NATIONAL BREASTFEEDING WEEK
This week has been “national breastfeeding week”, which has seen a number of welcome initiatives, for example cafes like Starbucks having special sessions to make breast feeding mothers feel welcome.
Perhaps this is a good time to look at the issue, especially as I hear there is a dispute in the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) over this issue, that has reputedly led to several hundred resignations over the country. The NCT is an important charity that provides ante-natal classes, as well as breast feeding councillors, and generally campaigns for improved maternity services, this has also involved some very effective political campaigning to keep open mid-wife led maternity units, and promoting policies that reduce the number of clinical interventions, such as C-sections and forceps delivery.
Of course, the NCT are not the only charity active in their field, and the Active Birth Centre in London runs extremely effective ante-natal courses, and has promoted the work of the French obstetrician, Dr Michel Odent, author of the excellent book “The Scientification of Love”
Breast feeding has a number of known social and medical advantages. Babies grow faster, their immune system is strengthened, and they are more resistant to allergies, they bond better emotionally with their mother, they even learn to recognise their mother more quickly, and are generally healthier than bottle fed babies. Many mothers who breastfeed tell of it bringing great happiness, almost bliss.
But breast-feeding is hard. Not only is it a technique that needs to be learned, and that can be extremely painful, and defeats many mothers unless they receive expert support in the first hours and days. Also only the mother can breastfeed, which sometimes creates family tensions, and can make some women feel trapped by the situation. And our society doesn’t really value motherhood, and can stigmatise breastfeeding mothers (Remember Swindon MP Julia Drown being excluded from the House of Commons for breast feeding – hardly a good example being set!). Breast feeding also creates real difficulties when women return to work, as expressing milk to bottle feed a baby with breast-milk is socially awkward, and can lead to women being ridiculed, or feeling uncomfortable.
Another obstacle towards breastfeeding is peer pressure, and sometimes hostility to the idea from grandmothers and aunts who bottle fed, and feel implicitly criticised, and of course are unable to feel as involved as they cannot help to feed the new baby, while they could give a bottle.
The difficulty therefore is that while there is widespread recognition in the medical community and in welfare services that breastfeeding is better, our society places enormous obstacles in the way of women who wish to do so, especially women who need to return to work earlier, and working class women in general. For example, why doesn’t the NHS provide breast feeding councillors rather than the voluntary sector?
Women may therefore choose to bottle feed for good or bad reasons, and of course have a right to do so. The current controversy in the NCT seems to be that some campaigners want to take a more evangelical approach promoting breast feeding, and I hear that those who have resigned feel that there is an element of moralism and exclusion towards those who choose to use formula milk instead.
This is therefore an interesting question relating to the choices of individual women, but which have a wider impact on the well-being of their children and the over all benefit of society. The answer of course is that it must remain the individual choice of women, but that society should do everything it can to make that choice a free and informed one, and to promote breast feeding also requires much higher levels of payment during maternity leave, state funded breast feeding councillors, the legal requirement of public buildings to provide comfortable breast feeding areas, and the outlawing of all discrimination against women who are breastfeeding.
Excellent post andy. This is certainly an issue over which i have contradictory feelings. Certainly there is clear evidence of the benefits of breast feeding. There is also, however a great deal of popular mysticism surrounding child birth and a fetishisation of the natural. Witness, for example, the demonisation of women who elect to have c-sections, the whole ‘too posh to push’ issue. The reality is that natural childbrith can be extremely painful and can permenantly change crucial parts of the body in a way women may not desire. If they wish to look to less ‘natural’ options that is there perogative. The whole debate around child birth and the rearing of infants seems to be infused with a quite christian notion of virtuous suffering, a notion that women have an obligation to voluntary take upon themselves the pain inherent in their ordained role as mothers, and that those who do not are somehow rejecting those . And fighting for women to have control over their bodies also means defending those who do not choose to do things ‘the way god intended’.
Comment by Reuben — 16 May, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
sorry thats meant to say ‘those who do not are rejecting an aspect of their motherhood’.
Comment by Reuben — 16 May, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
The NCT is certainly evangelical about Breast Feeding,to the degree that non believers/practitioners are stigmatised.
They also pump out a load of pro home birth, anti doctor nonsense.
Comment by JIF — 16 May, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
I think this is an interesting topic.
But the solutions here are over-egged. The NHS do offer some guidance on breast-feeding (at least to me and my partner in Westminster) in the immediate prelude to and post the birth.
However, there is an issue here of the state and the NHS is the soft arm. I got really pissed off during pre-natal classes at a succession of vague assumptions that became cast-iron ‘facts’. For example, ‘natural’ birthing is best and so on. I felt rather drowned in all this.
