No

by Michelle Gardner

Created on: October 25, 2008

The slogan "Breast is Best" should come with the small print "all else being equal". This is the current medical consensus, and to omit it is to mislead people and cause misery to mothers and babies. It also denies choice.

Yes, breastfeeding is natural and a good source of nutrition for a baby BUT:

Breastfeeding is associated with a number of problems, some surmountable and others not. These are facts. 4% of mothers cannot produce enough milk to feed and sustain their babies. With these mothers, no supply boosting tips or methods will work. But it is breastfeeding's best kept secret. No counseler will ever tell a nursing mother this. A mother who finds herself in this percentage of the population will actually starve her baby in the name of breastfeeding. Add to this a significant percentage of mothers whose supply temperarily drops, or takes her time until she learns techniques to increase her supply, and you have many hungry babies and exhausted mothers. So breast is definitely not best for them.

Another example: Breast milk is affected by what the mother eats, and this can cause colic in some babies. A mother who doesn't realize causes her baby much pain and misery, and a mother who does know which foods are problematic will have to cut these foods out of her diet.

Breast fed babies need to take supplements of iron and Vitamin D. All mothers are advised to do this when they attend well baby clinics, but it would be interesting to find out how many actually give their baby these supplements on a daily basis. Formula has the correct amount already in it. This predisposes the breastfed babies to anemia and rickets.

Many of the advantages given by those promoting breastfeeding deserve a closer look. A common one is that breast fed babies are more intelligent than their bottle fed counterparts. This is untrue. The much touted study which "proves" this fact was done on extremely premature babies whose brains were underdeveloped. And other studies showed the exact opposite. These studies are conveniently ignored.

Bonding is a big word in the breastfeeding world. A mother who sits with her baby and feeds him a bottle can bond just as well as a mother who breastfeeds. Because bottlefed babies sleep longer hours than breastfed ones (in most cases), their mothers are more relaxed, and less tired, making a loving relationship actually more likely.

And bottle feeding is not the hassle pro breast feeding people will have you believe. Sterilizing is not necessary where you have running hot water. Yes, you do have to thoroughly wash all parts of the bottle in hot soapy water. But that's it. Just add it to everything else you wash up in a day, or better still, stick them in the dishwasher. Measuring, mixing, and making a feed takes about 8 seconds. There is no need to get up at night either. A bottle feeding mother can take a bottle with premeasured boiled water into her bedroom with her and just tip the formula in from one of these nifty formula containers when the baby wakes up. You can even do it in the dark.

Another myth: health. Because mothers pass antibodies to their babies through breast milk, they get less sick than bottle fed babies. By that logic, they ought to catch their mother's viruses too! The facts: All babies retain the ability to fight infection with tools that develop immunity to any virus or bacteria around. They receive these tools by way off IGG components of blood from the placenta in utero. This helps them until their bodies can do it on their own. Breast fed babies continue to get this from their mother's milk for a while longer. This wanes from birth until it completely stops by the age of three months. So for the first three months of life, breastfed babies have a slightly lower chance of getting sick. How this plays out in actual numbers or chances of your baby getting sick I don't know, but I doubt the pro breast feeders do either. It may pour rain on their campaign.

If the actual facts would be presented, and not just cropped bits of studies pulled out for convenience, mothers could truly have a choice over whether to feed their babies by breast or bottle. Instead, because every mother wants to give her child only the best, a high IQ, good health and a loving relationship, they are blackmailed into breastfeeding becuase they believe this is the only way to achieve it. They may not enjoy breastfeeding at all, but they push on for the sake of the perceived benefit for their child. Breast milk certainly will not harm a baby, it has its advantages, and a mother may simply prefer to feed her baby this way, but rarely, if ever, is a balanced view given.

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