Where are you, Nursing Mamas? A response to 'The Case Against Breastfeeding'

I'm feeling...Opinionated. Polemical.

I want to talk about breastfeeding. And about pumping. And about formula.

I want to talk about Hanna Rosin's article 'The Case Against Breastfeeding' (The Atlanic April 2009) and about Peggy O'Mara's response 'Case Closed: Breast is Best' (Mothering Magazine May/June 2009).

It is my belief that breast pumps are BAD. They represent Big Business and create BIG problems. They cost big money too (for a good pump, that pumps both sides at a time, you are looking at an expense of nearly $300US and/or even more once you factor in all the other gear you need). And they are ugly. And they turn a beautiful experience (breastfeeding your baby), into an ugly one (pumped like a cow on an industrialized farm). And when you spend that much money on something, you usually end up feeling like you'd better use it. And so you do, and it screws everything up. Your milk production goes down, and then the pediatrician recommends supplementing with formula, and there you go down the path.

In the video that The Atlantic posts of a coffee table chat with Hanna Rosin and three of her friends, (Dr Meri Kolbrener, Linda Perlstein and Anne Dickerson) Rosin and the others agree that they wish the breast pump companies would just 'disapear', not only because the pumping is uncomfortable and ugly, but because it enables our country to continue with it's complete lack of paid maternity leave, while hypocritically telling us that 6 months of exclusively feeding our babies breastmilk is 'best'. But breastfeeding needs to mean nursing, not just feeding babies pumped breast milk, but being available to your baby to nurse. And our country does not make this option available to working mothers.

I also believe that breast pump companies and baby formula companies are in 'cahoots'. Can I prove it? Not really, not yet, but it's a theory I'm working on.

Medela, you are everywhere. You make the 'best' breast pumps, you make (ugly, sorry) nursing bras, you present yourself as 'pro breast-feeding', and yet pumping breast milk can actually decrease a mother's milk production and completely intereferes with establishing a nursing 'relationship' with her baby.

Did you know pumped milk tastes different than nursing directly from a breast? The milk's taste changes, (can even become bitter) as it cools from body temperature (and most pumping moms are freezing their pumped milk) and babies may very well prefer the sweetened, sugary formula over frozen breastmilk and thus are eventually switched to formula. Not all babies mind the taste change, but some really do. And the moms take it personally, not knowing that the taste has become bitter, but thinking the baby 'dislikes my milk'. Well yes. If it's been bottled and frozen and now tastes funny, yes. And so; formula.

Enfamil, you are everywhere. The 'free' formula that arrives in the mail as a 'welcome kit' with every pregnancy, the coupons in every 'family' mailer, the 'free diaper bag' loaded with cans of formula, the 'free' bottles and insulated bags and coupons handed off to every new mother as she is released from the hospital. The enormous closet at every pediatricians office stacked high with containers of formula waiting to be handed out...ugh.

You know what is NOT everywhere? Nursing mothers.

Where are the nursing mothers? How many nursing mothers do you see when you are out and about in the world? When I'm out in the world, I go to places where there are children and moms in abundance, and in the 6 years since I've been a mom, I have rarely seen anyone besides myself nursing in 'public'. That includes the waiting room at the pediatricians office, the mom, infant and toddler Music Together classes, and the locker room of the health club after mom and baby yoga classes.

The mall? Never. I never see anyone nursing at the mall. I do see women with bottles. Babies with bottles, and babies with pacifiers. My kids never accepted pacifiers, and I tried. Especially for long car rides. What they wanted was to be comforted by nursing. And so I did, and do. And it's a lot of work and yet I believe that the innate need for suckling needs to be met and that if it is met, then the baby can grow out of the suckling phase and you won't have a paci-dependant child. But this is only possible when the mother is physically available to the baby. Is this off-topic? Well, the point is, no babies are on the breast at the mall, but instead have been 'pacified'. Coincidence? I just think it's all connected.

