Michelle Obama & The "Choice" to Breastfeed

Michelle Obama is back in the news today after again bringing up supporting breastfeeding as part of her Let's Move! anti-obesity campaign. The first lady gave a speech at a Washington, D.C.-area child care center where she discussed five ways that childcare facilities can help reduce youth obesity and improve healthy eating habits. Of breastfeeding specifically she stated:

"And finally, supporting mothers who choose to breastfeed. Whether we do it in our workplaces or in our child care facilities, breastfeeding, as we have learned, is one of the ways to reduce the level of obesity in a child. The longer a mother can breastfeed, the better off a child will be on a whole range of health issues. And I know here at CentroNia that you all are working to make sure that mothers can bring their milk to their child on a daily basis. Those are the kind of things that workplaces -- that we all need to understand is an important part of a family's well being and a child's health."

You recall the controversy back in February, when Michelle Bachmann attacked the inititiave as Mrs. Obama trying to create a "nanny state" where women were forced to breastfeed. Of course this is ridiculous because no one can force you to breastfeed, but it only makes sense to educate and support women to be successful at breastfeeding. We have abandoned "breast is best," but of all of the options currently available, it is absolutely the best way to feed your baby.  Of course the reason why people don't like the "breast is best" slogan is because really, breastfeeding is the normal way to feed infants. It is the way babies are meant to be fed. Breastfeeding is a part of the pregnancy-birth continuum. You get pregnant, you give birth to the baby, the placenta is delivered, and your body makes milk.

So why all of this talk about choice? And why can't we just talk about breastfeeding, without singling the women out who do it as those who've made a decision to breastfeed? Isn't the real choice when (barring medical complications that make breastfeeding impossible) women bind their breasts and give the baby a bottle?

When the current Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin, released her Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding in January of this year with a live launch that was broadcast online, she also made sure to use the word "choice" over and over again. When the Obamas included a workplace pumping law into health care reform and when the IRS granted tax exempt status for breast pumps, it was so controversial that Mrs. Obama's communications chief released the statement, "Breastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman. We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it."

But is breastfeeding a personal choice? Isn't it just what mammals do after they've given birth? And for every woman reading this who is thinking, "I wasn't able to breastfeed because of ______" I totally understand that there will always be women who can't physically breastfeed. There will always be women with insufficient glandular tissue, or who have PCOS or had previous breast surgery, or need to take medications that aren't compatible with breastfeeding. But I don't believe that these women have chosen not to breastfeed, the decision was made for them because of forces outside of their control. I'm talking about a woman with fully functioning breasts who for whatever reason bottle feeds.

 If we keep talking about breastfeeding as a choice, does it make it more difficult for us to achieve the real societal support for nursing mothers? People are quick to say women don't deserve paid maternity leave, because after all they chose to get pregnant, no one forced them to. So why should there be accommodations for breastfeeding mothers who've "chosen" what many see as the more difficult path?

Is it just me or does it seem really strange to imply that breastfeeding is a choice?



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The Social Network

I’ve raved before about Brain, Child magazine. I really love it when it shows up in my mailbox and I usually sit down immediately and read it from cover to cover. This month there was an excellent in the magazine entitled, “The Village: How other parents influence your parenting.” As you may suspect, the influence of our communities is huge. Although many of us would like to believe that the way we raise our children is based on our own instincts, values and perhaps research and trial and error, you can’t deny that you are part of certain “networks” and that what is expected of you and your behavior can shift depending on which network you’re currently in.

The author of the piece, Jennifer Niesslein (who is also an editor of Brain, Child) talks about how we are all products of our villages, in part because we’ve chosen them (think about the neighborhood you live in, the church or synagogue you attend, the school you send your kids to) and in part because our friends and relatives have a lot of influence over how we think and behave. She uses a great example to underscore this idea, Lisa Whelchel. You remember when Lisa (Blair from The Facts of Life) wrote a parenting book that encouraged what she called “hot saucing,” or placing a few drops of hot sauce on your child’s tongue as punishment for things like talking back. In her conservative Christian network, this kind of discipline is perfectly acceptable. This is why that mother from Alaska felt comfortable going on the Dr. Phil show, where footage showed her hot saucing her children, and was shocked when she was subsequently charged with child abuse. While to those of outside this network this is obvious abuse, to those inside the network, it’s simply an authoritarian style of parenting, which is a good thing.

What about breastfeeding?

