Quick Hit: The Case Against Breast-Feeding
Hanna Rosin takes on breast-feeding in this this month's Atlantic:
In Betty Friedan's day, feminists felt shackled to domesticity by the unreasonably high bar for housework, the endless dusting and shopping and pushing the Hoover around--a vacuum cleaner being the obligatory prop for the "happy housewife heroine," as Friedan sardonically called her. When I looked at the picture on the cover of Sears's Breastfeeding Book--a lady lying down, gently smiling at her baby and still in her robe, although the sun is well up--the scales fell from my eyes: it was not the vacuum that was keeping me and my 21st-century sisters down, but another sucking sound
Thoughts?
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I think it's as very personal choice to breast feed, and although it may feel like it's weighing us down, it's very intimate and important for some women. You don't have to choose to breast feed, just as you don't have to choose to shave your legs or vacuum your house. If there were more policies encouraging women to breast feed and less griping about them doing it in public places, it wouldn't hold us down as much.
Hasn't this article already been featured and discussed here on Feministing?
Ah, it was a Weekly Feminist Reminder. My bad.
There are so many benefits for the child with breastfeeding. You may be able to make a case for the social expectations surrounding breastfeeding (and really, mothering as a whole) being part of what's pulling us down, but I think to argue that feeding our children is what's doing it is misguided. Many women breastfeed on the go, or pump milk for sitters and daycare. By no means should anyone feel obligated to breastfeed, but I do think that everyone who gives birth should seriously consider it.
I breastfed both of my children. I found breastfeeding to be incredibly limiting, and yes "anti-feminist" did at times come to mind. For some babies, such as my daughter, taking a bottle, even with breastmilk in it, holds no appeal compared to a breast. That means that mom is essentially shackled to baby for however long it takes before someone else can feed the child. Your diet is dictated by what your child can tolerate. You have to take the nursling with you everywhere you go. I actually was asked to skip a NOW meeting because I had to take DD, and they were showing a film they didn't think appropriate for children to see. (DD was about 6 months old at the time.)
It also means missing significant portions of sleep to breastfeed if you don't co-sleep. We do co-sleep, and I put my children in the position to nurse at night on demand, so that I didn't have to get up continuously. For women who don't do that, though, they don't get much sleep during the first few months, and there's no possibility of passing off nighttime feedings to someone else.
Breastfeeding culture is pretty repressive as well. I know many women who've been shamed because they didn't breastfeed, either by choice or circumstance. And of course the anti-breastfeeding folks bring up their own problems. People gawked anytime I breastfed in public. Many women cannot get the time at work - despite federal regulations - to pump.
In the end, I view breastfeeding as a sacrifice women make for the sake of their children.
"In the end, I view breastfeeding as a sacrifice women make for the sake of their children."
The problem is that that's not really the case. Breastfeeding is marginally better for children, but really only marginally. The benefits are vastly overblown in the popular media, similarly to, for example, alleged health benefits of "organic" food.
You know what else is beneficial to a child? A mother who isn't stressed out and who can easily share feeding duties with another parent. Women who can and do easily fit breastfeeding into their schedules are doing something for their kids, but women who rearrange their lives around and raise their blood pressure over breastfeeding are hurting their kids, and are doing what they do out of mistaken beliefs about health benefits of breastfeeding or out of fear of social opprobrium.
Breastfeeding is, or at least should be, a personal choice based on convenience, whether the child nurses easily, whether the mother enjoys breastfeeding, whether there are health concerns or dietary issues with the mother that argue against breastfeeding, etc. The relative healthiness of bottle and breast is close enough that no one should ever for a second feel guilt or pressure over the choice whether or not to breastfeed.
Breastfeeding is marginally better for children, but really only marginally
That's not supported by the data. If you skip the hype in parenting magazines and read the research results in scientific sources this claim just can't be supported. To begin with, the corn syrup that's the main ingredient in formula has been shown to play a significant role in the diabetes "epidemic" in America. Newborn pancreases simply aren't equipped to deal with such high levels of refined fructose. I really don't get how significantly decreasing your risk for something like diabetes can be so easily dismissed.
In many cases, it is. I actually agree with Robert's only slight agreement with me. I'll use the IQ benefit since I have the most familiarity with it.
The commonly quoted stat is that BF increases IQ by 10%. That number comes from a study done on developmentally delayed children. When later studies (a major one at the University of Kentucky) controlled for the parents' socioeconomic status, they actually found negligible benefits to the children's IQ. Yet IQ still is touted as a major benefit of BF when we know that all of the biological children in a household fall within about a 10-point IQ range (especially if the parents have close IQs).
So while I said that BF is something mothers sacrifice to do for the sake of their children, I also recognize that many of those benefits are questionable.
The IQ issue is also changing significantly since some of the ingredients in breastmilk (like DHA) that foster brain development have now been added to formula.
I was actually interested in other health issues, like diabetes, since my daughter is high risk for adult-onset diabetes (we have it on both sides of the family). And with issues like the risk of diabetes, the scientific evidence is undeniable. The problem is, breastmilk has a lot of natural sugar in it, so you have to replicate that somehow, but the only known alternatives are really hard on a tiny pancreas. Then there's the fact that this is something that impacts you later in life, so you can't just look at a child that was formula fed and say they were unaffected by it. That being said, I agree that a parent who objects to the corn syrup in formula is also less likely to feed their kids lots of soda and junk food that contains a lot of high fructose corn syrup, so it's definitely a cumulative thing. But as with diabetes, the benefits of breastmilk when it comes to the child's risk of developing many other conditions (like asthma, Crohn's disease, osteoporosis, etc) are undeniable.
So denying the benefits of breastfeeding seems like a counterproductive route to me. Instead, we should focus on changing cultural attitudes toward parenting so that dads will carry their fair share of the load, and push for more research on healthier alternatives for formula ingredients. Given the power of the corn industrial complex in this country, I doubt that corn syrup will ever be replaced in formula, just as HFCS will never receive the disapproval of the USDA in spite of its well-established link to diabetes. And this is exactly the kind of political situation that prevents us from researching other potentional natural sugars to use in formula and other foods that are marketed to kids. But that's simply a byproduct of capitalism - profits before health...
First, the corn syrup-diabetes link is far from established. The only thing established right now is that high-fructose corn syrup is metabolized differently from other sugars. Second, the research is on adults, not babies. Whether babies also metabolize high-fructose corn syrup differently from other sugars has not been established. This is an example of the shoddy science that people try to use to establish Breast as Best.
Are you familiar with the recent studies out of Australia and the study at Yale? Even my dad's doctor (my dad is diabetic) has recommended cutting out HFCS on the basis of these studies. Since American doctors don't seem to find out about these things and change their treatment plans until it's old news and everyone else has accepted it, I assumed this knowledge had gone mainstream.
It's been a few months since I've read the journal articles, but I think the gist of it is that nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is much more common in people who consume high fructose corn syrup, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is linked to insulin resistance and diabetes. Given this link, they believe that the reason formula-fed babies are at higher risk of developing type II diabetes is because of the fructose used to make formula and the differences between the body's reaction to it versus the sugars in breastmilk. And they do know that in babies there is a different response to formula than breastmilk where the liver is concerned.
I didn't read this in some pop culture magazine or La Leche League publication. I read about it in several peer reviewed medical journal articles.
You are not really making an argument against formula v breastfeeding, this is about corn syrup. There are many formulas available without corn syrup.
Sure there are some, but they're not available everywhere, and they're certainly not provided to low-income families. For instance, I supplemented with formula for 2 months when my milk was low due to a thyroid fluctuation. I searched through the formulas and found one that didn't list corn syrup among the first three ingredients. It was an organic brand that costs $30 a can. How many families are going to cough up that kind of money every week? And the fact remains that the primary source of sugars in formula are refined forms of fructose as opposed to the lactose and glucose in breastmilk. The formula I found had evaporated cane juice in it, which is a little better, but not much.
Beyond that, I was using corn syrup as one example of how formula is not as good as breastmilk. I mentioned many other benefits of breastfeeding in other comments on this thread.
"I actually was asked to skip a NOW meeting because I had to take DD, and they were showing a film they didn't think appropriate for children to see."
Did it occur to you that that was maybe NOW's problem? And that maybe they should have let you, as a grown-ass woman, determine what you thought it was appropriate for your infant to watch? Shame on NOW.
"For women who don't do that, though, they don't get much sleep during the first few months, and there's no possibility of passing off nighttime feedings to someone else."
Not entirely true... I pumped starting almost as soon as my son was born, and Dad took as many night feedings as I ever did. If not more.
We also chose to give formula on days when we ran out of pumped milk, or when I didn't feel like pumping, etc. I felt like as long as he was mostly getting breastmilk, my stress was reduced by both not "having" to pump all the time, and also not "having" to feed him all the time.
There are choices beyond either breastfeeding or not breastfeeding... lots of room for making breastfeeding fit into your lifestyle and how important it is to you as a parent.
Ironically enough, while breastfeeding is most crucial in the first few months of life, that is exactly the time that co-sleeping is discouraged.
Co-sleeping is discouraged because of some debunked cultural mythology. All the mainstream books on baby care, and most pediatricians, approve of co-sleeping while nursing at night. The disclaimer is that if you're on a medication or have been drinking you should never co-sleep because there's a chance you could roll over on the baby. But normal unmedicated adults who aren't prone to falling out of bed can safely co-sleep. The same inhibitions that prevent you from falling out of bed prevent you from rolling onto a child. But older siblings shouldn't co-sleep.
Um, there was a recently study that seemed to indicate that there's been a statistically significant increase in the number of child smothering deaths due to co-sleeping. I'm sure that some of this is parents not doing it correctly, but the link between child death and co-sleeping is hardly "debunked."
Tell that to the American Academy of Pediatricians, it's their book that says it. I'm not making this up, but would be interested in the study, if you could link to it. In all the baby books that recommend co-sleeping for nighttime nursing they do say that you have to be careful to clear any loose blankets away from the area where the baby is sleeping and make sure there are no pillows near them. They can smother from blankets and pillows, which is why you don't put blankets and pillows in the crib or bassinet when they're really little. But the possibility of an adult rolling over onto the child is thought to be very very slim unless s/he's heavily medicated or drunk.