While I refuse to nurse my baby in a public bathroom stall out of sanitation concerns (and outrage), I do often nurse in my car before going into a public place, because I do feel the social pressure of being 'different', of not having a bottle to offer my babe, but instead a (gasp) bare breast. I am modest, however, and although I do not wear a tarp (or a 'nursing cover', or a 'hooter hider') (geesh, that's offensive to me!) and I do not smother -I mean cover- my baby's head with a blanket, I do wear a nursing top and try hard not to show skin while nursing...but even so, I feel pressure. I do not want to be 'different', I do not want to make a 'statement', I just want to feed my hungry baby. I suspect lots of moms do the same, nurse in their car, to avoid feeling like we are on display. But it's lonely out there.

In Hanna Rosins' article, 'The Case Against Breastfeeding', she mentions social pressure too; the pressure to be a 'breastfeeding mom', the pressure to have 'sleek strollers and organic snacks and a higher ratio of wooden toys to plastic' all as signifiers of belonging to the 'club'. What club? The 'Good Mom' club is what Rosin implies. That these moms at the park, with their 'tight jeans and oversize sunglasses' are sizing each other up, and comparing notes on how best to sneak frozen breast milk on board airplanes...but see that there? Frozen breast milk. Pumped. In a bottle. Talking about breastfeeding, but not actually breastfeeding from an actual breast. Not in public anyway.

There is a real phenomenon going around of pumping breast milk and then feeding your baby from the socially acceptable bottle. No socially unacceptable glimpses of skin to skin contact, and lots of money involved (all that stuff that is required from the expensive pump, to the insulated bags and containers, and the diposable and sterilized gear, and access to refrigeration, etc).

Hanna Rosin complains that "every mother I know has become a breastfeeding fascist". Really?

Peggy O'Mara's response in Mothering Magazine includes a statistic from 2005, that "while 74.2 percent of US mothers initiated breastfeeding in 2005, only 11.9 percent were exclusively breastfeeding at six months. This means that most women who breastfeed in the US also use formula; contrary to Hanna Rosin's perceptions, it is still bottle-feeding, not breastfeeding, that is the norm in the US. "

I know MANY women need to work to provide their part of their two-income households. I know that many women want to stay home with their babies but have decided they have to go back to work. But the pressure that Hanna Rosin is complaining about seems to me to be more about social standing than about paying the grocery bills.

My family would certainly be able to do a lot more if I contributed financially to our expenses, like we could consider adding on to our house, or actually go on a vacation, or even go more regularly to the doctor, dentist, and eye doctor. Or buy all Brio trains for our train fanatic. Or go to Disneyland. Or buy the kids shoes at Stride Rite ($35+ a pair) instead of at Target ($9 a pair). Or buy the couch for the basement that so clearly needs a couch!

But my husband and I made the decision that I would stay home with the baby to nurse the baby and take care of the baby (now babies). It was a long, hard decision, and one that evolved over the period of my first (unpaid) 12 week maternity leave where I just cried and fretted a lot, trying to imagine how on earth I was supposed to leave this baby with anyone but me and return to work.

Wanting to be available to nurse my baby was THE strongest reason for not returning to work. It was a really primal feeling, a mothering 'instinct', that I could not 'abandon' this baby, and I needed to do whatever I could to stay close by, even 'attached' if possible.

And luckily, my husband supported me and continues to support me (and all 6 of us now, poor guy!) and luckily, we are able to make do and get by.

Do I believe breastfeeding can reduce your child's risk of athsma or allergies or obesity or make them smarter or more secure? Do I believe that breastfeeding is full of antibodies that protect your newborn? Do I believe that breastmilk is better for your baby than any man-made batch of chemicals, preservatives and sweeteners? I guess the simple answer is yes. Am I a breastfeeding fascist? Possibly.

But you know what? Any 12 year old can feed your baby a bottle. Any daycare can sit your baby in a swing and keep your baby 'safe' till you come to retrieve it. But only the Mama can nurse. And the intangibles, the cuddling, the nurturing, the closeness and yumminess that is integral to nursing, that is what is so special and that is why I am home with these kids. I am available to these kids and I give them 'quantity time', which may be as important or even more important than 'quality time'. I am a 'given' and I value that more than a sleek stroller, and more than oversized sunglasses and more than going to Disneyworld.

And more than a new couch. Sigh.