Not ‘best,’ just normal
NS July 21st, 2009
In the last 24 hours, two major UK newspapers (The Times and the Daily Mail) have run articles questioning, decrying and even outright criticising breastfeeding as the ‘best’ method for feeding an infant. The tagline on the Times article reads: “Mothers are constantly urged to breastfeed yet there is little evidence to suggest that it is better than formula milk.”
How odd that sounds, I thought. Why is the onus on breastmilk to prove itself better than the artificial alternative? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Where are the studies holding breastfeeding up as the norm and challenging formula to prove itself just as nutritious, safe and healthy for babies and mothers? I imagine they don’t exist because they can’t prove these things. Besides which, who is going to sponsor and undertake a study on whether or not an artificial means of feeding ourselves is better than just ingesting readily available food meant for our digestive systems? And if artificial food did become a necessity, wouldn’t we want to make it as close as possible to real food while finding ways to make real food more easily accessible? Doing it the other way round just doesn’t make sense to me.
Still, culture is a powerful thing and scientists (and the companies funding them) are not immune to its lures and demands. So they see the public voicing concerns on subjects relating to health and they look for news ways in which they can refute or justify certain claims. The problem is, they often disregard whether the claim is actually a scientifically worthy one. Should studies be done on how we can make formula safer and more like breastmilk? Absolutely. But in controlling for the experiments involved in that research, breastfeeding must be held as the norm, the control group, the standard, not the other way around. Breastmilk is the yardstick against which other infant feeding methods should be measured, not forced to prove itself against its artificial alternatives or denigrated as some kind of ‘special bonus’ thing you can do if you want to be extra healthy, like taking a flaxseed oil supplement. Breastfeeding isn’t an extra special health benefit and it isn’t best, it just…is.
It seems to me that these studies are done not because they make scientific sense, or because there really is any doubt over whether artificial milk is better than the stuff we make ourselves, but because many women want justification for why breastfeeding is considered better than the choice they made: better than their mother’s choice, and their friends. They are angry at the “breastfeeding lobby” (often called “boob Nazis”) for making them feel guilty; telling them (by promoting breastfeeding as normal) that what they’ve done is selfish, or unnatural, or even harmful. Even if those words are never spoken, the inference is there to these women. But why is it there? Why is all this anger directed at those who uphold breastfeeding as the normal way to feed a baby, and fight for their right to do so while out in public and holding down jobs? Why are their suggestions on better positioning or latch, or firsthand knowledge of how to treat mastitis, or an explanation of the supply-and-demand process of milk production automatically treated as judgmental and pushy?
I know that some breastfeeding advocates are indeed judgmental and pushy in their approach, but did it never occur to anyone that perhaps breastfeeding women can be just as insecure and defensive as those who use formula? That maybe someone’s dismissal of breastfeeding is as hurtful as the dismissal of those who use bottles, for whatever reason? I’m not trying to get into the Opression Olympics here but put yourself in their (my) shoes: try hearing one of your most treasured relationships called “showing off,” or your breasts called “udders” in a derogatory way, or have your modesty, decency and even mental health challenged by those who think it’s “disgusting” and “weird.” Try listening to your baby cry in hunger as you desperately search for somewhere inoffensive to feed her, out of the way of disapproving or uncomfortable stares. Try hearing the very same health care providers, lactation consultants and friends (both ‘real’ and online) who helped you in one of your most difficult times, as a new mother struggling to learn how to relate to and care for your baby, compared to a murderous, fascist regime. Try being thrown out of a shop or ordered off an airplane for feeding your child. Then tell me you can’t understand why some breastfeeding advocates can get a bit testy when we’re told to shut up and stop making everyone ELSE feel bad.
Regardless of who suffers what wrongs, that doesn’t stop there being bad feelings and a deep mistrust on both sides. Women who breastfed with ease can be ignorant of and insensitive to the struggles other mothers face in their efforts to nurse their babies in the early days and weeks. They could do with some tact and understanding. Similarly, some of those who tried and “failed” at breastfeeding direct their feelings of anger, sadness and doubt at the ones who succeeded, taking that ‘victory’ as an insult to their loss. The thing is, that anger is often misplaced. Where is the anger at the culture that sets us up to fail, telling us our bodies are broken or not under our control and instead are more useful as men’s playthings and advertisers’ moneymakers? Where is the anger at a maternity care system that forces interventions on birthing women that later interfere with or impede breastfeeding initiation? Where is the outrage that most nurses, midwives and even pediatricians are not required to learn about breastfeeding in their medical training, or keep up-to-date with it once certified? Where is the disbelief that so many myths and misinformation are floating around out there that one has to actively and independently seek out help from specially trained consultants to get proper, evidence-based advice? It’s not just having the right health care provider and support network, but knowing that these services exist and where to find them.
