Originally posted by
Peeta Mellark
Clearly a majority of mothers have a desire to breastfeed, and then they ween off the breast in droves long before a baby is ready to be weened. Maybe they didn't get enough support, maybe they didn't "try" hard enough, or maybe they realized "holy shit I'm a milk machine" and wanted their bodies back.
I've been a peer mentor for breastfeeding mothers for nine years, and my honors work in nursing school was on breastfeeding - I wrote a paper on reasons for early cessation of breastfeeding. The main reasons are lack of education (especially given that what education is done is largely postpartum, which is a terrible time for it), lack of modeling, and lack of competent support. We are a culture that pays lip service but little more to the benefit of breastfeeding. A few days ago, a study came out noting that breastfeeding mothers are viewed as less capable and intelligent than their artificial-milk-feeding counterparts.
Originally posted by
Peeta Mellark
I'd like to give my kids the better nutrition of breastmilk, but I'm not about to become a lactating man to do that. Why should we remain restricted by biology? While there's a lot of controversy over GMOs, the main (real) concerns are about environmental and economic impact. There's no credible evidence that they're unsafe at this point, as no published studies have found any adverse health effects from eating genetically modified foods. Thanks to the paranoia surrounding them, GMOs are actually less likely to introduce new allergens than standardly bred hybrids because they're so carefully tested.
Two points -
1 - It's not "the better nutrition of breastmilk" really. Breastmilk is the gold standard for infant feeding, and the fact that it is almost always phrased as "breast is better" or "breast is best" is actually counterproductive. It is more accurate to refer to "the inferior nutrition of artificial milk," or "formula is worse." But because we're in a culture that values individual choice so highly (including freedom to choose behaviors that are demonstrably risky) and has normalized formula, that sort of statement is highly demonized. I'll be surprised if I don't get comments to this about how I am a big insensitive meanie, in fact.
2 - Even a GMO cow - and I agree, GMO foods have not been shown to be the devil, I have no problem with them - will never produce human milk that is tailored to the particular baby it is feeding. Human milk is constantly changing to respond to the nursling's increasing age, and to the nursling's immune needs at that time (saliva enters the breast and signals the maternal immune system), and no cow can do that. The cow also robs the mother of her chance to decrease her risk for cancer. And breastfeeding is about more than nutrition; even if you cuddle and gaze at a bottle-fed infant and are certain that there could be no greater bond, the oxytocin is not triggered with bottlefeeding, which is detrimental to the mother's emotional health and postpartum recovery.
Even if a mom decides that artificial feeding is better for her, it's never going to be better for her child (with the exception of a very rare genetic disorder).