Earlier this week I read a paper published earlier this year in JHL titled
"Regional Variation in Public Opinion about Breastfeeding in the US" This is
an extremely interesting paper and I would recommend that people get a hold
of it. There were two questions that assessed breastfeeding knowledge.
Repondants had to say that they agreed or disagreed with statements. One
statement was "Breastfeeding is healthier for babies than formula feeding"
and between 55 and 75% of respondants agreed with this depending on the
region. Pretty poor results I thought but at least most people think that
breastfeeding is good for babies. The other statement to assess
breastfeeding knowledge was "Feeding a baby formula instead of breast milk
increases the chances that the baby will get sick" and between 14 and 38% of
respondants agreed with this!!!!!! 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 do think that it is reasonable to talk
about long-term benefits for mums because who can say what is "normal" for
women in terms of childbearing). This week I did a couple of radio
interviews. I'd gotten annoyed because an article appeared in a newspaper
talking about how a vaccine for a couple of strains of rotovirus has been
developed and that the Aust govt is being lobbied to put in on the
vaccination schedule (meaning they pay for it, worth maybe $50 mill a year).
According to studies I have lying around, babies who are not breastfed as 3x
more likely to be infected by rotovirus, 2x more likely to get sick from it
and then they get sicker and take longer to recover than babies who are
breastfed....imagine what $50 mill would do for breastfeeding in Aust??
Imagine what even $5 mill could do?? It makes absolutley no sense to me to
plug $$ dealing with problems largely caused by premature weaning and not
plug $$ into preventing the weaning to start with...Anyway, the radio guys
were clearly very struck by the idea that there were risks associated with
premature weaning. I don't talk about risks of formula feeding unless that
is precisely what I'm talking about, it is usually the absence of
breastfeeding that is the problem and I think it is one step away from mums
who bottlefeed and therefore perhaps perceived as less directed towards
them. We've really gotta stop talking about the benefits of
breastfeeding...there aint any!

Karleen Gribble
Australia

> LC:  That's great.  Part of what I want to do in my talk is educate
> people about the benefits of breastfeeding.  It would certainly never
> be my intention to cause people to feel guilty, although I am sensitive
> to the fact that hearing about the benefits of breastfeeding might be
> painful for mothers who were not able to breastfeed due to inadequate
> help or for other reasons.  I try to help mothers understand that it is
> not a failure on their part -- that they tried their absolute best and
> are still wonderful mothers -- and it's ok to grieve for the loss of
> the breastfeeding relationship and the human milk for the baby.
> Woman:  Wow, I wish I had had someone like you helping me when I was
> having problems!  You're hired!  What kind of fee would you like?  ;-)
>

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