I always slept lighter when my daughter was in the bed nursing, so I usually woke up and moved her back to the bassinet when she was done.
I don't see how you are shackled by breastfeeding anymore than by bottle feeding. A kid has to be fed regardless-- if it has to be fed in the middle of the night, it still has to be fed. What you gain in terms of freedoms from breast feeding (partner assisting with feeding, etc.) you lose to increased costs and paying into Gerber or whoever's bank roll. Not to mention you control what you put in your body and consequently feed to your baby, but you don't control the contents and production of formula.
Ultimately, one solution is not going to work for everyone. There are loads of instances in which breastfeeding just doesn't work for whatever reason, or when formula is cost preventative (if not here, think third world-- marketing of formula has had pretty disastrous results when woman dilute it with unclean water to save costs or can't sterilize bottles, etc.).
I'm really tired of hearing about how people are shamed for breastfeeding and shamed for bottle feeding or shamed for choosing pain relief during birth or for choosing a homebirth-- whatever. It's your choice, based on your individual circumstances and the needs of your family. If someone gives you crap, tell them to shove it.
I don't think it's a "case against breastfeeding" as much as it's a question of choice. You know, choice, that thing that we feminists are always pushing for?
I wanted to breastfeed my baby daughter. Breast is best and all that, and it is cheaper and more convenient in many ways. It didn't work out for me, however. I had a unplanned C-section and my daughter had to go straight into the NICU after birth and stayed there for some weeks, and so I wasn't able to start breastfeeding immediately. I don't know if I would have produced more milk if I had been able to feed my daughter right after birth, or if it just wasn't going to happen no matter the circumstances. What I do know is that I tried really, really hard to get my milk going, but it just didn't happen, no matter what I tried, to the point that even the lactation consultant told me to give it up. When I finally realized that I had more blood than milk in the collection bottles, I gave up.
I'm telling you that story to show that I really did want to breastfeed and I tried my damnedest. But why? Why did I do that? I really did have blood running out of my nipples and yet I kept attaching that sucking torture device onto some of my most sensitive parts. because I had drunk the Kool-aid and I believed that I had to breastfeed if I was going to be a good mother. It's bullshit. I cannot believe the pain and stress I went through, when formula is perfectly good food. My daughter is now six months old. She's beautiful and consistently ahead of the curve on every test the doctors give. She's 90th percentile for height, 60th for weight (she's not a fat bottle-fed baby, in other words.) And she's never been sick, not even a sniffle, for all that I worried about her not getting antibodies from my breast milk.
Formula has worked really well for us. My husband has been able to feed our daughter from the beginning, and when she was in the NICU, feedings were a very important part of our bonding process. No, it's not cheap, but we can afford it. I just wish formula was presented as a more acceptable option. I wouldn't have pumped until I bled if I hadn't felt so guilty and not being able to breast-feed.
Breastfeeding is absolutely another way that women are tied up and tied down--sure it's a "choice" the way shaving is a "choice" but I think we have to consider the consequences for certain choices. Not shaving or not breastfeeding resists the view of the dominant culture of appropriate femininity. If you don't breastfeed, you are "hurting" your child or "depriving" your child, the dominant culture says. Just like shaving or not, this kind of transgression has consequences. Choice? Yes, but it's not that simple. Reproduction has many consequences for women--it's a tough one.
well said.
I agree that the way breastfeeding is currently done - the mom does all the feeding plus all the domestic work she used to do plus all the new chores that having a baby created... does tie women down. I disagree that this is the way it has to be. I didn't experience breastfeeding or caring for a newborn this way at all, but my partner is not guided by traditional ideas of gendered parenting or a gender-based division of labor. And quite honestly, I wouldn't have a child with a man who was. That's just sort of a deal-breaker for me.
So maybe the issue we should be discussing here is how kids are being socialized now. Are the girls being taught that every aspect of her child's well-being will be her responsibility alone? Are boys being taught that women just develop a special bond with infants that they can't expect to have with their kids and that housework is women's work, but if they just take out the trash sometimes and fold a load of laundry here and there then they're carrying their fair share of the workload? Because if that's the case, we can expect not only breastfeeding, but parenting in general, to continue to be a disproportionate burden and a financial and social liability to women.
I completely disagree that the dominant culture enforces breastfeeding. If it did, women wouldn't get kicked out of public places for doing it and you wouldn't hear these stories about women being threatened with child abuse cases for breastfeeding "too long".
The dominant culture both pushes *and* punishes breastfeeding. If you feed the baby a bottle in public, people think you're a bad mother. If you feed the baby from your breast in public, you're making people uncomfortable with an "obscene" display. The only solution is to never leave the house--in which case, you're depriving the baby of the opportunity to develop social skills. (You're also depriving yourself of the opportunity to interact with other adult humans, but that doesn't matter.) In other words, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't, and especially damned if you try to have it both ways--just like if you choose to have sex (or not to), to work outside the home (or not to), or anything else. Your crucial mistake was having chosen to be born female, you see. IBTP.
Agreed.
Perhaps-but how about child care? The dominant culture believes that women should stay home to raise children, but yet also criticizes women who stay home as "not working." The DC also criticizes women who work outside the home as neglecting children. I think the DC does enforce breast-feeding as the "right" thing to do--it just doesn't want it done in public, probably due to the fact that it gets so many "boys" excited to see breasts in action for something other than titillation.
Are you honestly comparing breastfeeding to SHAVING? They are not choices on equal footing. Shaving does not have any health benefits for anyone--it only produces corporate profits. Not shaving also has no significant health benefits. So while bottlefeeding could be compared to shaving (no health benefits, corporate profiteering), it's actually ridiculous because no one NEEDS to shave, while some parents do need to use formula. On the other side, breastfeeding has no relation to not shaving--not shaving is merely a personal choice, while breastfeeding has potential lifetime effects for the baby AND the mother.
I get so frustrated with the breastfeeding debate. As far as I'm concerned, I think its a choice issue. Great if you do, great if you don't. If you do, you should be able to breastfeed wherever you want. If you don't, I don't think you should be criticized for it.
I don't much care for the article, but I can sort of understand the emotion behind it. I've known a lot of women who were unable to breastfeed, or unable to breastfeed as much as they'd like, and they caught a lot of grief from breast feeding proponents.
It's hard not to feel attacked when that happens consistently, and it's hard not to want to attack back.
Of course, the problem is that Rosin's article seems to be opposed to the idea that it's a choice women have to make for themselves.
It's very frustrating that women who breastfeed catch grief from one group of people, and women who don't catch grief from another. Why are pregnant and postpartum women's bodies considered public property?
I'm not a mother, so I can't really speak to the pros and cons of breastfeeding. But, I'm a little...disturbed by the negative tone of this article. So first, we say that a woman is a bad mother if she DOESN'T breastfeed. But now Ms. Rosin is trying to argue that a woman is a bad feminist if she DOES. We need to stop judging women for their decisions. Women can choose to breastfeed for a year without being the victims of brainwashing that tells them they have to perform femininity that way, and they can choose not to breastfeed without being horrible mothers.
I don't think she's saying your a bad feminist if you breastfeed, she's saying your a bad feminist if you shame other women who chose not to. It's similar to the pro-life/choice debate, you're not a bad feminist for choosing life, you're anti-feminist to deny others choice.
I don't really see how breastfeeding is keeping us down any more than having a baby does in the first place.
Especially because most women (those who choose to) only do it for a very small part of their life, whereas the "happy housewife heroine" was a never-ending pursuit.
Other parts of childrearing can be shared. My husband is an equal partner in all domestic work as well as raising our children, but he cannot breastfeed. It definitely is more limiting for women than men, and other than not breastfeeding, there's really no way around that.
I don't get that, though. My partner took on more of the other household chores while I was nursing precisely because I was tied down for those periods throughout the day. And I did paperwork or studied or read or graded papers while I nursed, and while I was at work I just shut my office door and worked while I pumped, so I didn't really lose a lot of productive time. Maybe the mythology that nursing requires that the mom stare lovingly at the child for the duration of the feeding period, or that pumping is somehow a bad thing to do are more to blame here.
Yeah, so did my husband. I'm agreeing that childrearing in general doesn't have to limit women. BF, though, was limiting for me. If you're really into BF as a "whole child" benefit, then you are told that eye contact is vital. In fact, our very non-AP pediatrician really focused on that.
For me, though, I did sometimes read. During the day, I BF while my babies were in a sling or wrap. Still I have very large breasts, and that requires a good bit of work to get the right BF position. I couldn't BF in the typical positions, and when my babies were small, I had to hold them out to bring them in to my chest, so yeah, my hands were tied up with them. If you didn't have to do that, wonderful for you, but it's not the universal experience.
Yeah, I'm not trying to suggest that my experience is the same for everyone, just that a lot of the cultural attitudes and mythology surrounding breastfeeding and childrearing is more of an issue.
i found it limiting as well. i have a back injury, so i couldn't wear one of those baby sling things that let you walk around and do other tasks, so for every feeding, i was laying down on the couch. (i watched SO MUCH "law & order", it was incredible). once i went back to work, i pumped so my daughter could drink breastmilk in a bottle when her dad was on feeding duty or when she was at her babysitter's house.
i guess the issue that i see is that everyone seems OK with women not breastfeeding if they *can't* for some reason, but are less OK with a woman who can, but doesn't want to.
honestly, after a while, i started to feel like i had no more bodily autonomy; my body was always in service of my daughter. my boobs felt like they were always hanging out. my sex life suffered, because when she wasn't feeding, i wanted to be left the fuck alone. everything i wore was selected for "easy access". my boobs leaked and were so big i got leered at, and they no longer fit in my clothes. my nipples felt like i put them in a pencil sharpener.
it compounded the frustration i was having with early motherhood in general: all of a sudden, i felt like only someone's mother, and it felt as if, overnight, i no longer had *anything else to talk about*. no one wanted to know what books i was reading, what i thought of the new movie that just came out, nothing.
at four months, i gave the hell up....switched to formula and never went back. didn't even need weaning, we both switched cold turkey and didn't have a single problem with it. that was when i finally felt like a capable, loving mother. i cuddled my daughter without feeling pain. i felt like my body was mine again. i didn't get pawed at 24/7. i got laid more. i felt sexier. i got more stuff done. she and i both slept through the night. her dad felt more involved. housework evened out in our house. (though i do miss all the "law & order".) i began to ENJOY parenting.
to me, these reasons are equally valid for formula feeding. i'm glad the munchkin had the breastmilk for four months, and i'm glad i had the experience. but the amount of shame i've gotten for using formula when there was no specific need other than my own happiness is significant.
if i hear, "well, it's OK to use formula if you *can't* breastfeed," or "why have kids if you aren't going to feed them the right way? kids aren't convenient!", i might punch someone in the face.
