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Yes, yes it can. Baby formula however, can not.
I have to admit I am slightly outraged at the notion that in the developed world there is even any discussion about these warnings on formula products.
Cigarettes cause cancer and kill. Baby formula does not.
The case for using formula in the developed and developing world is completely different where I totally agree breastfeeding should be promoted. I'm talking about the UK and other developed countries for the sake of this argument.
I don't believe there's a mother of any social class in this country that hasn't had 'breast is best' made abundantly clear from their very first midwife appointment. It even says it on formula products already.
We know breast milk is better for babies. But I think we need to be very clear about this. Many things are better for babies. It's been proven that one on one care from a loving mother figure for the first three years of a child's life is better for their emotional development. Yet it is not possible for many reasons for this to be the case in many households. There are babies of 7 months in full time nursery all over the country for instance. But as long as these children get the loving care they need from their parents when at home and as long as the childcare chosen is good then we accept it. Imagine these signs at nursery gates:
WARNING: Leaving your child here may seriously damage their emotional health. Staying at home with them is better.
Can you imagine the uproar if this happened? Now I know you might be thinking that physical development is so important. What we put in our babies bodies sets them up for life. Which of course it does. And is exactly why it's essential to give a wide range of healthy foods once weaning has started.
But are we really suggesting that emotional health isn't just and in some cases, maybe even more important?
That is a debate for another blog post. But it just goes to show how the spirit of the times can massively affect how we view our parenting decisions and it's important to recognise this. Breast milk is the 'thing' of the past couple of decades, I wonder what the next will be.
I breastfed exclusively for 3 months and combi fed and then at around 4-5 months switched to formula. At first I actually had dreams about poison. I equated formula with poison in my mind. Now I think this is insane.
I was suffering a lot with anxiety. I had plenty of milk but I couldn't breastfeed any longer because to be honest I was falling apart and it was one more thing I just couldn't handle. I already felt excrutiatingly guilty, here I was failing my child at the first hurdle. I can only imagine how I would have felt had I seen massive warning signs on packets of formula. They might as well put 'YOU ARE A BAD MOTHER IF YOU DON'T BREASTFEED' on them and be done with it.
From the minute your child is born all manner of things affect their emotional, mental and physical health. Where you live, your social class, your support, your own emotional capabilities, your parenting style, whether you work... the list is endless. Cumulatively they create the conditions for your child to develop. Then of course there's all the things out of your control that will obviously affect them.
Most parents want to do the best by their children. And I imagine most mothers will try to breastfeed. But I think we really need to get past this obsession with penalising those who don't. There are many many factors that help create a healthy happy child and breastfeeding is but one of them.
If I have another baby I will try to breastfeed because it is the healthier choice for her. We know this. Just as I hope I will have enough money to buy what she needs. Enough support to help raise her with love. Enough patience and calmness to give her all the emotional encouragement she needs to become a kind and compassionate person capable of taking care of herself and the wider world.
But for now enough with the judgement. Enough with the guilt trips. If this goes ahead in this country (which I doubt it will) I won't let it make me feel bad for using formula if I choose to. We spend our lives making decisions about how best to care for our children. Let's not criminalise women for this one.
And just putting this out there - if you're a mother who chose to formula feed despite have no physical or emotional reason not to I don't judge you either. It is one choice of many hundreds over the years that will affect your child, not the decider.
What do you think about all this?
I think warning labels are over saturated in general. The money that would have to be spent implementing something like that would be far better off directed at health education and support, for both breast and bottle feeding parents.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree! I really struggled with BF for the first month. I am very fortunate that it seems to be now working out okay, but we had to use bottles and formula early on. I felt so guilty and a failure, but I had to keep reminding myself that my baby's health was more important than my pride (can you imagine the same scenario in the developed world, where babies die from malnutrition if their mama's cannot feed them? No! They would think we are bonkers!)
ReplyDeleteAlthough my lo is now totally BF, I can't pretend it comes easy, and that's not just because of sore nipples. There is a massive social and psychological adjustment to be made. When you feel like s**t, haven't slept, and you feel your bits are falling apart, you feel like your body is no longer your own, it's easy to start feeling down. Yet the things that would lift you, like going out, wearing something nice, socialising are all now really difficult! Some people may think that view is shallow, but personally if I feel that bad, I find it harder to cope with a crying baby. Happy mama = happy baba.
Don't get me wrong I agree "breast is best" too, but do wish that healthcare professionals and NCT do-gooders would do more to manage some of these practical considerations in their ante-natal education, instead of making out that your baby will "just know what to do" and you and your baby will immediately be bathed in the golden magical glow of BF.
I completely agree. What is wrong about the whole situation is that the ability to help mothers, wherever they come from, is being overlooked by a very one dimensional message. Of course breast is best - they drum that into our heads enough - but milk is milk. You can't tell what a child is fed on, whether 18 weeks or 18 years. I was formula fed and it saved my life as I was unable to feed unless via a tube. I wish we could stop shoving parenting into one category, when you can't even do that with the children being parenting. We have one thing in common - we are humans - they rest is a whole different mix of nature, nurture, a little opinion and wine. xxx
ReplyDeleteI stopped breastfeeding when Kiprian was 7 months because he rejected me and was so eager to drink milk from a bottle.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest... I was so relieved. I liked breastfeeding, I had a massive supply of milk and the connection with my baby in the early days was very special to me, but there is no way I could have done it for a year like I had originally planned.
