Best for Babes

This CBS News video on the Challenges of Breastfeeding is wonderful in so many ways it is hard to know where to start.  Especially on the heels of our disappointment with ABC News, and more dirt on their ties with industry, I think it is really important to give a huge shout out to CBS for getting breastfeeding right, and giving moms a huge boost in beating the “Booby Traps.”  Below is what I like about the video; read to the end for the REAL punchline-I’m issuing a challenge!

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Here’s what I loved about the video right off the bat:

• The breastfeeding depictions in the opening help normalize breastfeeding in our squeamish culture. 
• Dr. Jennifer Ashton is attractive, sympathetic and articulate.   Her image can help give breastfeeding a makeover and make it mainstream.   Move over, Dr. Nancy Snyderman!    I love that Dr. Ashton shares that breastfeeding was challenging for her personally, and how she was much more successful with baby #2, just like most moms (but we hope that someday, baby #1 won’t get the short end of the breastfeeding stick any more, once the barriers are gone.)
• Ashton notes that breastfeeding is important for the baby AND the mother!  Yes!  Too often the focus is just on the baby, but moms get huge health and emotional benefits from breastfeeding too, and they are worth it.  Personally I have no problem with any mom who breastfeeds because it’s good for HER. 
• That delicious breastfeeding baby with all the hair!  Rooting away, sucking on Rosenfeld’s practiced finger, I was practically cheering that little babe on.
• Watching a master at work.   Expert lactation consultant (IBCLC) Freda Rosenfeld is the kind of LC I wish all moms had PAID, INSURED access to instead of some of the imposters out there.   What a great role model to expose the mainstream public to, when not enough mothers know about ILCA.org and how to find the right A-team to support them through birth & breastfeeding!  Rosenfeld was wonderful on camera, and a joy to watch.  I absolutely worship the true “Boob Whisperers” out there, and delight in how they handle babies and mothers with supreme knowledge, skill, intuition and love.  
• Lots of breastfeeding footage and even a little bit of nipple.   In the right context (think Salma Hayek or Angelina Jolie on the cover of W magazine); I have total faith that the American public can embrace breastfeeding in full view.
• Highlighting the uniqueness of every mom-baby breastfeeding experience.  Moms need to know to have no expectations, but to have the mindset that  breastfeeding is an adventure; and that as long as you are not being booby-trapped or have medical contraindications you will probably get the hang of it just like riding a bike.   Helping moms understand that they need to get help right away if they are having difficulty. 

There are some things that annoyed me like the heavy-handed focus on pumps and featuring a product made by a company that is not WHO Code Compliant, but I am not going to nitpick.  Overall the story was fantastic.

However, I fear that this video clip will not spread like wildfire throughout the ‘net and blogosphere.  Let’s face it, media coverage or blogs that stir up the mommy wars and send everyone into a tweeting, commenting, posting, judging frenzy generate a lot more hits and a lot more attention than an informative, positive, supportive view of breastfeeding.  But how can we encourage huge media outlets like CBS to get awesome messages about breastfeeding under the nose (literally) of the mainstream public if we only focus on the negative?   Just like in parenting, we need to provide MORE positive reinforcement.  So I am issuing a challenge to you:

Please write CBS and tell them how much you appreciate the fantastic video and what a great service they provided for mothers and babies.  Then come back and comment that you did it; then tweet it and facebook it!    I bet we can get 100 people to send them a letter.   If enough of us flood them with gratitude for this feature, maybe other media outlets will follow suit.   Are you listening, ABC News? 

By now you may have seen (and commented on) various responses to “The Case Against Breastfeeding” by Hannah Rosin in the April 2009 issue of Atlantic Monthly.  

You can read Best for Babes’ response on the Moms Rising website, and for a very good scientific rebuttal of Rosin’s article, read the blog by Tanya Lieberman, IBCLC.  Andi Silverman makes some good points, as do the Editors of a new book, “Unbuttoned,” that is coming out in April, and I’ve heard that several prominent M.D.s are working on responses as well.

Here is the American Academy of Pediatrics’ response:    

Letter to the Editor of The Atlantic (Submitted via email)

In the article, “The Case Against Breast-Feeding” by Hanna Rosin, the author skims the literature and has omitted many recent statements including the 2005 statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics which supports the value of breastfeeding for most infants. This policy references every statement with
scientific evidence from over 200 articles which meet scientific standards for accuracy and rigor. The statement was meticulously reviewed by the Section on Breastfeeding, the Committee on Nutrition and numerous other committees and approved by the Board of Directors of the Academy. Breastfeeding and Maternal and Infant Health Outcomes in Developed Countries, a study released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (the AHRQ Report) strongly supports the evidence of benefits demonstrated in the breastfeeding research. The evidence for the value of breastfeeding is scientific, it is strong, and it is
continually being reaffirmed by new research work.

The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages women to make an informed decision about feeding their infants based on scientifically established information from credible resources.

David T. Tayloe, Jr., MD, FAAP
President
American Academy of Pediatrics

As we mentioned in the blog on MomsRising, the AAP has no financial incentive to promote breastfeeding, the only motives that I can see here are to adhere to their mission and moral obligation, and retain the respect of the international medical, scientific and public health communities.   So I was thrilled when I heard that they wrote a letter to the Atlantic Monthly, and I am posting it so you can link to it easily as you respond to the different articles.   Go, AAP!