And what struck me about being a new mom was that many of the problems you note are basic problems with the way we construct motherhood independently of breastfeeding. I'm not sure why mothers aren't supposed to be sexual anymore or have any interests other than the child. It seems to me like moms who don't have any other interests or hobbies are really unhealthy and probably worse parents because they're so one-faceted. It's good for a kid to have a mom who has many interests in her life beyond the kid. And I think one-faceted parents produce self-centered kids.
My partner and daughter and I were sitting in a booth in a restaurant when my daughter was a couple months old. I was nursing her discreetly under a blanket, I had a cup of decaf and a book that was on a topic other than baby care in front of me, and my partner had his arm around me and was nuzzling into my neck and whispering something into my ear, which was making me laugh. Two women who had been sitting at the booth across from us got up to leave and came over to yell at me on the way out. They told me that drinking coffee (which they simply assumed was caffeinated) and reading and engaging in conversation/cuddling with my partner while nursing showed how irresponsible I was as a mother. I laughed and said that I thought that the fact that I was willing to take her everywhere I went and involve her in my everyday activities and risk the disapproval of others by breastfeeding in public showed how committed I was to her. They said they could only hope to God that we didn't actually have sex in front of her and walked off in a huff. All this while there was a blanket completely covering my daughter who was deep into her only-semi-conscious nursing haze. I got similar but less severe reactions on other occasions if my partner and I had any body contact at all while I was holding her or nursing, or if I was reading the paper or working on my laptop while she nursed. It really drove home to me how a mother is supposed to lose her identity and sexuality and become completely submerged in mothering. So I think this is a larger social issue that exists independently of breastfeeding.
I agree that children set a very real limitation on a woman's mobility in life. I realized this from a very young age. I think marriage can be limiting but children are the ultimate kicker, especially with child care being so costly. Until men grow uteruses and breasts, this "personal" choice will be what holds us back from pursuing our dreams.
As a young woman who's practically engaged to a man, I find myself talking about children as if I want to have them, around his family, when in actuality, I don't know if I'll ever want kids. But I want them to think that I do so that they'll approve of me. Is this wrong?
Until men grow uteruses and breasts, this "personal" choice will be what holds us back from pursuing our dreams.
I disagree. If a couple decide together to have kids, then there's no reason why the father can't take on an equal share of the work. It's true he can't breastfeed the child. But he can pick up more of the other household chores to free the mother's time for breastfeeding and her usual activities. The issue is that we're socialized to think of all of this as women's work, so all the burden relating to the well-being of the child generally falls on the mother. If we made more substantive social changes in the way parenting is viewed, this would change drastically.
Totally agree with this. I had the situation where I absolutely could not get the breastpump to work, so I did have to do each and every feeding for the eight months I breastfed. When our baby woke up at night, my husband would pick him up and change him, then wake me up and go back to sleep himself. I would breastfeed and put him back to sleep. 50/50, despite the fact I had to do the feeding. This was just one of many ways I can imagine to achieve equality despite the fact only mom can breastfeed. You just need to be creative and realize that men CAN do everything just as well as women, except the actualy milk-production part. Very often, people don't actually believe this when you press them.
Honestly, before my son was old enough to latch himself, sometimes my husband would get him attached, and I wouldn't have to wake up at all. I was producing the milk, but my husband was doing all the work for those feedings.
This is exactly what we are doing - and when she is a little older we want to try expressing and bottle feeding so we can share this task too (and more practicaly we will also need to bottle feed as I am going back to work soon).
You can make the child-rearing workload 50/50.
".....You just need to be creative and realize that men CAN do everything just as well as women, except the actualy milk-production part. "
Heres a guy that can breastfeed. Interesting article but I dont know if its a fluke or possible for every man?
http://www.onlineweblibrary.com/blog/?p=506
I didn't interpret the article as being about women who can't breastfeed, as some of the commenters here seem to have. And I do think that choice is the central issue. But I think it should be informed choice. Because lying to people or manipulating them - in either direction - shows that they are viewed as less than rational and autonomous. You honor somebody's rational ability and autonomy by giving them all the info and letting them make their own choices.
For this reason I was a bit disturbed by some of the claims Rosin made. If you read the research (skip the hype in parenting magazines and other places and go to the medical articles that summarize the research) it's impossible to characterize the benefits of breastfeeding as "thin." It's probably true that breastfeeding doesn't significantly decrease the child's risk of having acne, as Rosin notes. But I'm more concerned with diabetes, asthma, bacterial meningitis, ear and respiratory infections, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis, etc. The benefits of breastmilk in these areas are substantial and have been well-established. So I think it's pretty misleading to characterize the benefits of breastmilk as "thin."
And I guess it varies from baby to baby, but I breastfed my daughter for a year and didn't experience most of the problems she identifies. It was time consuming, but I read, paid bills, worked on my dissertation, wrote emails, etc while I nursed her. At work I pumped and sent the milk to daycare for her bottles. I didn't feel like I was tethered to her. Also, my partner is a very hands-on dad, so he knew how to soothe her as well as I did. He also did more of the housework than he had been doing previously, because it's just true that there's more work when there's a new baby in the house, and nursing means that there are times during the day when the mom can't contribute.
But these issues of the disproportionate burden are a feature of our culture and not a byproduct of breastfeeding. If father were socialized to be closer to their kids and take on a more nurturing role, and if they were socialized to see the increased workload and take on their fair share, then most of the problems she cites wouldn't be a problem.
I think I have mentioned it before, but I think Rebecca Kukla does an excellent job of analyzing the breastfeeding debate via analysis of the public health campaigns around breastfeeding.
She says that this image of white, thin, able-bodied women sitting around happily breastfeeding does a disservice to women. She mentions what many have mentioned, that most women, when they get the hang of breastfeeding do it standing up, on the go, doing other things, etc.
I think that part of the issue is to make sure women know that they do not have to close themselves off in a room to nurse by themselves, and that it isn't this transcendent experience. Breastfeeding is exhausting (from what I hear), but it is also something you can do while being any other human being.
I guess Rosin's point is that the pump really diminishes the ability to breastfeed in a way that allows women to be people.
I think this article will work to let those women who feel they have to pump and don't want to pump know that they can choose not to pump.
I know motherhood is hard, but I think that sometimes we tend to make mountains out of molehills. If women could just have the option of relaxing and feeling confident about their ability to mother (however they choose), we might not have this problem.
Yes! Well said. I am agreeing with everything you have written in this comments thread. I hope my motherhood works out much as ot sounds like yours has. Week one has gone well anyway! It's nice to hear from other parents with a similar approach to ours.
Except that Rosin did read the articles, and the evidence is thin. I've also read many of the research articles, and the differences between breastmilk-fed and formula-fed babies are not only small, but for the most part are not directly attributable to the breast milk. Most of the advantages could just as easily be attributable to the act of breastfeeding - that is, holding the baby while it feeds.
The single example of a measurable benefit from breastmilk which is directly attributable to the milk itself is reduced digestive ailments. Babies don't produce IgA until they are a few to several months old. They need the IgA from breast milk.
I have many problems with the marginal benefits of breastfeeding being used to shame women into doing it. I also have a problem with the emphasis being placed on the milk rather than the close time. By insisting the breastfeeding is best, the father is left out. The father could hold a baby with a bottle and be close to it. Men are left out of part of their child's life by the emphasis on having it be attached to a breast.
Except that you can pump and bottle feed breastmilk if you want to. Dad'd don't have to be left out. It doesn't have to be either breast or bottle.
I actually did list the digestive problems as well in another comment of mine.
And I don't see how noting the benefits of breastmilk equates to shaming women into nursing. I realize that these go hand in hand sometimes, but you can react against the shaming and try to change that aspect of our culture without claiming that breastmilk and formula are identical. To me, this claim is a sign of our capitalist culture, where anything that results in corporate profits is elevated above anything that's natural, healthy, and free. I find it hard to believe that we could ever manufacture something that matches perfectly what the human body can produce, especially given the fact that mother's milk changes throughout the child's infancy to meet their needs. If you've ever actually seen breastmilk, you know that there's a huge difference in the color and consistency of newborn or preemie milk and 8-12 month old baby milk. Formula can't adapt to the baby's needs like this. But suggesting that man-made formula is as good as or better than mother-made milk is an old patriarchal theme that devalues the natural processes of women's bodies and the unique power they have. And Nestle doesn't make any money off nursing moms.
Also, I honestly don't understand the claim that dads can't bond with breastfed babies. It must be based on a Leave It To Beaver kind of worldview. My daughter's father held her and cuddled with her constantly from the time she was born, and when I was too busy to nurse, he warmed up a bottle of breastmilk from the freezer and held her while she drank it. He was tuned into her reactions and her needs, so he knows how to soothe her and handle her as well as I do. It's a strange essentialist sort of claim that nursing moms possess some kind of mystical power of reading and interacting with their kids.
And finally, I have no problem with people choosing not to breastfeed. But rather than saying it's because there's no benefit to breastfeeding, they should just be honest and say that they don't have time or are uncomfortable with it or whatever. And they shouldn't be shamed for that. The cultural crap that surrounds breastfeeding and bottle feeding is what we should be working to change. But claiming that there's no benefit to breastfeeding because you don't want to do it is disingenuous.
