Another of my car seat analogies lies ahead :^)
I am deeply suspicious of any attention in the American media given to
"toxins in breastmilk". I do not think this is a topic the American
public is ready for, or that it can understand in a constructive way.
This is not because pollution is not a problem, but because a) I do not
believe the media concern over breastmilk is genuine or what it
purports to be, and b) breastfeeding is still at far too fragile a
status right now to jeopardize it. Let me give an "Alternate Universe"
example: say there was a widespread, chronic and well-known problem
among health care professionals and others about the inability in
getting parents to install car seats. Just pretend that it was a huge
problem, and 60+% of american babies were still not being placed in
proper restraints at all or for the recommended time and that many
hours and dollars went into studies showing how much money this was
costing the nation. Say that doctors and therapists regularly met to
discuss this problem and how to get more citizens to understand how
incredibly important this is and that all TV shows and magazine
articles depict happy, free-sitting babies in cars and that people who
strongly recommend car seats were depicted as "fanatics" and
"guilt"-mongers. This shouldn't be too difficult to imagine ;^) This
would be the wrong society in which to nitpick over the residues of
sizings and other chemicals on baby seats covers. it would seem really
strange that magazines and tabloid-like shows we call "The News" kept
harping on the chemical residues in infant car seats when it is already
a national disgrace how little people even used them. One would say,
"why not go after automobile manufacturers for the very same chemicals
which appear in *stronger* concentration in the car's *regular* seats?"
One would think there was something else going on.
This is what is happening with pollution in human milk. Notice overall
toxin load in *pregnant* women is only mentioned if at all in passing -
why? No need to make pregnant women feel guilty? maybe because there is
also an "easy", socially more acceptable and profitable alternative to
breastfeeding and no alternative to pregnancy. The simple fact is that
these fear-inducing exposes of "toxins in breastmilk" only serve to
discourage breastfeeding, whether or not that is the intention. A
picture of the author breastfeeding for some reason doesn't comfort me.
Discouraging breastfeeding may often be the intention (though I *do*
know there are several writers truly concerned about the environment
and strongly supportive of breastfeeding, that does not change the
overall atmosphere of this country nor the result), and with all the
myriad kinds of worse pollution that are not mentioned, I can't help
but think it is. I know we *should* be able to talk about it without
discouraging breastfeeding, but the fact is that BF is still looked at
as a frill; something a mother does as a lifestyle choice for herself
and something utterly disposable and replaceable. Also, focusing
concern on the contents of women's breasts further shifts blame from
actual polluters to women; as if they can "eat right", or live in
"better" areas and protect their babies if they really want to. Another
problem with this approach is that the only thing an individual woman
can really do once she is convinced her milk is "toxic" is not
breastfeed or not have kids at all. What is not presented is actual
evidence that these toxin levels are harmful when ingested through
milk, the incredible amounts of pollution in animal and mono-crop
farming and the subsequent contamination of formulae. How do we know
that the human mammary gland does not already protect the offspring
from potential contaminants, as Michel Odent suggests in his book, "The
Farmer and the Obstetrician"?
There are other places in the world for which an outcry against
detectible levels of pollutants in milk would cause a change in
industry because breastmilk is a given and untouchable; this is not
such a place. I believe detectable pollution in milk is the *least* of
our pollution problems, like getting upset about a cracked window when
the house is burning down. It is also like picking the smallest,
weakest person to bear the punishment for crimes of the biggest and
strongest just because they can - in this case, making babies suffer
for the crimes of unethical business and consumption and blaming women
for what they themselves are victims of. For these reasons, I think the
media "concern" right now about the pollutants is motivated by an
already strong and long-standing distrust of human milk and by
extension women (or vice versa, more likely). Individual
environmentalists have different and more noble intentions, but their
words are not helping in the long run, and are unlikely to achieve the
aims they/we hope for - perhaps even the opposite by increasing formula
manufacturing and its subsequent pollution and waste. Pick another (of
the thousands) of places we can attack pollution - breastfeeding
doesn't need the scrutiny - why fiddle while Rome is burning?
Pollution is only going to get worse, and now is the time for the
movement to gather its forces and momentum and direct them in the right
places: a problem concerning breastmilk isn't going to mobilize very
many people; why worry when you can just buy clean, sterile formula?
One last thing: I am not proposing anything like censorship, but rather
diversion into proper channels.
Michelle DePesa
p.s. I was an Ecology major at a terrific rural, crunchy college - one
of the things constantly harped on was the acceptable (and
disproportionate) social focus on recycling in bins while poor fuel
economy, growing vehicle size, overall consumption and other bigger and
more urgent problems go unchecked - and the effect for-profit
industries had on this focus.
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