I felt much the same about breastfeeding while I was pregnant (but skipped the LLL meeting 'caused they’d already pissed me off when I adopted).
The catch is, not all women are completely rational after giving birth. I certainly wasn’t. So the post natal depression, the sleepless nights, the flucuating hormone levels, and the difficult time breastfeeding all added up to make life really difficult. I never thought I’d feel bad if I couldn’t breastfeed, but I ended up no being able to let go of it - even when it was probably best for everyone (including my son who was 13 months at the time). (I took a peek down that Andrea Yeats road and it wasn’t a nice place to be).
Here’s to an easy labor, easy, successful breastfeeding and a post birth glow that the hormones don’t touch!
I know personal experience is frowned upon, but I felt the need to chime in. I was breast-fed until I was two years old (my parents are from Europe) and I have always suffered from severe allergies and asthma.
How can that be?
My sister, who was not breast-fed, has always been perfectly healthy and speaks seven languages fluently.
How can THAT be?
What about this: My cousin refused to breast feed her children because she didn’t want saggy breasts. As much as people gave her a hard time about her excessive vanity, it’s still HER RIGHT, isn’t it? Her three children are all bright and healthy.
Breastfeeding isn’t everything , it doesn’t make the child.
Dangerosa, I didn’t say “harm.” I said “harm or endangerment.” Refusing to clothe your child doesn’t cause immediate harm (except perhaps psychologically), but the risk of illness, frostbite, hypothermia, etc., is increased to such a degree that resultant harm is likely. You have therefore endangered your child.
As for carseats, quite frankly I believe that mandatory car seats go too far (the same government that mandates car seats doesn’t even put seatbelts in government-owned subways or trains? How does this make sense?), but that’s neither here nor there.
However, a distinction can be drawn between carseats and BF/FF. With carseats, the risk being mitigated is very low, but the injury caused if the risk comes to pass is extremely high. In formula feeding, the risk is also very low, and the injury caused if the risk comes to pass is also relatively minor - a statistically minor to insignificant drop in average IQ’s, an increased, but still low, risk of non-fatal childhood illnesses, etc.
Either you’ve put me on your ignore list and haven’t read my other posts on statistics, or you’re just trying to see how far you can push me before I go completely ape.
The issue here isn’t whether or not breast milk does all the stuff its proponents claim; the issue is whether or not the government should have the right to legislate breastfeeding. Personally, I can’t imagine ANY SENATOR OR CONGRESSMAN/ CONGRESSWOMAN touching the issue with a 10-foot nipple.
Actually those differences are, quite literally, meaningless.
Back when I was going for a psych degree (changed majors 3/4ths of the way through), one of the things we learned was that most, if not all, IQ tests had a standard amount of deviation, IIRC, the Stanford-Benet test (the one most people mean when they say "IQ test) was about 8 points (maybe even 10 points). IE if the same person took the same test on different day their score could vary by as much as 10 points. The varience narrows when you get to the extremes of the curve (someone with an IQ of 20 isn’t going to show as much variation, for example) but still
3-6 points means absolutely nothing at all. You can get a six point jump from taking the test from getting a good night’s sleep the night before.
That’s not to say breast-feeding doesn’t have all sorts of health advantages, but based on what I’m hearing here, IQ ain’t one of them!
THANK YOU EchoKitty! I was just thinking in the shower (that’s where I think…between work and my 15 month old it’s the only place there’s any peace:)), and came to the same conclusion. I jumped online to say just that, but you beat me to it!
I think the what has bothered me most about the OP’s assertions is the idea that the government has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body. In my opinion:
Should a woman breastfeed? Yes, if at all possible. Should the government legislate it? Hell, no.
Should people wear seatbelts? Absolutely. Should it be mandatory? NO.
Should children be restrained in the car. Without a doubt. I would never, ever, ever let my child ride in a car without a carseat. Should the government tell me that she has to? No, I don’t believe so.
And should women have abortions? I don’t think it’s ethical. Should the government tell me I can’t? No, no, and double no.
To address this point generally (not about the whole BF thing)… The imprecision of measurement is an issue with MANY tests. Most tests, even. I can see where this would mean that you could never compare two individuals with a 6-pt IQ difference and say that one was smarter, but doesn’t an increase in n help with this problem? With a group of people, non-directional measurement errors are going to work for some people and against others. Net effect would be pretty even. Wouldn’t it? So differences in MEANS between groups of people ought to interpretable and meaningful.
