Witty comebacks for replying to breastfeeding harassment

Most breastfeeding moms have experienced it at least once. You're feeding your baby and some nosey stranger decides to insult you or ask you personal questions. Your meddlesome mother-in-law just has to share her opinion of everything you are doing wrong as a mom. Maybe your own husband is not fully supportive of your choice to feed your baby the way Mother Nature intended.

Here is a definitive list of comebacks and replies for all types of breastfeeding related harassment. Feel free to share your own comebacks in the comments section and we will add them!


"Are you still nursing?"

"Of course not! My mom weaned me a long time ago. My baby is though!"

"Absolutely, isn't it wonderful?"

"Right now? No, he's over there playing."

"I was never a nurse."

"Yes, his doctor is so thrilled. So many moms give up due to pressures of rude friends and family."

"Everyone asks that, it must be because he's so incredibly healthy."

"Yes, he deserves only the very best. "

"Of course, I am glad you keep asking. It shows you want the best for him."

"It's her turn, you'll have to wait in line!"


"When are you planning on weaning?"

"I'm not. He'll wean me."

(pause) "Oh, you were talking to me? I thought you were asking him...he can't answer you yet."

"Maybe when she moves out. She can always come home for a snack, though."

"When are you planning on minding your own business?"

"He hasn't told me yet."

"I haven't asked him yet."

"I hope not for a while. We're both enjoying our time together."

"What, and get my PMS back? are you crazy?"

"I weaned a long time ago, when I was two I think."

"I don't know. He seems to still enjoy it and I enjoy those extra 500 calories I burn."

"Thanks for asking. Everyone seems to need an answer for that except for me and my child."


"When will you give him cow's milk?"

"Whenever he becomes a baby cow."

"When he starts thinking he's a calf."

"Whenever human milk stops being the best for human babies."


"Breastfeeding is gross!"

"So is changing diapers, yet people do it all the time."

"The reason women have breasts is to feed their young."

"Hello? Did you not realize that humans are mammals?"

"Seems to me that you have some issues you need to work out."

"Feeding my baby with whatever it is that they put in formula is gross to me."

"Watching people stuff their faces in restaurants is gross. Should that not be allowed?"

"Watching people eating crappy fast food is gross, and they do that in public all the time!"


"Why would you want to nurse when you can just get formula?"

"Gee, I don’t know. It must have something to do it with being free, always the right temperature, portable, what nature intended, and the best way I can nourish my baby."

"Have you checked out the price of formula lately?"

"Breastmilk is sterile and safe - the same cannot always be said for formula."

"Why give my baby something man made when I can give her what nature intended?"


"You should go feed her in the bathroom."

"Do YOU eat in the bathroom?"

"Why don't YOU go eat in a filthy bathroom?"

"If my breastfeeding offends you, I will be happy to ask your waiter to bring you your food in the restroom."


"How long are you going to do that? Shouldn’t you be feeding your baby solid food now? "

"I plan to follow medical recommendations: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and continued breastfeeding at least through the end of the first year. The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding for at least two years and beyond as long as mom and baby want to continue."

"Oh, until he goes off to college."

"Its just until I learn to cook!"


"Don’t you want your husband to be able to bond with the baby?"

"You’re right, holding the baby, talking to the baby, changing the baby, bathing the baby, and spending time just being with the baby sure won’t be enough for him to bond with the baby."

"He will bond the same way fathers have bonded for their babies in the thousands of years before formula was invented."

"You want to get up in the middle of the night to nurse?"

"You’re right: I don’t want to get up; that’s why my husband gets up and brings the baby to me."

"I’d rather nurse in my sleep than schlep to the kitchen and try to mix, heat up, and feed my baby formula in my sleep … because I sure do love sleeping."

"We co-sleep. I just roll over, give him the breast, and go back to snoozing!"

"There goes your sex life. "

"My husband would be really shocked to hear that … especially after we … well, I’d better not say any more."

"Are you speaking from experience?"


"How long are you going to keep nursing?"

"Oh, another 10 minutes or so..."

"Until I finish medical school to become a doctor!"


"Isn't he a little old for that?"

"Aren't you a little old to be wearing those jeans?"

"His doctor doesn't think so."

"What?! He's not even out of diapers!"

"Aren't you a little old to be randomly coming up to strangers and asking impolite questions?"


