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'The Case Against Breastfeeding'
I breastfed my daughter, I enjoyed it, managed to continue to do it exclusively despite working full-time and encourage every new mom to at least try it.
Don't get me wrong. It was a struggle, especially in the beginning. And I was lucky. I began working full-time outside of the home when my daughter was six months old and was able to visit her twice a day to nurse her at her daycare center. We managed and I feel confident I did the best I could for my daughter.
So I read Hanna Rosin's story "The Case Against Breast-Feeding" in the April edition of The Atlantic with interest. Rosin, who is nursing her third child, documents studies over the years that have shown some small benefits to breastfeeding, but not the cure for about every possible disease that some have claimed. She says many of the studies are flawed.
She also writes that breastfeeding just helps shift the "domestic burden" on to moms. And it makes it difficult for a woman to continue her career or her life in the world because she's tied down to this 10-pound being every few hours.
I can't comment on the health studies. I haven't done the research. But you can find some interesting conversation about this on the U.S. Food Policy blog, which is written by a Tufts researcher, and the comments to his post.
But I can speak about my own personal experience. Nursing my daughter tied me down for a bit. But I didn't mind. It was a few quiet moments of calm in a day. Like Rosin, I was a full-time newspaper reporter when I returned to work, but managed to keep nursing.
And it certainly hasn't put any long-term domestic burden on myself. I was in charge of all feedings for the first six months of her life, but my husband has been in charge of much of the cooking in the house. You could argue that he's the one tied down now ... and for much longer than I ever was.
And the story doesn't come close to describing the benefits that I experienced. How about the calm you feel — caused by the release of the hormone oxytocin — when you start up a nursing session? It was great when I was dealing with a teething infant, an unruly toddler or a stressful day at work.
Those same hormones caused uterine contracts in those first few weeks, which helped me lose my belly more quickly. And by the time I was done nursing, I was 25 pounds lighter than when I got pregnant with my daughter. And I ate a lot.
Those benefits don't even touch on the other possible health benefits that I may enjoy in the years to come, including less risk of diabetes and certain types of cancer, researchers tell me.
Rosin speaks for a lot of moms who found nursing a drain or impossible. Some of those moms are my friends. And I agree with Rosin that more needs to be done to make nursing and life in general easier for new moms in the workplace.
Regardless of whether you're nursing or not, many moms would relish more time with their newborns, perhaps paid maternity leave or more time off. Women who work in service sectors especially are forgotten in that whole conversation.
Hopefully conversations like these will turn into helpful discussions about policies that can help every mom no matter what path she chooses not boil down into the same old battle over breast vs. bottle.
Comments
Very interesting. Thank you for this. I am currently pregnant with my 3rd child and I plan to breastfeed. But, I'll be pretty much a novice! Allow me to explain...
When I had my first son, I had an emergency c-section. I breastfed him in the hospital and once home. However, 10 days after he was born, I had to go straight back to the emergency room for an appendectomy. Didn't see that coming! My appendix was gangrenous and if it had burst, well, I wouldn't be here today. I stayed in the hospital for 4 days fighting a high fever after the surgery. I cried my eyes out because my husband was back home caring for our newborn son and I was in the hospital alone. I used a breast pump in the hospital, and sadly had to dump out the milk I pumped because all of the drugs I was on tainted it. My husband was forced to give our son formula.
Once back home, I was very weak from basically 2 back-to-back surgeries and I found that my son was refusing my breast. He had gotten used to the bottle so I just let my milk dry up. With my 2nd son, it was another c-section and I have to admit, I decided to take the "easy route" and go straight to formula. I was so worried something else would go wrong (like another emergency surgery) that I didn't even attempt breastfeeding. I feel guilty now that I didn't give it at least a chance.
So now I'm determined to give breastfeeding another try. I intend to pump as much as possible so that my husband can help out with the feedings.
I know breastfeeding, or deciding not to, seems to be a controversial topic amongst some moms. Neither I nor my husband were breastfed (and we turned out okay). I think the decision to breastfeed is a very personal one and moms should be shown support whether they bottle or breastfeed.
I nursed all mine and found it simple, free, and convenient. I was tied to my babies for several months each because of it, but that was fine with me, as my life centered around them anyway for the first few months. However, if someone chooses not to breastfeed, for any reason or no reason, it's nobody's business and it's not a crime, and it's not even in the grand scheme of life, a big deal at all.
P.S. Even as a breastfeeding mom, I was incredibly turned off by it being rammed down my throat in the hospital. I felt they put too much pressure and focus on new moms about it.
I am appalled by the article's notion that breastfeeding is a "domestic burden." If that is how some feel, then why have children at all? I breastfed my daughter, and yes it was hard, very hard. At times I felt like giving up and if I did, that was Ok. However I stuck with it and I felt like it was so fulfilling. To call such a burden makes me ill. I have been trying to have a second child for 5 years now and I would give anything to have such a "burden."
The phrase "domestic burden" irked me a bit as well. We, as a society, throw tons of money at schools and educational programs in the children are our future spirit and yet still devalue anything to do with basic caregiving. I'm currently nursing infant twins and, yes, there are days I feel like I'm doing nothing but feeding babies, but I'm sure I'd feel the same if I was using formula. And then I'd have the added chores of preparing the formula and washing the bottles. How is that better?
THANK YOU AMEN!!!!
Now that I'm weaning my son, I find washing the bottles and nipples, preparing the formula, and buying the formula real domestic burdens!
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Mom to Jude