Guest Blog from Birthing Utopia

Today I am sharing with you a blog post by another member of my community and her take on and role with Lactivism in 2011. Earlier this fall I attended a conference which took a look at Lactivism in Canada, the past, the present and the future.  It is an interesting subject.

Lactivism de-constructed, 2011

This year, in retrospect, has been life altering and huge in terms of identifying and developing my practice in the world of birth, birth advocacy, and making good arguments for women having babies on their own terms.

A few years ago, when I decided that I wanted to work in birth but not pursue it through the route of the nurse, I had also decided to venture into lactation as a possible profession. It had very little to do with my own adventures in feeding my kids. To be honest, there never really was adventure. It was mundane, really typical and I would say normal and natural to me. Not to say that I didn't fill my cup with ways to handle things and the stories of others. I went to La Leche League meetings with my second child, about 8 months after she was born - mainly, to connect with other moms and to see if lactation was something I'd like to develop that passion in.

It almost was an uphill battle to even get off of the ground with lactivism. Not necessarily an old boys club or exclusive, but guarded in the community being that it is a precious commodity. That seems really odd, saying that lactivism and milky helpers should be guarding their world and protecting the practice. Exclusion reminds me of the sand box.  It also felt as though the old guard was almost discouraging a freshie perspective?  Or that it would take too much time to open the wing?  I don't know, I spent a lot of time de-constructing what went wrong because I am a sensitive person, and I really thought I had found a good fit, and a place that needed more help.  Maybe it was timing, my approach, or just the fact that I truly wasn't ready like I figured.

Off I went, back to my career and looking for another rainbow to chase. I really thought it was and is best practice to just lay back and support the mother who does either. Amongst my peers were many mothers who did not nurse their babies for various reasons. I even became turned off by lactivism for a short while. It seemed mean spirited, and I saw an upper crust and consumerist element to nursing babies. Snobbery? Perhaps, but a barrage of "breast is best" mixed with the angry hipster mom-blogger rants and I really felt like I wanted nothing to do with lactivism.  I felt like I would fit into a moderate group of mothers better, all things considered.  It's not like I lived my life with my breasts out and a perfect-mom badge anyway, right?  (Lactivists are truly hairy-armpitted, broom skirt-wearing Ina May wannabes right?  right?)  I felt like my voice carried no weight, and that I should go back to my little house in north central Regina and my dented SUV and 9 to 5 job.  To stop worrying about the outside world because mine was truly "fine".

(This is really quite interesting to blog, because in retrospect I was still nursing my toddler. With much less enthusiasm at that point)

So, then we enter into the midwifery activism and birth community rhetoric again.  So - I wasn't necessarily lactating or living my suburban iPhone life anymore.  I was a card carrying pregnant hipster now.  I was being denied home birth (then awarded it and then denied again), and listening with intent to the stories and experiences of other mothers. I also started to delve into marketing practices and my tune was changing.  I had received exactly two cans of free formula in my previous pregnancy, and it really bothered me to know that not only could that happen again to me, but that somewhere in my own neighborhood was a desperate mom, at 3 am, who cracked the can instead of looking to more support.

I really wanted to just "get mad", but it became so obvious that guilt was really interfering with the ability to fully rage. I didn't want to make my friends feel guilty or obligated. I didn't want my family to pay for their comments and looks and energy. Even though I have been vocal about how it hurts - in the end I have to respect those around me.  Even though not only had I never really quit being a lactivist, but I continued to post links and pay for it with long, drawn out strings of comments.  I had to be careful and be respectful of those around me, on my OWN social networking pages.  You can avert your eyes from a nursing mother in a shopping mall, but I guess you can't look away from the nagging article popping up on your facebook feed.  I'd pass up many opportunities to share stuff, but I never stopped clicking and reading beyond the rhetoric and drama.  It's never about our own experiences, yet every single blog and news article about feeding babies turns into "this was my experience, so there".  I don't want it to be about that, so respectfully slowed down and internalized more of my thoughts.

But I do NOT have to be a respectful consumer. It is within my right to demand quality products in my marketplace. It's within my right and I would think that on behalf of my fellow mothers who both nurse and use formula that it's a duty to expose awful marketing.

The other practice that is true to me is the practice of sustaining relationships with our babies. Our instincts to parent has already been handed to our health care professionals and dr. Google - so, how are we to know how to relate to our babies? Even our lactation instructions are muddled and confused. I love my midwife, but I was so flustered when she said I needed to pump engorged breasts that I totally ignored my own 3 year old who was really quite skilled at emptying her mother's breasts!

