Northwest Georgia Breastfeeding Coalition hosts international expert:

Breastfeeding is normal, formula is inferior, and birth makes the difference

Nurses and lactation consultants from all over the southeast convened in Dalton last week to hear the latest in breastfeeding technology from renowned expert Diane Weissinger, MS, IBCLC.

According to Weissinger, the “breast is best” tagline is a disservice to women and babies. Such slogans suggest that formula-feeding is the norm and breastfeeding is something better than the norm. Formula companies often state that breastfeeding is “the ideal.” Of course, something that is ideal is lofty but usually unattainable. None of us would claim to be ideal parents, for example. By calling breastfeeding ideal, they suggest that it is a lofty, unattainable goal.

Wiessinger says, "The truth is, breastfeeding is nothing more than normal. Artificial feeding, which is neither the same nor superior, is therefore deficient, incomplete, and inferior. These are difficult words, but they have an appropriate place in our vocabulary."

How often are we reminded that breastfeeding is simply normal? Every mammal species on the planet uses mammary glands to nurture its offspring. This is one of the defining characteristics that classifies humans as mammals. By choosing not to feed our infants in the normal way, we expose them to many known and unknown risks.

Wiessinger says there are about 13,000 studies that show problems with formula feeding. These studies are typically pitched as pro-breastfeeding (as if formula were the norm) rather than anti-formula. Thus, the experts tell us that breastfeeding reduces obesity or respiratory infections or earaches. Instead, they should simply state that formula increases obesity, respiratory infections and earaches. Likewise, breastfeeding does not reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS); formula increases the risk of SIDS.

Instead of emphasizing only the benefits of breastfeeding, professionals should stress the risks of artificial feeding. Despite the “more like breastmilk” ads, formula-feeding remains distinctly inferior to breastfeeding in every aspect. Formula not only increases the risk of diseases and disorders; it also fails to adequately nurture the brain, resulting in a lower IQ. Further, formula-feeding does not foster the maternal-infant bond the way breastfeeding does, because the hormone cycle is broken.

Breastfeeding is the physiological standard for human babies. Formula-feeding is not even second best. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) formula is only a distant fourth. WHO urges that all babies be breastfed by their mothers. In cases where this is impossible, the second best alternative is to feed the baby the mother’s pumped milk. As a third best alternative, babies should be fed breastmilk from another human mother. Only in cases where human milk is impossible or the baby cannot digest breastmilk (such as with galactosemia), should formula even be considered.

If formula feeding is so inferior, why aren’t American doctors and health authorities warning of the dangers? Most will say, “We don’t want to make women feel guilty.” Yet they have no problem making mothers feel guilty for smoking around the baby, or for placing a sleeping baby on his tummy.

Instead of warning parents about the risks of formula feeding, hospitals hand out formula samples, literature and advertising gifts. They receive kick-backs from formula companies in the form of pens, notepads, and other items. While hospitals shrug off these gifts as meaningless trinkets that do not affect their work, Diane Weissinger asks why formula companies would spend huge sums of money on this advertising, if it did not work?

In return for the goodies and the donuts, the hospital sends the company’s formula marketing literature and samples home with every mother in a logo-branded diaper bag. Even those women who plan to exclusively breastfeed get the bag. The diaper bag and its contents send a clear message that the experts at the hospital approve of formula. This tacit endorsement undermines breastfeeding promotion. Research shows that women who receive the bag are more likely to resort to formula once they get home, and 93% select the formula brand associated with the bag. Obviously, the strategy works.

The diaper bags are not the only way the medical community colludes with formula manufacturers. According to Weissinger, the delivery room procedures of most hospitals unwittingly work to undermine breastfeeding long before the baby takes its first breath.

Weissinger stumbled onto the birth-breast connection while studying the nursing behavior of animals. Weissinger was an animal behaviorist before she became a renowned lactation consultant. It was this background that inspired her to put together a talk on the breastfeeding and parenting lessons that can be learned by observing other mammals. Initially she intended to cover topics like how mammal babies find the nipple on their own, how mammal mothers never look at a clock before nursing the babies, and how animals wean naturally with no formal plan.

