Designed by Bufoofoo the god who lives in my bellybutton.
Geez. :rolleyes:
Designed by evolution or creation or the Great Green Arkleseizure, whatever pleases you.
Anyone who doesn’t want their free samples of formula, please take them to your nearest adoption agency where they will be given to mothers who can’t nurse…thank you.
(And yes, I know about induced lactation, and that the majority of adoptive moms who try to induce lacation never feed their child 100% breastmilk - they usually end up with an SNS for the duration of breastfeeding).
And once again, why do people who think the medical establishment doesn’t do enough to encourage breastfeeding now believe the same medical establishment won’t hand out blanket perscriptions for formula for the asking? What is the expected outcome?
This is a wonderful idea! Thank you so much for mentioning it, and I’m going to tell all my friends.
I would expect the outcome to be progressively fewer prescriptions written as new moms start to wonder why a perfectly healthy baby needs something from a pharmacy every day of his life.
Also, a baby goes to the doctor like 10 times in the first year. You could easily pick up the prescription then. If someone is not educated enough to know the value of nursing the baby, they may also not be the most likely to get that baby to regular doctor’s appointments. This is especially true of many non-English-speaking immigrants and many very young mothers. I have sat in the waiting rooms and check-up rooms of WIC clinics in two states (where I am the only breastfeeding mother I’ve seen) and heard several times the admonishment that you MUST take the baby to the pediatrician for checkups even if the baby is not sick. If they have to go to the doctor to get the breastmilk substitute, it may serve as an encouragement to them getting the kid well-baby care and vaccinations.
The cost thing is a non-issue. Breastfeeding at the most simple costs you nothing, or under $50 for two good nursing bras, one-time expense. At the most complex, for working mothers, you can buy a set of bottles for under $20, a one-time expense, and rent a super high-quality pump from a hostpital for about $35 a month. Or WIC will GIVE you one for free, but it’s not so nice.
I personally spent $50 for 2 bras, $40 for a nice hand pump, and $20 for bottles over the course of my last pregnancy, which comes down to a bit over $10 per month, and have spent nothing since then. My younger kid is eight months old.
Formula- last I checked, it was about $15 for a can, and I’d estimate you to need 2-3 cans a week? I ended up giving my older kid some after he self-weaned at a year because he couldn’t digest cow’s milk yet. Had I been feeding the baby formula, I would have spent (at conservative estimate) $1220.
Of course, as I’ve already said, I’m on WIC. That means YOU ALL would have collectively paid for me to spend $1200 on feeding my baby something he doesn’t need.
Back in 1993 when LilMiss was born, NOTHING was marketed to me about formula.
Nothing.
Rather I had the lactation nazi-nurse tell me I was a horrible mother because I could not breastfeed. According to her my child would grow up to be the next Attila the Hun and it would be alllllll my fault.
So I tried. A bit of TMI, but you ever try to breatfeed when you have skin that is bleeding, bruised, and swollen? For two days I managed it, crying continuously.
Finally I met with another lactation nurse who asked me why I was torturing myself so much. It was not benefitting LilMiss or myself, in fact it was making her miserable also.
So to formula we went.
I do not regret it for a minute, until I again hear people harping ad nauseum “breast is best!” then I second guess my decision. I worry. But I look at my daughter, who is top in her AP classes, slim as a rail, keen, curious… and it goes away.
I did not have an actual “medical” need to stop breatfeeding (ie I had not dried up or was not ill), so would I have been able to get a script allowing me to purchase formula? Probably not. And that would have caused much misery to LilMiss and myself.
And as far as giving it away on WIC, would you rather the children have cows milk? Some women just do not want to breastfeed, period. Making it script only would cause many children to be deprived of the healthy benefits formula has over cow milk.
None of that pleases me. There’s no evidnece that man was designed by anything, for any reason—you may believe that man was, and that’s fine, but you can’t base legislation on “design”, because when you start talking about design, you are assuming the exisitence of a deliberate creator.
(and I know a lot of exisiting legistation uses “creator” or “designed” language, but it shouldn’t!)
Actually, I think you did have a medical reason- you gave it a fair shot and it caused you and your baby pain and suffering.
I did nurse for a couple weeks through cracked and bleeding nipples, so I know what utter hell it is to want that closeness and be distanced by pain. It sounds like you made the right choice for you.
Isn’t most formula made from cow’s milk?
And as far as simply not wanting to nurse- if you want to be a mom, do what’s best for the baby. Period. I dn’t want to stop what I’m doing and go in and wipe my four-year-old’s bottom when he poops, but I do. I mean, you’re going to have to feed the kid anyway, so why not go the inexpensive, convenient, healthier way?
