Breastfeeding
in a Bottle Feeding CultureBreastfeeding
in a Bottle Feeding CultureThe ghosts of declines in breastfeeding rates that were so pronounced during the 1950's and 1960's are stalking today's new mothers. The reason? The manufacturers of infant feeding products - infant formulas, bottles and nipples - are still unleashing their browbeating sales methods on pregnant women and new mothers.
Formula trafficking, which has taken on new heights as baby- friendly hospital and work place initiatives are evolving, has new mothers on the receiving end through direct mail, courier deliveries and even promises of free deliveries by the case load. Industry's latest chicanery, through the voice of ABC's 20/20, declared war on breastfeeding by claiming that new mothers are starving and damaging their babies because they are unable to adequately breastfeed. The price of such relentless and deceitful marketing is paid by new mothers, who beyond all else, wish to provide the best for their babies and find themselves struggling to breastfeed in a bottle feeding culture.
Before we had artificial milks, before we had bottles and artificial nipples, yes, there was breastfeeding. If women have breastfeeding difficulties today we have to place the blame squarely where it belongs. Who created the doubts about mother's milk? Who erased a whole generation of breastfeeding? Who bought medical complicity? Who financed maternities that separated mother and infant? Who corrupted the policy makers? Yes, they must be held accountable for the damage to children's lives and health. There can be no impunity for those culpable for one and a half million infant deaths each year and the many millions more who suffer from malnutrition because they were not breastfed. Yet the marketing continues.
Political decisions of no enforcement of breastfeeding protection and Code implementation dispossesses women and children of the supportive environments needed for healthy infant nurturing.
Breastfeeding women are faced with a barrage of bottle feeding imagery, assumptions and even medical standards. Dolls come equipped with bottles, books, films, TV programs rarely show women breastfeeding. Medically, breastfeeding efficacy is invariably measured by bottle feeding methods and outcomes. For example, quantifying baby's intake, or withholding breastfeeding to bring down bilirubin levels, or supplementing with glucose or formula to bring up blood glucose levels, assume the bottle feeding baby as the model of how breastfeeding works. Often these assumptions have disastrous results on breastfeeding success.
Programmes to "recreate a breastfeeding culture" continue to be necessary. Since the passage of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes , both the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF have continued to promote initiatives such as the Innocenti Declaration and the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. These programs reinforce the importance of breastfeeding protection. As well, international consumers groups - World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) and national organizations like INFACT Canada play a vital role in popularizing and implementing these global standards.
Such initiatives, while costly, remain essential as long as pernicious industry practices go unsanctioned. What can be done? Changing societal attitudes and governmental and institutional policies and practices are formidable tasks. First and foremost, the architects of bottle feeding as the norm must be stopped. This requires governments and health ministries to be convinced that breastfeeding is the best and normal way to feed babies and enshrine this into protective legislation that regulates the artificial feeding industry. Direct advertising to pregnant women and new mothers must be stopped. The media ads, videos, "nutrition" seminars affirming bottle feeding must be stopped. The free samples through mail, physicians and maternities must be stopped. The bribery to provide free supplies of artificial feeding products to hospitals with maternity services must be stopped. The subverting of health care workers with gifts, perks and money must be stopped. The cost of no action vastly outweighs the cost of regulation.