"If you read the research (skip the hype in parenting magazines and other places and go to the medical articles that summarize the research) it's impossible to characterize the benefits of breastfeeding as "thin.""
This just isn't true. The studies showing significant benefits are usually so poorly controlled that anyone who's taken an intro to statistics class could drive an 18-wheeler through the studies' holes. Women who breastfeed are very different demographically from women who bottlefeed, and women who go to extraordinary efforts to breastfeed go to other extraordinary efforts as well, with the result that poorly controlled studies on breastfeeding are worthless. There is so much common wisdom supported by "studies" about breastfeeding--breastfeeding broadly increases immunity, breastfeeding significantly increases I.Q., breastfeeding results in better bonding between mother and child--that is either flat out false or strongly limited in the situations in which it's true that all claims of significant benefits to breastfeeding deserve an extra dose of skepticism.
OK, but even if all of that were true, the fact is that the ingredients in formula are not as well-adapted for a child's digestive system (thus causing the irritation that leads to digestive conditions and allergies later in life), and formula cannot adapt to the child's needs and offer the immunity benefits that breastmilk does. It just can't. Look at the breastmilk that a mother with a newborn or preemie produces compared to that of the mother of a 10-month-old. They're significantly different. And the antibodies passed from mother to child adjust to the things that both mother and baby have been exposed to in their environment. Formula does not. And do people seriously believe that humans can manufacture something that's better for babies than the bodies of the babies' mothers? Really? That claim is so deeply patriarchal and capitalist that it's amazing to me that anyone would think it remotely plausible.
I would bet that much of the research and studies that show that there's no benefit to breastfeeding is funded by Nestle and Johnson & Johnson. Just like studies that are funded by Philip Morris always "debunk" research that shows that smoking is bad for you.
And the fact that for many women it takes an "extraordinary effort" to breastfeed reveals a huge problem with our culture. Huge.
I am not a mother yet, and probably won't be for a very long time, but I've asked my mother about the whole breastfeeding thing a few times.
She breastfed both me and my little brother but did not do it for very long. Maybe even just like a few months, I forget. She said she really didn't like it. And it wasn't because she felt shackled to us, or lost sleep or anything (although I can totally understand that idea as well)...it was because it felt weird and uncomfortable to her. She just didn't like it. And I feel that's a perfectly reasonable reason to not want to do it, or not keep at it that long. It's not as if after she stopped my brother and I starved or didn't bond with her. We were fine.
What it comes down to, I think, is that this is a choice that each mother is going to have to make and we should support her decision. I'm so sick of people shaming mothers who choose not to breastfeed and I'm sick of people slamming those that do. I don't see why this has turned into some weird type of battle.
The "weird and uncomfortable" your mom felt I'm willing to bet was largely due to the fact that we are socialized to think of breasts as sex organs when they're not. It's a damn shame.
Breasts are sex organs as well as reproductive organs.
actually, don't you think it is disempowering to tell women that their feelings are not valid?
perhaps it feels strange to have a living being sucking on your breasts for extended periods of time? I haven't done it, but I am sure it is something one is not necessarily excited about. What if she has sensitive skin or does not like to be touched. I hardly like breast stimulation, so I think that might mean that I would have issues with the feeling that you get from being sucked on.
Please do not minimize how women might physically feel about breastfeeding by telling them it is not real, but some sort of issue that society gives them. Stimulation is not societal.
In fact, when many breastfeeding women either get their cycle back, or are pregnant again, they CANNOT STAND THE SENSATION of breastfeeding. This is real and not about the stigma associated with breastfeeding.
*****if we just listened to how women felt, and stopped interpreting their feeling through whichever lens we personally deem appropriate, I am sure we would not have this problem!!!*****
I'm not sure you have to interpret this comment as telling a woman that she doesn't know how she feels. Pointing out the social source of a feeling you might have doesn't mean you're saying the feeling is not real - just that if we changed the cultural attitudes you're immersed in, you probably wouldn't have learned to feel that way. I mean, isn't one of the issues with breastfeeding that mothers who can't do it are made to feel guilty, and we're trying to change the environment to remove the guilt? That hardly amounts to telling them that they don't really feel guilty.
hmmm...maybe i don't know how to explain myself well, but it irritates me that someone says, I don't like the way breastfeeding feels, and someone replies, well, that's just because breasts are sexualized in our culture.
yes, breasts are seen as sexual objects, but I see these things are two different ideas.
The answer to the problem is not always to remove the idea that breasts are sexual objects (oh, and they are also sexual objects, not just instruments for feeding babies).
So, what I am saying is that I wish people would listen to what a woman is saying before they automatically reply with that response, which, in my view, does not match up to the problem she articulates.
Does that make sense? (you can obviously still disagree with what I am saying, but I just wanted to make my point more clear)
Yeah, it does make sense, and ultimately, I don't think we're diagreeing. I think this is an area where women get caught in the middle, and I would advocate for changes to social attitudes to prevent this.
I think the idea that breasts are exclusively sexual and belong to men is a huge problem for many women if they decide to breastfeed, not only because of the "ewwww yucky!" reaction they get from other adults (and believe me, you get this a lot), but also because they end up undergoing this major shift in how they view their own bodies. As if suddenly you're not a sexual person anymore because you're temporarily using your breasts which belong to you, for one of their natural functions. My transition into motherhood and experience with breastfeeding was fairly smooth, but I experienced some of this too. In our culture, you're either a sexual being or a mother. And never the twain shall meet.
So I would suggest breaking down these cultural attitudes and reminding everyone that whether you're a mother or not, whether you're sexual or not, whether you're gay or straight, your breasts belong to you, and you are the one who determines what their functions are and what they symbolize.
A friend of mine told me that she wanted to breastfeed for 6-9 months, but quit after 2 because she "just wanted to feel like a woman again." I'm not sure what that means. If it means she felt she couldn't be sexually active with her partner, then that's a sad reflection of this attitude. I was sexually active again almost immediately after we came home, and we didn't see my breasts as off limits for my partner or exclusively for breastfeeding or anything like that. But I realize that other women may experience this differently. I'm just saying that this attitude that once breasts become functional in breastfeeding they're no longer sexual, or you no longer "own" you body, or whatever, sets women up to fail at breastfeeding even as they're pressured to do it, so they get caught in the middle and made to feel badly about themselves. This is what I object to.
Oh, I should add that some women get quite depressed or down during let-down. It would be quite damaging to tell them that their feelings are due to societal expectations about what breasts should be. Acknowledging these instances as physiological issues might actually help women breastfeed longer, more comfortably.
I work with babies with significant special needs. Not that many years ago their parents were told to "put them in a home" and move on. Now a family that needs to place their child is virtually shunned.
Breast feeding seems to be on the same course. When my mother had children she was told that "only poor women breast feed". When I had my two (8 and 4 years ago respectively)formula was seen as as something you only used if you didn't care or were lazy. My children did not breast feed well so instead I pumped for 14 weeks. It was excruciating and awful and a choice that I was only able to make because I was in the middle class and have a non labor intensive job.
We as women will make massive strides when we support each other in all of our choices, whether we like them or not.
I'm not a mom, but I was a bottlefed baby and I don't feel like my mom let me down in any way. It's such a personal choice and sometimes, your body doesn't cooperate. My mom couldn't breastfeed me. I do want to assure the moms out there who couldn't breastfeed for whatever reason, I turned out OK and so did my sister. We were born 2 months early, over 30 years ago when all our small town doctor could do was put us in incubators and hope for the best. We were not overweight or slow or any of the other scary things people say will happen to preemie bottle babies. Our IQs are high, we are capable of forming attachments to people and we are pretty healthy. It's whatever works out best for you in your own situation. In Canada, it's easier what with the 1 year paid mat leave. But at the end of the day, I think we need to stop pressuring each other and just get on with our lives, however we choose to live them.
Rosin has a point.
Modern style "attachment parenting" (also know as "helicopter parenting) really DOES involve tying women to their children, from birth to college.
And the whole mandatory breast feeding construct is a part of that - in fact, it's the start point.
The idea that the only appropriate food for children is breast milk, served directly from the breast, and everything that goes with that idea - women tied to their kid's feeding schedule for several years after birth being chief among them, are basically very sexist ideas.
Basically, the breast feeding ideology, and the attachment parenting concept of which it is a component part, are all about taking women out of the world, and putting them back "in their place" - the kitchen, the baby's room and the bedroom.
And there is nothing more sexist than that.
Look, there's nothing wrong with similac or enfamil if used as directed - not only are they just as good as breast milk, but they also free the mother from the tyranny of the feeding schedule, and let the baby's father, the woman's partner (who might not necessarily be the same person) the grandparents and other adults in the child's life do some of the hard work of taking care of a baby.
I'm sort of puzzled by the idea that breastfeeding has to go with attachment parenting. My mother is a nutritionist so I had access to a lot of scientific studies that convinced me that breastmilk is far better for a baby than formula. It's not that I think formula is bad, and it's fine if breastfeeding doesn't work for you for some reason. But it has clearly been proven that breastmilk is better. In many, many ways. So this: not only are they just as good as breast milk is just simply false. It's not true. But I chose to breastfeed based on the health issues alone and don't actually know that much about attachment parenting, so I don't get your claim that the two are inseparable.
And I'm also puzzled by "the tyranny of the feeding schedule." Washing bottles and shelling out huge amounts of money for formula seems like a tyrannical setup to me. Pumping or nursing several times a day while doing paperwork or reading or whatever is not really tyrannical. And rolling over to lift the baby out of the bassinet and into bed with you where she can nurse while you go back to sleep is much less work than getting up and mixing up a bottle and then sitting up with the baby until she's finished it. I got lots of sleep, even when she was tiny.
I suspect that the tyrannical aspects are the cultural mythology surrounding breastfeeding and bottle feeding and the fact that men are socialized not to carry their fair share of the workload.
"I suspect that the tyrannical aspects are the cultural mythology surrounding breastfeeding and bottle feeding and the fact that men are socialized not to carry their fair share of the workload."
Win.
