The study found that almost 40% of Canadian women leave the hospital with formula samples. Women who don’t get the formula samples are 3.5 times more likely to be exclusively breastfeeding after 2 weeks.

That’s a big number.

A similar study of U.S. mothers in 2005 came up with similar results: first-time mums were 4.4 times more likely to exclusively breastfeed if they were not offered supplemental food for their babies. For experienced mothers, that number jumped to 8.8 times.

So why is it so hard for women to breastfeed exclusively after being offered formula?

Parentcentral.ca says:

“They give it to the women ‘just in case’. But the real message is that you will probably fail… and one bottle leads to another.”

Women who are given formula instead of support for breastfeeding get the early message that breastfeeding is hard, and they probably won’t succeed. They’re subtly encouraged to rely on formula as an alternative.

The World Health Organisation recommends exclusive breastfeeding for at least 6 months and continued breastfeeding for at least two years. UNICEF believes that improved breastfeeding rates could save the lives of 1.5 million babies a year.

Given the widely acknowledged health benefits of breastfeeding, why don’t our hospitals do more to encourage its success?

The crass answer would seem to be that there’s no money in it. Formula is pushed by big food companies, whose PR and lobbying budgets exceed that of breastfeeding advocacy groups. No money changes hands when a mother nurses a baby.

Behind that issue though lies the larger one of education and cultural expectation. Many hospital nurses know little about breastfeeding. Most hopistals employ a lactation consultant, but not every mum gets to see the LC. Additionally, mums and nurses both live in a culture that treats bottlefeeding as normal and breastfeeding as somehow controversial.

We expect to see babies taking a bottle, and many of us have lives that are geared towards bottle feeding. Few of us have a lot of experience watching other women breastfeed, or remember being breastfed ourselves. There’s a paradigm shift that has to happen if women are going to breastfeed at higher rates.

What about you? Did you get formula samples at the hospital when your child was born? Did you use them? Did they affect your choice—or your partner’s choice—to breastfeed?

Photo:Public Domain

These mums are pro-breast milk, but for a variety of reasons, they don’t want to feed their baby directly from their breast. As Texas mum Crystal Bard explained, “I just did not like it. I felt locked away. I was young and self-conscious, and everyone would leave the room when I breast-fed. I was lonely.”

While other mums complain that they don’t like the way nursing feels, that they wanted dads to share in feeding responsibilities or that they didn’t want the commitment of being constantly tied to a nursing baby.

Breast pumps — as well as a general lack of support for mums who breast feed in public — are also helping to fuel the trend, says Time; Mums can pump two breasts at once, carry their pumps in stylish purses and even pump milk in the car.

But is feeding breast milk from a bottle an ideal alternative? As one commenter of the article points out, bottlefed children also lose some of the health benefits of breastfeeding, including protection against palate malformation and the need for orthodontia, vision development and a heightened sense of bonding, as well as protection against breast cancer for the mother.

So what’s your take on this new trend? Does it change your stance in the bottle versus breast debate?

Photo

It may be a natural process, but breastfeeding doesn’t always come easily. Despite the importance of establishing feeding from birth, we often spend more time agonising over pram choices than preparing to breastfeed.

Breastfeeding: Real Mums Tell You How by Melissa MacDonald aims to provide a practical starting point for new mothers, with non-judgemental advice on breastfeeding as well as combination and formula feeding. The book is split in basic breastfeeding fundamentals and then real life stories and advice from mums.

A handy index also references the real-life-stories which makes it a great resource for all kinds of feeding problems. A glossary and list of resources are included at the end.

It’s definitely a useful book for anyone who is considering breastfeeding or has just started. It’s nice to know that other mums and babies have been through the same feeding problems and survived.

You can buy it for $34.95 here.

Dear Running on Empty,

Growing a baby is hard work on its own, and feeding a baby at the same time is extra intense. It’s no wonder you’re exhausted. While your body is playing oven and dispensary, there’s not much left to spare to sustain you. But don’t get down on yourself for not weaning sooner. Your choices were clearly made with great consideration for your child’s needs, and you can move forward with the same kind of sensitivity. It is definitely possible to keep nursing through pregnancy and beyond. This works for a lot of people, and if you’re interested, there’s a wealth of info to help you on your tandem nursing way. We are all for the idea of child-led weaning, IF the mom is game to keep going indefinitely.

