Hi, folks. A few soapbox comments on a variety of posts....

Re: Meeting needs through breastfeeding

Laura, I realize you have made up your mind on this issue, but just in the event
there are others on the fence, I couldn't resist a reply. If breastfeeding was
ONLY breast- FEEDING, then I would agree with you--it would not be appropriate
to offer the breast for everything. However, breastfeeding is so much more than
just feeding. Not only that, but baby has the ability to decide whether he wants
to breastFEED, or just "nurse" by how he sucks. If he is hungry, he will suck in
a way that gets milk flowing. If he is not, he will suck differently. And, let's
say for the sake of arguement that anytime he is at the breast he will get some
milk. Is this bad? Probably not. If we remember that breastmilk is quickly and
easily digested, then a light snack whenever may be physiologically better than
a few large meals. The 3-meal-a-day bit was a relatively modern invention, I
believe. (Katheryn D, wanna speak to that?)

I would NOT offer a bottle of formula to a baby for every fuss. (Even if I
thought there was nutritional reason to merit it!) In this case, for every suck,
baby gets a mouthful and has no control. He swallows in self defense to keep
from drowning, and he gets a heavy meal. And, since the bottle can be given with
little or no mothering (or fathering), then it would seem there could be the
negative associations made between food and comfort that might later set the
child up for serious eating disorders. In this case, baby has a need, is given
the bottle instead, associates the bottle (food) with that need.

With breastfeeding, baby has a need, is given mom, breast, and a little milk to
boot, and baby associates all this with comfort and trust that mom will meet his
needs.

The nice thing about offering the breast for anything and everything, is that
you never have to worry about whether you've missed a feeding cue, or that
hunger may be an issue with whatever is bothering the baby to begin with. By
offering the breast, you say to the baby, "Here, try this. You tell me whether
it is what you need or not!" I'm a firm believer in giving baby control over as
much of his environment as possible.

RE: Growth of bottle-fed babies

This discussion reminds me of an article that came out in Prevention Magazine
sometime in the Fall of 1989, I think. It was about some research that a
Nancy(?) Butte had done for the US Dept of Agriculture (I think) stating that
since breastfed babies used less calories than formula fed babies at 4 months,
then this meant that breastfed babies need to be supplemented. I wrote letter
(after letter after letter....) pointing out to them that perhaps the bf babies
were more efficient at using the calories they had and that wouldn't it make
more sense to assume that the bf baby is the normal and the formula fed baby
should be compared to it? For some odd reason, they never published my
letter....

It drives me nuts to hear folks say that at least with a bottle you know how
much baby is getting. So true. Only problem with that "logic" (and I use the
term loosely) is that it in no way indicates whether baby is getting what he
NEEDS! What if he needs more than what is in the bottle? What if he needs less
but drinks to keep from drowning? What if he needs mom and is given the bottle
instead?

How does anybody ever come up with the official "THIS IS WHAT EVERY BABY NEEDS"
requirements? It has to be based on some standard--why are we seemingly the only
ones who recognize that breastfeeding HAS to be the gold standard? And who knows
what "standard" breastfeeding is anymore, either!


Enough. The oxygen is getting thin up here and all my little
breastmilk-challenged brain cells are worn out. Climbing down now...

Melissa Vickers, IBCLC
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