As Weissinger prepared the material, she was inevitably drawn to the distinctions between mothers who bond with and care for their infants, and those who do not. In every mammal species, she discovered that mothers who are deprived of their chosen place, time and sensations during the birth process have difficulty bonding and breastfeeding. Mammal bonding is adversely affected if birth is too hard – and if birth is too easy. The babies are even at risk if the birth is too clean.

Whether the mammal studied is a terrier, a horse, or a rat, any interference with the birth risks the breastfeeding relationship. Interference might include something as benign as the presence of an outsider, or as radical as cesarean delivery. Veterinarians who must surgically remove a baby animal go to great lengths to normalize the experience by allowing as much labor as possible, placing the placenta with the mother she wakes, and leaving the newborns in an untouched state. They understand the risks.

Human beings are mammals. Because we are more intelligent than most other mammals, human parents will usually continue to care for a child no matter how it comes into the world. Yet, according to Diane Weissinger, medical birth is robbing mothers and babies of the easy, instinctive breastfeeding experience that results from normal birth.

Modern hospital birth generally involves an epidural. Wiessinger equates a long epidural to drinking fourteen cans of soda. Excess fluid swells the woman’s tissues, including her breasts and nipples, which makes latching on more difficult. The epidural also slows down her milk, increasing the risk of jaundice and early supplements for the baby – two responses that increase the risk of early weaning.

The epidural drugs affect the baby as well as the mother. Since breastfeeding is primarily the baby’s job, newborns need to be awake and aware. Drugged babies have more difficulty recognizing and attaching to the breast, more sucking problems, and more bonding problems. Poor initial sucking may result in nipple damage – which is not a nice event in a place filled with unfamiliar and sometimes antibiotic-resistant germs.

Wiessinger says, “Mothers in our culture haven’t given birth since the early part of the 20th century. And no mammal who has birth taken from her goes on to nurse easily, or even to mother easily. It’s not the breastfeeding that’s the problem. It’s the birth!”

-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
http://www.jeanniebabbtaylor.com/

May, 2052

“You’re fortunate to be living in this era,” says Nonna, brown eyes twinkling above the dimples in her wrinkled cheeks.

Rachel sips at the red raspberry leaf tea, the cup clinking against the saucer as she sets it down to respond. Her grandmother is already talking again. “When I gave birth to your mother,” she goes on, “I was not allowed to eat or drink.”

Rachel’s eyebrows shoot up. “The whole time?”

“That’s right. Back in those days, all babies were born in hospitals – even healthy babies. Laboring mothers weren’t allowed a single sip of water. I was so thirsty my tongue was swollen and sticking to the roof of my mouth. After many hours, I was given ice chips, but even that was taken away when I was caught swallowing some of the ice to stave off the gnawing hunger.”

“That’s horrible,” Todd interjects, dropping down to perch on the Victorian loveseat beside his wife. “Having a baby is like . . . running a marathon. What athlete would attempt such a feat dehydrated on an empty stomach?”

Nonna chuckles at his analogy. “You’re right, of course. But you see, laboring women were not treated like athletes. We were treated like sick patients, like there was something wrong with us. According to the doctors, our ‘condition’ was best treated with narcotics, opioids, and surgical intervention. By 2005, the c-section rate went through the roof, with nearly one out of three mothers sliced open for delivery. From the doctors’ point of view, laboring women were all potential targets for expensive surgery. That’s why they starved us.”

Rachel scowls, rubbing puffy hands over the swollen full-moon belly. “But labor can go on for hours -- or even days,” she notes.

“Especially when you’re lying down with feet in stirrups, pushing uphill,” the old woman acknowledges.

“That’s absurd,” Todd murmurs. “Why not let gravity work?”

Rachel shakes her head. “That position was designed to benefit doctors, not women”

“You’re right,” Nonna answers. “It placed us at a great psychological disadvantage, too. It allowed medical staff to treat us as objects, paying attention only to the ‘business end,’ as if we had no face, no heart, and no mind.”

“I’m so glad no caregiver would think of using stirrups today,” Rachel sighs, rubbing her belly again. “It’s a wonder women were able to push at all.”

“The doctors had ways of speeding up labor artificially,” Nonna answers. “But the drugs sometimes caused uterine rupture, killing the baby or causing permanent brain damage.
One drug, Cytotec, was not even FDA-approved for obstetrical use. Eventually they had to stop using it.”

