Inducing guilt in bottle feeding mothers

Today's cuppa: Echinacea tea (and a few cinnamon cookies I made yesterday!)

I was watching William, our chubby short-haired Persian, sitting outside in the rain this morning being attacked by swallows. They flew down, one at a time, right down to his ear height. William thought it was a wonderful game; tail wagging, paw up. He had no idea that he was an enemy in their environment.

I mused that his circumstance wasn't much different to mine. When you go into someone else's space, you risk everything and are open to criticism. I enter that space every time I write a blog or put out an issue of The Mother magazine.

This past week, or so, has opened up the breastfeeding debate once again ~ thankfully. Unfortunately, with it comes a load of incorrect information, even, and especially, from the very organisations we rely on to educate!

The chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust, Belinda Phipps, wrote to The Times stating that they support a woman's 'choice' whether to breastfeed or bottle feed. You simply can not promote natural childbirth without educating about the importance of breastfeeding. As soon as we take a stance like that of the NCT, we're effectively saying 'there's no difference between breast milk and formula.' We're not talking about choosing between coke and pepsi, for goodness sake! Though coke and freshly squeezed orange juice might be a better analogy ~ one being dead, artificial and a path to death, the other being fresh, life-giving and packed with enzymes.

Nobody EVER talks about the baby's rights, you know, that little dependent creature who's forced to drink that toxic concoction of 'formula'. Every baby born on this planet has encoded into every cell of their being, the BIOLOGICAL EXPECTATION to breastfeed for anything up to about the time the milk teeth fall out. EVERY BABY!

Isn't it child abuse on the grandest scale to deny them this

because a mother can't be 'bothered'?

Imagine 50 billion dominoes all lined up, ready to be knocked over in order. Our neurons are like this… we wait for the right developmental need to be met, and bang, another 'domino' goes over ~ a 'connection' is made in the neural pathways. When we 'CHOOSE' a counterfeit milk, the dominoes don't get knocked over. When we choose to forgo the bonding which is specific to feeding at the breast, we are denying our child more than just their birth right. We're compromising their life-long physical health, emotional well-being, neuro-psychological function and healthy sexuality. When the cued dominoes don't fall over during the baby/child's expected developmental stage, they don't EVER get the chance for that to happen again. They may spend their adult life looking for quick fixes to sort out an aching emptiness which pervades their being.

Every hour of every day is important in the great biological plan of the human body.

In a few short generations we've deviated from our biological expectations. In a few short generations, cultures which rely on formula have become very ill and very dysfunctional. But it's a *choice*, though. It's become the norm for most people to survive, rather than thrive. When just about everybody is tootling along in first gear, rather than fifth, the culture thinks this is 'natural'.

Let's follow this through, though, because at the end of the day someone has to PAY for these choices. Not only will the person raised on formula have to pay with poorer vision, intelligence, hearing, well-being (the list is endless!), but society pays, and the Earth most certainly pays. Will breastfeeding mothers be able to CHOOSE not to contribute taxes to the National Health Service on the grounds that they took full responsibility for their child's health? That would bring 'choice' full circle. It might sound selfish, indeed, even a radical thought, but at the rate we're going, it might become an option. It would truly be a user pays service.

Our culture supports abortion ~ leaving it up to the woman whether she takes the child's life or not. Although socially accepted, does it make it any less of a child killing? Rather than support women in these circumstances, or ideally, show them how not to create unwanted pregnancies, we give them the 'choice'.

Breastfeeding is viewed in the same way. People are scared to speak up. If women want to choose bottle feeding over breastfeeding, I believe they should sign a disclaimer acknowledging the harm they're putting their baby in…and promising to take full responsibility for the outcome, even if it manifests decades later in depression, adrenal issues, heart problems, suicide, violence, etc., or reproductive organ cancers in the mother.

Another letter to The Times claimed that, as she was an adoptive mother, she had no choice but to bottle feed. This is simply another myth. A woman choosing to adopt a baby can induce lactation. This sort of information should be given out by adoption agencies.

