Women with a family history of breast cancer may have a new weapon against the disease: breast-feeding. In a new study of more than 60,000 women, nursing a baby for at least three months cut the risk of breast cancer in half for those who had a family history of the disease.The researchers say that breast-feeding could be the equivalent of taking the drug tamoxifen for five years, which is a well-known way to cut breast cancer risk in women with a family history of the disease.
While breastfeeding didn't affect women who don't have a family history of the disease, for women with at least one close relative with breast cancer, breastfeeding cut the risk of premenopausal cancer by 59% compared to those who didn't. That's pretty significant.
Since needing to feed your hungry child apparently isn't good enough reason, maybe folks won't be so opposed to women breastfeeding in public, knowing it could potentially be life-saving and all. (Though something tells me not to hold my breath.)
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These statistics aren't that surprising to me. For years, one of the explanations for why lesbians are at a higher risk for breast cancer is that they don't have biological children (which has obviously changed in the last decade). No biokids = no breastfeeding.
I just hope that these statistics aren't going to be used to blame women who choose not to have children if they are diagnosed with breast cancer later on. It's like that episode of Sex and the City where Samantha is diagnosed with breast cancer and the doctor tells her it's her fault because she never had children. Apparently she was a big whore who deserved to get cancer.
I was kind of under the impression that not having children would also decrease your risk, because then the breasts don't undergo the changes for lactation.
Of course, they'd never advertise that, because we don't want to be putting ideas in women's heads that defying their sole purpose in life could actually have health benefits.
This is a valid point. Ten years ago I had breast reduction surgery; being 25 at the time, the surgeon told me that if I were to have children, I could not breastfeed as the milk ducts would be removed during surgery. He then said that with my family history of breast cancer, this is a good thing as breast cancer in women usually begins in the milk ducts.
I was kind of under the impression that not having children would also decrease your risk, because then the breasts don't undergo the changes for lactation.
No, it's the opposite. Pregnancies decrease the risk of breast cancer, with lower risk associated with lower age of first birth. The working hypothesis is that pregnancy gives the breasts a respite from estrogen exposure during non-pregnant hormonal cycling.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1349802
http://www.schs.state.nc.us/SCHS/pdf/SCHS120.pdf
I've read things that say similar stuff, actually, and most link it to the hormonal cycling experienced when you're not pregnant and breastfeeding. The cycling which is essentially negated by birth control now, so new studies definitely need to be done. So far as the actual studies go, I have not in the past had access to the actual studies, only the media reported conclusions.
Also, the second study you linked to had a very, very small sample size (only 103 people). Also, while they may have been people in different locations, they were still all in the same state. Even the study itself concludes that further studies should be done.
So far as the first study goes, I haven't had a chance to read through it.
To me, it just makes a lot of sense that if they make medications to prevent the changes that occur in the breasts in order to facilitate lactation, and these medications are used with a reasonable amount of success to decrease the incidence of cancer, that avoiding such changes by other means (such as not having children) should have similar effects.
I've read things that say similar stuff, actually, and most link it to the hormonal cycling experienced when you're not pregnant and breastfeeding.
Yes, that's exactly what I said. If you've read this before, how did you get the impression that not having children would decrease your risk? Because not having children increases your risk.
The cycling which is essentially negated by birth control now, so new studies definitely need to be done.
Too many things to say, so I'll enumerate them for clarity:
1) Most OC* DO cycle - there is the off-week.
1a) Tricyclic OC even have increasing amounts of estrogen with every week.
2) The hormonal profile of a woman on OC is more similar to the hormonal profile of a non-pregnant, non-OC taking woman than to a pregnant, non-OC taking woman. Soooo, not sure what you are getting at.
2a) The pill does not trick your body into thinking it is pregnant.
3) The effect of OC on breast cancer risk has been studied extensively.
3a) Do you really think nobody thought to control for OC use in non-pregnant women?
*OC = oral contraceptives, the most common form of birth control.
So far as the actual studies go, I have not in the past had access to the actual studies, only the media reported conclusions.
Everybody has access to Pubmed from the NIH.
Also, the second study you linked to had a very, very small sample size (only 103 people).
*snip*
So far as the first study goes, I haven't had a chance to read through it.
