I seem to often post about ‘wonderful’ new products that I think are a really sad indictment of parenting today. Here’s the latest one:
I often come across the belief that my passion for breastfeeding is just that - a passion, an interest, something I’ve enjoyed. But it’s not. It’s so much more than that. Breastfeeding is a desperately important social, political and economical issue and not enough people understand that. There are two good books I’d recommend people to read to illustrate this - The Politics of Breastfeeding by Gabrielle Palmer and Milk, Money and Madness by Naomi Baumslag (there are others on the subject but these, in my opinion, are the most succinct), but, if you don’t have time to read whole books, try this Guardian article for starters.
Try this:
Twenty-five years ago, when Dr Iqbal Kabir first came to work at this [diarrhoea hospital in Bangladesh], small babies were almost unknown as patients. Today, he says, infants make up as many as 70% of admissions.
The reason? Kabir shakes his head, and points to a poster on the wall above Eti’s bed. The same poster is displayed, many times, around the ward. It shows a baby’s bottle, with a big cross drawn heavily through it. The message is clear. “Bottlefeeding is harmful,” says Kabir. “Because bottlefed babies get diarrhoea, since their formula is mixed with dirty water and since their bottles are not sterile. Do you know how many breastfed babies are admitted here with diarrhoea? The number is almost zero.”
Or:
“The [artificial baby milk company] reps are very aggressive - there are three or four companies, and they come in every two weeks or so,” he says. “Their main aim is to recommend their product. Sometimes they bring gifts - Nestlé brought me a big cake at new year. Some companies give things like pens and notebooks, with their brand name on them. They try very hard - even though they know I am not interested, that I always recommend breastfeeding, still they come.”
Or:
“Nur has been fed on Lactogen [made by Nestle] from the outset, but his formula, she says, costs her and her husband Gias, who works in a mustard-dyeing factory, around 800 taka (£2) a week. And if that doesn’t sound much, set it against the fact that Gias earns only £6 a week. “We can’t afford it at all,” says Happi, shaking her head. “The milk uses up all our money.”
Or:
According to Save the Children’s report, infant mortality in Bangladesh alone could be cut by almost a third - saving the lives of 314 children every day - if breastfeeding rates were improved.
So it’s not just a hobby, it’s not just a whim of mine to support breastfeeding - IT SAVES LIVES!!! That’s why I’m passionate about it.
There is a charity task-force in the US set up to make sure that babies of disadavantaged mothers get the “the food to make it through their infancy healthy and happy”. Fantastic! They’re going to sponsor breastfeeding counsellors and supporters to help these mothers breastfeed their babies! Oh…no…I’ve got it wrong…they’re going to raise money to buy them formula milk! Of course! That’s obviously the best way to “make an impact on the lives of single mothers in the state of Wisconsin” - these “mothers will be able to sleep soundly knowing their newborn children will receive the formula they need to be healthy”.
The FSA have told artificial baby milk manufaturers that they are not allowed to put claims on their packaging that make the contents sound wonderful: Daily Mail article. What I wish is that every man and woman could read ‘The Politics of Breastfeeding’ and/or ‘Breastfeeding Matters’, and/or ‘Milk, Money and Madness’. It’s clear from some of the comments in response to this article, and from talking to everyone I know, that people really see breastfeeding as just a parenting choice, just like whether to use a travel system or a pram. But it’s so much more important than that - it’s not only important to the physical health of the mother and her baby/ies, but also the psychological health and, on top of all that, breastfeeding is a feminist issue in Western cultures, and a huge political issue worldwide. Breastfeeding campaigners are not, on the whole, trying to stop informed choice, or to interefere with people’s parenting choices, but trying to stop the artificial baby milk manufacturers from doing it! Maybe one day I’ll write a huge long post about this subject, but I’m working on the national NCT breastfeeding helpline this morning and may have to leap up at any moment to help a woman deal with the disasterous situation today’s mothers are in - being told to breastfeed but not helped to do so by her care-givers, and enticed away from it all by the baby milk manufacturers who have succeeded in making many mothers think that artificial baby milk is as good as breastmilk
People know me too well - I’ve been alerted to this story by no less than three people!!! However, it is ‘old’ news to me - I already am the proud owner of two knitted breasts. One is a caucasian skin colour, the other is blue and navy! My friend (another student BFC) has one that has a very unfortunately red nipple - ?very sore, ?thrush - who knows! I certainly wouldn’t want to use it with real life mothers - way too scary looking LOL!
The Daily Mail had this article yesterday. A snippet:
The report showed that the proportion of both primary and secondary schools deemed inadequate virtually doubled to seven per cent and 13 per cent respectively over the last year.