"He doesn't NEED to nurse at this age!"

"He doesn't need his teddy bear either and but we still give it to him."

(laugh) "Where did you hear that?"

"He can HEAR you, you know."

"And you don't NEED to eat that doughnut, but you still are."

"And you should be OVER the whole thing by now, are you still afraid of a breastfeeding child?"


Miscellaneous Responses

"If you are offended by me doing this, then you are looking too closely."

"Do you often look this closely at women's breasts?"

"It is illegal to harass a mother breastfeeding in public or to ask her to cover up. If you still have a problem feel free to call the police. You can explain to them why you are breaking the law."

And of course, you all know our favorite:

"If breastfeeding offends you, put a blanket over YOUR head!"

50% off The Breast Milk Baby + $5 to LLL!

The Breast Milk Baby has gotten a lot of scrutiny from the media and the public. Some think it is a great product to encourage kids to respect the natural way to feed babies, others feel it is disgusting and forces girls to "grow up" before their time. Americans in particular seem to have a streak of puritanism when it comes to breastfeeding (though many of the same people are totally fine with breasts used to sell cars or beer). Because of this, The Breast Milk Baby's attempt to enter the U.S. market hasn't gone that well.

In order to etch out a niche in the market for this product, the manufacturer has offered unique 50% off promo codes to various blogs, websites, and companies and in addition to they, they have offered to donate $5 per doll sold to the breastfeeding related charity or advocacy of our choice. For our unique promo code I asked followers on facebook which group they recommended, and the most popular choice seemed to be La Leche League. In order to get 50% off of your purchase of the Breast Milk Baby Doll and have $5 per purchase donated to LLL simply shop for the doll here and enter this promo code at checkout: BFBABIES

I've been fortunate enough to have a chance to try out the doll and review it.

About the Doll

The Breast Milk Baby comes in several different models representing both genders and multiple races. From what is currently on their website they seem to have Caucasian, Asian, and African dolls. They have several different outfits ranging from Cameron's boyish blue to Savannah's holiday outfit. When I first unboxed my doll the first thing I noticed was how soft its body was and how lifelike the face was. Also of note was that the clothes were better quality than standard doll clothes, made of thick fleece and terrycloth. They were closer to real baby clothes. I chose Cameron because I love it when dolls are available in blue/boy models instead of the usual pink. The dolls take AA batteries and there is an on/off switch inside of their body on the battery compartment.

It also comes with a halter top for the child who is playing with the doll to wear. These halter tops also vary in style. The girlier dolls come with pink floral top with flowers where nipples would be, Cameron came with a blue top with star nipples. These nipples contain the sensor that activates the doll's "suckling." When the doll's mouth is brought close to the "nipple" it begins to make drinking sounds and its entire face moves in a rhythmic sucking motion which represents newborn suckling quite accurately.  If you pull away before he is finished he cries and mutters an adorable "Mamamama...." If you nurse until he is satisfied and then begin burping him he will get the hiccups and eventually let out a huge burp. The only thing that would make it more realistic was if he spit up all over you too.

There are only two criticisms I can give the doll. One is that the halter top, despite being adjustable, barely fit my daughter and she is only 5 years old. I must admit though that my family seems to have abnormally large rib cages so her bust is probably more similar in size to the average 7 year old. If you are buying this for a young child or a skinny child then it shouldn't be a problem. For us, the problem was simple to remedy. I just attached a few strips of velcro and extended the bust by a couple inches.

The other criticism is the more obvious one: The price. Because The Breast Milk Doll is not a mainstream product and because its made with better quality than average dolls the price is quite high. That's why I think the best time to buy it is now while they have the 50% off promo going on. That's makes it no more expensive than many of the other dolls in stores right now that drink from bottles and eat baby food. I have heard some people say "Well my kids just pretended to nurse the dolls they already have, why should I buy a special nursing doll?" to which I answer "Why buy a doll that talks, eats, drinks, walks, wets, or does any of the other things that we pay more money for toys to do?" Its fun and kids like the realism. Is it absolutely necessary? Well no, not really. But I bet most of your kids' toys have unnecessary features. As far as battery powered toys in our house go, we don't have many, but this is one I don't mind one bit.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Pros:

• Exceptional Quality
• Reinforces natural baby feeding instead of bottle feeding
• Realistic suckling motions and noises, hiccuping, and responds to being burped
• Soft body with soft and flexible head

Cons:

• Full price is quite expensive (best time to buy is during a promotion)
• Halter top may not fit older/larger kids well

World War II is Responsible for the Decline of Breastfeeding in the U.S.