These are not the only two studies out there. There are more studies out there than you could possibly read in your spare time. These are just two links which I happened to like after Googling "nulliparous breast cancer risk." If you haven't read actual studies, as you state, it's pretty frickin' arrogant to conclude that more studies need to be done. More studies always need to be done b/c we don't understand everything, but the nulliparity-increased breast cancer correlation is clear at this point.
"Most OC* DO cycle - there is the off-week."
This is nitpicky and doesn't really have an effect on the rest of your comment, but one doesn't actually have to have the "off-week."
But this article is more so geared toward women who DO choose to use their uteruses to give birth to a child or more and THEN choose also to breastfeed. The only women who get more flack than those who decide NOT to have children are those "breeders" , like me, who DARE decide to use their feminine organs to do something as natural as *gasp* give birth and use their *fun bags* for purposes that may gross out those poor men's by breastfeeding. How dare those women even think that something SO natural, something SO significant could ever be ok?!
There are gaggles of men evading child support that would fall over themselves for a woman who promises to get an abortion if he knocked her up during one of their casual rolls in hay.
I'm with you...I hate how many feminists seem to look down on women who have/want children, as though becoming a mother is somehow demeaning or "giving in" to the patriarchy. While I'm sure motherhood is not for everyone, I'm all for studies like this which affirm childbearing and breastfeeding as natural, healthy, and beneficial.
As one of those snooty childless feminists, I can say that we don't so much "look down on" women who have children as much as we "look down on" the near-constant drumbeat of women (and men) who proclaim that childbearing and breastfeeding is "natural," (ie, women who don't have children or breastfeed are "unnatural"), "healthy" (ie, children who are not breastfed will be unhealthy and sickly and stupid), and "beneficial" (ie, it's really for your own good that you need to have the babies and strap yourself down to it through breastfeeding/attachment parenting). I "look down on" this popular script that once a woman has a child then and only then is her life complete, and that she is achieving her highest purpose in life through the act of mothering, and that any woman who doesn't have a child Couldn't Possibly Understand.
I support reproductive freedom, including the ability for women who want to have children to have those children and live in a society that will support them and allow them to maintain their identity as individuals as well as mothers. I support the ability of mothers to breastfeed in public, and workplaces making pumping a safe an viable option for new mothers. But I do not support language that values women who have children over women who do not, or vice versa.
This. Seriously, if I could make another profile just to like this again, I would. I'm one of the women who is currently married and childless. I agree with you, word for word. I hate this backwards notion.
The other day I was talking to a group of my friends, and I said that, I don't think that when I'm pregnant and have a child that that will be my biggest accomplishment. For me personally, I think that getting my degree, and starting my own business will supersede becoming pregnant." You wouldn't believe the looks I received. Lol. And of course the obligatory "You just wouldn't understand until you are a mother." No, I think I'm going to stay that way. I'm not passing judgement on any women who says that her children are the biggest accomplishment, and are huge blessings. But I don't like this double standard that exists where women are allowed to openly crow about motherhood, or say things as passively insulting as "oh you wouldn't understand", but if a childless woman says that she doesn't want kids right now, or explains that she doesn't particularily care for children, she's looked at like she's the Devil's spawn.
Yeah, you can carry a fetus in a coma. Just try getting a degree or starting a business while comatose.
While I agree with most of what people are saying here, I'm not sure why have to say that one "achievement" is greater than another. Do dads go around saying whether being a dad or being a professsional is more important to them? Not that I have ever heard of.
For me, I am a lawyer, a mom, I do volunteer work for birth rights, I also have several hobbies. All of these things are part of who I am and I really don't think I should have to say which one is my best achievement....actually I think my best achievement is managing to do all these things at the same time in a society that constantly says a woman can't or shouldn't, or by trying to do so you MUST be doing one or more of them badly. So I guess I agree that the moms you describe are being silly (and perhaps a little insecure about their own choices)...but also I think is the attitude that since women in comas can give birth, being a mom is obviously less of an achievement than starting a business. Carrying, giving birth to, breastfeeding, financially supporting and taking care of the day-to-day needs a kid is a fairly enormous responsibility, and depending on the person involved may require more effort and smarts than other pursuits.
I guess I'm just asking people to get rid of this being a mom/doing something else too binary. Women can do a lot of things and reproduce (if they want too) just like men.
