I was recently asked to do a talk at an event celebrating World
Breastfeeding Week in our community. The event was billed as a Baby "Shower"
and invitations went out to all the prenatal classes, and we had a quite a
good crowd with lots of pregnant women.

The theme was "Breastfeeding: the best investment" and I wanted to make a
comparison between breastmilk and formula.

So I talked about how, a couple of years ago, I fell down a flight of stairs
and broke my ankle in three places. That I meant I had to get around on
crutches or in a wheelchair for about ten weeks. I told them how I began to
develop various problems: blisters on my underarms after I used the crutches
for a long time, irritating rash on my leg under the cast, and bruises on my
other leg where I kicked myself in my sleep.

And I asked them what would happen if we all decided to use crutches and
wheelchairs? Pretty soon we'd see those underarm blisters as normal, and the
rash and bruises as something we expected. People might think seeing someone
walking as a bit embarrassing. Parents wouldn't be able to teach their
children how to walk, because they'd have forgotten how. They might even
think they couldn't walk.

I think you get the idea. I made the connection to how formula - which
should be the "wheelchair" - has become the norm, and so we have all these
problems connected to it which we accept as normal. Then I was able to show
some overheads about what I called the "side effects - the blisters and
rashes" of formula - in other words, the higher levels of various diseases
and problems.

I also made the point that when I was in that cast, I was very glad that the
crutches and wheelchairs existed, and that in situations where women cannot
breastfeed, it is good to have alternatives. But I think the message about
breastfeeding as the norm got across. I had many positive comments
afterwards and a nice letter from the event organizers.

Teresa Pitman
LLL Leader
Oakville, Ontario, Canada