I’ve never seen any studies that had a concrete link between breast milk itself and I.Q. Instead, I have read that the higher I.Q of breastfed babies may be due to the fact that breastfeeding mothers are more educated about what babies need, more attentive to their babies, and spend more time with them, thus, giving the baby more stimulus in its most important formative time.
This is not to say that bottle-feeding mothers on the whole are not as attenive and loving with their babies, just that bottle-feeding is the choice that a lot of innattentive and uneducated mothers make in the name of convienience. You also must take into account those mothers who somewhat resent their baby, and give it as little care and attention as possible. These children suffer the affects of this neglect later on in life, and due to the lack of stimulus, have a lower I.Q, and often have less social skills.
Quite true. Some parents invest as little effort as possible in their children. Also, if they are being pressured and made to feel guilty about this choice, they may not want to admit it in order to get a prescription.
Aren’t most of the anti-bodies in breastmilk passed on within the first week or two? If that’s true, then wouldn’t most of the benifits of breastmilk have been passed on in this time? In this case, I couldn’t see any harm in changing to formula after this time has passed.
Unless, of course, the baby has an allergy to formula, as I did as an infant. My mother could not breast-feed, and they had a heck of a time finding a formula that did not make me violently ill.
I tried my damndest to nurse Aaron. I attended the breastfeeding class at the hospital, attended La Leche League meetings, read The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, and fed him nothing else for a month.
Unfortunately, no amount of preparation could resolve the anatomic anomaly that kept him from breastfeeding successfully. The frenum, the strip of tissue that holds the tongue to the floor of the mouth, is placed too far forward, effectively anchoring his tongue to the floor of his mouth. This anomaly caused a LOT of problems with latching, leaving him very frustrated and uncomfortable (and hungry!), and me in a lot of pain and very sleep-deprived, because he simply could not get enough milk at a single feeding to satisfy him. Expressing was not an option because of his constant desire to nurse. I had nothing to express because Aaron was taking it all. At about a month, I popped open my first can of Similac.
He’s five months old now, and weighs about 17 1/2 lbs at his last weigh-in. He’s as healthy as any other baby. Granted, the immunity benefits of nursing would prevent him from getting as many colds as he’s gotten, but that’s life.
So, while I think breastfeeding should be encouraged heavily, I don’t think it should be “nurse or else”. There are too many variables to make this a regulation issue. For example, what of the mother who smokes and/or drinks? Should she be forced to nurse, giving her child nicotine (or other drugs) or alcohol? What of the woman who requires medication? Again, should ber baby be exposed to the drug?
It’s a worthy goal, but untenable in real life.
Robin
You are giving these moms, who need to be admonished to take their baby in for well baby care, suddenly a whole lot of credit. New moms who can make the leap of logic that Breast is Best (which isn’t exactly a leap, since even formula commercials have the tag line) aren’t the ones that don’t give breastfeeding a chance. Everyone who doesn’t breastfeed was given the opportunity and rejected it – either because they had to - adoptive mom, baby allergic, baby didn’t latch one, insufficient milk production, whatever - or because they wanted to.
Actually, my first baby had this problem (called tongue-tie). We had to have his frenulum snipped. It was awful for about a day, then he realized he could actually get suction now and made up for lost time with a vengeance! You may want to have your doctor check this out even now- aside from causing latch-on problems, it can cause delays in speech development if it’s severe enough. With luck, most will outgrow the problem.
SOunds like you have a lovely, healthy baby. Congratulations!
These examples that you give are all health issues and would be reasons for the baby to be given formula. I don’t think formula is evil- I just disagree with its current status.
http://www.childthai.org/ciec/c020.htm
The rest of this page is good, but the study I was looking for is at the bottom. It studies the effects of breastmilk on premature babies. These babies were fed though a tube down the throat, so their nurture was pretty much the same.
[QUOTE]
Aren’t most of the anti-bodies in breastmilk passed on within the first week or two? If that’s true, then wouldn’t most of the benifits of breastmilk have been passed on in this time? In this case, I couldn’t see any harm in changing to formula after this time has passed.
**
Althought the densest immunological material is in colostrum, hich is generally what’s there for the first couple days postpartum, you continue to give your baby added resistance to sickness as long as you feed him. Here’s a link to exactly what happens past 1 year of age: http://www.kellymom.com/ebf-benefits.html#Intelligence
It’s important to note that the American Academy of Family Physicians recommends that a child be breadtfed exclusively for 4-6 months, then continued feeding for the full first year, but says that there are distinct benefits beyond that.
WOW I just found a study that says that diabetic moms who breastfeed need less insulin! Cool!
http://www3.us.elsevierhealth.com/MERLIN/Matteson/formula_hazards_update.html
This page has links to studies about what drinking formula can do to babies. You all have been really reasonable and have helped me think through a lot of stuff and I want to thank you, but this scared me. I hope your kids avoid all these problems. I wish all kids could, and I can think of only one way.
