January 17, 2004
LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Risks of Not Breast-Feeding
Re "Formula for Guilt," by
Peggy Orenstein, Opinion, Jan. 11: In developing the National
Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign, the Ad Council found that women
in the focus group research, both formula-feeding mothers and
breast-feeding mothers, did not express guilt regarding their
decisions related to breast-feeding. When women in 42 focus
groups, conducted in several cities throughout the country, were
shown the risks of not breast-feeding, i.e., higher rates of ear
infections, asthma, Type 1 diabetes and obesity, the mothers did
not feel guilt; they were surprised and angry that they had not
been told this information. Many said that they would try harder
to breast-feed their next child if they had not breast-fed yet,
and many said they would breast-feed longer if they had breast-fed
briefly.
Women need to hear the
research to be able to make truly informed infant-feeding
decisions. They deserve to be shown the evidence-based risks of
not breast-feeding, a common strategy when informing the public of
other public health issues. Presenting factual information is not
intended to provoke guilt but rather to make for more informed
consumers. Guilt is a response taken on by the receiver of the
information, not granted by the messenger.
Orenstein is to be commended
for breast-feeding her baby, given her history of breast cancer,
her C-section delivery and the anxiety that comes when one's milk
supply is less than one's baby needs. She overcame these obstacles
and needs to know that any amount of breast milk and any time of
nursing are of value to her and her baby.
Karen Peters,
Exec. Dir., Breastfeeding, Task Force of
Greater L.A., Redondo Beach
While reading Orenstein's
piece on her experience with breast-feeding
advocates/extortionists, I felt the almost forgotten but familiar
reflexive action of my feathers ruffling. Thirty-some years ago I
too experienced the whispers and innuendoes of advocates/Nazis
when I chose, for reasons that are no one's business but my own,
not to breast-feed my child. Despite prophetic claims of
psychological and physical damage that would befall my child
without mother's milk, my daughter proved them wrong. She is of
perfect weight, rarely gets a cold and is one of the most
well-balanced young women her age I know.
Perhaps baby formulas were
better 30 years ago, or just maybe there is more to mothering and
healthy children than breast-feeding. I prefer to believe that
providing loving, stable, nonneurotic parenting is at least of
equal importance. I do, however, confess an advantage to the
breast-feeding advocates in forming my opposing opinion. I wasn't
breast-fed either!
Maureen Ardron,
Yorba Linda
Evidence-based research has
proved that not breast-feeding is a risk factor for many diseases
or illnesses for both baby and mother. Research suggests that
babies should be breast-fed exclusively until approximately the
middle of the first year of life and then for an extended period
of time. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics policy on infant
feeding says that babies should ideally be breast-fed for a
minimum of one year, and then for as long as mutually desirable by
baby and mother. The World Health Organization recommends
breast-feeding a minimum of two years.
Everyone knows people who
were formula-fed and seem fine, but George Burns' smoking and
living a good life to age 100 does not mean that smoking is not a
huge health risk. Smoking rates have decreased since the U.S.
surgeon general made educating the public about the risks of
smoking a public health priority. The dissemination of public
health information must be founded on research. The truth is that
the risks of not breast-feeding are profound.
I commend Orenstein's
tenacity to breast-feed her baby and to supplement her baby when
appropriate in spite of poor advice, but suggest that choosing
banked human milk, instead of formula, would be a far preferable
insurance policy for protecting her baby's health.
Chele Marmet,
Director, Lactation Institute,
Los Angeles
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