Another public breastfeeding story

[Serafina]

Breastfeeding is mostly important for the immune system. It contains several antibodies and works similar to a vaccine - it trains the undeveloped immune system.
Modern bottle-milk contains all necessary nutrietiens, but is unable to recreate this effect.

Oh, and i suppose i am somewhat shocked that the US refuses breast-feeding on a large scale. It is a small issue in germany that crops up from time to time - but it is about breast-feeding in highly public areas, such as public transporation or schools, rather than an general issue.

[Next of Kin]

With most US employers offering no more than three months unpaid maternity leave new mothers who return to work face serious obstacles to breast feeding: children are not welcome in the workplace, few workplaces provide a place in private for expressing and storing breast milk, and many places of employment do not provide sufficient breaks or flexibility in breaks to allow for adequate production of breast milk.

Sad but true. The main reason my wife decided to wean is that she is going back to work in a few weeks time and she won't have time or a place to pump bottles of expressed breast milk. Its too bad given all the benefits of breast milk and due to the fact the formula is quite pricey. Also, we noticed our son started to break out in a rash when we gave him similac. We've had to try different brands until we found one that did not cause him to break out.

[salm]

For being a dumb asshole who raised a pair of dumb assholes? [again]I'm so glad to live in Europe[/again]

What is it like in Europe? I don´t think there is a discussion about breastfeading at all. But i can´t remember seeing anybody breastfeading in public. It allmost seems like something that is such a nono that nobody even gets the idea of breastfeading in public. I think the US might be a whole lot ahead of us since they at least have this discussion on the table whereas in Europe nobody is even talking about it. You know, kind of like there´s no question about gayness being a Bad Thing in Saudi Arabia.

[Count Chocula]

All the education will be useless if there is not social support for breastfeeding mothers. With most US employers offering no more than three months unpaid maternity leave new mothers who return to work face serious obstacles to breast feeding: children are not welcome in the workplace, few workplaces provide a place in private for expressing and storing breast milk, and many places of employment do not provide sufficient breaks or flexibility in breaks to allow for adequate production of breast milk. Frequently, it's women in management positions who are able to juggle all this and have the flexibility to get it done, but most women are not in management positions.

Then there is the problem of where the breast feed, or express milk. I have never heard of a workplace that would allow a breastfeeding mother to either breastfeed in public areas at work, or express milk in such an area . Doing so in a bathroom is frequently the only location available, and would YOU eat in a toilet if you had a choice? How would you feel about food prepared in a toilet area? Would you feed it to your child?

Not to mention that many in corporate America feel breastfeeding is "unprofessional" - you can be a woman in private, but at work you must suppress you most significant biology and present yourself in a quasi-neuter state.

You raise an interesting point. I've worked for a couple of multinational corporations, a startup, and a couple of family businesses. In every case, no mothers either breast fed or expressed milk in the office...or if they did, it was in the "powder room." My opinion, based on observations at several different types of businesses, is that breast-feeding or expressing milk in your cubicle at the office is a social faux pas ranking with picking your nose or farting in front of a client. In other words, they're normal or natural functions, but are also, um, awkward in a professional environment.

To the OT, however, I've never seen breastfeeding in a public setting as exhibitionism. I'll admit I liked seeing it (out of the corner of my eye, of course!) when I was a teenager and Mom's friends brought their infants to Sunday brunch, but the propriety was never a question. The Sunday brunches were after Sunday Mass, BTW. Yeah, Catholic moms were flashing their ta-tas! THE SHAME!! I learned in Sex Ed, for God's sake and in a public school, that mother's milk was the way an infant built its immune system. This kind of uproar, IMO, tends to occur in more repressed areas with, frankly, Protestant or Baptist citizens.

[Themightytom]

I never had a problem until my sister pulled that shit thanksgiving.
*snip the rest*

Just level with me here... Are you quoting a comment from the article, or is this a personal account. If the latter, I am uncertain exactly where you're standing. And for the record, I happen to think it tastes like sweetened condensed milk.

Everyone is allowed to breastfeed except my sister. As far as i am concerned she is a nonsexual entity forever. There HAS been some evidence to the contrary submitted in the form of two children but i am pretty sure those are anomalies and the science will bear me out.

As long as nothing ends up in my food pump away, who cares. We're not Victorian England anymore.

[Themightytom]

Your dad might be my new hero.

For being a dumb asshole who raised a pair of dumb assholes? [again]I'm so glad to live in Europe[/again][/quote]


I'm glad you're in Europe too. Stay there.