Aaron’s tongue-tie is apparently genetic; his dad has the same thing, and all he’s got to show for it is a very slight lisp.
We did discuss getting Aaron’s frenulum cut with Aaron’s pediatrician, and decided that since he’d taken so nicely to the bottle (whose nipple he can manipulate a lot easier than mine), there’s no reason to do it unless it does cause significant speech problems. So far, it’s not even doing that; he’s making age-appropriate sounds (and babbles almost constantly when awake) and can blow raspberries with the best of 'em. 
Robin
My son is 9 months old and he is breastfed. When he was born, I received a “breastfeeding pack” from the hospital that was nothing more than a diaper bag full of formula samples and formula coupons. The nurses kept insisting that I needed to buy pacifiers or he would nurse all the time. I didn’t, and he didn’t.
What bothered me about the attitudes of the nurses and the hospital was that they had decided that they knew what was best for me and for my son. They knew better than I did. That’s bunk. This is bunk:
Hospitals should educate new mothers about the benefits of breastfeeding – the real beneifts, not propaganda – and then let the mothers make their own choice. And ACCEPT that choice. SUPPORT that choice. The last thing that a new mother, a woman facing an incredible new challenge that she really doesn’t know anything about no matter what she is read or how prepared she thinks she is, the last thing she needs is to be told that her educated and thought out decisions are going to wreck her child’s life.
I take issue with this. I hope you are not equating those who do not attend “well-baby” visits with a lack of education. Some people happen to feel that a healthy child does not need to be poked and prodded and injected and have his blood drawn by a doctor once a month. Whether you agree or not, that is a decision that is made by many educated and careful parents.
I love that stage- baby gurgle gargle is the best
Yes, I am. There are too many things that have no obvious beginning signs that can hurt your kid if you don’t bother going in until after they’ve started the damage.
Example: My first baby was perfectly healthy, growing, and cheerful. I took him in for his 9-month physical and we found that his blood level of lead was very high and his blood level of iron was quite low. They are related. We lived in a house that had been tested for lead, so we knew that was not a problem and would never have suspected it on our own until it started to affect him. As it turns out, I was doing a lot of living history and the ethnic eye makeup I wore and some of my jewelry was lead-based. I found modern replacements, gave him iron supplements, and the problem turned around in a month.
If someone is very poor, they may live in substandard housing that still has lead paint. My kid’s exposure was fairly minimal. A kid eating lead paint chips- well, anything we can do to get that kid to a doctor before problems happen is a good thing.
Except that newborn checkups are supposed to screen for potential problems, check for normal growth and development and to give parents the opportunity to ask questions in a relatively non-threatening environment.
And the only time Aaron has ever had blood drawn at a checkup was for his two-week state-mandated blood tests, and he’s gotten his baby shots. The only other time he’s been subjected to blood work and x-rays was for illness.
Robin
You are aware that this is comparing apples and oranges. Premature infants is a different population than full term infants. And the composition of breastmilk that comes in for a women who has delivered prematurily is different than the breastmilk of a woman who has delivered full term. You can not extrapolate these results across populations.
The study is indictitive of a correlation between IQ and the chemical composition of breastmilk, but certainly not conclusive.
Wait, you gave yourself and your son lead poisoning and never noticed, and call me uneducated? Symptoms of lead poisoning:
You never noticed any symptoms out of that whole list in your child or yourself?
Robyn, for one thing, I object to the idea that I need a height/weight chart to tell if my child is growing right. Height/weight charts do not account for my genetic build, or my husbands, nor do they take into account whether my child is breast or bottle fed. Nor do they care about a dozen other factors that might affect his size but not his overall health.
Secondly, I have a pediatrician, and I feel comfortable making appointments or phoning to ask him a question when I have a question to ask. I don’t need a mandated appointment just in case I might have a question.
Third, “the only time Aaron has ever had blood drawn at a checkup was for his two-week state-mandated blood tests.” That’s fine for you, but for me, it’s one time too many. My son had his heel pricked and blood drawn without my permission when he was less than 6 hours old. He has not had a needle in his body since. He has never had an x-ray, and he never will unless I have at least two independant doctors telling me that it is necessary. I have already fought CPS on this once, and won.
My kids’ doctor has already told me that well-baby visits are primarily based around vaccinations, and if we aren’t vaccinating, we don’t need to come in. I have read numerous books on the subject – from BOTH points of view. I have studied vaccinations from sources that advocate them as well as sources that do not. I have spoken to doctors.
You might not agree with my decision, and you have a right not to. But to call me uneducated is simply a fallacy.