Hi everyone,
I enjoy the comparisons of breastfeeding promotion to anti-smoking efforts.  What really struck me is the research out of California that I remember reading several years ago.  What they found is that smokers knew the major health risks associated with smoking but that that was not enough motivation to quit.  The biggest motivator?  Social pressure.  Smoking needed to change from 'cool' behavior to socially undesirable.  Of course, no individual mom should be scorned for not breastfeeding because we don't know what circumstances lie behind her situation.  But we shouldn't worry so much about hurting that mother that then 10 other mothers choose formula because it's 'fine'.
In my work we definitely emphasize helping mothers overcome barriers, not blaming them and placing the whole burden of breastfeeding on them (as opposed to family, employers and society.)  But it's important that they understand the magnitude of the risks of formula too, without the soft-pedaling of the traditional approach of 'breast is best'   Otherwise, the first small barrier causes them to give up because formula's almost as good.  So we can't just work on overcoming barriers or work on broadcasting the major risks of formula - they're both important and they work together.
Marcia McCoy
 
> From:    Nina Berry <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: blog on failure of the breastfeeding awareness campaign
>
 >
>
>-  Tobacco controls were not introduced on the basis of campaigning for
>clean air...
>
>Morgan Gallagher
>
>
>Hi Morgan
>You are right. I quite agree that mothers are entitled to real information
>about risk - and that 'moving towards the positive' is often code for 'I am
>not comfortable telling mothers that'.  In fact there is some research
>around the difficulty that doctors who smoke or are overweight have in
>addressing these issues with their patients.
<end snippet>

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