark side of the “mommy wars” and how cruel and ignorant people can be.

I actually think the movement started as, and continues to be, a shill for political partisanship. It took me years to figure it out really, that the issue was less about health and nutrition and more about feminism, distrust of the medical community, an anti-patriarchal disdain which assumes that all men are trying to suppress women and most importantly, a resentment of large corporations. To punish the corporations, the mothers who supported them (the formula feeding moms) would have to be punished too. (Although I’m not suggesting that why all women breastfeed or extend nursing. I’m talking about the very specific gang with a mission, who prey on formula feeding moms.)

The most concerning thing to me (such a concern I wrote an essay on it http://www.imperfectparent.com/articles/articles188_1.php), is the desire to mandate this “morality clause”, through banning free formula in hospitals and lobbying to make formula available by prescription only. Why the hell is that ANYBODY’S business and why the hell would they waste valuable resources fighting a perfectly acceptable, breastfeeding alternative is so grossly misguided, it’s hard for me to not think of it as a mental disorder. The irony and hypocrisy of it all is staggering. Who needs men to suppress women when we have women doing it to other women?

Obviously, there are health advantages to breastfeeding, and as a person that hated every second of breastfeeding, I completely respect that, but I also know it is not some magic elixir that makes everything right with the world and makes illnesses virtually non-existent. Who cares if it is natural? If your appendix bursts, dying would be the natural thing to do, so would death be better?

What I find most perplexing, is that the women that subscribe to this almost religious like, breastfeeding tenet, are usually intelligent, but the danger of knowing a little bit becomes scarily dangerous. There was a woman on the aforementioned parenting site that suggested that instead of using formula (because formula is so “bad” and the corporate “man” is out to get ya, don’thya know?) that women ought to make their own, using carrot juice. Then. Then! She actually was dumb enough to post the recipes!

Yes, it’s easy to get caught up in the back and forth debate over statistics and third world countries, but breastfeeding is NOT the end-all, be-all answer in third world countries either. CLEAN WATER, food (irrigation), medicine and vaccinations are the answer. Breastfeeding prolongs children’s lives in third world countries (which is good and should be encouraged), but it does not solve the real problem there, nor is it an appropriate or accurate comparison to an industrialized country like American where having access to clean water and ready-made formula is a reality. Of course there are risks and there are statistical differences, but my argument has always been in determining how significant are those differences? Enough to breastfeed if you enjoy it or you can? Yes! Enough to do it if it makes you miserable? No. The disparity is just not as great as breastfeeding zealots wish it to be, in my opinion.