Infant formula was invented by Henri Nestle in 1860, but it didn’t actually become popular until the 1940s. The main cause for this sudden increase in popularity was World War II. Before the war the vast majority of women were homemakers who stayed home with their children and left the jobs to the men. As the war continued, women were called to the workforce to support their country by doing the jobs that men who went overseas to fight had left behind. In fact, the number of women in the labor force increased 210% from 1940 to 1985. It was this sudden desire and ability for women to leave the housewife life behind that formula companies saw and capitalized on by starting huge advertisement and free sample campaigns to normalize bottle feeding and, of course, get rich in the process.

Kathryn Davis, age 60, is the daughter of a decorated WWII veteran. A self-proclaimed history buff, Kathryn has spent her entire life studying WWII and its effects on the population of the United States.

"I think World War II was the biggest influence on the decline of breastfeeding. It was the first time in U.S. history that women could really enter the workforce. They needed them to build the planes, bombs, tanks, and munitions but if they were breastfeeding babies they couldn't do that on the scale needed. Formula and bottles became quite popular at that time because they needed to be able to leave their babies behind to help the war efforts. The baby boomer generation is really the first generation to have been bottle fed on the large scale. The attitude was that the more intelligent, educated, and sophisticated people bottlefed. If you saw someone breastfeeding you automatically assumed that they were an ignorant country bumpkin. It wasn't that breastfeeding was uncommon, it’s just that the bottle was more common. When my sister had her kids in the 60s they were automatically bottlefed and she was even given a shot to dry up her milk. By the time the 80s came around and I was having my children people were beginning to become more educated about breastfeeding. My doctor didn't influence me either way but basically told me that breastfeeding for the first month was good enough. Of course, I was given tons of formula samples and free bottles at every doctor visit."

Improved communications, especially printing, enabled intensive commercial promotion of artificial milks. Financial support of hospitals and physicians by manufacturers also hastened the decline in breastfeeding. Milk manufacturers also began campaigns in other countries to bring our “better” and “safer” method of feeding babies.

Once women were proving themselves in the workplace as equals to men feminism was born. Especially in the 1960s feminists encouraged women get away from their babies and start living their lives. It’s ironic that feminism, the concept of women supporting each other, actually created a situation where women who chose to stay with their babies and feed them naturally were looked down upon and even shamed for being anti-progressive to women’s rights. As a consequence, we ended up with a widespread loss of understanding of its importance and a declining ability of health professionals to support it. It was the perfect opportunity for formula companies to aggressively advertise and slip money into the pockets of doctors.

By the late-1930’s, the use of commercially manufactured breast milk substitutes became very common, especially in developed countries. Because they were unaware of how grossly inferior these artificial substitutes were, physicians advocated for bottle feeding over breastfeeding for many mothers. The effects of the promotion of bottle feeding and breast milk substitutes became evident during the post-World War II baby boom (1946-1956), when breastfeeding rates at hospital discharge dropped to 25%.

After that time there was a rebirth of breastfeeding, which many believe was due to the efforts of a small, but vocal group of women at that time considered fanatics, La Leche League International. Slowly but surely the news spread that breast was best and many others joined the crusade to get breastfeeding normalized. By 1982 approximately 62% were breastfeeding in the hospital and 27% at six months. Currently in-hospital breastfeeding rates are around 70%.

Ultimately, both good and bad consequences came from women being called to the labor force. These days women can get a job doing almost anything that a man can, and no one can deny that the feminist movement led to women achieving greater rights and being treated like equals. It is simply unfortunate and sad that in order for that to happen, many babies had to be left behind with an artificial breast propped in their mouths. This history of breastfeeding and infant formula also raises a red flag about the intentions of formula companies and shows that they have historically put their wallets before their concern for infant health. Formula is a blessing for babies who are unable to receive breast milk, but the companies that manufacture it have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted.

Part 2 of Sweet, Funny, and Cute: Babies nursing babies!

