Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)

                        September 18, 2004, Saturday

SECTION: Final; Pg. A12

LENGTH: 437 words

HEADLINE: The best start

BODY:
 
Ironically, the only drawback to a mother's breast milk may be that it
is free. It's hard to imagine, in this materialistic society, that
something that isn't rung up at the cash register could be valuable,
that expensive baby formula could, somehow, be inferior.
But the simple fact is: There is no better food for babies than breast
milk. It is full of nutrients and laced with antibodies that help a
newborn fight infection. It is also readily available, easily digested,
and -- free. Breast-feeding also has been linked to lower incidence of
breast and ovarian cancers in mothers. 
Still, only about 70 percent of new mothers in the United States
breast-feed their newborns. That is unacceptable in a society that
should know better. But mothers aren't to blame. Most of them work, and
employers aren't flexible or creative enough to make simple schedule
adjustments for new mothers. Attitudes toward breast-feeding in America
are not as positive as they should be.
It's difficult to make sense of a new mother forcing her body to quit
making milk so she can work longer hours, in part to pay for expensive
baby formula.
Employers could and should encourage mothers who work for them to
breast-feed because everyone benefits. Not only does it make for happier
and healthier babies -- and that makes the new mom happier, too -- but
it makes the mother a healthier and more productive worker.
Utah is among the nation's leaders in percentage of new mothers -- 85.5
percent -- who breast-feed their infants. Those mothers deserve a
high-five for their efforts, because breast-feeding is sometimes
difficult, especially in a culture where the breast is so fraught with
sexual connotations.
The attitude that breast-feeding in public is not acceptable, even in
Utah where families and children are valued, is simply wrong. Any mother
discreetly feeding her baby in a restaurant, store, park or on a bus
deserves, at most, a smile from passers-by, but the most appropriate
response is to take no notice whatever. Most people wouldn't stare or
frown at a child eating a cracker. Neither do a mother and child engaged
in breast-feeding deserve ogling or disapproving looks.
In fact, there is nothing sexual about breast-feeding, except in the
fuzzy thinking of some people who are embarrassed or offended by it.
If people were more accepting of public breast-feeding, the United
States might have nearer the 99 percent rate of infant breast-feeding
that Kenya, Sweden, Australia, Iceland and Norway all have. And that
would help give American children the best start in life ever devised.

LOAD-DATE: September 18, 2004


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