I completely agree. I think you took what I said out of context, or maybe I should have worded it differently. I'm not taking away the significance of motherhood. I was raised by a single mother so I know intimately, how hard and how much you have to put into raising a child. However, in my own personal opinion, for my own experience, I don't think having a child will be the best thing to happen to me, or will be my biggest accomplishment. Nothing against any one personally.
I have to ask though, b/c this kind of proves my argument earlier, not once did I say that we should measure accomplishments by a childless/or motherhood measuring stick, and neither did I say that raising a child wasn't a huge deal in a general sense, but you commented and gave examples of why parenting is a big deal. To me, that's being somewhat defensive, and haven't attacked you personally. (No snark intended.)
If a parent who hadn't gotten their degree or started a business told you "You know, even if I get a degree and start a successful business, I think for me those won't be as significant an accomplishment as being a parent" wouldn't you be tempted to tell them they wouldn't understand unless they'd gotten their degree and started their own business? I don't see much reason to trust the opinions of anyone who hasn't had both sets of accomplishments, personally.
Experiences change us. Parenthood is transformative for many people. Someone in a coma may be able to carry a fetus to term, but acting as if that's all that's involved in becoming a parent--as if becoming a parent rather than a birth-parent didn't also involve taking on an awe-inspiring amount of responsibility for another person's life and well-being--is ridiculous and narrow-minded. Other accomplishments change us too, and it's important to listen to the people who have actually had the experiences we're talking about rather than valuing speculation equally to experience.
I say this as someone who doesn't have kids, isn't sure they're ever going to have kids (and if I do, it's not going to be particularly soon), and doesn't think accomplishments in child-rearing should be societally elevated over other accomplishments.
I agree. There shouldn't be this competition on who has the better accomplishments, and no one should judge others for such personal decisions as deciding to have a child, and child rearing. Please see my reply to Stellarose above.
it's that the sort of dichotomised thinking most feminists fight against?
Huh? Are you agreeing with me or are you trying to argue that "I do not support language that values women who have children over women who do not, or vice versa" is somehow "dichotomised thinking" ?
I think that the "dichotomised thinking" uberhausfrau is talking about is the idea that if Choice A is beneficial or healthy than Choice B must be detrimental and unhealthy.
I mean, if you're choosing between an apple and an orange, they're both going to nourish you and give you nutrients. You might pick the apple because you don't want to peel the orange, but that doesn't automaticaly imply there's something about the orange that's bad that you should stay away from.
I mean, I get what you're saying, that some there are gung-ho people who take those words and purposefully use them as a judgment against you, but that doesn't make calling breastfeeding "healthy" an automatic judgment against other choices.
I apologize for saying "I mean" so much, I really should proofread.
That's not how it works. I've read far too much rhetoric about how your child will be a mouth-breathing moron if you don't breastfeed them. How your child will have asthma and scoliosis and be struck down by every childhood disease imaginable if you dare feed your baby formula. As someone who was bottlefed, I do take this personally. And as someone who has lived with everyone and their uncle holding forth their "opinion" on how "unnatural" I was for not wanting children, I'm not just over-reacting and inventing some sort of outrage where only good-natured discourse existed. Then to come on a feminist blog and read comments about how nasty child-free women are who "look down on" women who "breed" when we have our own shit that we're dealing with, TYVM, I'm not going to demure.
And the apple/orange example only works if you've got everyone and their mother trying to force you to eat oranges and you pick the apple instead, and then you get to hear on and on about how you should really go with the oranges, how much happier your life will be, and ooh! The reduced risk of scurvy! Don't forget about the scurvy! Better eat the orange now, before your teeth fall out!
"Then to come on a feminist blog and read comments about how nasty child-free women are who "look down on" women who "breed" when we have our own shit that we're dealing with, TYVM, I'm not going to demure."
Feminism and motherhood are not mutually exclusive. I don't think anyone has referred to childless women as "nasty" (in fact, I made a point of saying that motherhood is not for everyone in my original post.) You may have misinterpreted the intent behind the posts that you disagree with, but I can assure you that there *was* only good-natured discourse. It was just a few women pointing out the fact that they feel isolated by some in the feminist community who seem to feel that parenting is not a worthy endeavor. No one here is questioning your desire to not be a parent; we're just asking that you allow us (mothers/wannabe mothers/those who look favorably upon motherhood) to have a place in the overall feminist dialogue.