If you have ever nursed a baby into toddlerhood, or have nursed a younger child around their older siblings then odds are your child has imitated you breastfeeding. Maybe they even tried to use your breast pump! There's nothing cuter than a sweet, innocent little girl or boy pretending to feed babies the way nature intended! Enjoy these fan photos and if you would like your own included please e-mail it to: bfingpics@gmail.com


Logan about 20 months old pretending to breastfeed a doll, his little brother. Connor was a couple of months old.


Addison LOVED bf'ing her babies! Didn't take her long to catch on!

My son was tongue-tied and couldn't nurse well for the first few months, until he had his frenulum clipped several times, so I was pumping 8 times a day and feeding him almost exclusively from a bottle. Here is his big sister Eliana (2 years old)pumping milk for "her baby."

In this photo Bailee (my friends daughter) and my almost 4 yr old Shaylen are "pumping" during their pretend play being mommies. At the time I was still nursing my 14 month old and pumping a lot as I was finishing my teaching degree.

This is my youngest son, Tom. He was breastfed until 3 years and 7 months, and as you can see, loves to extend the same bounty to his doll!(His older sister was found at the age of 2, trying to express breast milk from herself to fill the little bottle that came with a doll she was given!)


I just wanted to share this photo of my daughter Seren who was 3 at the time, breastfeeding her baby.

My son (11m) crawling over the table, my daughter (4) nursing her dolly, and their favourite play mate(2).

This is my son Jacob (age 4) nursing a doll

My daughter, Freya aged 4, breastfeeding her twins just like Mummy

Attached is a picture of my 22mnth old daughter Breanna. She has become fascinated with breastfeeding since the birth of her brother (6mnths) and attempts to feed all her dolls and teddies- she has also tried it on her bewildered baby brother!

Wanted to have this added to the blog. It is a picture of my two year-old feeding her younger brother “just like mommy” as her brother struggles to get out of her grasp. She tries so hard to be like mommy.

This is my son, Bennie, breastfeeding his Elmo doll at 22.5 months old. His brother, Alexander, was born when he was 19 months old. After watching me feed Alexander for a few months, each time he would see me going for the boppy, he would insist that it was time to "feed Elmo" and try to wrestle the pillow away from me. Incidentally, because of complications, I only feed Alexander on one side, and Bennie got it right!

Sweet, Funny, and Cute: Babies nursing babies!

If you have ever nursed a baby into toddlerhood, or have nursed a younger child around their older siblings then odds are your child has imitated you breastfeeding. Maybe they even tried to use your breast pump! There's nothing cuter than a sweet, innocent little girl or boy pretending to feed babies the way nature intended! Enjoy these fan photos and if you would like your own included please e-mail it to: bfingpics@gmail.com



"The picture is of my daughter Jaemara who I breastfed until she was just over 2. She was still being B/F at the time of the picture and I was pregnant with her younger brother."

Casidee, 2 1/2, nursing Snow White!

"3 year old Madeline phones home"


"Sophie nursing her twin babies :) She was almost 2 years old here." - Lauren, Moderator of our facebook page

"The child in the picture is my third and his name is Jacob. He was 20 months old when my youngest, Justin was born. After Justin was born I had some nipple trauma from improper latch and I had to pump for a week on one side until it was healed. Jacob saw it on my bed at one time and decided that he better help mommy get milk for the baby. I guess he thought, if you cant beat them, join them. It was so cute."

"My son is Riley and he just adores his little sister Kiara - I had extreme nipple sensitivity with Riley as he was tongue-tied and combined with my sensitivity and mastitis every 2 months, it was a struggle, but well worth it. When Kiara came along 17.5 months later, same thing - tongue tied, but not so sensitive. Riley used to get her before I fed her to help me out as he didn't like seeing me in pain. Such a sweet little boy, and still 2 yrs on, still doting and loving towards her
- plus the occasional whack in the back on the head when i'm not looking! :) "

"She's in the right position but where's the milk at? "

"When I was 6 months pregnant with my second child, I took a short trip home to visit a dear friend. My 15 month old daughter, Lola, was still nursing at this time and during one of our sessions, my friend's daughter, 4 year old Ivey, decided to keep us company on the nursing couch. I love that her expression mirrors the oxytocin induced bliss phase of nursing. Ivey had recently become a big sister herself so she must have seen that look on her mom's face quite a bit."

"The picture is of me and my 3 girls who loved it when I nursed and they would bring their babies out so we could all do it together. The funny thing is they wanted little boppies too!! LOL"

"This is my daughter (then 22 months) pretending to nurse her baby as I was nursing her baby sister. She even used a pillow. A proud moment!"