The best letter by far was from Alison Blenkinsop who wrote that formula isn't second best, expressed milk from the mother is, and third best is donated breast milk. I'm so glad The Times published that!

Ours is a culture that really doesn't want women like me to speak up and dispel myths. The myths keep everyone inertia ~ and stop them from taking action and responsibility, not only for their own health, but for the baby's health, and the effect on society and the environment.

So, I feel a bit like William with the swallows some times. Little arrows fly at me telling me to 'shut up, get out of our space'. Frankly, though, it's not enough for me to write or publish articles just in The Mother magazine. For the most part, it's preaching to the converted. Nothing wrong with that, of course, as we might just reach 100th monkey syndrome and create a breastfeeding revolution.

One of the most common things which come out of any breastfeeding conversation is that we mustn't make bottle feeding mothers feel guilty.

Firstly, NO-ONE but no-one can *make* you feel anything. The choice is always with you as to how you perceive or respond to an issue.

Secondly, guilt is not a feeling, it's a thought. We may feel sick in the stomach, chew our nails, eat a donut to get rid of emotional discomfort, but they are secondary responses. Guilt comes from 'knowing' we're compromising the optimum. It's a biological response to show us we're 'off the path'. Guilt is a fabulous thing when we listen to it, rather than suppress it.

Is it so awful (honestly??) for us to remind women that they've put their child in danger? Not to mention the woman's own health and increased risk from breast, ovarian and cervical cancers?

If you saw a child walking across the motorway about to be knocked over would you just stand there and do nothing? Bottlefeeding is no different! Death may not be so immediate, but the consequences can be just as devastating.

Is it so bad to remind women that true mothering means meeting every one of your baby's biological needs? How on Earth do we create change if we don't speak up?

People assume that the breastfeeding brigade is a bunch of sanctimonious trouble makers. I would say that they are women who are speaking from a place of love. It is love that brings us to action, that causes us to speak out. It's love for the woman and baby. It's love for all of humanity. One bottle fed baby affects everyone.

Personally, guilt would overcome me if I kept my mouth shut every time I heard a breastfeeding myth. Guilt would tell me that I'm not living my truth, walking my talk, or being authentic if I just smiled and said, 'there, there, never mind, it's a CHOICE'.

It's easy to target someone like Jordan for blatantly promoting bottle feeding. The truly sad part is that she doesn't feel she's severely compromising her children. It appears she gives no thought to the impact her disposable bottles have on the environment. Yes, as someone commented on last week's blog, she IS a victim too. It breaks my heart that she hasn't bonded with her baby or the planet. What hope is there for her children when they become parents?

I don’t feel, however, that I do anything to promote breast feeding by ignoring a situation like this. Sometimes we need examples to show how far off the mothering continuum some people go. She's very deliberately chosen to be in the public eye ~ and particularly, in this case, to promote her infant formula views. So, in some ways, she too is like William the cat!! (Fancy Jordan and I having something in common!!) Little arrows are coming to her from all directions. Sadly, though, like William, she probably thinks it's a game too.

There'll be women reading this who believe, hand on heart, that they really couldn't breastfeed. I have the utmost empathy for you. Any woman who still has intact breasts CAN breastfeed. One of the biggest myths in western culture is that of insufficient milk syndrome. The proportion of women who claim to not have enough milk rises in response to the availability of infant formula in their culture. End of story.

There will be other women who'll say they had to stop because they had sore nipples, mastitis [put in just about any reason here, apart from extreme illness or death]… It's very unfortunate that any of these things afflict breastfeeding women, but it is even more unfortunate that these challenges become reasons to stop. This issue is never about the 'problem', but about the incorrect support or information.

Even a high circulation 'natural parenting' magazine in the UK is continuing to print inappropriate breastfeeding advice. It's a vicious circle and I'm not surprised that women give up so easily.

Does that mean I should shut up and say "it's a woman's choice to bottle feed?"

Not on their little baby's life!