Non-parents should tread lightly into the arena of how to parent. Lightly, or not at all. But you know who else shouldn’t intervene? Government. To bottle or to breastfeed: That is Not the Question (for government to ask).
The problem is: So Much of Everything IS government-subsidized that they get understandably mixed up on what the real issues are for governments to undertake.
Then they end up doing pro-breastfeeding campaigns.
I realized the other day that all of us love having the state in the bedrooms of our nation. We love it. (And the living room, and the kitchen, the deck, the backyard, the bathroom and the study. We have government everywhere.)
At this point I will add the great irony that many a pro-choicer will gladly shout “my body, my choice” but they will also decry defunding abortion. That’s a little bit like a teenager boldly declaring they are going to leave home and be independent, while asking for the parental bank account number and pin.








Hmmm…
But here is the thing. Breastfeeding IS better than bottle feeding for the babies (in the vast majority of cases). Seatbelts DO save lives. Drunk driving DOES kill innocent bystanders. People ARE going to be healthier if they eat their fruits and veggies, rather than subsisting on a diet of Coke and chocolate bars.
And since some choices are better than other choices, and the government has a huge investment in public health, is it not fair for the government to promote the healthier choices?
I tend to think that it is the family and society’s job to promote the healthy choices, actually. But our civil societies and families at the present moment are terribly fractured and weak. But you’ve got to remember that, on the flip side of the coin, you have incredibly strong corporations that are out to defend the best interests of their shareholders. So, who looks out for the little guy? The marketing campaigns of Nestle, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are terribly seductive.
Very interesting discussion to be had here.
In an era where family connections and instincts are weak, how do we return them to a position of strength so that they are less susceptible to the marketing campaigns of corporations and government? (Government has put out equally terrible and equally seductive marketing campaigns as corporations. Take “safe sex” and “early learning” as examples.)
I have always wanted a stronger civil society; ie strong charities helping people in need with my money and time, given directly to them, rather than getting government grants. But given that so many charities are entirely dependent on govt grants, how do we make the switch?
Yes, what Melissa said! As long as the government foots to bill for healthcare, it will be justified in making efforts to mitigate its cost. And regardless of how distasteful some women find it, formula-fed babies are sicker : on the whole. Statistically speaking.
And until you receive an unrequested can of formula in the mail when your baby is exactly 3 weeks old, you don’t realize what public health is up against.
To answer your specific question about making the switch from a weak civil society dependant on the government (or where government intervention has made people lazy about doing their part), I don’t know how we make the switch and this is something I have been reflecting a lot about. I think that unfortunately, the switch won’t happen until government is completely backed into a corner and has no choice — can no longer afford — to be everything to everyone. Then there will be a lot of suffering , then people will wake-up. But I can’t see a smooth transition: not with our current level of dependence .
No kidding about that can of formula in the mail, Veronique. Our culture, although it likes to play lip service otherwise, is not terribly breast feeding-friendly.
I think this particular kerfuffle does a good job of illustrating how the people who control the terms of the debate actually control the debate. Ask any woman in the street of hospitals should be baby-friendly, that is, whether hospitals should promote the breast over the bottle, and your typical woman will answer “Why, yes! Of course they should!”. Ask that same woman whether nurses in the delivery and recovery ward should question a woman’s choice to bottle-feed her baby and the woman will answer, “Question a woman’s choice? How dare they!”
The truth is, although many breast feeding advocates will tell you otherwise, that breast feeding is a learned skill, that it doesn’t come terribly easily to many women, and that it can be downright painful, especially at the beginning. That can of formula can look mighty tempting when the rabid little beaver (did I really say that? I mean the wonderful little babe) tries to latch on and you curl your toes and grit your teeth, even though the nurse said that her latch looks wonderful and that it really shouldn’t be causing you pain. And the damn kid just. Won’t. Stop. Crying. Yep. That can of formula looks pretty great when you would like to do nothing more than pawn that kid off on someone else so you could finally get more than a couple of minutes of uninterrupted sleep.
But it’s a false promise on the part of the formula company, because if you just hang in there, it gets better. And if you give up and start bottle feeding, you really do miss out on what is a rewarding relationship between mother and baby.
I think that’s probably one of the biggest problems of our culture today. We so loathe suffering that we will take the quickest and most expedient way to alleviate it, rather than push through it and experience the rewards that come on the other side. As to ways around that, I don’t know if there are any. The “take up your cross” message has never been the most popular part of the Christian philosophy, and, in today’s post-modern world, that message is even less popular. I guess the best we can do is start locally. Love your neighbors, take care of your kids and all that.
I blogged about this a few years ago.
Melissa,
> Breastfeeding IS better than bottle feeding for the babies (in the vast majority of cases).
