The Case Against Breast-Feeding – The Atlantic (April 2009)
The Case Against Breast-Feeding – The Atlantic (April 2009).
I’m a little bit gobsmacked about this article. It’s one thing to feel suckered into nursing children, especially if you expected miraculous results. It’s entirely another to go on and declare nursing essentially a hoax, a clever ruse designed to keep women chained to their homes and their babies.
Perhaps what we really want is a world where nursing is an easier choice? One where moms aren’t made uncomfortable for feeding their babies in public, where moms have time and space for pumping at work if necessary, and one where everyone is better educated about the place of breastfeeding in a family.
Then it could be a personal choice of how to feed one’s child, not a choice under duress from the healthcare conspiracy accusing people of being bad parents whether they choose breast or bottle. Imagine that!
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Assuming pretty good socioeconomic circumstances (affordable day care), it’s really NOT the boobs that make a mother a slave to her baby. It’s the mother that makes a mother a slave to a baby.
I was just fine with pumping exclusively because it was the one thing about childbearing that my body could do exceedingly well — making buckets of milk sort of healed my experience and made me feel proud of my body. I demanded a decent pumping place at the office and got it. My wish is for everyone else to have the same or better choices.
Keet´s last blog post..A bit of nostalgia
This might be too tangential, but then again it’s not really. There’s a great lactation consultant in Ithaca (who’s famous in those sorts of circles) and she has an amazing rant about the power of language. Her point is this: breastfeeding is how nature intended babies to eat — it’s what was provided. Therefore, the IQ of a baby who is breastfed is the IQ that nature intended. If babies who are breastfed have higher IQs than babies who have formula it’s not because milk RAISED the IQ, it’s that formula LOWERED it. And I totally get the whole “don’t make moms who use formula feel bad about themselves” stance. But when you think about her argument… she’s not wrong. You know? Thinky thoughts.