But it doesn’t sound like you want to keep breastfeeding. And if that’s true, weaning is the only way out.

Toddler weaning isn’t easy. Those stories about kids just deciding they’ve had enough? They happen. But they don’t often happen with kids this age, especially not ones who don’t drink milk in a bottle or cup. The majority of babies (and toddlers, and kids) we’ve heard of do not take kindly to the denial of the breast without a well-loved substitute already in place. The “freaking out” you describe is pretty much par for the course, though it can take many forms depending on the kid and the age.

We don’t say this to scare you, but to give you confidence: This process may not be easy on you or your older child. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do. If you keep breastfeeding when you want to be done with it, you’re just going to resent your older child more. And it probably won’t get any easier when you’re large and uncomfortable.

Having a baby on the way gives you a finite time frame to work with. The time around a new baby’s birth is often particularly stressful for siblings, so if you plan to wean, it’s best to do it sooner rather than later. This is especially true if you plan to go slowly, as gentle weaning often takes a while.

Your body may actually help the process along. By the 4th or 5th month, your supply will dip. The taste and consistency of your milk will also change. These changes can make toddlers lose interest in nursing. But even with the tail winds of pregnancy hormones pushing in your direction, a truly committed breastfeeding will stay hard to his course. He’ll learn to enjoy the new flavour; and if he keeps on sucking, the supply could maintain. Which means you’ll have to guide the weaning.

There are lots of approaches to weaning. Here are some ideas that are specifically tailored to toddlers.

Baby-Weaning Tip #1: Distract and Divert

When your son asks to feed, offer something fun to do instead. Ideally, something that gets him out of the house or at least away from the surroundings he associates with nursing. A walk, a game, a little TV … you can tailor the options to the time of day and your energy level.

Baby-Weaning Tip #2: Substitute

Your child may still have the urge to suck. A sub (bottle, cup, or dummy) often fills in for a boob, but you’ve said your boy isn’t having it. He may hold firm to his rejection, or it may be a matter of finding the right liquid to fill the cup. There are a zillion different milks available, and you can also go for juice or something sweet if you’re up for it. (It’s easier to catch flies with Ovaltine). But nursing isn’t just about milk, it’s about intimacy. Try creating another ritual that involves closeness, like reading a book or listening to a favorite song. A really soothing, comforting bedtime routine. For kids, like adults, quitting something is usually a lot easier when there’s a substitute comfort measure ready in the wings.

Baby-Weaning Tip #3: Talk About It

One of the benefits of weaning an older baby is that there is a way to talk to your child about what’s happening. Even when toddlers are not talking they understand upwards of 18 months. When you tell your child “No milk until daytime,” he’ll get it. (This doesn’t mean he will like it.) You can also start explaining to him that milk is for little babies, and now that he’s bigger, he’s going to be ready to stop nursing soon. If you put a positive spin on it, he may start to associate not drinking milk with being a big kid. You can try referring to some bigger kids he knows and likes to help him make the association. We’d suggest keeping the idea that there is a new baby coming out of it for now, though that may come up once he sees the cycle in action.

Breastfeeding ratchets it up a bunch of notches, but what you’re feeling now is similar to what a lot of mothers feel in a second pregnancy: torn, tired and worried about how to manage the needs of two kids at once. Your pregnancy, with its various symptoms, is a foreshadowing of life with your second kid. You don’t have to balance nappy changes yet, but you do have to balance nausea with breastfeeding. And as every mother of more than one learns, it’s not always possible for everyone’s needs to be met all the time. This can be painful (for you as well as them) but in the end, there’s a more important lesson: your son may not get quite as much of you as he did when he was the only one. But he’ll learn that he can live with a little delayed gratification or denial. And he’ll be fine. Maybe even better.

Have a question? Email Us.