It's not the "intent" of your comment that I had an issue with, it was the indirect implications of your zest for breastfeeding and childbearing.
Imagine, if you will, that I put up a post praising white people for their cleverness, their cultural relevance, and their versatility. Don't you think that non-whites might be rightly pissed off at the insinuation that people of color are not clever, not culturally relevant, and not versatile?
When you wrote "I'm all for studies like this which affirm childbearing and breastfeeding as natural, healthy, and beneficial" you were absolutely making an indirect slam on women who do not have children and/or do not breastfeed.
So, there is absolutely no way for women who have chosen to have children, breastfeed, stay at home with them, etc. to speak positively about their own choices? Anytime someone says something excited or positive about those activities they are somehow indirectly implying insult to anyone who does things differently? I don't see how mothers are supposed to discuss their experience, at all then, unless we're saying that discussion has no place in feminist discourse.
Your racial analogy only works if we accept that mothers are the privileged group, which I must say does not correspond with my own experiences. But then, I discovered feminism when I got pregnant with my son and suddenly had door after metaphorical door slammed in my face while they remained wide open for my (male) partner.
Unhinged, did you even bother to read this thread in context? I am not commenting on the OP. I am replying to a comment that specifically called out those mean childless feminists (which, IIRC, is NOT what the OP was about), and then went on to crow about how much better it is to have a baby and breastfeed it.
You took issue specifically with the language in a comment, and I'm asking how it's possible for a feminist who is also a mother to say something positive about mothering if saying anything positive about mothering inherently implies something negative about not mothering. Which seemed to me to be the entire point of your first comment upthread.
You took the statements "I hate how many feminists seem to look down on women who have/want children" and "I'm all for studies like this which affirm childbearing and breastfeeding as natural, healthy, and beneficial." and read into them "YOU NEED TO HAVE CHILDREN AND FEED THEM WITH YOUR BREASTS OR YOU ARE AN UNNATURAL MONSTER, YOU BIG MEANIE!", which is, really, a stretch.
Maybe there is some inherent implied bias in those statements that I'm blind to. If that is the case, then I really would like to know how to rephrase them to say "yay breastfeeding!" without somehow implying "if you don't lactate you're useless and I hope your tits fall off", or something.
"There are gaggles of men evading child support that would fall over themselves for a woman who promises to get an abortion if he knocked her up during one of their casual rolls in hay."
-And there are also crowds of men who would fall over themselves for a woman who would give birth to their child whether it's a "casual roll in the hay" or not, so what's your point?
The article says, "Women who had used drugs for suppressing lactation were also at lower risk, the researchers discovered. This may be because these women didn’t undergo the changes in breast tissue that occur when a woman begins lactating but doesn’t actually nurse a child, Dr. Stuebe says. However, women who don’t want to breast-feed should not take these drugs based on this study, she adds, because the medications carry many other risks, including the potential for serious blood clots." So I guess if you choose to lactate, and you have a family of history of breast cancer, then breast feeding cuts the risk of breast cancer.
I'd like to know exactly what makes this the case. It sounds like the removal of milk is what reduces the cancer risk, not the act of a baby suckling the breast. So if a woman chooses not to feed their baby breast milk, wouldn't just pumping the milk out have the same effect?
There are hormones involved in the production and let down of milk--my surmise is that it is these hormones that affect the chance of cancer. I suppose pumping instead of nursing would probably be somewhat effective but my questions are: 1) if you're pumping why on earth wouldn't you feed that milk to the baby 2) at least in my case, pumping did not work. I had plenty of milk to nurse my kids but could not get enough by pumping to do a thing.
Some women can't breast feed for medical reasons, such as being on certain medications that pass through breast milk. Some babies might need extra nutrients that aren't found in breast milk, or they might just prefer the taste of formula than breast milk, or soy formula is easier on their tummies.
I'm just saying that if a woman has a history of breast cancer in her family but doesn't want to or can't breast feed, why not just pump the milk out.
There is no such thing as formula being easier on a baby's tummy than breastmilk, nor essential nutrients a baby needs not being present in breastmilk. Every mammalian species has evolved the perfect blend of nutrients for their offspring, and indeed the composition of breastmilk has been shown to change over the life of the infant as her needs change. For instance, moms of preemies make milk higher in fat than the milk of moms whose babies were born full term. Also, I've never seen an infant who didn't like the taste of breastmilk.