[Stark]

Everyone is allowed to breastfeed except my sister. As far as i am concerned she is a nonsexual entity forever. There HAS been some evidence to the contrary submitted in the form of two children but i am pretty sure those are anomalies and the science will bear me out.

As long as nothing ends up in my food pump away, who cares. We're not Victorian England anymore.

You might want to get those psychosexual issues looked at by a professional. How long have you been having sexual thoughts about your sister, and when did they start to disturb you?

[Themightytom]

Everyone is allowed to breastfeed except my sister. As far as i am concerned she is a nonsexual entity forever. There HAS been some evidence to the contrary submitted in the form of two children but i am pretty sure those are anomalies and the science will bear me out.

As long as nothing ends up in my food pump away, who cares. We're not Victorian England anymore.

You might want to get those psychosexual issues looked at by a professional. How long have you been having sexual thoughts about your sister, and when did they start to disturb you?

Wow way to make a Fruedian leap to pick undereseolved sexual urge as the issue rather than the more obvious choice. I'll assume you are just a fan of the old school as opposed to deliberately projecting for your own purposes, because there actually is some relevance to the topic at hand.

it's interesting that you don't automatically assume viewing a sibling as an object of sexual attraction wouldn't create immediate disturbance. if not discomfort due to religious values or societal prohibition, at LEAST the most obvious reason, which is role ambivalence.

Either way it was more of a boundary issue because of a minor role conflict. once the role was redfined we jsut went with it.

It is pretty common behavior for a family to attempt to maintain member roles beyond their legitimacy, which would obviously be the key topic to explore. The incident I described illustrates an abrupt confrontation of a change in status, during which all members were present participating in a tradition praticed annually as a family for as long as most of the participants were alive...
...and it was handled with levity rather than conflict and acceptance rather than confronation, which is a pretty healthy response. Shared humor typically indicates resilience within social bonds.

Role conflict is probably most of the issue here. Breast feeding is interpreted as an intimate act by mother and child by strangers who are unsure how to respond, so they respond with censure,. There are societal prohibitions against interfering with child earing, we had a thread up here last month where a mother was hitting her child on a subway and people around felt awkward, why not the reverse, where people watching a moment of intimacy feel awkward. That would even explain some of the rediculous posting comments. People are insecure about how to react but were even MORE insecure about their insecurity, so they quickly draw attention away from that by weighing in immediately to forestall the ambivalence of critical self analysis and avoid any public suspicion that they are anything but confident in where they stand.

DOES the US

[Edi]

Breastfeeding is not seen in a negative light here. It's not that common to see it in public, but to be honest, most mothers who do so are going to cover up their breasts anyway to avoid having morons stare at them, so they are unobtrusive enough. Many prefer to do it in the rooms specifically set aside for taking care of babies, which many restaurants, shopping malls and other places here have anyway, but not all do.

Given that my oldest friend's wife has breastfed her infants when we've all been out together and it was unobtrusive when we were sitting around the same table, it should not be an issue. Except for prudish, lamp-post-up-their-arse fuckwits, of course.

Don't know about the difference to the rest of Europe in this regard, but Finns tend to be the kind who mind their own business, the threshold to raise a stink or intervene is pretty high, which is well enough most of the time.

[Colonel Olrik]

What is it like in Europe? I don´t think there is a discussion about breastfeading at all. But i can´t remember seeing anybody breastfeading in public. It allmost seems like something that is such a nono that nobody even gets the idea of breastfeading in public. I think the US might be a whole lot ahead of us since they at least have this discussion on the table whereas in Europe nobody is even talking about it. You know, kind of like there´s no question about gayness being a Bad Thing in Saudi Arabia.

Maybe it's because I'm a couple years older than you, or it is just luck, but so many of my friends have had babies in the last years and months that I'm getting serious peer pressure (I've had dreams of my girlfriend and me with a baby). I see the girls breastfeeding all the time when we are at parks, restaurants or at each other houses. It's anecdotal evidence, but from what they do and tell me it's a non-issue. You likely don't remember because it passes under your radar, but if you really want to start paying attention to women with babies next time you're in a park or a restaurant. Just don't stare..

[Siege]

What is it like in Europe? I don´t think there is a discussion about breastfeading at all. But i can´t remember seeing anybody breastfeading in public. It allmost seems like something that is such a nono that nobody even gets the idea of breastfeading in public.

I don't know about the rest of Europe, but over here (Netherlands) breastfeeding in public doesn't raise any eyebrows. I've never heard of it being made into an issue anywhere, or about anyone - not even religious nutters - objecting against it. I also did a quick check on a few Dutch breastfeeding websites and whilst all of them have sections dealing with issues surrounding breastfeeding, none of those sections include anything like 'dealing with prudish idiots'. Considering that 81% of all mothers breastfeed their children here, I'd argue that if this were an issue there'd be something written about it.

