Subtitle: Dopers are slacking on the news front, why wasn’t I informed of this?
So I just found out that Selma Hayek breastfed a malnourished Sierra Leonnian baby on camera in an attempt to reverse the breastfeeding stigma in that country. To which I only have to say, “Woo-hoo!”
And, of course, “lucky baby!”
(My apologies if this was already covered and I missed it.)
There was a great article in the January 19, 2009 issue of the New Yorker about breast feeding, breast pumps and how pressure to not breast feed had resulted in higher infant mortality. The baffling part is why anyone would think this odd? Milk from another healthy nursing mother is still more healthy than formula or cow’s milk for an infant. We’re mammals - get over it! More power to her!
Thanks for that! It actually references the hospital where I just completed nursing school. I did my Role Transition Practicum in Postpartum, where they told me that the Mother’s Milk Club was world-famous. I guess they were right.
I wonder if women sharing their milk, either by breast or donating bottles, will become more common in the future. It’s a little bit taboo right now, but it could help a lot of people.
Because for decades women were convinced that Medical Science was the best thing for their babies, and that artificial food and artificial feeding schedules that were Scientifically Designed were the healthiest best options available. Even today, even *pasteurized *donated breastmilk is discouraged by most doctors, because there is bacteria in mother’s milk that could potentially make someone else’s baby sick (presumably, your own baby shares your microbial pool). Women to this day are warned against wet nurses or nursing their friend’s child, and told that formula is the better choice if you can’t make your own milk. (Note that the article you linked to reported that a child drinking someone else’s bottle at daycare “should be treated just as if an accidental exposure to other bodily fluids had occurred.”)
Many African countries (I don’t know about Sierra Leone specifically) also suffer from the Anglophile syndrome, where what Western mothers do is of higher status, and someone who can afford formula has a higher status than the lowly mother forced to breastfeed. Formula manufacturers worked that angle hard in the 70’s and 80’s in their marketing materials to African nations. As a result, there were (are) babies dropping dead from malnutrition from watered down formula and dying of dysentery from contaminated water used to make formula because of their mothers’ vanity and misplaced desire to do what they thought was right.
That’s why what Salma (thanks for the correction) did is so awesome: a beautiful, rich, successful, high status Western woman was *openly *breastfeeding one of “their” babies. Think of the message that sends. If Salma Hayak thinks breastfeeding is okay, maybe it’s not low class and gross after all!
That is awesome. I’ve had to supplement my own breastmik with formula, but a friend of mine from our Bradley class also gives us all her extra milk so my baby can get as much breastmilk as possible. I know some people think it’s strange, but I think it’s wonderful.
While I agree with most of your comments, I think it is important to note that this part isn’t because doctors think breastfeeding is gross. It is because diseases like HIV can be transmitted through breast milk.
Of course. That’s what I said. (Well, okay, I said “bacteria,” and HIV is a virus.) It’s also a very delicate virus, destroyed by the heat of pasteurization, and should not be a realistic worry from pasteurized milk bank milk.