Two threads have combined sufficiently (in my head) for me to mention
something about risk.
The simple fact is, that most people don't understand risk, or how it
works.
Many years ago, I had a dear friend who did an Open University study
module on risk, the nature of risk, and how people interact with it, and
I remember thinking "What a stupid topic how pointless is that!" Oh the
sureties of youth! Thankfully, my friend took the time to talk it
through with me, and I was left feeling there was something important in
'it' but I didn't get it..
I didn't truly take it on board for many years. Most people have an
emotional defence response when presented with any risk factor that
affects them. We deny the risk to us, and down play it - and only 'cave
in' when evidence is undeniable. I've watched the society around me
accept that tobacco is a risk activity. From my youth, where is was
accepted as perfectly normal, with tales of it being "recommended for
health (TB)" in the recent past - to the now Nationwide ban on smoking
in enclosed public places. A massive change in the perception of the
risk involved, has happened. People now understand there is real,
tangible, risks that they can see. In my own case, three long terms
notaries in a fan community I belong two, all smoked heavily. One had a
heart attack, and survived due to his wife spotting it quickly, the
other two have died of cancer - lung and throat. Their deaths made real
the 'risk' to hundreds of people. But there will always be those who
cite "My great uncle smoked 80 a day and lived to be..."
I've sat in rooms, and had risk factors explained to me. I've usually
understood the nature of the risk more thoroughly than the person
explaining. All bar one person, has been completely useless at
conveying it to me with any sense of how it actually related to me. At
the Foetal Medical Centre, in Harley St, after my nuchal fold scan, the
scan technician (always a doctor at this centre) said "Your risk of
Down's in 1 in 847. That means if 847 people who are you - 847 people
in the room of your age, your height and your weight where in the room,
one of them would be likely to be carrying a Down's baby." I knew the
weight and height had nothing to do with it, but I recognised she had
found a way to explain risk to most people.
But most people, myself included, would concentrate on being one of the
846, and deny any possibility that the 847th would be me. "it won't be
me." People want certainties: tell me if I will die if I smoke, tell me
if I will die early if I weigh to much - prove it. As I said, people
just don't understand the nature of risk: things are either 'safe' or
they are 'not safe'. "Okay" for large amounts of the population but
lethal for a small proportion - they just don't get. Further, they will
never accept that they might be in the small part - they're always
aiming for the 'okay'.
This is indicative of another factor to risk that I feel is important.
Humans have only survived, flourished even, when we've defied
overwhelming odds of risk. If we didn't carry on acting in face of
seemingly insurmountable risks, we'd still be in the caves praying for
the Thunder God to stop punishing us and desperate to work out how to
get the daylight back. The ability to risk defines us as human, in many
ways. We keep going: full stop. So it's hard when one of our strongest
features, is also a huge flaw.
The psycho dynamics of risk! Oh how I wish I'd paid more attention to
that unit of study!
Formula use, and breast functions, and woman's bodies, strikes to the
very core of several major cultural problems we still have no resolution
to. As a society, we have yet to resolve how to be comfortable with the
female body, with it's life giving nature and with the children it
produces. We hate being physical, we hate the way a woman's body locks
us into our physical functions and how it changes so constantly. We
idolise the heroes who surpass their physical bodies to 'overcome' their
biology by breaking open concrete slabs by hand, and we worship the
concept that mind over matter is the 'correct' way to view bodies
Bodies are physical weakness and the mind the true source of 'being
human'. Vast problems of emotional identity, hegemony and individual
desire opens up whenever any woman falls pregnant, or has breast
surgery, or faces infertility from her body's development. Into this
maelstrom of insecurity, the words "you run the risk of..." are
incredible dangerous. On one hand, you can wipe out all hope, on the
other, feed into the endless feeling that no one has a clue what the
scientific 'truth' is, and everything said can be equally ignored as
having nothing to do with that woman, and that newborn. It's difficult
enough to change attitude, never mind behaviours. "You said my Great
Aunt Aggie would die if she carried on .... and 25 years later she's
still here!"
It sometimes feels it will never get better - and the nature of risk and
how it affects us all will never change anything. But then I always
return to tobacco. And the huge changes wrought in such a relatively
short time. 20 years ago it would have been inconceivable that smoking
was banned in UK pubs. If you'd said that would happen - especially
stating it would start in Scotland years before so in England - you'd
have been laughed off the street. But it has! People now accept that
smoking puts them at risk, and, in general, most will understand that
their great uncle may have gotten away with it, but they might not.
Risk factors and smoking have finally made an emotional impact. People
have accepted it, even as some individuals still deny it - but enough
people have made the emotional connection for societal behaviour to change.
This will happen with formula - when enough people make the emotional
connection to the nature of the risk. :-)
In this vein, I'd like to defend, a little, those Mums sitting back with
hungry newborns and crying abut needing to give formula. Their
perception that formula is poison needs to be upheld. We need them to
feel supported in their pain at giving a sub standard product to their
newborn. We can't inform mother's about problems in cow's milk and
newborn stomachs, about the death of flora in the gut etc - and then
expect them not to recoil when it's medically appropriate to give this
crap to their newborn. We can't educate on one hand, and refuse to
understand their emotional pain and resistance on the other. These
mothers have made an emotional connection to the nature of the risk, and
when they are most vulnerable, are being asked to ignore that emotional
understanding. When you try and persuade them the formula is needed,
you are fighting against the ghosts of the all the other mothers who
were hoodwinked.
We need to present clearly that the risk of not giving the formula,
outweighs the risk of giving the formula. Not reject utterly that there
is no risk just because the baby needs supplementation. Apart from
anything else, we still need to keep alive the link between the formula
presence and the lack of human milk for that baby. "I'm sorry, the
risk of not having this formula is now greater than the risk of giving
it - but we can help you overcome the problems. Odds are you'll be
lucky, and there will be no really bad response. Most babies do fine.
I'm so sorry we don't have human milk to give, so the formula is now the
only option." Wouldn't it be refreshing to that routinely coming out
of every mouth dealing with the Mum!
In addition, those Mums have heard of hundreds of other Mums before
them, who supplemented needlessly as a Dr told them to 'top up' just in
case. So every mother who does know that formula is a risk, also really
really needs to know the formula supplementation is medically prescribed
_for the right reasons_.
Some of us often present the idea that we need formula - for without it,
babies would die. This is not a helpful way of looking at things - for
no matter how many babies have been 'saved', far more have died that
same day. Formula kills more babies than it ever 'saves'.
If formula didn't exist, there would be enough human milk for all babies
who need it. Professionals from in here, from different countries, have
already posted about how when babies in their area do need
supplementation, it's a simple matter of phoning around the lactating
Mums and getting milk dropped off within a couple of hours. This _can_
happen, and it _does_ happen in some cultures. We end up with a
monolithic edifice The Need For Formula, and we smack out heads up
against it time and again. Seeing a need for formula, is looking
through the veil of a formula dependent culture. Just as it was once
almost impossible to conceive of a non-smoking culture, it's sometimes
almost impossible to conceive of a non-formula feeding culture. We look
at the odds and think "No way is that every going to happen."
But it's gonna happen! No matter how many die-hards sit on the edges
refusing to change. :-)
And if I don't get changed and get out of this house, I'm going to be
very late for a very important date! And I don't have a white rabbit or
a pocket watch.
:-)
Morgan Gallagher
On the way to the Palace of Westminster to hear asylum mothers tear
strips off MPs, and, hopefully, nurse her 30 month old toddler in full
view of said MPs! That will be one for the album. ;-)
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