I think people should be free to raise their child as they see fit. I don’t see that the state interrupting and doing this or that at whatever level achieves anything in terms of freedom and responsibility. In fact, I felt the NHS impeded our freedom and choice by drowning us in ‘implicit’ information. It’s not our state, after all.
Having watched a ‘natural’ birth and seen the pain involved I would now question those NHS staff who told my partner that she should try a ‘natural’ birthing option.
Also, I hate this idea we have to have counsellors for every little thing. It sounds like a Ray Bradbury story…
Comment by Lawrence Parker — 16 May, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
The thing is Reuben, that not all of the hippy stuff is bollocks, just becasue something is mystified doesn’t mean there isn;t a rational basis.
That is why I would recommend Odent’s book, that seeks to explain in scientific terms of hormones, senses and pschology those postive aspects of the natural birth movement, and seperate that away from the mysticism. The physical expereince of a natural birth does release a lot of hormones, (oxytocin in particular) that are highly beneficial in stimulating bonding with the baby.
At the moment women are not really given a free and informed choice, because they are under-informed about the negative consequences of epidurals, for example. And the increased incidence in C-sections is partly related to epidurals, and partly to what is convenient for the hospitals, especialy as they are under-resourced in terms of midwives. And of aourse a c-section is a major operation, and it is harder for mothers to cope with a new baby while recovering from a c-section.
And we still have the pernicious infleunce of American TV shows constantly showing women giving birh lying on their backs, instead of the much more comfortable and easier crouching position, which is preferred in many if not most NHS hospitals now (lying on your back is for the conventince of the doctors, and means you have to push the baby uphill)
Midwifery services are in crisis, and thatis one of the biggest failing of this givernment, despite the fact that the all party committee on midwifery servcies produced a brilliant report and recommendations a few years back that ostensibly the government has aopted, but has not funded or implemented.
Comment by Andy Newman — 16 May, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
Lawrence.
Breast feeding councillors are not there to ask you about your childhood and psychoanalyse you, they are there to show you the corrrect positioning of how the baby attaches to the nipple, how to hold the baby etc, so that breast feeding isn’t painful.
You are also wrong about the natural birth thing. Obviously it has to be a women’s choice how she chooses to have her baby, but generally the physiological, pschological and social benefits of natural birth are well-established, and the NHS does have a responsibility to provide that information. Especially as the pain relief options are often less effective than people expect, except for epidurals which open up a whole raft of other potential problems.
But the reason this is difficult is because at the end of the day, everyone’s choice is valid, if it works for them.
Comment by Andy Newman — 16 May, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
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Comment by Nina — 16 May, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
I think #3 is overstating the case somewhat. The home birth propaganda thing may be true but when we attended NCT classes 18 months ago we found that we were with a group of seven or eight couples of a similar age to us (mid to late 30s) and almost all of us having one partner at least who worked in the NHS- including a consultant surgeon (female) a senior manager, a physio, a radiographer, a couple of pathologists and humble old me (I work in medical education in an admin role).
No-one was in the least inclined towards home births, let alone mysticism (except, perhaps my hippy partner!). A few opted for a local midwife led unit, the others opted to follow standard medical advice for older first-time mothers and gave birth in hospital.
I can’t believe our profile is grossly a-typical of the usual NCT demographic…
Comment by RobM — 16 May, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
#8 I think one area that is problematic is that the NCT does reach older middle class parents rather better than younger parents and manual workers.
The take up from NHS ante-natal clases is also tilted towards older more middle class parents.
This is generally a problem that government attention should be given to.
Comment by Andy Newman — 16 May, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Oi! Who are you calling middle class?
Comment by RobM — 16 May, 2008 @ 8:49 pm
“But breast-feeding is hard. Not only is it a technique that needs to be learned, and that can be extremely painful, and defeats many mothers unless they receive expert support in the first hours and days”
Can’t quite agree with the comment (above). Breast-feeding is a lot easier that bottle feeding!! One - it’s free: formula always looked to me as overpriced rather dodgy gloop; Two - it’s cleaner: all that fuss and bother about sterilising bottles etc!! Three: It’s quicker - none of that getting up to heat the bottle in the middle of the night. I was an exhausted and rather lazy first time mother some years ago and found breastfeeding despite the sore nipples alot more convenient than the ghastly rigmarole of the bottle for all the reasons outlined above,and certainly less daunting.
Comment by Piccoli — 17 May, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
Picoli
I am glad you has such a positive expereince. From what i understand, the difficulty for many women is getting past the first hours and days, where if you don’t get the technique right it can be painful - hence the need many women have for support at that stage. obvioulsy some womnen have a positove expereince from day one.
Once past that, the advantages you list kick in for sure
Comment by Andy Newman — 17 May, 2008 @ 8:41 pm