Breastfeeding while doing paperwork? Dear god in heaven, if only I could have.
You don't know the personality of the baby until you get the baby. While some women can do paperwork or e mail or whatever, mine could stand no distractions and could hit the book out of my hands as soon as her motor skills allowed. There was nothing, NOTHING I could do but sit there and feed.
Which brings us back to the stressed out mom bit. My very healthy but needy child was not an isolated example. I continued to breastfeed til she was 14 months old but anyone who wants to pump and/or use formula so that she can feel more like a person and less like an IV has my commendations.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to discourage anyone from pumping or suplementing at all. I went back to work after 3 months but continued breastfeeding until 12 months, so obviously I pumped.
But I get the sense that breastfeeding oponents think there's something wrong with pumping, which I don't get. I did it twice a day at work while doing paperwork or grading papers or whatever, and I didn't feel like it was tyranizing me or tying me down or ruining my life in any way. I realize that this is just my experience, and it could be the case that every other woman in the world who breastfeeds/pumps experiences it as a horribly limiting experience that ends their adult life as they had known it, but I sort of doubt that. I assume that most women are probably smart enough to come up with solutions and work around inconveniences. Totalizing narratives are usually highly suspect.
And I do realize that some babies are more high-maintenance than others. My daughter is pretty high maintenance in a number of ways, which effects the stress level of both me and her dad. But I always thought that was a feature of parenting - that you can't predict what personality your child will have or what their demands on you will be. But I still disagree with anyone who claims that every nursing mom is forced to sit and stare at her child or the wall for 45 minutes 8 times a day for the duration of the entire nursing period. Many are not.
Attachment parenting and helicopter parenting aren't synonymous. We're attachment parents when it comes to feeding, sleeping, etc., but we don't fall under the "helicopter parent" term. Also, adherents to AP generally don't have a feeding schedule. We feed babies on demand.
I never imagined enforcing an artificial feeding schedule on my babies. Even as preschoolers, my husband and I feed them (healthy) snacks as they want them, not on a preset schedule.
That said, AP can be a limiting experience for women. Despite my concerns about BF, I don't believe AP has to be practiced in a way that is sexist, though many AP families already embraced traditional gender roles. My husband and I do not. He's taken his share of parenting duties beyond breastfeeding.
Attachment parenting seems like another area where there's all this mythology surrounding it. I don't know much about it, but I'd be interested in hearing a feminist take on it. Sounds like a great topic for a community post from someone who has some experience with it (hint, hint). =)
If it just boils down to feeding on demand and allowing co-sleeping while breastfeeding or when they're fussy or not feeling well, then I guess we're attachment parents too. But my sense was that it's much more than that.
I just have to say that, while attachment parenting isn't inherently sexist, it can quite easily go that way.
(Caveat: my personal experiences do not = everyone's experiences, I know. I'm just offering an anecdote.)
One of my best friends was a counterculture queen with me in our twenties, riot grrl, feminist, protester and general badass. About a year ago, she got pregnant and decided to have the baby. She read up on natural childbirth and attachment parenting. I express interest in having kids and talk to her about the whole birth/baby experience. First, she tells me (and I'm not exaggerating) that when I plan to have kids, I better plan on not working and spending 100% of my time raising my child for the first six years of it's life. I let it go. THEN she tells me that "women are meant to be mothers and men are meant to be breadwinners." I was absolutely floored.
Now, I understand that my friend has some personality issues that lead her to going overboard with things in general, and results aren't typical, etc, etc. I'm just offering this as an example of how we, as progressive women, can, when faced with the very uncertain and sometimes scary prospect of birthing and caring for a new tiny human being, sometimes come full circle via "healthy living" and attachment parenting and end up in a non-feminist place.
Or you can do it like many of the commentors and just split the work 50/50 and maintain gender equality in your relationship, which is sure as sh*t what I plan on doing.
Formula is not as good as breastmilk because breastmilk contains antibodies and live white blood cells that strengthen the baby's immune system. And there are multiple ways fathers and other family members can care for baby, including bathing, changing, playing and feeding pumped milk as many have noted here.
I think Rosin misses the mark. Breastfeeding can't be compared to something like vacuuming.
Women are still shackled to domesticity by the vacuum, and the dishwasher, and the washing machine... etc. There is no such thing as a household chore that requires the female touch, but women do the majority of housework. These things need to be done by someone, and in practice that someone is overwhelmingly female. We are still working that "second shift."
Breastfeeding does require the female touch - the woman's breasts. It can't be done by the man. BUT, breastfeeding is not a requirement of parenthood. A man can share feeding responsibility if the baby is fed through a bottle. Or a man can take on other domestic duties to make up for the woman's disproportionate responsibility for feeding, if she chooses to breastfeed.
There is no such thing as a household chore that requires the female touch, but women do the majority of housework.
Exactly.
Right on. No one is going to die or be seriously hurt if the vacuuming doesn't get done.
For those who choose to have children isn't it a privilege to be able to feed (whichever way you choose) and care for them? Of course its exhausting and changes your life dramatically and isn't always sunshine and rainbows but how can it be compared to vacuuming? Have we run out of topics to debate and ways to make our fellow women feel guilty?
I read the article and really enjoyed it. I have a sister with a newborn who was feeling TERRIBLE about not being able to produce enough milk for her baby. The article made her feel much better.
I appreciated the look into the meta-analysis of the breastfeeding studies. It's a no brainer that there would be confounding variables, of course the upper middle class moms who breast fed would be giving their children OTHER interventions that would set them apart from the rest of the kids.
While it is wonderful and beautiful and part of the female experience to breastfeed, if you can't you should feel bad. People wonder why women get PPD, the pressure put on them are immense. Between breastfeeding, dealing with the new issues in their relationship (or the stress if there isn't a partner), the pressure to go back to work, etc it's terrible. Taking the pressure to breastfeed off the table is great.
Article couldn't have come at a better time for my family.
*if you can't you SHOULDN'T feel bad. my bad.
It pisses me off sometimes when women are criticized for doing something good for their children. (That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with choosing not to breastfeed (or being unable)... just as there's nothing wrong with going back to work or hiring nannies/babysitters, etc.)
Feminism has done a lot to help women, but "feminism" has also hurt those women who do -or would- choose to be stay-at-home moms or do extended nursing or choose to do anything that the rest of us may call anti-feminist. Feminism, to me, is about freedom of choice and that includes the freedom to make choices that go "against feminism".
I would die for my child, so being "shackled" to her for a little while in order to breastfeed her is a "sacrifice" I was very happy to make. That doesn't make me any less of a feminist, just as the decision not to breastfeed wouldn't make you any less of a mother.
-Lilith
This article was extremely problematic for me. It seems that the real issue with Rosin isn’t breastfeeding at all, it was her inability to change her parenting choices when the original choice about how to do something wasn’t working anymore. She chooses to breastfeed her two first children, but when it was getting in her way with the third, she blamed breastfeeding instead of making a different choice about how to parent her child.
Frankly a lot of the stuff she said about how breastfeeding limited her was just stupid. I was able to talk to my husband, go out, and do meaningful work all while breastfeeding my child. The “meaningful work” bit was very insulting really, who is she to say what others do for work isn’t meaningful? I’m sorry for her that she felt so put upon with breastfeeding, but again, why didn’t she just make a different choice?
What about the case that breastfeeding is a very feminist act? To breastfeed in the current culture is to buck the trend that for years said doctors and huge corporations knew better about how to feed your child then you did. For years and years women have heard that their bodies were not good enough to feed their children. I agree that the medical community has come a long way in saying that “breast is best” but then they out right do things to new mothers that undermine early breastfeeding. I experienced it myself when I had an unplanned c-section in a “breastfeeding friendly” hospital. No one told me how a c-section and its potential complications could harm early breastfeeding. I feel for women who feel guilty that “breastfeeding didn’t work out for them” and then they talk about the horrible undermining things that were done to them and their babies in a medical setting, they blame themselves instead of being angry with the medical establishment that pays lip-service to supporting breastfeeding while medically doing things that make it difficult or impossible. I still left the “breastfeeding friendly” hospital with tons of formula samples, lots of people make millions of dollars on formula, and no one makes any money on breastfeeding.
And what about the whole class issue? Rosin bemoans the play ground nasty comments and such when she talked about weaning, but look where she is, upper class New Yorker. Boo-hoo for you lady, get nicer friends. The vast majority of breastfeeding mothers I know have been subject to harassment by family, friends and random strangers in public about their breastfeeding their children. I’ve been sneered at for breastfeeding in public much more often than smiled at. There is still a fight going on to even allow women to breastfeed in public in many states. And for low income women, there is no support for breastfeeding. Being able to pump at work, access to trained lactation consultants, even the first couple of weeks off for maternity leave, none of that is available to low income women.
Getting started with breastfeeding was a living nightmare for me after the nightmare of my messed up unplanned c-section. However, I looked and looked for the right info (none of which came from doctors) and finally I was successful. For me it was so healing and empowering after the horror show of my son’s birth. It was the hardest, most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done in my life. I support any woman’s choice to feed her child anyway she wishes if it really is a choice. Can it be a real choice if someone wanted to and was undermined? I’d say no, their “choice” was taken away from them, which is just as anti-feminist as not respecting someone who never wanted to breastfeed in the first place.
Rosin is entitled to her opinion and by virtue of her status as an upper class woman who writes for a big magazine can broad cast that opinion widely, but she does a disservice to the reality of breastfeeding in this country.
Exactly. Every word. Exactly.
I was given a presciption of high-dose ibuprofen and an antihistamine, both of which you can't take while breastfeeding, by a pro-breastfeeding doctor. Thank god my midwife came back from her vacation in time to tell me that the ibuprofen goes into your milk (very bad for baby) and the antihistamine will dry up all mucus membranes, including milk ducts. Later she told me that he also prescribes regular-dose birth control to nursing moms, which can dry up your milk. It's really disturbing the ignorance and apathy most doctors display when it comes to breastfeeding, and it's no wonder so many moms have trouble because of it. But the way our culture works, it's the mom's fault. Bullshit.