[salm]

You´re probably right that it just passes under my radar. I just checked some websites and they claim that it´s not a problem in Germany. Interestingly the German foreign office warns people of breastfeeding children in less liberal parts of the USA.

[Next of Kin]

Wow way to make a Fruedian leap to blah blah blah...

Themightytom doth protest too much, methinks.

There are societal prohibitions against interfering with child earing, we had a thread up here last month where a mother was hitting her child on a subway and people around felt awkward, why not the reverse, where people watching a moment of intimacy feel awkward. That would even explain some of the rediculous posting comments.

Of course, there are other options that a parent can use to discipline his/her child. Are there other options to breast feeding that are going to be just as healthy? Not all moms have a bottle of expressed milk handy and if their child is hungry then they will have to give them the breast?

[Themightytom]

Wow way to make a Fruedian leap to blah blah blah...

Themightytom doth protest too much, methinks.

Its such a parody of psychology to dust off the old freudian "I have analyzed your behavior and conclude you're sexually attracted to a family member". he got the field off the ground but he has haunted it ever since.

There are societal prohibitions against interfering with child earing, we had a thread up here last month where a mother was hitting her child on a subway and people around felt awkward, why not the reverse, where people watching a moment of intimacy feel awkward. That would even explain some of the rediculous posting comments.

Of course, there are other options that a parent can use to discipline his/her child. Are there other options to breast feeding that are going to be just as healthy? Not all moms have a bottle of expressed milk handy and if their child is hungry then they will have to give them the breast?

So? Since when has a rational thought process trumped a social more? While your argument sounds valid, you clearly haven't done enough to advocate for it, because people still don't know how to react to breastfeeding as evidenced by the comments Mike posted. You should put together a strong leaflet campaign.

[Pick]

Man, I bet the only reason Stark hasn't supplied another reply to this thread is because he's laughing too hard to type.

[Losonti Tokash]

Apparently I wasn't breastfed because according to my mom, I "wanted to eat too much." Also she'd heard that if you didn't breastfeed a boy, he wouldn't be as obsessed with tits later on in life. This definitely is not what happened and the fact that I was sick so much as a child is probably at least partly due to the fact that my mom didn't want to deal with the hassle of feeding her kid properly. Awesome.

[Broomstick]

It is unfair to blame childhood illness on your mother's refusal to breastfeed. It would also be unfair to blame all allergies, learning disabilities, obesity, eating disorders, and all those other things breast feeding is supposed to prevent on lack of breast feeding.

Formula DOES have a role in life. There really are women who either can not or should not breast feed (there are certain infections that can be transmitted via breastmilk, and some medical conditions that require medications that can be transferred to the child via breastmilk - it is unconscionable to tell a woman with cancer, for example, that she must choose between breastfeeding and dying or not breast feeding and being properly treated). Certainly there is a role for formula in the event the mother dies in childbirth and the baby survives - the kid has to eat, after all.

It would be easy to blame my allergies on not being breast fed - but my sisters weren't either, and have no allergies. The person in the family, my niece, with the absolute worst allergies was breast fed for four years. Breastfeeding guarantees nothing, not breastfeeding does not condemn a child to ill health.

Under normal circumstances breast feeding is optimal - it increases the chance that certain bad things will be prevented. This is a laudable goal and the reason women should be encouraged and allowed to breastfeed. But let's not start condemning women who don't, as many of them have very valid reasons beyond "it's icky" or the equivalent to bottle feed. If the choice is between earning an adequate income or going on welfare in order to breast feed I am not going to criticize the woman who provides for her family by working and using bottle feeding. If a woman is continually harassed whenever she tries to breastfeed, or is exiled to the toilet, I can't entirely blame her for giving up. People who go up to women bottle feeding a kid in public to criticize her or lecture her on breastfeeding are just as awful as people who harass a woman breastfeeding in public. (This may even be worse, as, after all, it is possible that a woman bottle feeding a kid may be a sitter who is bottle feeding breast milk mom expressed at an earlier time - you just don't know and really it's none of your damn business)

We can all agree on that, right?

[Junghalli]

It totally felt unnatural and wrong and....I don't know...... I once read an article by a Militantly ANTI Breastfeeding woman who said she honestly wonders if humans breastfeeding didn't evolve somehow through centuries of men and women constantly seeking the ever sought after sexual thrill by watching the animals. Maybe a stretch, but an interesting thought, because if certain insects or animals can adapt and be both genders over time, as some can, maybe it isn't too far fetched to think of.