In the middle of the night, a hospital staffer woke new mother Jennifer Spiegel up, saying, “Your baby wants you.”  Spiegel took the baby –  swaddled and wearing a cap — in the dark and began breastfeeding him.

Before she finished, a nurse walked into her room, surprised to see her breastfeeding. ‘I was just with your baby in the nursery,” she told the couple, husband Scott Spiegel told the Chicago Sun Times. “The baby you’re feeding isn’t yours.”

It had to be a startling, shocking moment. “It was just an awful, internal feeling,” Jennifer said. And the couple immediately wondered about their own son. Where was he? Was he safe? Was he with another family? Scott demanded the nurse find their son immediately, and she did. He was safe in the nursery, where he’d been all along.

The mix-up is almost unforgivable — not because of what happened, but what could have happened. And authorities need to take a hard look at what Evantson Hospital didn’t do to protect its patients from this mix-up.

But the Spiegel’s and their son were never harmed. Their baby wasn’t nursed by another mother, never even left the nursery, in fact.  And Jennifer was never in any danger herself. So why the lawsuit? The Spiegel’s are representing themselves (Scott is a lawyer) and are asking for $US30,000 in damages.

I realise that “cross-nursing” isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and that for some people — maybe even the Spiegel’s — it crosses a line that should never be crossed.

But if we strip away the shock, the fear that something had happened to their little boy, and the anger at what might have happened, we’re left with this: Jennifer Spiegel nursed a baby.  For a few minutes, she provided comfort and nourishment to another woman’s baby.

Fight to make sure that policies are in place so this never happens again?  Sure.  But $US30K in pain in suffering?  What do you think?

I think it’s a little funny actually. Makes a great story for the 21st.

Remember the whole push to make Facebook realise breastfeeding was natural and not obscene? It came to a head in late 2008 with a breastfeeding protest (or “nurse in”) right at the company’s Palo Alto, Calif. headquarters to gain women the right to keep their breastfeeding photos on the site.

But while Facebook got flak for its absurd interpretation of obscenity, the site has been growing in popularity (seventy-three percent of adults now report having a profile) and it hasn’t backed down. They’re still deleting photos.

And while the “Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene! (Official petition to Facebook)” group is still alive and well (and sporting a quarter of a million fans – up from fifty-four thousand last time we reported on this), mums are considering taking a bigger step.

They’re talking about taking Facebook to court, and they’re using laws that specifically protect breastfeeding from claims of indecent exposure to warrant a possible class action suit. According to The Other Paper, the debate got serious after Facebook took down the page of “Hey Facebook” creator Stephanie Muir. She created a new page – now listing herself as “Steph” Muir, and they’ve left the group up – with the photo above although Muir told The Other Paper this week that there have been threats from Facebook over the page.

Legally, women can breastfeed in public just about everywhere – with the protection of the law. That’s the argument that’s held forth against Facebook in the public sector. But will it carry weight in the court?

After all, Facebook is still a private corporation, and private corporations still maintain certain rights to discriminate. It doesn’t make it right – and Facebook certainly isn’t – but the real question is whether we can convince a judge that women have the right to feed their children in the same space that teens can do beer bong hits?

But combine breastfeeding with disability rights and you’ve got a 350-comment furious debate on your hands.

In the left corner there’s a new mum with large breasts struggling to discreetly feed her newborn in public while also caring for a toddler.

In the opposite corner there’s the carers of children and adults with disabilities whose access to appropriate toileting facilities in a timely manner is critical.

Some commenters thought that a private breastfeeding facility is a right:

There were no baby change rooms, so no you did not do anything wrong. You are entitled to privacy.

While others thought that feeding in toilets was gross full stop:

I wouldn’t do it… I’d prefer to flash my boobs around than feed a baby in a place designed for waste products.

Then there were the posts by those who regularly require disabled toilets for their children:

Do you senseless selfish women not understand why people with disabilities NEED these facilities? Have you stood with a crying child whose stoma is leaking all over his clothes and shoes waiting for the disabled toilet?