Rachel smiles, her face transformed. “So they went back to the natural ways?” she guesses.

“Not at first,” her grandmother answers. “At first they skipped the contraction drugs and resorted to the knife much sooner.”

Rachel looks down, distracted for a moment by the contracting of her own womb. “I’ll go heat the rice bag,” Todd offers, trotting to Nonna’s kitchen with the hand-made cloth pouch. Nonna watches him round the corner, thinking how glad she is for Rachel.

At last Rachel’s attention comes back to her grandmother’s wizened face. “Why did the women allow it?” she asks.

Nonna sighs, holding out empty hands. “We just didn’t know better. Our own mothers were knocked out for birth. We thought we were making progress just by being awake. Some women realized things should be different, but it was a constant fight. I chose a hospital that was supposed to be supportive of natural birth. They still pulled the ice chip stunt. Before I registered, they said they allowed ‘rooming in’ so I would not be separated from my baby girl. But right after birth, they whisked her away! I begged for her, but they kept her ‘under observation’ for four hours. They also gave her sugar water against my wishes, and pushed to inject her with vaccines just hours after birth.”

“That’s horrid,” Rachel clucks. “Why didn’t women just stay away from hospitals? Have their babies at home?”

“Well, in Georgia it was illegal.”

Rachel laughs. “How can birthing a child break a law?”

“Oh, it was not homebirth that was prohibited, so long as we did it alone! It was homebirth midwives they outlawed.”

“So women could birth at home – but only without help?”

Nonna nods. “Things were different back in 2007 when your mother was born,” she says. “For one thing, 8 out of 10 lawmakers were men. There had never even been a woman President. Women only earned 70 cents on the dollar. We didn’t have the kind of power you gals have!” She beams at her granddaughter, so young and confident. “My next child – your Uncle Tim – was born at home with an ‘illegal’ midwife.”

“Wow,” Rachel whispers, throwing a glance at Todd as he tucks the warm rice bag into the small of her back, “There was a black market for midwifery?”

“Certainly. There were always women who refused to be mistreated, and there were always midwives willing to skirt the law to give excellent care. The legal risks were high for those midwives. Once in a while, a baby dies during birth. It happens sometimes, no matter where women give birth. In a hospital, these deaths were considered a statistical eventuality. In the early 2000s, no one was charged for hospital deaths, even when the damage was clearly caused by uterine-rupturing drugs or overuse of pain-killers. It was extremely rare for a baby to die in a homebirth setting -- but when it did happen the midwives were charged with manslaughter. In other cases, overdue women were jailed for refusing to have a c-section. It was actually against the law to disobey a doctor’s orders! Eventually it was the women who turned the tide.”

“Through lawsuits?” Todd guesses.

“That was part of it.” Nonna nods thoughtfully. “The studies showed clearly that it was doctors’ drugs and fasting that caused most of the ‘danger signals’ (like blood pressure drops and changes in babies’ heart rates) that led to the c-sections. But that went unreported for twenty years! It was not until women stood up for themselves that things changed. Women reporters talked about the studies on the six-o’clock news. Women journalists wrote about the prohibition of home midwifery and the barriers to natural childbirth. Women doctors watched the signs instead of the clock. Business women opened natural birthing centers. Women were elected to office and they legalized homebirth midwifery in Georgia, and later nationwide. Most of all, laboring women refused to let their needs be sacrificed to hospital protocols and doctors’ schedules. We had to insist on change!”

Nonna sets down her teacup. “We insisted on dignity. We did not let doctors push us into inductions or surgeries just to accommodate their schedules. Women who still used hospitals refused the wheelchair and the gown that were presented at check-in. Women refused to be starved, or to have their veins punctured with unnecessary IVs. Mothers refused to let doctors break their waters or insert electronic monitors in the baby’s scalp. When we pushed our babies into the world with our own fierce power, then we refused to let them out of our sight.”

Nonna smiles. “Eventually even the medical community came to recognize that birth is an act of motherhood, not an act of medical science. Today a laboring woman is not regarded as a body on a table, as if she and the baby needed some doctor to ‘deliver’ them from each other. Today women are honored as life-bringers.”