You have just hit on the reason I dropped psychology as a major: statistics.
If I’m following you (and I may not be), you’re saying “If a group of kids tests (say) 6 points smarter than another group across a number of tests that shows something” right?
If that’s the case, I’d agree.
Fenris, resolving to never mention statistics again.
Guin, it may have been because LLL promotes induced lactation. It is a long, difficult, drawn out process wherein you try to get milk from breast who never got the body’s memo about a new baby because the new baby came in the front door instead of through the vagina. I admire parents who have succeeded at doing it, but it almost borders on extremism to me. If I had adopted a new baby, I’d never be up for the rigors of doing this; knowing myself, my time would be better spent on other parenting and adjustment tasks. I mean, it’s miraculous and all that, but boy howdy. If I were that hell-bent on breast milk, I’d see if a lactating mom could pump extra for me rather than doing this.
One of the keys is rigging up a formula-delivery system so that the baby sucks at your breast while getting formula through the tube that is taped to your nipple. This stimulates the body while the baby is being fed and can, for some women at least, enbable them to produce milk. However, many of them still have to use formula for some of the baby’s nutrition.
I am assuming that Dangerosa ran into some LLL leaders who were promoting the idea vigorously? That’s to their detriment. It sure isn’t for everyone.
What? I’ve heard about that, but I never understood how one COULD lactate without having had a baby. Of course, how did wet nurses do it in the old days? From what I’ve read, not all of them had babies, or whatever…
Vigorusly and with the added guilt trip of “if you tried hard enough you would succeed.” Success was beyond me because I worked full time, but by chosing that, I wasn’t putting my babies needs FIRST! They also pointed out that my poor son wouldn’t have the benefits of breast milk for the first six months of his life, so anything I could do to to mitigate this most unfortunate circumstance had the potential to save him from being a disease ridden moron whose lack of proper bonding doomed him to a life as a serial killer. Oh, and my infertility was my fault - if I would just relax I’d have gotten pregnant and fullfilled my role as a real woman.
(Yeah, I’m exaggerating a little - but its how I always end up feeling talking to the Breast Facists).
Women who succeed at inducing lacation are wonderful - but, when talking to anyone but the Breast Facists, its a very difficult thing to do that has a fairly low success rate.
And since I had such success subsequently with my daughter (having had hormones rushing through my system and still having to pump for a week for 20 minutes every two hours (every three during the night) to get my milk to come in, I don’t think I’d have been very successful with induced lacation. Me /= Dairy Cow.
(P.S. I’m feeling ignored - I’d made that same point about not being able to pass this sort of legislation a whole page ago and no one noticed - weep, weep…)
Get a hospital quality breast pump about a month to six weeks before the baby arrives.
Make it your new best friend. Pump every couple of hours. Pumping dry breasts hurts - but only for a few weeks.
The idea is, that stimulating your breasts in this manner will induce lactation - and sometimes it does - if it doesn’t (or doesn’t in enough quantity to feed a six month old child), proceed to step 4.
Baby arrives home. Get an SNS (supplemental nursing system) This is a bag you hang around your neck filled with formula or someone else’s breast milk. It has tubes coming out of it which you tape to your nipples. Baby sucks, gets formula or breast milk Breasts are further stimulated. The idea being that baby will get less and less formula and more and more breast milk as time goes on and your breasts turn into the little milk machines nature intended them to be. However, it doesn’t work for everyone. Some women never get a drop out, but, according to the LLL and other breastfeeding advocates, this is OK because your baby is still getting the benefits of the bonding only breastfeeding can give. You’ll excuse me if I (and other adoptive mom’s who missed out on the first months of their children’s lives) gag a little over this whole concept of “bonding.” Especially since there are some other things that go with it - the belief that baby should nurse as soon as possible after birth, be placed on mom’s tummy immediately after birth, to facilitate a deep bond. To listen to the extremists on the bonding front, you’d think my son and I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of having a good relationship.
The tubing is apparently a real bear to keep clean.