Sorry, no, this is not true. Breastfeeding is statistically better for babies when you measure outcomes across whole populations, but you need numbers that large for the difference to show up. In the vast majority of cases, there’s no significant difference.
Also (as I mention in my blog), it is statistically misleading only to compare feeding a baby formula to feeding it breastmilk, as that is not the choice a lot of parents face. The reason a lot of parents opt for formula — as we did with our first daughter — is that the baby can’t breastfeed for some reason. That being the case, the valid comparison to make is between feeding the baby formula and feeding it nothing, in which case formula wins.
Squander–
I certainly have lots of sympathy for a mother who is unable to nurse her baby. My sister wasn’t able to produce enough milk for her little one, didn’t realize it quickly enough, and the baby ended up in the hospital for a stint. Absolutely, formula is better for babies than sugar water, or than letting the baby starve. Do you really think I’m that nuts? Whether formula is better for the baby than cow’s or goat’s milk, well I haven’t personally done the research, but general opinion seems to say that it is, so I’ll take them at their word.
But I still stand behind my claim that human milk is the best choice for human babies. Breastfeeding should be the norm, and bottle feeding should be the exception. I also stand behind my claim that Canadian society is not terribly friendly to breastfeeding mothers. There are still plenty of people in the general public who have a fair aversion to the idea of breastfeeding, or find it downright indecent. And the record of Canadian mothers is not quite abysmal, but we can and should be doing better. It is simply good public policy to promote the breast over the bottle. The more that children get breastfed, the healthier and more robust our society will be.
(Okay, how much do you want to bet, with all the breast-talk going on in this comment, that my comment will be rejected as spam?)
Okay, I tried to put a hypertext link in that comment, but apparently I still haven’t figured out how to do that. Here is my link: http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/why-arent-more-women-breastfeeding/article561821/
And, apparently the word breast doesn’t trigger the spam-o-meter. Who’d a thunk?
Hi, Melissa.
No, I don’t think you’re nuts (insufficient data) and didn’t mean to imply it. The point I was making is that it’s a statistical error. And quite a major one.
Think about medical studies. There are lots of medical treatments which are bad for you but which work. Antibiotics that cure you of meningitis but screw up your digestion, Warfarin that saves you from embolisms but makes you bleed like a haemophiliac, methyldopa, chemotherapy of course… loads of these. Now, you could do a study that compared the outcomes of people who receive chemotherapy with people who don’t, and it would show significantly worse outcomes for the former. For a start, loads of them would die of cancer. I hope you can see that that would be a correct yet highly misleading and fairly useless statistic, and it would be wrong for anyone to use it to call for the use of chemotherapy to be reduced.
Here are the problems, spelled out:
1: You need to compare not only people who receive chemotherapy with people who don’t receive chemotherapy, but also people who need chemotherapy and receive it with people who need chemotherapy and don’t receive it.
2: You need to take into account that people who receive chemotherapy have a condition that necessitates it, so they are going to have worse outcomes long-term than people who don’t need it and therefore don’t receive it, but those worse outcomes are caused by the pre-existing condition, not by the chemotherapy.
These same problems apply to comparing breastfeeding to bottle-feeding (although not to the same extent, of course, as some mothers do opt for formula just for the sake of convenience, whilst I’m guessing very few non-cancer-sufferers indulge in a bit of recreational chemo). Therefore, even if formula manufacturers figure out how to perfectly synthesise human milk and start manufacturing a product that is literally identical to the real thing, babies raised on it will still have worse long-term health outcomes than breastfed babies.
Hi again Squander–
“No, I don’t think you’re nuts (insufficient data)”
Okay, that was funny. You made me laugh.
However, your point here seems o be that the cohort of babies that are fed formula are intrinsically a sicker bunch, and that accounts for the health differences between formula-fed and breast-fed babies. That’s an interesting and valid hypothesis, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
“Therefore, even if formula manufacturers figure out how to perfectly synthesise human milk and start manufacturing a product that is literally identical to the real thing, babies raised on it will still have worse long-term health outcomes than breastfed babies.”
The fact remains that formula is not identical to breast milk. Breast milk is a superior product. It’s more easily digested, and provides significant immune-boosting properties, benefits that Mother Nature intended for babies to have. Formula simply doesn’t measure up.
Realistically, the differences between a formula- fed and a breast fed baby doesn’t amount to all that much, an extra ear infection, or a cold that hangs on a little bit longer than it should. The differences between a breast and formula-fed baby don’t matter all that much, except when they do, and then the consequences can be tragic (google necrotizing enterocolitis).
The vast majority of babies who are formula fed turn out just fine. For that matter, most smokers don’t end up with lung cancer, or emphysema either. Still doesn’t mean that there aren’t health benefits to breastfeeding, just like there are benefits galore to not smoking.