"Why doesn't Daddy have any milk?"

"A picture of my 15 month old Olympia (who still nurses frequently) breast feeding her baby doll. She nurses all of her stuffed animals too! "



"My then 16 month old daughter received a baby doll for Christmas, to prepare her for her upcoming role as a big sister that was expected in February that year.
After we finished opening presents she wanted to settle down with a mid-morning nursing session. She insisted "Dolly" got the same privileges she was enjoying and refused to nurse that day unless Dolly got to nurse at the same time. 'All for one and one for all'"

Logan about 20 months old pretending to breastfeed a doll, his little brother Connor was a couple of months old.

Finally here's my 2 year old daughter pretending to nurse her baby doll. I hope this post made you smile or laugh. Its truly beautiful to see adorable little children being sweet loving mommies and daddies.

Get your "Thanks for breastfeeding" cards now!

This is a beautiful idea that I've been hearing a lot about lately: a small card you can carry with you and discretely slip to a mom who is nursing in public to say "thank you." I've designed my own wallet size card for you all to print out. The 10 card sheet can be downloaded here.

T-shirts, bumper stickers, and mugs are here!

Since I started the facebook group two months ago people have been demanding t-shirts and bumper stickers with our slogan on it. I realized "Hey! I want a bumper sticker that says that too!" so we opened up an online store.



It's just the bare minimum right now but we will be adding more soon.
Do you have a funny, catchy, or interesting breastfeeding slogan you want to see on shirts, onesies, or stickers? Leave your slogan in the comments and if we like it we will add a t-shirt with it!

We need your help!

If you have nursed a baby into toddlerhood or nursed younger siblings around older ones, odds are your child has pretended to breastfeed one of their toys (or maybe their little sibling)! We want to do a fun and cute post full of pictures of babies and children pretending to breastfeed. Kind of like this one:


If you want your child's picture to be included send it to us at bfingpics@gmail.com
Please include something in the subject along the lines of "Child pretending to nurse" so that we know what its for. We get hundreds of e-mails at that address and sadly can't always read or respond to all of them (there's only 3 of us and we have babies too!). You may also include a short caption that you want posted along with the picture. We are also accepting pictures of kids trying to use breastpumps!

Thanks for your help and be sure to check back for the next post if you want to be overloaded with adorableness!

7 Myths About Breastfeeding

By Crystal Henson
For the full-size image in all its high resolution glory click here.
I didn't make this masterpiece! A fan over on our facebook page sent it to me.

How the Facebook group got started: 200,000+ fans, trolls, prudes, and Australian morning news

Founded in January 2010, "If Breastfeeding offends you, put a blanket over YOUR head!" is a relatively new facebook fan page that has grown to become enormously popular. Only 2 months after its creation it already boasts over 220,000 fans and has been mentioned by several news outlets including Australia's #1 morning news show, Sunrise, and ABC statewide radio in Australia. As far as we know, no major US news sources have mentioned us.

"If breastfeeding offends you..." was started as a fan page for mothers who weren't afraid to nurse their babies any time and any place they needed to, and for those that support a woman's right to feed her baby in peace without being harassed by ignorant people telling her to cover up or go nurse in a bathroom. As the group began getting thousands of new fans everyday those fans began posting lovely pictures of themselves feeding their infants the way nature intended. Then the controversy began as facebook resumed their notorious practice of deleting breastfeeding photos for "nudity" (despite the fact that facebook is plastered with soft porn ads and half naked tweens). Some mothers even had their accounts deleted, including one of our moderators. To this day we continue posting our pictures because we know that we are right.

Our group still continues to be plagued by ignorant comments, trolls who post pornography and call us pedophiles, and people reporting our beautiful pictures. But we won't be stopped. We are women. We are mothers. We are lactivists. And we are strong.

As if you needed another reason to breastfeed... nighttime nursing causes drowsiness!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17908-evening-breast-milk-means-a-good-sleep.html

You read it right! Yet another example of how Mother Nature knows exactly what she is doing, the milk a mother creates in the evening induces drowsiness in her baby. Nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, are found in breastmilk and are assumed to be important for tissue development. But that's not all, they have also been implicated to naturally get a baby used to sleeping at night and being awake during the day.