I hear many stories from mothers who don't know what to do. They are tired, frustrated, hurting... The answer is often complex or directed away from nursing. To one health professional their child is at risk of losing precious time and health without formula, to the next the answer is supplementing. But rarely is donor milk ever considered or suggested. This leads mothers to milk sharing networks and begging their lactating friends to don pumps and containers. And non stop doubt and guilt floats around her in the air!

Lactivism, to me, is about preserving a normal practice. Since when did the 24 hour drugstore or free backpack of coupons and powdered substance replace calling a lactation professional? There are card carrying women right down the block from most of us with breasts and some of them may be carrying a precious commodity. In a perfect world, we'd be more interested in milk donation and protection of the normal function and less concerned about bothering others for help.

I'm asking and begging of those who are reading to NOT comment on why they couldn't breast feed. Your story is important to mothering pedagogy, however this isn't about that. That's in the past, and it's done.

This is about moving forward from this day, this moment in 2011 and looking at what our new world citizens are being offered as nutrition when you consider what the alternative is. To one mother, it means asking her fellow women to spend 20 minutes to help her fold laundry so that she can sit down to feed her baby. To the next, it means dropping off a warm meal and a bottle of breast milk to her sick newborn. Maybe it just means leaving your phone turned on at night so that she isn't crying alone. Or, lending her $40 to hire someone to come and help.

In any case, 2012 is the year that you can lactivate. You don't need a drop of milk to ever have left your chest. You could be a husband or father, son, cousin, neighbor or stranger. It might make a difference to someone you love, today or 30 years from today.

That is what I do... It isn't making me millions, but I would say that every blog post, comment, and thought ripples and reverbs somewhere. It's not a simple solution, and there is no answer to formula that is easy. To say to someone that it's okay to have a choice... Well, choice isn't fair when you can't choose the safety in what you are putting into your child's mouth. It's not a supermarket of health out there in Similac land. Those milking cows aren't the same ones you see munching on grass behind a barb wire fence.

Yes, we have to do what we gotta do. But if you can do it with style? With grace? With afterthought? And most of all, without guilt. That is why I lactivate.
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World Breastfeeding Week October 1-7, 2011

In Canada World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated in October, specially for 2011, we will celebrate October 1st-7th.

World Breastfeeding Week is an international event with the purpose to promote, support, encourage and celebrate breastfeeding at the local, national and global levels. Breastfeeding leads to improved health of mothers and babies around the world.

This years theme for World Breastfeeding Week is "Talk to Me! Breastfeeding - a 3D experience". This theme focuses on cross-generational, cross-sector, cross-gender and cross-culture communication which will encourage knowledge and experience sharing, which is vital part to protect, promote, support and celebrate breastfeeding.

In Regina we are going to kick off World Breastfeeding Week and celebrate breastfeeding together by participating in the Quintessence Foundation Breastfeeding Challenge. The Quintessence Breastfeeding Challenge started in 2001, in British Columbia, Canada, with 856 babies and their mothers at 26 sites. In 2010 there were 4,373 children at 216 sites in 18 countries who took part. We had 18 babies latched on in 2010 in Regina and I KNOW we can beat that this year.

Mother's and babies, along with fathers, partners, children, grandparents and other supporters will gather in celebration, support & promotion of breastfeeding this Saturday, October 1st @1030, in the Cornwall Centre, outside the Bay entrance, by the statues. We will officially "latch on" at 11am. We are pleased to have displays, time to share stories, door prizes, refreshments and snacks, and activities for children.

You can view more about the Regina event on Facebook at Quintessence Breastfeeding Challenge Regina
You can also look for additional sites at the Quintessence Foundation registered sites page.

I look forward to seeing many mama's and babies and those that love and support us.

Also, please use this location to share your experiences with breastfeeding, keeping in mind the theme:  cross-generational, cross-sector, cross-gender and cross-culture communication to protect, promote, support and celebrate breastfeeding. Share the good, the bad, the ugly, the truth, the joys, the benefits, the struggles, the help, the support, share it all.

Benefits to Breastfeeding?

We hear all the time about the benefits of breastfeeding. A benefit by definition is something that is advantageous or has an advantage over something else. This language leads to the thinking that breastfeeding is better than "something" else. Now, in North America and most of the world, that something else is infant formula or artificial infant feeding. Again this language suggests to us that formula is good and acceptable but breastfeeding has advantages and benefits.