Many women who were able to overcome problems simply lucked out in stumbling across an acquaintance or website that held the answers they needed. I know that if it hadn’t been for a member of an online forum I belonged to (not related to parenting) at the time of my daughter’s birth who suggested the kellymom and La Leche League sites and an NCT peer support network, I would’ve believed the midwife who squeezed my breast and said I didn’t have any milk and ordered me to supplement or risk hospitalizing my baby. I wouldn’t have seen the connection between my low supply problems and the formula top-ups I was giving TNC and been able to stop mixed feeding and get her onto breastmilk exclusively. I wouldn’t have ever figured out that I was nursing too infrequently and in the wrong position and that that was causing my many bouts of mastitis and sore nipples, not my body’s lack of ability or my baby’s over-active hunger.
It’s just such a damn shame that we can’t help each other out anymore without being deemed up in other people’s business for totally selfish and horrible reasons. Since when did sharing information with our female brethren on an experience we share (motherhood — and more specifically, newborn care) become a hostile act of aggression instead of helpful advice?
I’ll tell you when. It was when motherhood went public, got itself a PR agent and started doing two shows each day: the daytime show, performed for the audience watching intently with critics’ pens poised, and one at night, put on only for ourselves and our familes. The daytime show that feels like a yoke, a drain, a straighjacket of expectations that restricts our true potential. The late show, though — what a joy! Standing alone with only the adoring faces of our hearts’ loves shining up at us, we shed our masks, our stage makeup and our wigs. We leave our designated marks and ignore the director’s calls. We move freely and lightly, saying and doing what comes naturally instead of what’s printed on the script. We embrace motherhood as the art it should be, not the duty-bound chore it’s become.
Each night, when the curtain closes, we prepare ourselves for a new day and the critics’ reviews. We doubt ourselves and start listening to what the “experts” think instead of what makes sense to us, what comes instinctually. We see the other actors on stage, each honing her craft individually, and start to question whether our way is the best way or if we’re doing it all wrong. Instead of recognizing that each person will have a different way of going about putting on their play, we start to withdraw into ourselves and put distance between our spots on the stage. We get paranoid, thinking everyone else is watching and mocking and taking note of every mistake, every flubbed line or missed cue. We grow weary of this and get defensive whenever another actor sees us struggling and offers a hand or shares what method works for her. We insist that our method is best and that no other could possibly compare, and look for studies and research to prove it. We stop smiling at the other actors and retreat further backstage, deciding to go it alone lest any more criticism breaks our spirit completely.
This is the nature of mothering in public — always on display, always on a script, always up for review. And so breastfeeding, because it has such a strong association with what it means to be a mother (providing for and nurturing our babies), is a very emotionally charged subject. Sometimes I stop and think “How can something so supposedly simple be so darn complicated?” Because in this day and age, it really isn’t easy to breastfeed. The demands of work, partnership, romance, family, keeping home, looking good, being fit, accumulating wealth and success…they are the demands that we have grown up with and that we have to deal with constantly, in direct conflict with many of our biological, emotional and psychological desires.
Breastfeeding has been going on for centuries upon centuries but it’s never been as difficult as it is today. There is a lot of work to be done to normalize it again, to make it accessible and achievable for nearly all women again. But touting it as ‘best’ isn’t doing women any favours. We’re all trying our best just to be good enough. Holding up breastfeeding as something so special and perfect makes it seem unattainable to most women. In our efforts to reach and encourage these women, we’ve put breastfeeding on a pedestal that makes it an easy target for stone-throwing. The British public loves nothing more than taking someone or something down a peg or two when it gets too big for its britches. They don’t like any trace of smugness or being told that something they’ve done isn’t good enough or even not ‘best.’
So my response to these articles claiming that breast really isn’t best? No, of course it’s not. It’s just normal.
[h/t to The Brinkster]