"Cristina Sánchez at the University of Extremadura in Badajoz, Spain, and her colleagues looked at the concentrations of 5'UMP, 5'AMP and 5''GMP – the three nucleotides most strongly associated with sleep and sedation – in the breast milk of 30 healthy mothers who had been breast-feeding for at least 3 months. Samples of milk were collected before each feed over a 24-hour period, with between six and eight samples collected per mother.

They found that concentrations of 5'AMP were highest at the beginning of the night, while levels of 5'GMP and 5'UMP increased as the night wore on. These sedatives were found at much lower concentrations in milk expressed during the day.

She suggests that 5'AMP in breast milk might be fuelling the release of the sleep-promoting neurotransmitter GABA, while 5'GMP is involved in the secretion of melatonin,which helps regulate the natural body clock. 5'UMP is known to promote the amount of both REM and non-REM sleep."

So What Does This Mean for Moms?

Pumping milk during the day and letting Dad bottle feed baby at night is a bad idea. Many parents think letting dad feed the baby at night is a good way for mom to get sleep. Think again! Feeding baby daytime milk in a bottle wouldn't make him drowsy nearly as much as if mom just rolled over and fed him straight from the tap. Basically, this finding proves the point that nature intends for our babies to sleep in bed with us, nursing throughout the night. Babies who are in cribs nurse less during the night and therefore receive less of these nucleotides. Babies who are formula fed are getting the exact same substance all day long, with nothing special to make them sleepy at night.

"Since previous studies have also hinted that bottle-fed infants have more problems sleeping through the night, Sánchez's colleague, Javier Cubero, has been investigating whether sleep-inducing nucleotides could be added to formula milk.

In a separate study, Sánchez and Cubero created a "night-time" milk by adding 5'AMP and 5'UMP to standard formula milk. Infants receiving this milk between 6 pm and 6 am, and normal milk during the day, fell asleep faster and spent longer sleeping than when they drank standard formula milk all the time."

Say What?!

There's a horrible idea if I ever heard one! Sure, adding these sleep inducing nucleotides might be a good way to help formula fed babies with sleep problems... but how many parents will abuse this discovery? A breastfeeding mother can't help the fact that her milk contains more nucleotides at night and less during the day. A formula feeding mother, given the option between AM formula and PM formula, could simply choose to give her child the PM formula whenever she doesn't feel like dealing with him! Now I'm sure most mothers would use it properly, but there are some bad people out there who would jump at the opportunity to make their babies sleep all day. Let's just hope they never start marketing formula with added nucleotides, and keep enjoying the benefits nature stows upon us!

***Remember to become a follower! Click the "follow" button over to the right and be notified whenever we put up a new blog! Show your support!***

Breastfeeding according to Dr. Seuss

This is an anonymous Dr. Seuss-style poem for breastfeeding mothers and it captures our mission perfectly.

Would you nurse her in the park?
Would you nurse him in the dark?
Would you nurse him with a Boppy?
And when your boobs are feeling floppy?

I would nurse him in the park,
I would nurse her in the dark.
I’d nurse with or without a Boppy.
Floppy boobs will never stop me.

Can you nurse with your seat belt on?
Can you nurse from dusk till dawn?
Though she may pinch me, bite me, pull,
I will nurse her `till she’s full!

Can you nurse and make some soup?
Can you nurse and feed the group?
It makes her healthy strong and smart,
Mommy’s milk is the best start!

Would you nurse him at the game?
Would you nurse her in the rain?
In front of those who dare complain?
I would nurse him at the game.
I would nurse her in the rain.

As for those who protest lactation,
I have the perfect explanation.
Mommy’s milk is tailor made
It’s the perfect food, you need no aid.

Some may scoff and some may wriggle,
Avert their eyes or even giggle.
To those who can be cruel and rude,
Remind them breast’s the perfect food!

I would never scoff or giggle,
Roll my eyes or even wiggle!
I would not be so crass or crude,
I KNOW that this milk’s the perfect food!

We make the amount we need
The perfect temp for every feed.
There’s no compare to milk from breast-
The perfect food, above the rest.

Those sweet nursing smiles are oh so sweet,
Mommy’s milk is such a treat.
Human milk just can’t be beat.

I will nurse, in any case,
On the street or in your face.
I will not let my baby cry,
I’ll meet her needs, I’ll always try.
It’s not about what’s good for you,
It’s best for babies, through and through.

