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| Was I lied to and bullied over breastfeeding? |
Have you seen this?
The Times today has run an article that says that there's little discernable difference between breastfed and bottlefed babies.
It looks like there's actually no real evidence of all the supposed benefits that I was told my baby would miss out on if I didn't breastfeed. I feel lied to.
It seems that the benefits actually come from the baby having the sort of mother that tries to follow medical advice and have a healthy lifestyle.
It seems that that sort of mother is oftern also the sort of mother that tries to breastfeed and is more persistent about it. And I was definitely persistent. Anyone who has expressed exclusively for 5 weeks without any help from their baby knows the meaning of selfless love.
So I'm hopeful that my son will still benefit from all the benefits if they do come from the breastmilk (because I tried so hard for so long) and, if it doesn't come from that, then my runs on the common with him and my husband's organic food fetish are setting him up for the best health benefits we can.
But I was also bullied over breastfeeding, I've come to realise.
I felt that it was a factor in being in hopsital longer than was strictly necessary for the wellbeing of my child or myself (and certainly my husband who ended up camping out on the floor there because he missed us and wanted to help us get better).
It seems I wasn't the only one to feel like that - @cafebebe has posted about her experiences as a guest post at www.omgip.blogspot.com and it seems that treatment as if you are some sort of lazy miscreant is common.
I've noticed too that there seems to be a frequent line that breastfeeding counselling is all the help that's needed to keep tired, frustrated, women in pain breastfeeding their hungry, frustrated babies.
I had breastfeeding counselling - at eight weeks. My son demonstrated there that he was perfectly capable but unhappy about it, and a week later he refused entirely and never tried again.
So there are some questions:
There is a question as to why health visitors can't really help about formula feeding (only the hygiene aspect is ever mentioned whereas what I wanted to know was which milk was most likely to suit my son).
And there's a question over why the NHS has printed leaflets setting out all these benefits of breastfeeding when the World Helath Organisation describes any difference as "relatively modest".
And I just wonder whether the focus on breastfeeding has been a bit of a hamfisted attempt at a social "nudge" - focus on the breastfeeding rather than on the mothers when the real link is between the attitude of the parents (and possibly social class?), part of the whole attempt to overcome inequality by state intervention?
Don't get me wrong - I'll still try to breastfeed next time round.
After all, if I'm the mother of the baby, then it stands to reason that the milk I'll produce will be physiologically attuned to the baby and designed by God and nature to be what is needed to sustain him or her.
But it does seem that nurture is as important as nature in respect of a child's ongoing health.
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Posted by rose22 on 2009-07-20 18:09:46 | Rating: | Views: 170
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