Breast Is Best But Formula Is Just Fine
June 28, 2010 3 Comments
Where is the line drawn between what is best for baby and what is good for his mama?
Kathryn Blundell decided to giver her baby formula, but not because she couldn’t breast feed. She did it because she thought breast feeding was “creepy” and she wanted to keep her “funbags” for her lover.
Can you be a good mother and still a happy woman?
In the article titled “I formula fed. So what?” the she defends her decisions to put the damage to her body before the benefits of breast feeding. It was published in Mother & Baby, the magazine where she works as deputy editor.
After nine months of denial, lardiness and bad shoes, as soon as the birth was out of the way I want my body back. (And some wine). Not that I had anything particularly useful to do with my body, except – paradoxically – care for my baby. I also wanted to give my boobs at least a chance to stay on my chest rather than dangling around on my stomach, which, after two pregnancies, still has ‘tonal’ issues of its own.
They’re part of my sexuality, too – not just breasts, but fun bags.
And when you have that attitude (and I admit I made no attempt to change it), seeing your teeny, tiny, innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before feels, well, a little creepy.
To anyone familiar with modern parenting, it will come as no surprise that she was thoroughly attacked by the breast is best crowd, although this is something she probably knew going in.
“This surely cannot be allowed, for a woman in her position to be so unapologetically negative regarding breastfeeding and generally spreading misinformation,” said one woman on Lactivist.
This might not be the ideal choice for the baby, but we need to respect that there is a woman attached to those boobs. Having spent the last nine months offering her body wholly up to motherhood, is it any surprise that she would want a break?
The baby might have grown inside of it but it is still the mother’s body. Why should she be forced into doing something “creepy” if there is a viable alternative? People often get sucked into parenthood and they forget that they are not just mom and dad but they are also people. Their little one might be the most important person in their family right now, but she is not the only person in the family.
The Milk Mafia can keep their guilt trips. Bullying other mums about something as special and nurturing as feeding their babies (and yes, bottle feeding can be lovely and intimate) is a depth that even Vicky Pollard wouldn’t sink to. So, let’s hear it, ladies, for modern nutritional science, but most of all for our freedom of choice.
And lets hear it for the moms willing to face the wrath of the milk mafia to defend the rights of women everywhere!
wow, what a shocking post from so called feminists. O_O
don’t have children if you don’t want to give them what is rightfully theirs. if you want to retain your bodily autonomy, don’t ever spawn any offspring, period.
offspring are ‘people’, people, not accessories that cramp your fucking style. if you wanna expose your child to the risks of prosthetic formula feeding when you can choose otherwise, then i pity your poor child who has more chance of cancer, amongst other nasties. formula is prosthetic when no other alternative is available. would you chop off your leg and attach a plastic one if it worked perfectly? if you lost your leg in an accident, a plastic one is a step back to ‘normality’.
bejeebus. learn about your bodies, so called feminists. learn about what amazing stuff your body makes. it is your milk, learn what it contains. i thought you people would be up on being knowledgeable about your womanly bodies? i thought remaining oblivious to what your body can achieve was something victim-pink-covered-damsel-in-distress-girlies are.
geez….
When I was born, my mother breastfed me. As a nurse, she knew breast is best, and what’s more she had an army of doctors, family members and magazines pressuring her to breastfeed.
Only problem is, I lost weight. She couldn’t figure it out, nor could the doctors, but that didn’t stop people from pressuring her even more. They tried to “show her how to breastfeed correctly.” Although she was eating healthily, they removed anything possibly allergenic from her diet, a regimen that left her weak.
By the third month, I was in the seventh percentile of weight for my age (and I weighed 8 1/2 pounds at birth!) I was sick all the time and some days I was hardly crying anymore.
It turns out that I am intolerant to breast milk. The doctors had sort of passed over that possibility when trying to figure out what my mom was “doing wrong.” Within a few weeks of starting formula, I was back on track.
Formula was created for a purpose, and in my case it worked — it kept me alive.
Rebecca, I’m not sure what you said has to do with feminism, but I’m sure glad you weren’t my doctor, ’cause otherwise I might be dead.
i think you did not read my post correctly paperboy. formula is a prosthetic. you were given a prosthetic. you are alive thanks to a prosthetic.