Letters to the Editor
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Not a bad idea
I've always thought it was kind of odd to send formula home with everyone. If the medical establishment is trying to position breastfeeding as the norm and not the exception, then maybe formula should be seen as a last resort.
I breastfed my kids for a year each... that's nine months of daily pumping at work per kid. No, I'm not a breastfeeding Nazi. I do believe it is a matter of choice. I don't think it's polite or necessary to go around telling other moms what or how to feed their babies. However, I think our society could do a lot to see breastfeeding as normal, ordinary, and part of life. For far too many people, breastfeeding is seen as inconvenient, slightly icky, or some unsightly bodily function that should be done in private. For the mom and the baby involved, however, it's called LUNCH. Nothing more or less.
But along with not sending that forumla home, how about some employer legislation to go with that? I was lucky to have a supportive workplace that provided me with a locked room, a net connection for my laptop (so I could read email and make phone calls while I pumped), and didn't see my time away from my desk pumping as anything out of the ordinary. My manager knew that what I was doing helped to keep my baby healthy, and me at work instead of home with a sick kid.
Not sending formula home is a good first step. But we have a long way to go beyond that.
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formula is best when formula is best, and the breast is best when the breast is best
1) breast is NOT best. It's best when it's best and formula is best when formula is best. What's best is the choice to decide, with your doctor, which is best for you and your baby.
2) I have seen young niave mother's continue failing breast-feeding way too long because the LaLeche League types tell them they're bad mothers if they switch to formula. I have seen babies get perilously close to malnutrition in the first few days of their life before someone had the nerve to say "this is crazy, give that kid some formula, stop making this a moral issue and feed that starving kid."
3)there is an underground motivation by the LaLeche League types informed by their extream right religious views. It is tied into their anti-birth control movement (they'll tell mothers breast feeding works like birth control and get the double wammy). breast feeding limits women's freedom and the LaLeche League types like that.
4)with the latest news about the toxins found in mothers' milk, I'd serouisly think more and more health officials would say formula is best
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sour milk
Hospitals are not obligated to give you any freebies, of course. What bothers me is the national drive to make women feel like there is something wrong with them if they don't want to breastfeed.
Do we really think that a woman will change to breastfeeding, or the reverse, simply because the hospital provides some promo formula, or does not provide it? That giving out free formula implies that the hospital thinks you should bottle feed? If that's the case, by giving out disposable diapers are they panning cloth ones?
Our society has gone 'round the twist in how it assumes we are nothing but witless, helpless pawns who can't make our own choices - therefore everything in society must guide, or prod us to the 'right' decisions.
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Breast is Best
The formula companies have successfully kept many mothers from breastfeeding their babies through their propaganda and marketing efforts. The attitude of the nursing staff at some hospitals, at least when I had my kids, was here's the formula, use it. It's easier, so you might as well not try to breastfeed them.
Formula is made with cow's milk, which is for calves, not human children. Plus all the chemicals and additives to formula are not healthy for human children. Breastfed children receive their mother's immunities to disease. Formula-fed babies often struggle with weight issues because cow's milk is meant to create a huge animal...and it does. Breastfeeding your babies gives a woman a greater chance to avoid breast cancer. There are so many reasons to breastfeed.
If mothers are not sent home with the free formula, then they will work to make breastfeeding the top priority. When I used to look at my babies after several months of breastfeeding, I would feel so good that I could provide them with the nourishment from my own body, to keep them growing and healthy. It was one of the few times I had a positive body experience and I had such an appreciation of the human body.
I am an avid believer in breastfeeding over formula feeding and I am so far from a religious right person, I have no idea where that other reader came up with such nonsense. I believe that the woman's body has everything the baby needs. And I haven't bought into the nonsense that the formula companies have fed the hospitals and unwitting mothers through their greed-filled marketing efforts. I believe that formula should be avoided at all costs and used ONLY when there is a medical problem that would prevent a mother from successfully breastfeeding her baby. Okay, there's my two cents!
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Just a thought based on my own experience...
I breastfed my son for seven months, but for the first several days I couldn't get him to latch on. Oh, just remembering those times brings me almost to tears...I was sooooo frustrated and scared and worried that he was going to starve to death (he was sort of a small, skinny baby). Ridiculous, I now know, but hormones were not my friends back then.
We fed him formula with a cup, then a bottle, during those first few weeks while we straightened things out with the help of a lactation consultant.
(May God bless the soul of this saintly woman. Note to USDHSS... every woman should have access to someone like this.)
I think that having the little sample bottles of formula actually contributed to my not giving up completely on breastfeeding during those early, difficult days. For someone who was committed to breastfeeding, I think that having them there was a reminder that a safety net existed..."If this just doesn't work out, I can feed him formula and he will probably be fine." I can't overemphasize how much I was freaking out about this whole situation (more than was warranted, certainly, but again...the first days postpartum are not marked by rational thought). I think it helped me to relax a little bit, and that contributed to me having the ability to solve the problems we'd been having.
Our childbirth instructor, who was very much pro-breastfeeding, suggested something similar: buy a can of formula and keep in the back of your cabinet. Nothing says you have to use it, but knowing it's there can be a comfort.
I understand that we want to encourage breastfeeding, but I think there are better ways than taking away the freebies.