>
>
>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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