I agree with this too. The pro-breastfeeding hospital where I gave birth didn't have a lactation consultant available on weekends, and was wanting to send home a case of formula with me. I also had to ask the nurses repeatedly for a breast pump, since my daughter was in the NICU and she was intubated, so I couldn't directly feed her. Ultimately it was a nurse in the moderate care nursery that showed me the best way to breastfeed my daughter, I had it down before the lactation consultant showed up.
Good care is so important. I went through a birth centre attached to a major hospital and used their early discharge program. I got to go home the morning after delivery (less than 12 hours later) but a midwife visited me in my home every day for a week. We did all the medical follow up, chatted about any questions I might have and she watched me do things like breastfeed and settle and gave me tips. Absolutely fantastic.
And unfortunately rare from what I hear from other mothers. It isn't good to just leave people to try and figure this all out on their own. There is this misconeption that it should all just come naturally but of course it doesn't. You need to learn just like any oher skill.
I breastfed my baby and absolutely plan to do it again if I have more kids. Yes, it is hard work at first- you need to learn how to do it, you can't leave your baby for more than a couple hours (the pump did not work for me), it required (for me) a longer maternity leave than I otherwise would have taken, you can't drink to excess and may need to avoid certain foods the baby is sensitive to.
Why did I do it? In the end, it was selfish reasons. Women often forget that breastfeeding is REALLY good for THEIR health and happiness. Breastfeeding reduces the risk of many diseases (e.g. breast cancer), releases happy hormones and reduces post-natal depression, gives you natural birth control and a break from your cycle for potentially many months, encourages you to eat well and not ingest chemicals for a few more months, helps your uterus contract back to its pre-pregnancy position and need I mention the weight loss factor? I ended up 15 pounds lighter than BEFORE the pregnancy.
I understand why some women choose not to breastfeed, but I think the reasons that some people find breastfeeding restrictive/difficult/impossible are not inherent to breastfeeding, but are the result of how our society does not make it easy to be a citizen and a breastfeeding mom. Alot of easy reforms that almost every other industrialized nation currently has - universally protected public breastfeeding, paid maternity leave for at least the 6-month critical breastfeeding period, educated post-birthing support personnel who explain and encourage breastfeeding, affordable or free daycare on or close to mom's workplace -- would really take away ALOT of the perceived inconveniences of breastfeeding. The US has grossly-inadequate breastfeeding support available, especially for disadvantaged women.
Here's a link to a project working to improve the situation
http://www.usbreastfeeding.org/
I think as feminists we need to try to improve the ability of women who want to breastfeed to be able to do so while also going on with their lives. Sorry to sound essentialist, but this is something that our bodies are designed to do that is good for us and our babies -- breastfeeding is not the problem, a male-centered public/working sphere is.
"breastfeeding is not the problem, a male-centered public/working sphere is."
YES!
"... is something that our bodies are designed to do that is good for us and our babies ..."
I'm with you on that. That IS how other mammals feed their babies, and they don't really have choices ...
But. I had to give up breastfeeding, when my son was 6 weeks old, because he litterally broke my nippels. And that pain was worse than 18 hours in labour. It was excruciating and it really scared me having my beloved breasts destroyed. So I decided that the best for both of us, was a happy, pain-free mom. The thing I worried about though was the intimacy, and I feared we would lose that, feeding him with a bottle. But it was actually more intimate, since I no longer had to bite into a pillow to stop from crying. I could concentrate on him. I also fed him with organic milk formula, and that made me feel so much better. Absolutely no regrets.
Would you care to point to the medical journals that back up your statement "Breastfeeding is marginally better for children, but really only marginally. " From all the stuff I've read, sources linked to peer reviewed medical journals, breastfeeding is considerably better for children and mothers.
Mothers can eat just about anything they want, take medications they need (see http://neonatal.ttuhsc.edu/lact/ ).
Mother's who breastfeed their children don't need to worry about formula recalls due to being contaminated with melamine. Lots of babies in China died due to this.
Breastfeeding is a feminist issue because this is an area where women are once again taught to not have faith in their bodies. Convenience is not a consideration. If a person wants to live a convenient life, they should not have children.
I'm sorry, but I find all of this utterly ridiculous. Of all the parenting decisions to get judgmental amount, breastfeeding? Really? I for one don't give a hoot if a woman breastfeeds her kids, even if it's in front of me. Sure, I've got enough prude in me to squirm a little bit, but that's on me, not on the mom. Getting all up in arms about breastfeeding is essentially getting all up in arms about feeding a kid. As commenters have pointed out, HOW a mother feeds her kid is just one of many parenting decisions.
I for one get much more judgmental over parenting decisions like allowing your child to scream bloody murder for ten minutes straight in Barnes and Noble without making an effort to calm him or letting your child destructively kick and swing at store displays while you ignore him, to name a few I've witnessed.
In the scheme of things, breastfeeding is small potatoes. Shame on that Rosin woman for laying more guilt and blame on mothers who already have to deal with constant judgment from childless people like me.
Rosin is hardly the main one to blame for the guilt surrounding breastfeeding. Lactivists are atrocious in making women feel badly about not breastfeeding. I think this issue definitely is one in which people on both sides are far too demeaning of people who disagree with them.
Now that I am a parent, I've become far *less* judgmental of other parents. There are things I wouldn't do - such as feed my children frozen food every day - that other parents do, but I don't know what all is behind that decision. I can't determine universally what works for every child, but it's very common for others to want to do that to parents.
My first impression of the Rosin quote was that she was looking down on women who DO breastfeed. How dare they still be in their robe after sunrise! But maybe I'm overreacting.
I posted on Rosin's piece on Feministing Community a few weeks ago: http://community.feministing.com/2009/03/a-case-against-hanna-rosin-bre.html.
Since then, I came across this great response by Peggy O'Mara, which I like better than my own:
http://mothering.com/guest_editors/quiet_place/quiet_place.html
She makes a great case for breastfeeding as a feminist issue.
I actually find her comparison of the "sucking vacuum cleaner" to a "sucking child" preeetty offensive.
After graduating college, I worked at a daycare for a few months before moving on to bigger and better things. Right before I left, two babies from two moms joined the daycare. One was a breastfeed boy, the other was a formula girl. The were only a few days apart, but there were several differences between the two.
The boy that was breastfeed was thin, pale and always sick
The girl that was on formula was a healthy weight, pink, and generally happy.
Now, I don't have any kids, but I just thought I'd put in my two cents about my experience with babies. I'm sure there were other things to factor in to their health, but I found it odd, because the whole time I worked there, everyone talked about how much better breastfeeding was (until right before I quit, there were no babies under 6 months old, and all were on formula), and then this sickly, pale baby comes in with bottles of breastmilk, and I was just so confused. I thought "hey, aren't you supposed to be the chubby, pink skinned baby?"
Breastfed babies do tend to gain weight slower and be lighter than bottlefed babies, but eventually do catch up. The fact is that a fatter baby is not necessarily a healthier baby - the whole trope of the "fat, healthy baby" is a cultural thing that has no scientific support. In other words, gaining weight as fast as possible should not be a goal for babies. One of the benefits of breastfeeding is a lower rate of adult obesity and a reduced risk of other diseases like diabetes.
Oftentimes breastfeeding moms are discouraged from breastfeeding or are told they have inadequate milk supply because their babies are on the lower end of the growth charts. What they are not told is that the growth charts are averages of breastfed and nonbreastfed babies, so their kid is being judged unfairly against formula-fed babies.
I don't see anything to indicate that the bottlefed baby was fat in the OP, only that she was larger and in better general health than the breastfed baby. There may well have been something going on with the mother's milk, like the mother eating something the baby was allergic to or taking a medication that adversely affected the child.
Formula babies do bulk up a lot because of all the corn syrup in formula.
Actually, the main consensus is that breast feeding moms are more likely to let the kid stop when it is done, while bottle feeding moms are more likely to encourage it to eat until the mom thinks it is done. There's a slight difference, but it's due to the moms, not the milk.
I'm not sure that's the consensus, given the fact that many researchers think the difference is that lactose and glucose, which are the sugars in breastmilk, trigger the satiety signals in the brain while fructose does not. So formula babies don't feel full as quickly, and consequently their bodies don't digest the milk the same way, since the hormone signals your body sends to itself when you've eaten enough aren't there. This may also have to do with the differences in metabolism between breastfed and formula fed babies, but there hasn't been enough research done on this to say one way or the other.
Also, I'm not sure how people get a baby to drink a full bottle if the baby isn't inclined to. My daughter would drink the exact amount she wanted (usually 4-5 ounces) and then stop. She'd keep the nipple in her mouth if you tried to get her to drink more, but would basically use it as a pacifier. We often did try to get her to drink more, as she was born early and took 6 months to get up to the bottom of the weight chart, but when she was full she was just done. But I realize that other babies may be different.
Dear Katy, you can't get a theory out of two data points. Some kids are skinny, some are not. I have three breastfed children: one of them was over average weight and size, one average, and one significantly under average. They're all school age children now and... guess what? They still are as above/on/below average as they have been since childbirth!
No one is saying that ALL breastfed babies are healthier than ALL formula fed babies, just that ON AVERAGE breastfed babies have fewer health problems (and their moms have less cancer). This is the same problem with saying men are taller than women. Well, you know, I know a woman who is taller than a man, so...
Also, what's "bigger and better" than working in a daycare?
All this breastfeeding polarizing is damn annoying. What gives. Breastfeeding is important and anyone who needs to breastfeed should be able to anywhere, any time, no question. End of story.
When my kids were young I stayed at home with them. It seemed like the right choice at the time and it was nice to be able to raise them full time but it also limited my career options. I regret it now and wish that I had pursued a career or at least had some hobbies when my children were small. I spent too much time at home.