However, I do concede that your point about moms on certain medications could be valid.
Cochrane Review on breastfeeding:
http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD001141/frame.html
So today we learned that if you quit your job and stay at home with your child, your testimony might get taken seriously in court. Also, we learned that you need to breastfeed to avoid cancer. The patriarchal agenda of women as child-bearing, child-rearing and breastfeeding machines is alive and kicking.
I have nothing against breastfeeding. I'm just so tired of these attempts to scare women into fulfilling their "natural" functions.
It's absolutely wrong to prevent women from breastfeeding in public. But it's just as wrong to bully us into breastfeeding, giving birth, choosing the so-called "natural" births, etc.
The "study" that is quoted here is just as ideologically biased as the studies that "prove" that premarital sex causes cancer and that condoms are "ineffective."
Well, wait. I didn't get the sense from either the OP or the linked article that this study was done to try to scare women into breastfeeding.
If the study was performed accurately and without bias, and the results are what is being reported, then that's an important piece of information that women (namely ones with a history of breast cancer in their family, like me) should have in order to make an informed decision about breastfeeding. If unbiased scientific experiments reveal positive things about breastfeeding, it shouldn't be silenced just because some mothers don't breastfeed (and the same goes with negative results of breastfeeding, of course).
Is there something specific that you saw in the study (or, the "study" as you called it) that you're objecting to?
I happen to know that it's so much easier to get a grant or receive funding for an idea that is fashionable right now and conforms to social expectations. It is so much more difficult to get funding for an idea that the granting agency is unprepared to see. When society at large wants to be presented with "evidence" to support some of its preconceived notions, studies begin to crop up in support of these notions. Remember all those "studies" that proved that male and female brain function differently? They were very well-publicized by the media. When respectable scientists spoke out, however, and tried to say how silly and uncorroborated those "studies" were, nobody listened.
It's the same with breastfeeding. If society has an anti-breastfeeding agenda, studies appear about the danger of breastfeeding. When the pro-breastfeeding agenda appears, lo' and behold, more studies, now in favor of breastfeeding.
But you're still not pointing out anything specific that set off red flags for you about this study. Was there an error in their methodology that resulted in answers that were pleasing to them? Was their sample size not big enough or representative enough? Did they not follow the women long enough to get an accurate answer?
Furthermore, for the moment going with your statement that it's easier to get funding for societally-acceptable studies, does that therefore mean that the studies can't be performed properly and yield accurate results?
Just a few days ago Feministing had that "Pulling Punches About Pulling Out" post where researchers who studied the effectiveness of the withdrawal birth control method were attacked on moral grounds - I think the same ideas sort of apply here. Withdrawal method definitely isn't a societally acceptable birth control method, and yet that shouldn't stand in the way of researchers studying it so that we have accurate information to make our decisions with. The same applies here, even though breast-feeding is rather opposite of withdrawal as far as how society considers it.
Bottom line is, if this study is on to something, I want to know about it.
Yes and no. Breastfeeding is hardly unpopular in medical and public health circles right now, but I would argue that the timing and causality were backwards from what you claim. Breastfeeding has such a consistent significant advantage to both the breastfed and the breastfeeder that if it was a vaccine, it would be mandated. The Cochrane database linked to above should have dozens of studies, and even a casual search of pubmed would result in thousands of studies supporting a wide array of benefits.
I frankly find thus negativity to something so inherently matriarchal as self hating. Not all women need to breed or breastfeed, but if we can't agree to support evidence based, practically free, women centered health research, what can we agree on?
Breastfeeding has such a consistent significant advantage to both the breastfed and the breastfeeder that if it was a vaccine, it would be mandated.
Damn that pesky bodily autonomy! Why can't we mandate what women use their breasts for the way we mandate what women use their uteri for?
I see what you are saying. And personally, I can confess the main reasons I breastfed were to save money and lose weight, so studies like this didn't factor into my choice.