We also wish Rosin had seriously regarded this sentence from the AAP Policy Statement on Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk:

“Before advising against breastfeeding or recommending premature weaning, weigh the
benefits of breastfeeding against the risks of not receiving human milk.”

Let me just reiterate that Best for Babes believes no woman should be judged for her decision on how to feed her baby, and she deserves to have the best, evidence-based information to make and carry out that decision, free of undermining influences.

Well, neither did I, but I sure wasn’t going to tell anyone about it.   I suspect that there are many other women who feel the way I did.  I didn’t admit it to anyone because I didn’t want anyone hitting me over the head with the benefits of breastfeeding, telling me how long I had to breastfeed, or otherwise guilting me or putting on the pressure.

So we wrote a piece for our friends who don’t want to breastfed, and we hope you will tell us what you think.   It’s right on the home page of http://www.bestforbabes.com under “Inspire”. 

Check it out and let me know!

When we tell people we are in the boob business this is what we hear:   

1)   What’s the big deal?   Aren’t most moms breastfeeding? 

No.  Although 64% of new mothers try breastfeeding, only 14% make it to the minimum six months exclusive breastfeeding recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  Worse, most throw in the towel in the first few weeks.  Compare that to Sweden’s rates of 99% initiating and 79% nursing at 6 months, respectively, no wonder the U.S. has one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding among all industrialized nations.   Thousands of needless deaths, and billions in health care costs in the U.S. could be prevented by raising our national breastfeeding rate.  

Especially shocking is that breastfeeding rates actually declined from 70% in 2002 to 63.6% in 2006 following the Government’s $40 million ad campaign highlighting the risks of not breastfeeding.  This nearly invisible campaign was botched under powerful lobbying pressure from the formula companies-who increased their own advertising budgets from $30 million to $50 million while the ads ran.  To top it off, the government buckled to pressure and held back a press release on a major meta-study underscoring the risks of not breastfeeding (see below)-information that prospective parents DESERVE to have. 

2)  I wasn’t breastfed and I turned out fine.  

Another way of looking at this statement is to compare it to statements like “I didn’t wear a seatbelt when I was a kid and I turned out fine” or “I didn’t wear sunscreen as a kid and I don’t have skin cancer.” 

For the first example,  seatbelts, we all know by now that seatbelts save lives, mostly because of a brilliant ad campaign that drummed it into our heads, and statistics on crash fatalities involving seatbelts or lack thereof.  Luckily for the seatbelt campaign, there were various industries that benefitted from seatbelt laws: automakers that installed them meaning new cars had to be purchased, and law enforcement that could fine if people were not wearing seatbelts!    Most importantly, there were no industries that were lobbying against or advertising against wearing seatbelts, as it would be really bad public relations.   Not so for breastfeeding.   It gets lobbied against and combined marketing budgets total in the billions. 

In the second example, skin cancer, it’s somewhat like the first; we know frying in the sun without sunscreen increases the risk of skin cancer, and effective advertising campaigns combined with industries that stand to benefit made for a great combination in educating the public. 

But what if you add “yet” to the end of the sunscreen sentence?  “I didn’t wear sunscreen, and I don’t have skin cancer, yet”.   That’s really what we should hear when someone says “I wasn’t breastfed, and I turned out fine.”   You may be fine for now.  And we don’t want to scare anyone, but everybody is working really hard to sweep the risks of formula under the rug, and that is not right, or ethical.   Parents deserve to know what the risks are, so they can make the best decision for themselves and their families.   

So why do so many people seem “fine”?   Well, for one thing, most people are not aware of the risks of not breastfeeding, so they are not thinking, I have digestive problems, or allergies, or diabetes, and it could be because I wasn’t breastfed.   So when people say, “I turned out fine,” we try not to debate on an individual basis, because every person is different!   Some people we know smoked like a chimney their whole lives and never got cancer, but nobody would dream of saying “smoking is fine.”  

One thing people might want to consider is that times have changed.  Our immune systems need all the help they can get given an increase in environmental stress, overuse of antibiotics, increase in vaccines (and the autoimmune diseases that may be related to that).  While the previous generation may have turned out fine not so for this generation, that has drastically increased rates of obesity, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, allergies and autism, to name a few.   Our view is that babies nowadays especially need all the help they can get, and that means breastmilk, either from the mother, or screened, pasteurized, donated human milk.  

Here is an excellent summary* of the news release that was withheld under the influence of formula lobbyists: 

Breastfeeding reduces babies’ risk of these diseases by:

• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS):  36% 
• Type 1 Diabetes:  19-27%
• Type 2 Diabetes:  39%
• Leukemia (acute lymphocytic) :  19%
• Leukemia (acute myelogenous):  15%
• Asthma:  27%
• Gastrointestinal infections:  64%
• Lower respiratory tract diseases:  72% 
• Atopic dermatitis:  42%
• Acute otitis media:  50%

And breastfeeding reduces mothers‘ risk of these diseases by:

• Type 2 Diabetes:  4-12%
• Ovarian cancer:  21%
• Breast cancer:  28%  

*(from Motherwear’s breastfeeding blog,    “This information comes from a new meta-analysis (study of studies) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.   This study looked over 9,000 studies on breastfeeding from developed countries, weeded out the ones with poor methodology, and came up with an overall percentage for each one.  This is harder than it sounds because “breastfeeding” is defined differently in each study.”)