Lesbian acquantiances of mine tried this. The pregnant partner planned on nursing. The non-pregnant partner tried inducing. She wasn’t successful…and the baby didn’t go for it - so they gave up quickly. But I do know adoptive mom’s - even some of the international adoption variety where baby doesn’t come home until 4 - 8 month old, that have been successful.
Sorry, Danger, I didn’t mean to imply that Echo was the first or only person to make that point. But she made it without trying to engage any other point in the OP, which was an exception. So many of the OP points were extremely debateable, so we all spent a lot of time picking our way through those. And while I think that was a good exercise, for the most part I think we ended up at the same place we were before. LOL
Baby formula is FOOD! Nothing more, nothing less. You can feed it to your baby, to yourself, or to your CAT.
What substance are you going to control? Carrots? Apples?
Are you going to require government regulation of RECIPES?
I have no problems making manufacturers prove any health-related claims about their products in their advertising.
But to restrict individuals from what type of FOOD they buy? That’s scary!
And as far as the third world goes, most women don’t have acsess to a doctor, either financially or geographically or both. If they can see one, it may take days, or weeks (even in the US, for that matter).
You want to fill up emergency rooms with mothers who can’t give milk temporarily, and must seek medical help so their infant won’t starve?
Oh, yeah, and you want to CHAIN mothers and babies together. Well, Mom needs a break once in a while (or Mom has a job that takes her away from home once in a while), and it’s no crime to leave the baby in someone else’s care for a few days.
And now they would need a doctor’s permission? Screw that!
Okay, yojimbo, just so you know, formula in a third world country is an ABSOLUTELY DIFFERENT ISSUE and it’s in a few third world countries where it is available only through a doctor and there are some good reasons for that. You have completely and utterly changed the argument by throwing that out there. One of the reasons that formula feeding is NOT such a big health issue in the United States is that we have a very safe water supply, good medical care, relative affluence, and a nationwide government assistance program targeted at the nutrition needs of children. Take those out of the equation and it’s a different ballgame altogether.
Do you want to go down that path? Because I really thought we were done with this thread.
I presume that the OP was about the United States. If you want to advocate that formula should be readily available to village women in Afghanistan, then we ought to start a different thread, I think. And order lunch, because it will take a lot of posts to convince me that formula is a great and desirable convenience product in the third world.
Plentiful availble baby formula in Afghanistan would, I believe, save more lives than it would cost. There are other places where that may be different, but you’re right, that’s another thread.
The OP DIDN’T restrict itself to the United States, but I’ll settle for that.
I work in a birthing education center. I see the kind of outreach we do just to try and get poor pregnant women, and teenagers, just to COME IN THE DOOR for prenatal education. We offer our classes for free, we serve them a meal, we have a free medical library open to the public. It’s not enough. There are millions and millions of poor and or uninsured Americans who do not have adequate access health care.
Autz, I know you’ve said that things will have to change to make this practical. Better access to health care, freely available lactation consultants, etc. And under this ideal (or at least substantially better) system, infant formula should be by prescription.
But in this better system, with women better informed about the state of their bodies, the risks of adulterating formula, the long term benefits of breastfeeding, etc., shouldn’t they also be more rather than less capable of making their own decisions about caring for their infants.
There are many, many valid reasons for using formula as a short-term substitute for breastfeeding, INCLUDING convenience of the mother. I think medical professionals would think this is absurd, so I’m going to ask them.
I’m going to ask several people at my office their opinion on this, though I am afraid I will appear foolish doing so. Maybe I will be surprised.
My boss Liz is a 15-year RN, a certified lactation consultant, and a perinatal (as it was explained to me, it means “around birth”, pregnancy thru the first months of motherhood/infancy)specialist.
Jody is a certified midwife, “duma” (whatever that is), and is certified in a whole bunch of birth and infant care educator programs.
Lori is another RN, who splits her time between teaching birthing courses for us, and working in the perinatal clinic.
We also have a dozen part-time lactation consultants that I can ask next time they get together (about once a month).
I’d be amazed if any of them supported the idea of prescription infant formula, but I’ve been amazed before.
Autz, I understand that you may not accept the opinions of three medical professionals, or perhaps you worry that I will either mischaracterize their remarks or prejudice them by my manner of questioning. But I am curious whether this is even a subject of debate within the medical community, and they would know if it is. So I will ask for my own sake, and let you know what they say. For whatever it’s worth.