I... I... I...
I'm trying to wrap my mind around this. It's almost Lovecraftian in its nutfuckery. She thinks humans evolved to breastfeed by watching animals breastfeed and wanting the "sexual thrill" (may I say how incredibly fucked up and revealing it is that sexually repressed rightards think breastfeeding is a "sexual thrill") of it? Which implies she thinks there was a time when humans didn't breastfeed, which makes me wonder how the fuck she thinks we fed our babies back then and ... oh fuck, I give up! I'm betting she's some kind of nutbar Creationist but damn, it's rare you see this kind of crazy. It's like Joker level of crazy. My brain hurts just trying to imagine what sort of nuttery this person probably believes.

In the 50s, there was a big push for formula feeding over breastfeeding because of SCIENCE! That has kind of stuck around in the US where bottle feeding is seen as normal and breastfeeding is often seen as a little weird.

Yes, completely fucking ass-backwards, but it happens.

When you put it that way it reminds me a little of circumcision. That's another example of where not having unnecessary artificial intervention is perversely considered weird because everybody does it.

Also she'd heard that if you didn't breastfeed a boy, he wouldn't be as obsessed with tits later on in life.

Another hilarious thing about rightards; the way some of them seem to want their children to turn out as if they'd been partially chemically castrated.

I guess it's part and parcel of the way they think sex is evil.

[Next of Kin]

You should put together a strong leaflet campaign.

I would do nothing of the kind as evidenced by the kind of right-wing, puritan people that wrote the comments. Very little, save biblical proof that breasfeeding is better, would sway their opinions.

[Cairber]

All of the organizations that I work with have no one working on the religious weirdos or even the older populations in general. We focus primarily on mothers-to-be and their partners. Other areas of focus are law, hospitals and medical staff. So we protect mothers through well-written laws, spread information through community groups (like LLL or nursing moms clubs), make sure breastfeeding promotion happens in doctor's offices, strive to make WIC more breastfeeding friendly, and work to stop hospitals from promoting formula (recent good news on that front: 200 hospitals decide to go for breastfeeding discharge bag rather than the standard formula one )

As long as the restaurants, clubs, pools, etc are made to follow the law and have pressure put on them to not bother mothers who are breastfeeding, then I am pretty happy. I don't feel like I have to change every mind- as long as the morons don't have the power. In places where laws are unsuccessful or poorly written...well...then you have a problem.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I just noticed that one of the "Obnioxious Teenagers" was using the name of a Nestl'e formula mix mispelled, as his internet "handle", hmmm

[Big Phil]

My wife couldn't breastfeed, as in she couldn't physically produce enough milk, but our son is a strong, healthy, allergy free toddler. I'm always surprised by how self righteous some men get regarding issues they know nothing about. I don't see the fuss, myself.

[The Yosemite Bear]

We're men, however I didn't think I was being Indignant, however being a bit brain damaged It might have come across that way. Oh and for the record, I lack the enzymes to handle beef because my mom's alergic to it.

[Shroom Man 777]

My wife couldn't breastfeed, as in she couldn't physically produce enough milk, but our son is a strong, healthy, allergy free toddler. I'm always surprised by how self righteous some men get regarding issues they know nothing about. I don't see the fuss, myself.

I myself do not "know nothing" about the issue.

For example, did you know that one of the reasons why formula feeding is prefered by some (some) is because formula milk is actually more difficult for the baby's gastrointestinal system to digest? The "benefit" of this is that the baby shits less often, making things less inconvenient for the formula feeding mother.

Breastmilk is actually easily digested by the baby's GI system, which means that - shock! - breastfed babies shit more often.

Now, lots of people have legitimate reasons to formula feed. But still, in societies that previously in the past were denying women the ability to breastfeed (ala those "drying up" shots Cairber, I think, mentioned) or where significant percentages of the populace are uneducated and poor and are in danger of malnourishment due to inadequate, inappropriate, or just dumb unwise food choices, then it's important to reinforce the fact that breastfeeding should ideally be prefered over formula, and is something that's perfectly acceptable to do in public.

[Cairber]

SancheztheWhaler- Speak for yourself on whether or not you, as a man, know anything about breastfeeding. I know plenty of men who are quite educated on the subject. In fact, one of the biggest things we try and do when working with moms is to bring their partner into the fold. A supportive and knowledgeable partner can be the difference between one week and one year of breastfeeding.

And I think partners need to be more vocal and supportive about breastfeeding.

Did you know that breastfeeding is associated with a 59% risk reduction for breast cancer in those with relatives who have had the disease?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/healt ... ancer.html

Just another reason why partners need to get involved.