>
>
>As you can see it is perfectly possible for people to believe that breastfed babies are healthier while simultaneously not thinking that this means that formula fed babies are
>sicker!!!
>This just confirmed for me that speaking about the benefits of breastfeeding
>for babies is just plain not on 
>
I'd interpret it differently. The breastfeeding rate in the U.S. is much 
higher than the 14 - 38% of respondents who believed that formula makes 
babies sicker. It is closer to the 55 to 75% who believe that breastfed 
babies are healthier. Couldn't this mean that people are motivated to 
breastfeed because they believe breastfed babies are healthier, rather 
than because they believe formula-fed babies are sicker? They clearly 
don't "believe" that last statement... but a relatively higher 
percentage of women are breastfeeding anyway. Following the principles 
of appreciative inquiry, what we need to do is ask women why they *are* 
breastfeeding, and build on that.

I am also interested in some articles I've been reading recently. One 
talked about an anti-smoking campaign aimed at teens. Many started 
smoking anyway. Focus groups revealed that if they had taken part in 
designing the campaign they would have been more convinced. My take on 
this is that the motivation has to be internal, and that comes from 
positive external influences, for the same reason that positive 
discipline works better than punitive approaches: they build 
self-esteem, and that builds motivation: I can do it! I am a good kid, 
so I can be a good kid! This message is also consistent with pedagogy: I 
spend a lot of time convincing my adult students that they can, indeed, 
learn a second language even though they've been told it's impossible 
after age 3.

Another group of articles was on early learning, and one showed that 
maternal depression had a huge impact (scary for me to see) on 
children's readiness for learning. Given the high rate of depression, 
and often suboptimal approaches to parenting, I think we need to 
understanding the challenges mothers are bringing to their mothering... 
We can't count on society to give women the support they need, and 
woman-to-woman support (warmth and empathy and all that jazz) has been 
shown to have a great emotional and physiological impact on women. I 
think we have to look at how our efforts contribute to creating greater 
emotional well-being.  

I'd love to see more research that takes into consider the concept of 
self, the self-esteem level, rate of depression etc. among mothers, 
comparing breastfeeding and formula feeding mothers. I think we'd see 
many artificial feeders don't have confidence in their abilities to be 
"good". I've seen this with high-risk families -- telling them that they 
are exposing their children to damage because of their punitive messages 
just fits in with the unfavourable image they already have of 
themselves. Telling them that you recognize the challenges of breaking 
the cycle but are there to support them, offering them real options and 
both concrete help and validation for success, worked much better for 
these parents, I found.

I think the message needs to be that "you are a good mother, and that's 
why you breastfeed. We can help you with any problems that come up, and 
support you in your journey". If we say, "if you formula feed, you're 
exposing your children to risks" what response are we creating? Once you 
lose self-confidence, it's a slippery slope.

OK -- enough for today. My flame-proof suit is in the wash, anyway.

Jo-Anne

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