The entire time I was reading this fascinating article, I was thinking about breastfeeding and our advocacy efforts and how and when they are truly effective. Think about programs like the WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselors, which has shown time and again to drastically increase breastfeeding initiation and duration rates. It is obviously very powerful when a woman within your own network, especially if you are marginalized, has been successful at breastfeeding and can talk to you about the hows and whys. I was thrilled that when Niesslein spoke to social scientist Nicholas Christakis, co-author of Connected: The Surpising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, she specifically asked about how our views of breastfeeding have changed pretty drastically, in a fairly short period of time. Christakis confirms what breastfeeding advocates have been saying for a while: if your friends and family are breastfeeding, and you see it around you, you are more likely to do it yourself. This is why breastfeeding advocates encourage nursing in public, preferably without a cover, in order to normalize the act.

Interestingly, Christakis points out that top-down messages can work, but they really need the influence of friends to take off. So for example, you may read an article in the paper about a study that says breastfeeding is healthier for moms and babies or your pediatrician or even Oprah may convey the same message. However, you’re much more likely to pay attention to the message if a friend says, “Hey did you know recent research shows breastfeeding is best?”

Those of us with what social scientists call “high transitivity” are what social media folks call “influencers.” And if you’re the influencer in your network, if you breastfeed and talk about the joys of breastfeeding and nurse in front of your friends and family, they are much more likely to breastfeed too.


Negativity about breastfeeding online

As we already know, many women are living in communities separate from their family and long-time friends. In this day and age, a lot of women turn to the internet to find information and support, particularly on personal blogs and parenting websites. Although there are personal bloggers with a decent amount of “trust capital” and influence online, the websites with the most influence and high transitivity tend to be the major parenting sites. And a quick scan of them shows that most are much more likely to paint breastfeeding in a negative light than in a positive one.

Of course there will always be women for whom breastfeeding was not a good experience, and those women’s voices and stories are valid. But what happens to our breastfeeding advocacy efforts when the women who have a wonderful breastfeeding experience are made to feel like an anomaly and quickly learn to keep quiet lest they make anyone else feel bad, and the stories that get the most airplay are about how difficult breastfeeding can be? Today alone I found an article on Yahoo!’s Shine parenting website entitled, "Six Things No One Tells You About Breastfeeding.” The six things include “clogged ducts might haunt you” and “your body will not know how much milk to make.” That is reassuring.

Or how about a recent post on Babble’s Strollerderby blog, “I Quit Breastfeeding After Doing it in Public. Once” which describes a baby who “wouldn’t latch” for a mom who “had very little milk” (yet somehow still managed to get mastitis). This mom stopped breastfeeding and went to exclusive pumping for 4 months after a bad experience trying to nurse in public (no one harassed her, the baby just couldn’t latch on right and was crying). Every major parenting site, from Mom Logic to Parent Dish, has their own version of these horror stories and because they elicit such a huge response, they get run again and again.

Even the rare time when you find a positive article about breastfeeding, the comments section will almost immediately be derailed with a chorus of “not everyone can breastfeed!” and “I was unable to make any milk” or “all of my friends who breastfed have sick kids, mine have all been formula fed from the start and are the healthiest in the bunch!” The comments are so consistent that it’s almost eerie and the feeling you get is that no one wants to hear about how wonderful breastfeeding is.
So how can we, as breastfeeding advocates, combat the negativity? Is the online network becoming more influential than our real-life networks? And what happens when we’re getting polar opposite messages from our networks? As Niesslein states in the article, “It’s a little scary to think that decisions we consider our own can be swayed by people we don’t even know, especially when those decisions affect our children.” And what happens if we’re swayed to do things that aren’t best for our children, based on someone else’s bad experiences?




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New PETA Ad: It was good enough for Jesus

In the wake of the new study that shows that increased breastfeeding rates would save lives and billions of dollars, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has created a new ad to promote breastfeeding. "PETA?" you might be thinking, "why do they care, they don't have a dog in this fight?" But they do. See, PETA would like to see most of stop consuming dairy because of the horrible way dairy cows are treated. Since most infants are on a cow milk-based formula, increasing breastfeeding rates means less formula needs to be produced, means less dairy cows being milked to death on farms. Since Kentucky has the lowest breastfeeding rates in the US, this billboard will appear in Lexington, according to the PETA blog.  So what do you think of the ad?

 This is not the first time PETA has used such an image. They have a whole website dedicated to why Christians should be vegetarians, using Jesus' message of mercy and compassion for all of God's creatures.

Of course we all know PETA has an agenda and at the end of the day, they couldn't care less about moms and babies and the health benefits of breast milk to humans. They proved that when they suggested Ben & Jerry make ice cream out of breast milk instead of cow's milk.

So what do you think? Self-righteous? Annoying? Smart? I've heard religious people talk about how the idea that Jesus was breastfed makes them more comfortable nursing in church. But what will the average person make of this ad? How does it make you feel?

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