I will admit that I breastfed both of my children for two years but that I didn't do it for them, I did it for me. It was so easy to do and required so little effort that I could not imagine using bottles to feed my children when they were young. They took to the boob so easily, I could not imagine doing all that unnecessary work to make bottles. However, I may have felt differently if I had had any help with my kids when they were small. I was the classic housewife-mother with no social life, isolated by the abusive partner. If things had been different I might have felt differently. If I had had a partner that helped out more and would have taken over those midnight feedings, I would have been more than happy to let him do so. As it was, he didn't even change a diaper once or offer to feed the child solid food that I had prepared. An involved father would help get the child eating food
Breastfeeding had the lovely side effect of suppressing my menstrual cycle for two whole years. I cut my kids off of breastfeeding almost as soon as I started my period again. The thought of nursing while crampy was impossible to endure. When your kids are two years old it is really easy to wean them. You just tell them that big girls use a cup with a funny looking straw and get hugs and kisses from Mommy instead of a boob. It's amazing how parenting can work.
YES, This!!! Breastfeeding is *less* work than formula feeding--nothing to mix or microwave, no bottles to sterilize, less to cart around, less time up with a crying baby while you fix that 2 am bottle, no worries about tainted formula.
I think breastfeeding is feminist -- it's showing that you're not afraid to be tied to your child, because you love it, and that you can feed your baby better than some corporation ever can. I find this woman's contempt of babies as like sucking vaccum cleaners quite rude and offensive, also.
My mother breastfed me until I was two and a half and for her, breastfeeding was a liberal, progressive thing to do -- all her friends acted like feeding me beyond the age of six months was "disgusting" or "wrong". My mother said, "this is my baby and I'll feed her as long as I want to!" She valued and I loved the closeness and bond I had with her and so she wasn't going to stop until we were ready to.
Basically it's about choice. I reject the idea that breastfeeding is anti-feminist, but I do not condemn bottle-feeders either. Although it's important to remember it's very rare that women CAN'T breastfeed (this is often an urban myth) but by all means everyone should have the choice.
Oh, and my mum's also a stay-at-home mum, but she's the most determined and strong feminist I've ever met.
Although it's important to remember it's very rare that women CAN'T breastfeed (this is often an urban myth)
Very rare? An urban myth? Where did you hear that? The La Leche League? This is exactly what I was saying before--women are told to "keep trying!" by many breastfeeding advocates when breastfeeding isn't working, when they really should be told that it's perfectly OK to stop and feed their babies formula.
I don't think breastfeeding is anti-feminist, unless it is used as a way to keep women out of the workplace.
I'm not saying that women should HAVE to keep trying, but in the past, when bottle feeding was all the rage, many women were assured they "wouldn't be able to breasfeed" because their boobs were too small, their nipples not right, etc etc etc. This is usually not the case and if babies aren't given formula they will almost always be able to breastfeed, as it is the natural way.
Women should have the choice obviously, but sometimes it can be wrongly claimed that some women "just can't", and used to make them feel inadequate. It would be better if women just said "no, I don't WANT to breastfeed" and fair enough, but I know of several women who were shamed by society into claiming they just couldn't. I'm not trying to speak for everyone as this is clearly not always the case.
I don't think the two messages...(a) "its perfectly ok to stop breastfeeding" and (b) "its very rare that a woman is physically incapable of breastfeeding with proper support" are mutually exclusive. I think that before a woman makes the (totally valid) choice to bottle feed she has the right to know that there are a lot of things she can try to make breastfeeding run smoother.
This is coming from someone who had 5 or 6 blisters on each nipple for a full month (pain comparable to labor at every feeding), and a baby who lost a lot of weight and was underweight for several months. Hearing message (b) gave me the confidence to continue breastfeeding. Two months, one session with the lactation consultant and some fenugreek later, by my baby's 2 month birthday breastfeeding was going smoothly and baby gaining weight properly.
I realize that not everyone wants to or has the resources/time to do what I did, but that doesn't mean that they are physically incapable of breastfeeding.
It would be very rare if it weren't for all the medical interventions that women experience that interfere with the production of breastmilk. And it's deeply offensive to me that the medical industry will withhold information from moms and not tell them that the medications they're on or the procedures they've had will prevent their bodies from producing milk and instead just let the mom try to pump and feel shitty about it. That's a bigger issue, as far as I'm concerned.
I agree. I was lucky enough to have my baby in Europe with care that was all-midwife, evidence-based and 100% supportive of natural birth and breastfeeding, and I know in my heart that had I been in the US maternity care complex I would have ended up with a c-section and also not had the support to continue breastfeeding. As it was, I had absolutely no drugs or interventions and it was still hard work to breastfeed. The breastfeeding thing is intimately connected with the overall message in US maternity care that childbirth is a dangerous and scary event that women have no idea how to do, and women's bodies are badly designed to do it. Just like you said, we are set up to fail.
If breastfeeding is oppressive, it's because American society does not value families, and particularly mothers.
Breastfeeding is an individualized choice, and I sort of wish moms could quit with the backbiting already. it's bullshit like this that prevents the largest cross-section of women (something like 85% by of women give birth over the course of their reproductive lives!) from forming a unified motherhood movement. Infighting over whether breastfeeding mothers or nonbreastfeeding mothers are more-feminist-than-thou, or people complaining that AP parents are ruining the world with their "helicopter parenting" or that people who feed their kids solids at 3 months are child abusers, ad nauseam (and I've seen it all by now), takes away momentum that could be used to, say, make sure workplaces support families so that even waitresses can breastfeed if they choose to, or if a family chooses to formula feed, they can rest assured that the cans the formula is tinned in isn't lined in a toxic chemical.
While my perspective may change when I become a mother, right now, the thing that annoys me most about the breastfeeding debate is that it is one more issue that divides women. As women, we should recognize eachother's ability as full-fledged adults to make informed decisions that are consistent with and complementary to our own beliefs and situations. Instead we often waste time and energy trying to convince other women that their actions are or aren't feminist, are or aren't motherly. This is time and energy that could be spent working in solidarity to dismantle the systems that keep all women (in varying degrees) from achieving equality.
I've got a question that I haven't seen addressed in these recent breast-feeding topics on Feministing:
What do adoptive parents do? If you adopt a child, the adoptive mom's body isn't going to be producing milk. Where do these families fit in this whole breastfeeding debate?
My brother is adopted, and we had to use formula, and unfortunately he became lactose intolerant to it (which is more common with breastfed babies) so my mum used soya milk formula. It's actually possible for the female body to product milk if you use a break pump again and again, and would have been easy for my mum since she'd had birth children, but my brother was bottle-fed at birth and with his foster parents so there was no possibility. He's fine, and my mum didn't mind, but it used to piss her off when other mums would be disapproving that she wasn't breastfeeding considering she hadn't had the choice anyway.
My brother is adopted, and we had to use formula, and unfortunately he became lactose intolerant to it (which is more common with breastfed babies) so my mum used soya milk formula. It's actually possible for the female body to product milk if you use a break pump again and again, and would have been easy for my mum since she'd had birth children, but my brother was bottle-fed at birth and with his foster parents so there was no possibility. He's fine, and my mum didn't mind, but it used to piss her off when other mums would be disapproving that she wasn't breastfeeding considering she hadn't had the choice anyway.
Whoops, edit; I meant to say lactose intolerance has been proven to be more common in formula fed babies.
This could also be a conflation with race and class. Breastfeeding mothers and their offspring tend to be white and middle/upper class (the two of which are strongly tied.) People of European descent are far less likely to be lactose intolerant than other races.
Many adoptive moms do breastfeed. I had a friend who nursed two adopted high-risk babies. There are drugs that you can take to start production, but my friend did it with nipple stimulation (a pump) alone. Just about any woman's body can produce milk.
Huh, you learn new things every day. I had no idea!
Those kids grow up to be serial killers.
(kidding. but that's what breastfeeding advocates practically imply.)
Here's the thing, though. Generally speaking, a baby's needs should come before the caregivers', whoever that may be. She can't feed herself, can't change her own diaper, let alone not need it in the first case, and can't figure out what stuff she needs to stay out of and what stuff is okay to play with on her own. She also can't clearly communicate her needs, not until someone figures out what cry means what. So to read that Rosin feels kind of put out by breastfeeding, makes me want to tell her to suck it up, she's going to have to make some adjustments, period. And really, feeding a baby formula takes just as much time, it isn't as if you install a nasal gastro-tube and pump it right into the stomach all at once.
The real problem is when people interpret "caregiver" as "mother" only, and "generally" as "always". Ideally, a mother shouldn't be the only one responsible to dealing with a baby's day to day needs, and I firmly believe that while a single parent can do it by her or his self, having a support network helps a lot. A village, and all.
And there are just some times that a baby's needs aren't going to be the first ones. When my daughter was hospitalized at 6 weeks, I spent the nights in the hospital with her on one of those weeny fold out chairs, and she simply would not let me rest. So the nurses stepped in, took her and put her into a baby swing in the hall, which calmed her right down, and allowed me to get much needed sleep.
Also, while it would have been great for her dad to be able to hang out with her all the time. Someone had to work, and the just above minimum wage job I left wasn't going to cut it.
Seriously, it isn't breastfeeding that is the problem. It is a society that shoehorns women into the role of primary caregiver while making it hard for her to breastfeed. Couple that with people thinking their lives should just be able to plug along the same way pre-baby, and no wonder breastfeeding looks like such a hassle.
Exactly.
The conflict that this article presents is a false one. It is perfectly possible that there ARE health benefits that go along with breastfeeding - but this is beside the point. There are health benefits that go along with not super sanitizing your child's environment, but we don't demonize mothers that like a spotless house and clean kid.
My mother breastfed me until I was six years old (my younger sister and brother until they were five and four respectively). She was and is a vociferous advocate for breastfeeding and for co-sleeping (she did it with me until I was 13, my sister and brother for ever longer), and was a member of La Leche League. She is a caricature of the type of mother who would look down on others for choosing not to breastfeed, and I know that if I have children (I'm 19 and in college and have none right now) and choose not to breastfeed them, I will get flak from her. My point is that the conflict presented here is a false one. I am not closer to my mother than people I know who were not breastfed, in fact I'm less close. I was homeschooled for much of my life and had no idea that other families did not operate in the same way that mine did. At some point, a pendulum effect occurs, and because I was forced into extreme closeness with my mother for so long, I'm less close to her now. The issue here is choice. Negative effects occur not from not breastfeeding (formula, if used correctly, is perfectly healthy) but from not cultivating the emotional closeness that is often made easy by breastfeeding. The benefits are not the issue - the choice is. Women should be free to choose either. Neither choice is anti-feminist, but the demonizing of either choice is.