I will nurse her in my home,
I will nurse her when I roam.
Leave me be lads and ma’am.
I will nurse her, Mom I am.

***Remember to become a follower! Click the "follow" button over to the right and be notified whenever we put up a new blog! Show your support!***

The Case Against ‘The Case Against Breastfeeding’

Many of you may have seen Hanna Rosin’s article ‘The Case Against Breastfeeding’ in The Atlantic. You may have heard it referenced, most commonly by mothers who chose not to breastfeed for personal reasons. If not, here’s a link. Grab your vomit bucket before you read it because you are about to be bombarded by a claptrap of whining and self-pity.

Done reading? Good. Now let’s pick this apart, shall we?
“In certain overachieving circles, breast-feeding is no longer a choice—it’s a no-exceptions requirement, the ultimate badge of responsible parenting.”
According to Rosin breastfeeding has only recently become a requirement. How interesting! I thought it was something all mammals have been doing in order to survive for thousands of years. You would think us overachievers would have known that!
“Yet the actual health benefits of breast-feeding are surprisingly thin, far thinner than most popular literature indicates”
Actually there are no health benefits to breastfeeding. You see, breastfeeding is what is biologically normal. Anything less is simply inferior.
“Is breast-feeding right for every family?”
While it may not be the preferable choice for every mother, it is the right choice for every baby. Anyone who argues otherwise is severely misinformed on human infant physiology.
“Or is it this generation’s vacuum cleaner—an instrument of misery that mostly just keeps women down?”
Again Rosin seems to think that breastfeeding is a new fad. If you are miserable and its keeping you down I think it’s safe to say: You’re doing it wrong.