But I think that your hostility towards the cultural messages nowadays to breastfeed and have a "natural" birth are a little oversimplified. Some of us people out here who like to talk about the benefits of these things truly have a feminist agenda on our minds...and that agenda is not "all women must have children in order to fulfill god's will/their lives", but instead "women who choose to have children should have accurate information on which to decide how to do so". And its my view that if more women had access to such information, more of them would choose to breastfeed and decline medical interventions in their births. Maybe I'm wrong, and its OK if I am since all I am advocating for is giving women info on which to make their own decisions decisions. But the fact is that in countries where people are on average richer and have better access to choice in childbearing, we do see higher rates of breastfeeding and lower rates of, e.g., c-sections and episiotomies.
Women should certainly have the choice to not become moms and should not be judged for this (at least not more harshly than men who choose not to become dads). But women should have the choice TO become moms, and that choice should not obligate them to conduct the business of childbearing on the basis of myth, rumor, and what makes the most money for corporations (formula purchasing) and doctors (c-section). Those interest groups publicize their agenda well enough, so I would argue that counterveiling messages are welcome.
While breastfeeding didn't effect women
The word you want is Affect. I see this mistake frequently on this blog.
my lactating boobs are a tool of the patriarchy. who knew?
I am always skeptical of studies that claim, well, anything at ALL about breastfeeding.
Why? Because you can't eliminate the self selection bias. You just CAN'T. You can't take two groups of women who are stastically (physically, socioeconomically, etc.) identical and say "Okay, YOU breastfeed, YOU give formula, and let's see how it all shakes out in five years."
If you breastfeed, we can make the at least SOME of the following assumptions about you:
That you are healthy enough to conceive, carry and bear a live child.
That your body is able to lactate.
That you were raised in a culture/family that values breastfeeding.
That your family and/or partner is at least marginally supportive of breastfeeding or, barring that, that your relationship is healthy and safe enough to allow for disagreement on the issue.
That either your job is supportive of breastfeeding women OR you can afford to take enough maternity leave to establish breastfeeding OR your work hours are flexible enough to accomodate your child care plans.
That you have access to quality medical care, including doctors who support breastfeeding and qualified lactation consultants.
That, if you need to express breastmilk, that you can afford a pump, equipment, and a freezer.
Etc, etc, etc.
I do not believe that those factors are insignificant with regards to overall health, and I do not believe that any study can fully eliminate them as confounding factors.
This is totally true for the developed world. The first data to show that breastfeeding had a protective effect against breast cancer was actually from the undeveloped world. It was on African women in undeveloped parts of Africa. These women had many more children than most women in developed nations and typically had 10 years of breast feeding. They had none of the attributes which you list out, and yet, women with more years of breast feeding had a reduced rate of breast cancer. Your skepticism is unfounded in this specific case.
"...That either your job is supportive of breastfeeding women OR you can afford to take enough maternity leave to establish breastfeeding OR your work hours are flexible enough to accomodate your child care plans..."
Would being a housewife count as having a "job is supportive of breastfeeding women," or should it be another item on this list?
"...That you have access to quality medical care, including doctors who support breastfeeding and qualified lactation consultants..."
Nitpick: wasn't breastfeeding invented long before doctors and lactation consultants were?
Yes, but nursing mothers used to have a community of other experienced nursing mothers around them, would have grown up seeing nursing mother-baby pairs, be familar with the normal feeding and sleeping patterns of breastfed infants, etc.
Now, when few women have much direct experience or observation of breastfeeding and with so much inaccurate information and bad advice floating around out there, women without access to good information and support can easily end up 'not being able to breastfeed' when there is no medical problem, only lack of information/support.
This isn't really shocking brand new information. We addressed this issue in a blog about the myth of the Abortion Breast Cancer link last year.
"Breastfeeding has such a consistent significant advantage to both the breastfed and the breastfeeder that if it was a vaccine, it would be mandated"
-Yeah, this is precisely the kind of baseless propaganda I'm talking about. It always comes down to some people's fantasy that things should be "mandated" to women. Why people can't just accept each other's sexual, contraceptive, reproductive, breastfeeding and parenting choices and always have to try and bully others into following their example, is beyond me.
I know you're replying to MomTFH and not me, but in order to have all those choices to accept, we have to have the information to make those choices. Simply asking the questions to get that information shouldn't be shot down as being a scare tactic.
Going by what you said and dismissing the results of studies on popular ideas without further questions seems just as uninformative as following baseless propaganda.
I didn't get the impression that MomTFH was suggesting it (or anything really) should be mandated. Rather, I assumed she was just making a point that if the medical community could find a way to make a profit off of the health benefits of breastfeeding (like they do off vaccines), then it would become government mandated. I agree with that point - not that they should, but that they would.