The eye contact thing is interesting - I had not heard that was even something you were meant to do. I am breastfeeding my one week old baby girl as we speak. And in my experience so far I couldn't maintain eye contact even if I wanted to because she closes her eyes almost immediately after latching on.
Which just highlights it is different for everyone I guess.
My experience so far more mirrors Rachel_in_WY's comments. My husband does a lot of the housework, changing nappies and settling while I (for the moment) do all the feeding. Soon we will start expressing and bottle feeding so he can share this task as well. Then in a few months I am going back to work and he is taking paternity leave so the middle of the night feeds will be all his and I'll pitch in to help with housework, nappies, settling etc etc.
There are ways to make BF fit in with your life and not tie you down (or not anymore tied down that having a child at all makes you I guess!).
Drat - This was meant to be a reply to Brandi way upthread. Oh well.
I just in the past week weaned my 2 and a half year old. While I did experience difficulties nursing in the past, with him I had few problems and did not see it as something that kept me tied down any more than any other aspect of parenting. From the time he was 2 weeks old I attended school full time and worked part time, and even manage to get out alone without the kids now and then. With pumping and a partner who shares in housework and child rearing it was only rarely an inconvenience and was, for me, a rewarding experience.
I do agree that it's all about choice and I hate that this issue and so many others are so dividing.
We ARE women, we DO have breasts that were made for the purpose of feeding our young. Of course this doesn't mean we HAVE to but it certainly should mean something that we can.
Feminism IS about choice, not about pressuring others to make the choices we've made so we feel good about ourselves.
Maybe things have changed in the 8years since I breastfed my youngest but I certainly don't remember any pressure to breastfeed. The formula comes free when you deliver! Formula is easier and they give it to me before I've even expressed my choice, while I'm exhausted and vulnerable.
It is about choices... choose the right partner (or do it on your own), choose to have the baby, choose bottle or breast. After that it's responsibility. Not responsibility to defend your choice, but to live it out with confidence.
If you don't want to be tied down than the choice is simple... Don't have a baby. I have three and often wish I had made a different choice, but since I made it I'm responsible for the things that tie me down. I was smart and chose a partner who understands that they are "our" children (though I was the only one pregnant:) and we are equally responsible. I breastfed, he changed diapers... I definitely got the better end.
To me, I don't feel as if any of this is really about breastfeeding or not breastfeeding.
The point is that women who breastfeed are "shackled" by the decision. They WOULDN'T be if it was considered normal and acceptable to breastfeed where ever the mother goes. Breastfeed at work, the store, the restaurant, wherever you are. I did it anyway and I didn't feel shackled by breastfeeding. Having a child at all, sure, at times, but I chose that and don't regret it.
No, there is very little pressure to breastfeed. Bottle-feed, YES THERE IS. But not to breastfeed. Maybe it was my class/race/social strata that defined that, I'm not sure.
Incidentally, I breastfed, my sister bottle fed and people are shitty no matter what you do because people have some need to judge you as a woman.
(Oh, and my friend was criticized for breastfeeding her daughter at a fucking Hooters. Seriously, nuts!)
That's like the woman who was kicked out of a Victoria's Secret for breastfeeding. What's really ironic is that, if the baby is latched on properly, you'll see less of the scary breast-flesh than on a Hooter's waitress or a Victoria's Secret model. It's just not being used for the right thing.
Parenting is full of tough, heartbreaking decisions. I think it's natural when you've struggled that much with a decision to give extraordinary weight to the answer you came up with, but the fact is that the people who came to the opposite conclusion probably struggled just as much as you did.
Which is why nothing gets my dander up quite like a parenting book, article, or blog post that says, in essence, "All right thinking people do X when it comes to this issue, and anyone else is a horrible parent!" Unless, of course, X coincides with what my wife and I decided. Then I'm glad to have the backup.
Seriously, though, you would think that people who've been through it would hesitate before saying/writing things like that, but I can't tell you how many people I've read saying that, say, Attachment Parenting is child abuse, or that anything other than Attachment Parenting is child abuse. It's frustrating.
I"m only 10 weeks into my first pregnancy, but my husband and I feel strongly about breastfeeding the baby. I know it's not easy and many women choose to do it or not for a variety of reasons. But I feel the benefits are worth it and I can also pump so my husand can take part in feedings also. Plus I like the idea of not having schlep into the kitchen to make a bottle at 3am. :)
I think our society needs to stop making moms feel guilt for everything. Yes, breast feeding has benefits, but so does bottle feeding. I was breastfed until I was well past my second birthday, and remember it as being an incrediably soothing experiance in my admitedly very fuzzy memories of it. I also have a friend who had really serious nipple problems, and got very stressed out from the restraints breast feeding forced on her. I have no doubt that stopping breast feeding was better for her. Moms, dads, and doctors need to look at what's best for a particular baby and family. You can't control everything, and no one should make women feel guilty for doing the best she can in whatever situation she finds herself in.
Of course breastfeeding is a feminist issue. That doesn't make formula-feeding particularly unfeminist, just as recognizing menstruation as a feminist issue doesn't make non-menstruating women bad feminists. Likewise, sex is a feminist issue but that doesn't make celibate women bad feminists.
Breastfeeding is a lot of work. Formula-feeding is, too. Many of the problems women encounter when they want to breastfeed are cultural in nature -- Where to breastfeed, the politics of breastfeeding, the ick factor, the sexual connotations, etc.
Sure there are women who cannot breastfeed. I, for one, could not formula feed. I'd have been terrible at it, b/c I'm not methodical or precise, not particularly clean, I'm lazy and besides that I really couldn't afford it.
Other women cannot afford to breastfeed. It is not "free;" more like priceless. While educated women with high-paying jobs can retreat to a lacation room or close the door to their private office or even telecommute, waitresses and Wal-Mart clerks cannot exactly pump in situ.
That's why this is a feminist issue. Think of menstruation...What if the only 2 choices women had were to quit their jobs or get a hysterectomy? Women deserve and demand the right to continue working while menstruating -- and while pregnant and while breastfeeding.
One false dichotomy thrown at women in the breast/formula debate is the question "Who do breasts belong to -- men or babies?" Neither, of course. Breasts belong to women. That's why breastfeeding is a feminist issue.
Breastfeeding is so beneficial for healthy growth and immunization in infants! The issue is not with breastfeeding itself, which is a very rewarding and intimate experience for many mothers, but with the hyper-sexualization of women's breasts.
I remember being told (second-hand) that H&M Clothing was facing a lawsuit after telling a female customer she could not breastfeed her hungry child in the store because she was causing a "disturbance." This is what we should be getting upset about - a women being prevented from breastfeeding her child is child abuse, and patriarchy in action!
Men and others need to be able to avert their eyes and shows breastfeeding mothers the respect they deserve!
Wow, hot button issue.
I think it's been well-established here that we have no consensus on whether or not bottle vs breast is inherently a feminist choice/a health issue/better for you, etc. But we've all got to feed our kids and goodness knows most mamas are doing the best damn job they can. Personally, I chose to breastfeed my daughter for two years. It was free and perfect nutrition, it was ready 24 hours a day and she and I both loved it.
It seems as though a lot of commenters wanted to frame the choice as a "sacrifice" one way or the other. But I think there's a greater wisdom here that goes way beyond politics and conventional opinion. Raising kids and forming families is inherently an act of giving and loving. Rosin's words are divisive and do an incredible disservice to how much most parents love and give for the well-being of their family.
I see this issue as an extension of reproductive choice...part of a long list of post-reproductive choices parents make and definitely as a decision women make regarding their own bodies and their own sanity. I'd bet you, armed with knowledge and self-sufficiency, can totally be trusted to make the decision about how to feed your kid without anyone bitching about your choice. I know I can.
It's a personal choice, but I agree with the commenter above who said that breastfeeding is not necessarily more restrictive than bottle feeding. Either way, the kid has to eat - and that's a lot of work either way you do it. One of my friends is breastfeeding right now, and she says that she finds it convenient because she doesn't have to buy, store, and mix formula, or wash and sterilize bottles and nipples. She does pump some, and dad handles the feedings of pumped milk. So, for her, she feels that breastfeeding is the more liberating option as it frees her from other tasks that would come with using formula. No matter how you choose to feed an infant, someone is going to spend a significant portion of their lives on-call for the needs of the baby. What is *feminist* is when women are able to make the choice whether or not to become mothers, and how to nurture those children once they are here.
A random side note: I was talking about this issue with someone the other day, and he said that he only knows one woman who breastfeeds or has done so recently. I said that I only know one woman who hasn't. We both know a bunch of young professionals and academics, so I have no idea why the disparity.
I think in some ways, a lot of the stigmas associated breast-feeding come from the over-sexualization of women. I remember reading somewhere that the global average for breast-feeding is until age 4 or 5 or something around there. Essentially, people in other parts of the world (and not always the very poor areas) breast-feed their children for way longer than women in America do. Women in Europe typically breast feed their children for longer, and it's also not uncommon to see a woman breast feeding in public. Women are over-sexualized in America (and other places too, of course), breasts are seen primarily as sexual objects that are there specifically for men to enjoy. Therefore, people find it "creepy" if a woman breast feeds her child past like, 6 months. Women get pressured into not breast-feeding their children or not breast-feeding past a certain point because they've been so inundated with that over-sexualization.
From a recent study about the effects of breastfeeding for the mother:
"After a year of breastfeeding, the odds of having high blood pressure dropped by 12%; the odds of diabetes decreased by 20%; the rates of abnormal cholesterol levels went down by 19%; and the overall risk of cardiovascular disease fell by 9%, compared to women who never breastfed, according to the study."
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=99541
The hypothesis is that breastfeeding is a way for the body to reset itself to normal hormonal levels after pregnancy.