Is this how we should be thinking about breastfeeding? I would like to challenge that we should be changing this language, as language affects perceptions strongly. Is breastfeeding not what humans, like all mammals, are biologically programmed to do? Breastfeeding is the normal. If this is the case, how is it that something else has replaced the normal, expected biological act of infant feeding to the point that artificial feeding is the norm and it is an advantage, a bonus of sorts, to breastfeed?

I suggest it is partly to do with language. Be aware there is a multitude of factors that has lead to this normalization of formula feeding but right now I will focus on the language aspect. If I want to focus on language and I want to switch the normals around, so that breastfeeding is the normal, I now need to substitute the opposite from advantage or benefit to describe what the impact of not breastfeeding would be. What would be a word to describe an act that is the opposite? Harm, risk, disadvantage, damage, injury; these all could be used.

If we Google the benefits of breastfeeding we find lists that include concepts like:

•Higher IQ in breastfed children
•Higher visual acuity
•Breastfed babies get fewer ear infections
•Breastfed children are less likely to require tonsillectomies
•Breastfed babies have fewer and less severe upper respiratory infections, less wheezing, less pneumonia and less influenza
•Breastfed children may have lower cholesterol as adults
•Heart rates are lower in breastfed infants
•Less diarrhea, fewer gastrointestinal infections in babies who are breastfeeding
•Six months or more of exclusive breastfeeding reduces risk of food allergies
•Less risk of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in adulthood
•Breastfeeding decreases the risk of childhood cancer
•Reduced risk of getting diabetes
•With less salt and less protein, human milk is easier on a baby's kidneys
•Fewer urinary tract infections in breastfed infants
•Less allergic eczema in breastfed infants
•Breastfed babies are leaner at one year of age and less likely to be obese later in life
•Less constipation; stools of breastfed babies have a less-offensive odour

Sounds good doesn't? Why would I think this is a not a great thing? Well, simply because when we change the language it looks a little ridiculous and raises questions for me.

•Higher IQ in breastfed children. Are humans intended to normally have a lower IQ?
•Higher visual acuity. Are the majority of humans born to need glasses?
•Breastfed babies get fewer ear infections. Are children expected to have ear infections?
•Breastfed children are less likely to require tonsillectomies. Were we given tonsils simply so a surgeon could remove them?
•Breastfed babies have fewer and less severe upper respiratory infections, less wheezing, less pneumonia and less influenza. Should children struggle with infections, breathing difficulties and influenza?
•Breastfed children may have lower cholesterol as adults. Are adults expected to have high cholesterol?
•Heart rates are lower in breastfed infants. Are infants expected to have high heart rates?
•Less diarrhea due to fewer gastrointestinal infections in babies who are breastfeeding. Are we expecting children to have gastro issues?
•Six months or more of exclusive breastfeeding reduces risk of food allergies. Do we expect humans to be allergic to common foods?
•Less risk of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in adulthood. Do we expect most adults to develop bowel illnesses over time?
•Breastfeeding decreases the risk of childhood cancer. Is it normal for children to suffer cancer?
•Reduced risk of getting diabetes. Is diabetes another expected illness?
•With less salt and less protein, human milk is easier on a baby's kidneys. Is human milk easier?
•Fewer urinary tract infections in breastfed infants. Do we expect to see children with UTI's?
•Less allergic eczema in breastfed infants. Is eczema a normal infant allergy?
•Breastfed babies are leaner at one year of age and less likely to be obese later in life. Is the normal to be less lean and possibly obese?
•Less constipation; stools of breastfed babies have a less-offensive odour. Are babies expected to be constipated and have offensive odours?

With the new language these concepts could read

•Lower IQ in artificially feed babies
•Poorer visual acuity in artificially feed babies
•Artificially feed babies suffer more ear infections
•Artificially feed babies are more likely to require tonsillectomies
•Artificially feed babies have more occurrences and more severe upper respiratory infections, more wheezing, more pneumonia and more influenza
•Artificially feed babies may have higher cholesterol as adults
•Heart rates are higher in artificially feed babies
•More diarrhea and more gastrointestinal infections in babies who are artificially feed
•Six months or more of non-exclusive breastfeeding increases risk of food allergies
•More risk of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in adulthood
•Artificial feeding increases the risk of childhood cancer
•Increased risk of getting diabetes
•With more salt and more protein, formula is harder on a baby's kidneys
•More urinary tract infections in artificially feed babies
•More allergic eczema in artificially feed babies
•Artificially feed babies are heavier at one year of age and more likely to be obese later in life
•More constipation; stools of artificially feed babies have a more-offensive odour

These lists are not exhaustive by any means and there could be pages more to add to the both lists depending on the language and concepts we were choosing to use, such as the impacts breastfeeding or not has on the mother herself. I was simply highlighting some examples to show how the use of language is powerful and influences our perceptions of what is normal, what is acceptable, what is beneficial and what is risky.