In the end, the new mum apologised for her mistake and agreed to feed elsewhere from now on, although said she just couldn’t do it at a restaurant table. But some commenters thought that those with disabilities should have empathy for breastfeeding women, as well as vice versa.

Personally, I don’t think breastfeeding, or parenting in general, entitles you to special treatment. Sure, we are lucky to have special curtained breastfeeding cubicles and parents with prams parking at the mall, but sometimes you’ve got to change nappies on the floor and feed on a park bench (or go home).

What do you think? Does being a mother equate to having special needs?

Tweeted a Long Beach, Calif., doula and a Canadian breastfeeding activist respectively: “Please don’t send powdered formula to Haiti!” and “PLEASE! don’t send formula to Haiti! The women&children shouldn’t be victimised twice! Breastfeeding during emergencies is VITAL to health.”

Those donating formula want, of course, to get babies fed. The no-formula crowd argue breast is best — and also, there’s no reliably clean water with which to make the formula, clean the bottles, etc.

Clark-Flory tore into the research and eventually called UNICEF and here is what she concluded: not every kid will have access to a lactating woman, be it the child’s mother or someone acting as wet nurse. Those without access to breastmilk need formula — the ready-to-feed (super expensive!) kind.

But before you pack up a shipment, also note: distributors will want to know where it came from, that it’s safe, not expired, etc., etc., and as good as your intentions are to buy and send the stuff, it’s not the ideal way to help.

What is? Money. So that formula you wanted to send? Just take what you would have paid, add in the postage and donate the amount. Or double it and donate it. Everyone wants to help. Money helps the most.

Photo: forhaitiwithlove.com

A new Australian study suggests the soothing benefits of nursing longer than six months last long past infancy.

The researchers found that babies breastfed longer than six months have better mental health outcomes throughout childhood than their bottle-fed peers.

This wasn’t one of those studies that looked at 10 babies and made wild generalisations, either. The study included 2,366 children, who received a mental health assessment at ages two, five, eight, 10 and 14. At each age, researchers found the children who had been breastfed for less than six months were more troubled. They had higher rates of both depressive behaviours and aggressive ones.

It’s not clear the magic of mother’s milk was entirely responsible for the better outcomes. Mothers who breastfed for less than six months tended to be less educated, less affluent, younger and more stressed than the mums who stuck with breastfeeding beyond that six- month mark. Those who gave up breastfeeding before six months were also more likely to be smokers and to suffer from post-partum depression.

That said, the researchers stressed that breastfeeding remained “positively correlated” with good behaviour and psychological well-being even after social, economic and life history factors had been accounted for.

The Reuters article says that for every month beyond the six-month mark a child was breastfed, the benefit to their later behaviour grew stronger. I’m guessing that at some point you hit diminishing returns on that one. At least, I’d like to believe I did the right thing weaning my five-year-old.

Photo: Angelus Works

Simply put, the breastmilk isn’t the answer – it’s the desire to breastfeed.

Scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology announced the results of a study this week that posits a baby’s overall health is determined before birth rather than during the early months.

In a release from the university, the scientists say breastfed babies are healthier on average than bottle-fed babies. That’s because “if a mother is able to breastfeed, and does so, this ability is essentially proof that the baby has already had an optimal life inside the womb.”

The Norwegian results fit into the gears of a multitude of other studies that have linked breastfed babies to successes down the road that can just as easily be linked to socio-economic status. Take the latest news out of Scotland – where breastfed babies, they’ve determined, eat a significantly more balanced diet in adolescence than their bottle-fed counterparts. Not surprisingly, Scottish health officials pointed to poverty and lack of opportunity playing a role in the diversification.

But none of this is really groundbreaking. In many countries, breastfeeding is still largely a practise of the middle and upper class (the states included), and along with that higher income bracket comes better prenatal care or at least more opportunity for it.

What’s important is that these studies help quell the mummy wars rather than providing ammunition to women on one side of the fence or the other. Breastfeeding isn’t bad. But it also can’t cure past health care slip ups.

So how about turning our eyes from each other’s breasts and putting them back where they belong: on our politicians debating over health care?

Image: obyvatel