No one is forcing women to breastfeed, but the facts remain that there is evidence to suggest that it's good for women and babies. Not that we will all die if we don't do it, but you can't deny that there are potential health benefits. The breast cancer link theory is NOT a new one.
I refuse to believe that these studies are propaganda. The truth is, medical studies are more likely to be biased when there is a profit to be made. If that was the case, then Enfamil would be funding a study that proves that buying baby formula prevented cancer.
Oh noes! Someone posted something complementary or negative about something to do with mothers/babies. Time for a childfree vs. parent mutual defensiveness yawnfest!
I mean, really, people. Women without children get looked down on for not having them. Women with children get looked down FOR having them. Stay at home mothers get looked down on for staying at home. Working mothers get looked down on for working. If you think that somehow the patriarchy is giving pats on the back to women who made a different choice than you did, you're deluded. It may look like one path is being honored above the others, but it will *always* be the path you are not on. There is no way to win.
You have valid points, but why does it have to be about the fact we are getting proverbial pats on the back from the patriarchy? I don't think anyone is getting defensive, or writing paragraph long answers about their experiences, b/c we hope that we get looked down favorably from the patriarchy. We talk,argue, and debate like this, b/c the patriarchy/society/fellow women have told us that our decisions, whether you choose to have a child or not, have been insulted and put down. So until society/fellow women becomes more accepting of our personal choices, then you are going to continue to see these debates.
However, I will agree, this thread was about breastfeeding, and the subject has turned into a debate about child free versus motherhood. For myself personally, Feministing is one of the few places where I feel like I can fully express my frustration or daily experiences over my decision to remain child free. It's here that I see a lot of women who are similar to me, and who can relate.
to add: I could have chosen to vent or talk about my experiences in a thread was about choosing to be child free, instead of here, where the main subject was about breastfeeding. My intention wasn't to derail the thread, but to respond to a post that I really related to.
Oh, I don't think anyone here is trying to garner any favors. I just think feminism needs to support women openly crowing about feminist mothering AND support women celebrating the joys of being childfree. There are very few places that childfree women can sing the praises of their choices. But there aren't very many places that feminist parents can celebrate their choices either. And it would be nice if both groups could talk about how wonderful their choices are without being pilloried by the other.
The patriarchy doesn't give anyone pats on the back. That's the damn truth. The defensiveness comes from whether feminists give each other pats on the back. Actually, not even feminists. It's whether mothers pat child-free women on the back and whether child-free women pat mothers on the back. Mostly they stab each other in the back.
As one of the child free, I recognize the value of children to society, and I take people to task for ever saying that "well they shouldn't have had kids if they weren't prepared to blah blah blah blah" b/c that is some misogynistic shit. So it makes my blood boil when I have to listen to crap about how feminists look down on women who have kids. On this site, of all places! There is a doula on board here!
I'll continue to defend the right of other people to have kids but I wish I didn't have to read how feminists look down on mothers on a site which persistently examines mothers' issues, reproductive rights, mothers' rights, pregnant womens' rights, and every other right you can think of in relation to bearing and raising children.
Fair enough.
For my part, as a mother, I'll say that women who choose not to have children in the face of obnoxious societal pressure are making a strong choice and I hate that people feel the need to try to either make them feel bad about it or change their mind. It's nobody else's business and there is nothing at all inherently superior about procreating. And I definitely envy childfree folks some of their..er...freedom. ;)
Now, despite the fact that someone in a coma can do it, I'm going to pat my own self on the back for gestating, giving birth, and sustaining human life with my boobs. Because, damnit, those are difficult and draining experiences, especially when they come with all the societal bullshit that they do. So what if it's all biology, it's still awesome.
I want to deeply commend this site for this story, it's really good to see feminists take an active interest in mother/child issues. There is a strong perception the only family interests feminists have is abortion which is absurd when you realize negotiating mothering/parenting with other duties is such a huge part of womens lives.
Getting away from the moms vs child free debate, I wrote a piece at the CA NOW blog about one of the possible reasons behind this research, which shows the importance of taking on some of the environmental factors that affect women's health: http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2009/08/breastfeeding-breast-cancer-and-the-dioxin-connection.html