Another of my car seat analogies lies ahead :^)

I am deeply suspicious of any attention in the American media given to 
"toxins in breastmilk". I do not think this is a topic the American 
public is ready for, or that it can understand in a constructive way. 
This is not because pollution is not a problem, but because a) I do not 
believe the media concern over breastmilk is genuine or what it 
purports to be, and b) breastfeeding is still at far too fragile a 
status right now to jeopardize it. Let me give an "Alternate Universe" 
example: say there was a widespread, chronic and well-known problem 
among health care professionals and others about the inability in 
getting parents to install car seats. Just pretend that it was a huge 
problem, and 60+% of american babies were still not being placed in 
proper restraints at all or for the recommended time and that many 
hours and dollars went into studies showing how much money this was 
costing the nation. Say that doctors and therapists regularly met to 
discuss this problem and how to get more citizens to understand how 
incredibly important this is and that all TV shows and magazine 
articles depict happy, free-sitting babies in cars and that people who 
strongly recommend car seats were depicted as "fanatics" and 
"guilt"-mongers. This shouldn't be too difficult to imagine ;^)  This 
would be the wrong society in which to nitpick over the residues of 
sizings and other chemicals on baby seats covers. it would seem really 
strange that magazines and tabloid-like shows we call "The News" kept 
harping on the chemical residues in infant car seats when it is already 
a national disgrace how little people even used them. One would say, 
"why not go after automobile manufacturers for the very same chemicals 
which appear in *stronger* concentration in the car's *regular* seats?" 
One would think there was something else going on.

This is what is happening with pollution in human milk. Notice overall 
toxin load in *pregnant* women is only mentioned if at all in passing - 
why? No need to make pregnant women feel guilty? maybe because there is 
also an "easy", socially more acceptable and profitable alternative to 
breastfeeding and no alternative to pregnancy. The simple fact is that 
these fear-inducing exposes of "toxins in breastmilk" only serve to 
discourage breastfeeding, whether or not that is the intention. A 
picture of the author breastfeeding for some reason doesn't comfort me. 
Discouraging breastfeeding may often be the intention (though I *do* 
know there are several writers truly concerned about the environment 
and strongly supportive of breastfeeding, that does not change the 
overall atmosphere of this country nor the result), and with all the 
myriad kinds of worse pollution that are not mentioned, I can't help 
but think it is. I know we *should* be able to talk about it without 
discouraging breastfeeding, but the fact is that BF is still looked at 
as a frill; something a mother does as a lifestyle choice for herself 
and something utterly disposable and replaceable. Also, focusing 
concern on the contents of women's breasts further shifts blame from 
actual polluters to women; as if they can "eat right", or live in 
"better" areas and protect their babies if they really want to. Another 
problem with this approach is that the only thing an individual woman 
can really do once she is convinced her milk is "toxic" is not 
breastfeed or not have kids at all. What is not presented is actual 
evidence that these toxin levels are harmful when ingested through 
milk, the incredible amounts of pollution in animal and mono-crop 
farming and the subsequent contamination of formulae. How do we know 
that the human mammary gland does not already protect the offspring 
from potential contaminants, as Michel Odent suggests in his book, "The 
Farmer and the Obstetrician"?

There are other places in the world for which an outcry against 
detectible levels of pollutants in milk would cause a change in 
industry because breastmilk is a given and untouchable; this is not 
such a place. I believe detectable pollution in milk is the *least* of 
our pollution problems, like getting upset about a cracked window when 
the house is burning down. It is also like picking the smallest, 
weakest person to bear the punishment for crimes of the biggest and 
strongest just because they can - in this case, making babies suffer 
for the crimes of unethical business and consumption and blaming women 
for what they themselves are victims of. For these reasons, I think the 
media "concern" right now about the pollutants is motivated by an 
already strong and long-standing distrust of human milk and by 
extension women (or vice versa, more likely). Individual 
environmentalists have different and more noble intentions, but their 
words are not helping in the long run, and are unlikely to achieve the 
aims they/we hope for - perhaps even the opposite by increasing formula 
manufacturing and its subsequent pollution and waste. Pick another (of 
the thousands) of places we can attack pollution  - breastfeeding 
doesn't need the scrutiny  - why fiddle while Rome is burning? 
Pollution is only going to get worse, and now is the time for the 
movement to gather its forces and momentum and direct them in the right 
places:  a problem concerning breastmilk isn't going to mobilize very 
many people; why worry when you can just buy clean, sterile formula?

One last thing: I am not proposing anything like censorship, but rather 
diversion into proper channels.

Michelle DePesa

p.s. I was an Ecology major at a terrific rural, crunchy college - one 
of the things constantly harped on was the acceptable (and 
disproportionate) social focus on recycling in bins while poor fuel 
economy, growing vehicle size, overall consumption and other bigger and 
more urgent problems go unchecked - and the effect for-profit 
industries had on this focus.

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