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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 11/05/2011 : 21:53:52
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Just read this post from the Skeptical OB from April of this year. It blew my mind. Apparently the declining rate of breastfeeding in this modern world did not happen because of the invention of formula, but rather, one of the reasons formula was invented was to help save all the kids who were dying due to the decline in breastfeeding.
This refusal to breastfeed, or to breastfeed exclusively, let to soaring rates of infant mortality because cows' milk was contaminated.
| ... The late.nineteenth.century urban milk supply killed tens of thousands of infants each year. Unpasteurized and unrefrigerated as it journeyed from rural dairy farmer to urban consumer for up to 72 hours. cows' milk was commonly spoiled and bacteria-laden. Public health officials dramatically charged that in most U.S. cities, milk contained more bacteria than raw sewage... |
In an effort to save infant lives, physicians and public health officials embarked on two parallel campaigns, the first designed to increase rates of exclusive breastfeeding, the second aimed at teaching women to pasteurize milk. |
Wow. Tons of women were actually opting to feed their kids spoiled and contaminated milk instead of breastfeed. Since I can't believe women then loved their babies any less than women today, I don't even want to imagine all the social and economic factors that played into such choices and outcomes.
This seems to illustrate pretty clearly two points that frequently go either unknown or understated:
1. breastfeeding is hard.
2. the structure of modern (industrialized, stratified, with sharp division of labor) society is particularly unaccommodating to breastfeeding.
Currently the WHO really pushes breastfeeding, but even hospitals in the United States don't follow most of the recommendations to encourage breastfeeding in mothers. Probably because many are impractical. This recommendation is #9 in their "fact file" (weird, since it isn't a fact, it's a recommendation. Argh.)
| WHO recommends that a new mother should have at least 16 weeks of absence from work after delivery, to be able to rest and breastfeed her child. Many mothers who go back to work abandon exclusive breastfeeding before the recommended six months because they do not have sufficient time, or an adequate place to breastfeed or express and store their milk at work. Mothers need access to a safe, clean and private place in or near their workplaces to continue the practice. |
Many affluent and developed nations can't provide this for all women. And many women in high-powered careers can't just take 16 weeks off and be a slave to the breast for 6 months. These recommendations seem too broadly applied, ignoring all kinds of factors that vary from class to class, culture to culture, and individual to individual. What a mess.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2011 : 22:38:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Since I can't believe women then loved their babies any less than women today... |
Are the stories true, that due to the high infant mortality rates back then, even people in Western countries refused to name their children until they were a year or two old? Maybe it wasn't a lack of love but a fatalistic resignation to apparent reality, coupled with an ignorance of germs and consequences (maybe it wasn't obvious that breastfeeding would help)? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2011 : 22:59:02 [Permalink]
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| When I read about the high numbers of women who died in childbirth before the dawn of modern medicine, I find myself wondering if that didn't greatly contribute to the dehumanization of women (things such as debating over whether women had souls.) It must have been very difficult for husbands to deal with the fact that their wives could die every single time they went through a pregnancy. Just like refusing to name kids is a way to emotionally distance oneself from very real and sad possibilities, I wonder if it made it emotionally easier on men to think of their wives as somehow less than themselves. It is sad that people so often emotionally distance themselves from people they care about and who might die, but it is something we often do. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2011 : 03:42:53 [Permalink]
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In Sweden, women can have up to 18 months off from work, with 75-80% of your original salary. While still being guaranteed to have their old job back when they are ready to start working. These 18 months can voluntarily be split up to equally between both parents, woman having 9 months off after the baby is born, and father the following 9 months (though such a long time for the man is very unusual).
That's what you get from having a commie/socialist state... |
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Hal
Skeptic Friend
USA
302 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2011 : 07:36:30 [Permalink]
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My wife breast fed all of our children for about two years. While she enjoyed the universal support of family and friends, it's simply a fact that this was a challenge for some people, my mother, in particular.
While my mother understood, intellectually, that it was the right thing to do, she had to deal with a generational prejudice against it. She grew up, quite literally "dirt poor", in rural Mississippi, where breast feeding was associated with "low-class" (i.e. African American) people. Moreover, any discussion of bodily functions was considered either obscene, or at least inappropriate in "polite" company (this is a woman who actually whispers the words "toilet paper," just like in the old TV commercial). To this day, I have no idea if I was breast fed myself, but I have to assume not. Although she was as supportive as she could be, she nevertheless expected the nursing to be a short-term thing, until we could ween the babies to formula.
My mother-in-law, on the other hand, had nursed all of her babies and wasn't burdened with the same kind of baggage. All the same, her support was problematic, because to her, the activity of breast feeding was wrapped up in a paradigm of motherhood that was didn't really apply to our generation -- girls marry at 16-17, start having babies immediately, and devote 100% of their lives to caring for their husbands, children, and homes. She unintentionally created a lot of stress for my wife, because when the usual problems arose (baby won't latch properly, breast infections, etc.) she had a tendency to assume that it had something to do with my wife's failure to adequately embrace her "woman's role."
Cultural prejudices can be overcome, but not always eliminated. Both of our mothers did what they could to support my wife, but it did seem strange to us, at times, that something as mundane as breast feeding could feel like such a radical departure from convention.
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2011 : 15:57:43 [Permalink]
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Hal wrote: | She grew up, quite literally "dirt poor", in rural Mississippi, where breast feeding was associated with "low-class" (i.e. African American) people. |
How times have changed. Today African Americans are much less likely to breastfeed, largely because breastfeeding has become something of a luxury. Lower class women tend to have to work, don't get as much time off, and tend to work in environments that aren't exactly accommodating to pumping. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Breastfeeding History