Next Rosin muses about the times she told other mothers that she was planning to stop breastfeeding after one month. She says she ended up “…in the class of mom who, in a pinch, might feed her baby mashed-up Chicken McNuggets.” Is that really such an unfair comparison to lump together mothers that knowingly feed their infant an inferior product? What is really in infant formula? Let’s take a look at Enfamil, the most popular brand of formula in the United States:
• Cow milk, a substance designed for a 100 lb. creature with three stomachs.
• Extra lactose to sweeten it up a bit (and we wonder why so many people are lactose intolerant!)
• Palm Olein Oil, a modified triglyceride, which is known to cause constipation in most formula fed babies.
• Soy milk, a substance known to cause hormonal problems, especially in boys (and we wonder why kids are hitting puberty so much earlier these days!)
• Excessive amounts of iron, turning baby’s feces green and contributing to lowered I.Q. and other neurodevelopmental delays (For more on that see Martha Kerr’s 2008 research study "Neurodevelopmental Delays Associated With Iron-Fortified Formula for Healthy Infants," Medscape Psychiatry and Mental Health ).
• Whey, a waste by-product of producing certain dairy products, particularly cheeses. Now dairy factories have a place to send their trash!
• Melamine, a dangerous chemical which causes kidney damage.
That’s just brushing the surface. I could keep going but I think you get the point. Let’s continue with Mrs. Rosin.
“From the moment a new mother enters the obstetrician’s waiting room, she is subjected to the upper-class parents’ jingle: “Breast Is Best.” Parenting magazines offer “23 Great Nursing Tips,” warnings on “Nursing Roadblocks,” and advice on how to find your local lactation consultant (note to the childless: yes, this is an actual profession, and it’s thriving).”
Yet more contempt for those who promote breastfeeding. What a horror that soon-to-be-moms are bombarded with information designed to help them and their infants! Yet Rosin fails to mention that pregnant women are also besieged with formula advertisements and samples from the day they get pregnant until the day they take their baby home from the hospital or longer (hell, I got an unwanted sample of “Next Step” formula for my toddler in the mail just the other day!). How dare those parenting magazines squeeze in breastfeeding related articles in between all of the formula ads! It appears she doesn’t have much respect for lactation consultants. I suppose it’s better to be a woman who writes articles full of misinformation than to be someone who helps mothers successfully feed their babies.
“I was launching a new Web site and I had two other children to care for, and a husband I would occasionally like to talk to. Being stuck at home breast-feeding as he walked out the door for work just made me unreasonably furious, at him and everyone else.”
I’m not sure how breastfeeding would interfere with your ability to talk. I think that would, again, fall under the “you’re doing it wrong” category. But there is no reason at all for breastfeeding to keep you stuck at home. If you can bring bottles, water, and formula out with you and find somewhere to measure, mix, and warm your formula than surely you can find somewhere to sit down and lift one side of your shirt!
I’d like to take a moment to point out a few subtleties in Rosin’s article such as “…ratio of tasteful wooden toys to plastic…” and “…barking at my older kids to get their own organic, 100 percent juice.” It seems like Rosin feels pressured by any suggestion she receives as a parent and only listens to them because she is pressured. I suppose if she wouldn’t be looked down upon by other mothers Rosin would be content to give her children formula, lead-filled plastic toys, and sugared down juice cocktails. Maybe it’s a good thing there’s so much pressure put on her. Her motives are never “I’m going to do this because it’s best for my child” but instead are “I’m going to do this so people will shut up and leave me alone.”
Rosin then spends several paragraphs trying to poke fun at the hippie founders of La Leche League and then moves on to a weak attempt at debunking research studies that have shown breastmilk’s superiority over formula. There’s no point even attempting to correct her claims, anyone can easily search and find hundreds of studies showing how much healthier breastfed infants are and how their health risks proportionately decrease as the amount of time they breastfeed increases. She argues that observational studies don’t take into account other factors, like the fact that higher income educated women are more likely to breastfeed. This is true, and may affect the studies showing that breastfed infants have higher IQs and lower obesity rates. But do diabetes, heart disease, ear infections, and other illnesses magically know whether your mom went to college and has a lot of money? Probably not.
“Given what we know so far, it seems reasonable to put breast-feeding’s health benefits on the plus side of the ledger and other things—modesty, independence, career, sanity—on the minus side, and then tally them up and make a decision.”
According to Rosin, the negative impacts of breastfeeding are “--modesty, independence, career, [and] sanity—“. If she thinks modesty has anything to do with it she is clearly a part of the “breastfeeding is offensive” crowd, people who think that nursing mothers should have to hide their breasts. They do nothing but make breastfeeding difficult and uncomfortable for mothers and babies because of their own personal hang-ups. Apparently independence is more important to her than feeding her baby properly. Of course, if she really needed to get away from the baby for a while all she would have to do is pump breastmilk and let daddy feed the baby. As far as career goes, there are thousands of working and breastfeeding moms out there (see previous sentence, Re: pumping). And finally: sanity. If breastfeeding is driving you insane, once again I say… you’re doing it wrong!
“In 2004, the Department of Health and Human Services launched the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign. The ads came out just after my second child was born, and were so odious that they nearly caused me to wean him on the spot.”
Another stunning example of how she doesn’t do anything because she wants what’s best for her child – a commercial was almost enough to make her wean her son in protest.
Rosin complains about the unequal dynamic between a husband and a breastfeeding wife and how her husband continues to sleep while she is up during the night breastfeeding. This is a common argument you hear against breastfeeding, and yet is one that makes no sense. Who was the one waking up to pee all night long because of a pregnancy induced weak bladder? Who was the one that spent hours in labor pushing a baby out despite excruciating pain? It’s always the mother because it is her biological responsibility. That’s not an anti-feminist statement, it’s simply the truth. Perhaps Rosin and her cohorts will only be satisfied when they can make men get pregnant and give birth.

In Rosin’s conclusion she states,
“I continue to breast-feed my new son some of the time—but I don’t do it slavishly. When I am out for the day working, or out with friends at night, he can have all the formula he wants, and I won’t give it a second thought. I’m not really sure why I don’t stop entirely. I know it has nothing to do with the science; I have no grandiose illusions that I’m making him lean and healthy and smart with my milk. Nursing is certainly not pure pleasure, either; often I’m tapping my foot impatiently, waiting for him to finish.”
And that alone solidifies what I already knew: I feel quite sorry for her children. Besides the fact that she blatantly says that she only breastfeeds because society told her to, she admits that she is impatient and wants him to finish. She doesn’t care about his comfort or enjoyment, just that she does her duty and can get back to her life in which her son seems to be little more than an annoying accessory. If it is such a chore to feed your baby how nature intended that all you can do is gripe about how miserable it makes you and attempt to ridicule and belittle those who actually enjoy and support it then perhaps you just are not cut out to be a mother.

***Remember to become a follower! Click the "follow" button over to the right and be notified whenever we put up a new blog! Show your support!***