I encourage you to keep this idea in mind when you are speaking to future parents, parents to be, parents, grandparents, health care providers, anyone you are discussing infant feeding practice with.

Good Enough

In the area of breastfeeding support, education and advocacy often times those of us in this line of work are assumed to be anti-formula and not willing or unable to support the formula feeding families. People are often shocked to find out this is not actually the case, or at least not always the case.

More and more within the education and work I do, we are discussing the non-breastfed baby. As we learn more about breastfeeding, we learn more about babies, mothers and families and the needs of babies, mothers and families.

One of the most recent headlines that started a discussion between myself and a couple of friends was that breastfeeding has a positive effect on the mental health of children and adolescents; in fact the longer the child is breastfeed the more significant the benefits are. Interestingly, in this information released was the need to look at how the non-breastfed baby can be given similar benefits.

To do this we need to ask, what is it about breastfeeding that makes for this benefit? Is it the “milk” factor? We know that the fatty acids and other non-replicable components in breastmilk are great for brain development and growth and those hormones like leptin protects against stress in infants. What about the attachment factor? We know that breastfeeding mothers look into their baby’s eyes more, they touch their baby’s more, there is more skin-to-skin contact and in fact breastfeed babies have a stronger relationship with their mothers than anyone else. Breastfeeding is a relationship builder between an infant and its mother. It is the first secure, attached relationship that a baby learns to trust. Healthy secure, attached relationships have been shown to be have a positive effect into adulthood. Are there other factors to explore yet?

We can see that it is potentially a combination of factors that lead to this finding and benefit. Exploring the factors, I am able to answer the questions that arise from the mothers that are not breastfeeding when they see a headline like “Breastfed babies have fewer behavioural problems”. They do have honest questions of “What about my baby? Breastfeeding did not work for us.” (we do not need to get into the why it did not work here). They ask to be supported as equally as a breastfeeding mother would be or sometimes they do not ask at all because they fear the reaction. They might expect to see an eyeroll when they say they need to be supported as well. They may be unsure of what reactions they will get. They may expect to hear someone say if you would have tried harder you could have breastfeed or hear the stat of how many mothers truly physically cannot breastfeed. So well this *might* be true, it is sometimes too late for that information. Can giving that info for future babies or other people they might support later help, yes, indeed it may, but it does not answer the questions that she is asking right now; the question of what about my infant that I am not breastfeeding right now.

I want to reassure these mothers that it should not be an eye roll and they deserve the information and support they need at that time. To these mothers, I say, goodness, if *I*, the one who will not say that formula feeding and breastfeeding are equal or that we should not continue the work we are doing for breastfeeding globally to have higher rates, longer durations, etc, can say that we still need to educate and support these mothers on infant feeding then more people should be able to see that. Like I mentioned, it may not be all about milk. Certainly, when you place breastmilk beside formula there are vast differences, that science cannot be disputed and formula companies will never come close to replicating breastmilk. Does that mean I would be happy if all babies had breastmilk from a bottle and were never at the breast, never held for feeds, never caressed by its mother? Certainly not. We need to educate society about the ACT of feeding infants and caring for our infants and the impact of these actions, good and bad. A question that serves food for thought that looks at just this idea; "If you had to choose one of these options, which one would you choose? 1) Would you breastfeed with formula being the substance that came out of your breasts or 2) Bottle feed breastmilk?" More questions arise around the impact of pumping breastmilk and bottle feeding vs feeding directly from the breast. Every mother will answer these questions in their own unique fashion, based on their experiences, education, situations and perceptions.

Existing are the ideal, perfect breastfeeding relationships and co-existing are the handfuls of many "good enough’s". Good enough is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be a place of peace and harmony for those mother-baby dyad’s. Do I strive for 100% of the parents I help to have the best, most wonderful breastfeeding relationships, or can it be "good enough"? It would be so wonderful and we would all be fortunate to get to 100% but is that realistic? For now, good enough is acceptable for me when it is the choice the parents. We get there when parents have been supported and educated in the decision making process, as all parents should be. It might mean breastfeeding solely, artificial feeding or mixed feedings, it might be direct breastfeeding, it might mean pumping and bottle-feeding. Every families good enough will always look different.

Where we fall short, I feel is in doing this role of educating and then supporting, period. This is where I think “good enough” is not acceptable. This is where we need to improve and this is where I plan to focus.

Kim Smith