I started to get impatient and frustrated that Kiprian always had to rely on me, like I couldn't leave him with someone else for more than two hours and I had to be the one that got up in the middle of the night ALL the time.
Once Kiprian was on formula life seemed to balance out. Peter and Kiprian got to bond in a way they never had before with milk feeds and sleep time. I can even plan a day out for myself and let the Grandparents enjoy a day with their grandson.
I don't care if anyone judges my reasons for using formula as selfish and for my personal benefit more than kiprians - formula is a great substitute to breastmilk.
I had this mother once say to me, 'it's not about you anymore, it's all for the baby'
I don't think so. I think everyone's needs deserved to be met in a happy medium - baby's, mummy's and daddy's needs.
I'm a better mum because I can enjoy more me time here and there. Ever since we swapped to formulaI I have felt more rested... I have rested more. I have physically slept more and feel fresher.
Anyways, to answer your question (I feel like I'm rambling) I think mothers have to do what suits them and their baby's best.
i love nursing and i will continue to do so until william won't let me (6 months and counting!) but i would never judge or condemn any mother who can't/won't. i do, however, pump about 50% of the time which allows me so much more flexibility in my day (maybe i want that glass of wine, or two!) and, while i'm perfectly confortable nursing in public, hubs is not a fan so if we're out together, we bring a bottle. i have had a woman come up to me when i'm feeding william a bottle of breastmilk and tell me how bad formula is for him and how i'm a terrible mother. i politely told her that it's breastmilk, not formula, and she can mind her own f*cking business (there's a polite way to curse :) ) i couldn't believe that people actually do things like that! but on the other hand, i have had numerous people stare disapprovingly at me while nursing in public (completely covered, mind you) and a few actually tell me to 'go do that somewhere else.' um, like on the bathroom floor?
ReplyDeletejudgment comes from both sides, people just need to mind their own business when it comes to other womens' breasts :)
totally agree! guilt doesn't work! Just like telling obese people how disgusting and lazy they are is never going to make people lose weight, effectively saying BAD PARENT on formula isn't going to make anyone breastfeed. Scotland where I live has particularly low levels of breastfeeding, so I think it is important to put effort into promoting it, but it needs to be support for those first six weeks when it is just so hard. I had a really difficult time with it at the start, and if I had had a two year old as well I'm not sure I would have persisted. It was just so all consuming and painful, and I got mastitis and didn't realise for two days, I just thought I had some crazy fever bug. I think the important thing is to not create unrealistic expectations about how wonderful breastfeeding is, which they completely did in the NCT course I went on, but to say that the difficult times will pass. I'm glad I stuck with it, but I would never judge anyone either way!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more! It's so refreshing to read a balanced view for a change. Great post :)
ReplyDeleteKate
Just Pirouette and Carry On...
I agree. I think mothers need support in general, not more labels of "breastfeeding" "formula-feeding" "AP-style" and so on, we ALL need support, regardless of how our babies are fed and raised.
ReplyDeleteBreastfeeding is such an emotive topic - there will always be those who are of the exclusive 'breast is best' camp, and those that feel breastfeeding is not for them. And as you say, it's a personal choice and should always be that way. To put warnings like that on formula - how is that going to make a mother who's had a mastectomy and cannot feed her baby/someone who is taking medicine that prevents her from breastfeeding etc etc feel? How ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting read, thanks for sharing.
My daughter was born premature and at the very beginning we had problems with her latching on, so I expressed milk and gave it to her in the bottle. I remember once bottle-feeding her my own milk in a cafe and other breastfeeding mums giving me a 'funny' look!! Pathetic really, if you ask me! As my little girl got stronger she actually started feeding from my breast, but I absolutely do not care how other women feed their babies. My friend gave birth three weeks ago and she said she will attempt to breastfeed for three months and then move onto formula. Her reason for that - she said she is finding it difficult and she wants 'her life back'. I can only applaud her for being honest.
ReplyDeleteGreat read. Thanks x
Hmmmm, are you talking about Save the Children's report from this week? You know it is about developing countries? I wonder if some media reporting has skewed this somewhat to make it seem like an attack on people who use formula. It is really intended to help raise awareness in poor countries where bribes for HV's are used by formula peeps.
ReplyDeleteIt seems a shame that it has become contorted to be yet another breast vs formula, make-mums-feel-guilty dialogue.
I breastfed both my girls, but there was such a big thing about it, you get pressured and I don't think it's right. Some babies don't take to the breast so easy and some mothers feel uneasy about it and that's ok. We need to just give support on what's best for both to be healthy. I think everyone should try to breastfeed at least once, it's a great bonding experience, but don't put pressure on Mothers to do it. Express milk, so they can at least get it that way...but the pressure on Mothers to breastfeed or give formula is wrong in both accounts. They have enough to deal with, support needs to be given and that's that!! xx
ReplyDeleteI had mastitis that developed into a breast abcess and had three lots of surgery and had to have a huge part of my breat tissue removed (bigger than a golf ball) even after the trauma of that and all the morphine and post op recovery, I still had a health visitor lecture me about breastfeeding.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I feel like these professionals are so focussed on ticking the boxes on their paperwork that they forget that we're all just people, people with emotions and feelings who most of the time are just trying to get on with what's thrown at us. We definitely need to strive for a society that builds people up instead of knocking them down all the time.