So essentially, what Ofsted are saying is that the Government is crap at ensuring that schools provide children with a good education and that the situation is in fact getting worse! And the Government think that they are qualified to interfere in home education???? If they can’t even ensure a good education in schools, how can they possibly think they’re going to be able to ensure that HE’d children will get a good education?
…perfectly illustrated by Allie. I’ve talked on and off about this subject throughout my blogging time, but to read an adult’s account of what they genuinely felt as a child trying to live up to expectations is so powerful - much more so than speculation about what our children feel when we praise them or label them.
Sorry! It’s for no reason other than that I’ve been focussing on birth preparation and NCT things. I had also been considering changing our blog rather dramatically, or maybe even closing it completely, but have decided against it. I’ve discovered the Baby Milk Action blog which is very useful and going straight onto my blogroll. Look at yesterday’s post on there for some information about the Body Shop/L’Oreal situation and Anita Roddick’s ‘interesting’ take on the situation - apparently, despite encouraging boycotts as a way of adding consumer pressure throughout her working life, she now says “…boycotts rarely work and the people you hurt are primarily the weak and the frail. And when all you do is boycott then there is no chance of getting a lever on the way the world is.” Isn’t it sad how nearly everyone seems to be prone to corruption when large amounts of money are involved, even when they’ve spent their working lives trying to prevent such corruption?
Mopsy is now sitting on my knee saying ’stop working, Mummy, stop working’ so I’ll stop writing now with a promise to try and blog more regularly again!
I’ve been on my workshop weekend, which was brilliant and the girls had a wonderful time with DH, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. I’m tired out though - concentrating for long periods of time is very tiring in a completely different way to the way caring for two children is. This morning I’m attending a coffee morning for the mums on the antenatal course I’ll be providing the bfing evening for, then this afternoon (DH’s day off today, btw), I’ll be working hard on planning an exercise I vaguely thought up during the workshop and needs rather a lot of work on it to make it do-able. I’m planning to practice it at my tutorial on Thursday evening, so that I can make any changes before the big day (which is next Tuesday). On Thursday I’ll be doing more class-planning, and on Sunday (the only other day I have a chance to work on things), I’ll be practicing the exercises on my guinea-pigs (DH, my cousin and my parents!). Then on Tuesday it will be last minute changes and that evening…eek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it’s not all over after that! I’ve got a 3000 word assignment to write based on how it all went after I’ve done it. So lots and lots of work to do over the next couple of weeks but, and it’s a but with a capital B, once I’ve handed that essay in THAT IS IT! MY COURSEWORK WILL ALL BE FINISHED!!!!
To change the subject completely: Carlotta has blogged about this particular ‘news’ item - internet schools. Now I’m not anti-tv or anti-computer - I’d prefer the girls not to spend a lot of time in front of screens, but we try to be non-coercive in our household so they watch/play when they want to in general (actually, they don’t really ask for either very much and have worked out for themselves a very acceptable level (to most parents, I imagine) of screen-time). But it really does worry me that these internet school-children are spending so much time in front of the computer - not because of it being a screen, or the lack of exercise (although those are reasons enough!), but because of the very well-documented effect on backs, wrists, necks, eyes, heads etc. of long-term computer work. This is usually talked about with reference to adults, who choose to do a job that involves a lot of computer time, and whose bodies are fully formed. Children’s backs are not fully formed, nor are any other part of their bodies - won’t the children who ‘attend’ this school grow up with serious back problems, short-sightedness, wrist problems, chronic headaches? And, worse than that, these children don’t get to choose to sit in front of the computer for hours on end, so they don’t have the chance to listen to their own bodies and do what their bodies are telling them. If my back/head/wrist hurts at the computer, I assume it’s telling me to take a break and I do. If I were at work, I’d go to Occupational Health, or get another job. If you’re an internet-school child you don’t have a choice and that really concerns me.
HT: Carlotta
Is it just me, or is Me Too! the most irritation and annoying pre-schoolers’ tv programme ever aired? Does anyone else find themselves saying ‘not particularly, thank you very much’ when mad Granny Murray says ‘And I expect you want to know all about what I’ve been up to today?’? And who on earth invented her bizarre and irrelevant sayings? The other day she told the market-stall holder “well, you know what I always say - ‘if you can’t bear the noise in the kitchen, move into the sitting room’”. But then, her sayings apparently always ’save the day’ according to whoever has left their poor child with this deranged woman for the day - “Well, I never did!” is always Granny Murray’s response, which is completely bizarre considering every day one of her random comments ’saves the day’ so why she is so surprised every single time one of her unfortunate charge’s parents arrives to collect them, I don’t know! Last week her wonderful saying (I sadly forget what it was now) caused the buffet-car bloke to make himself a kilt out of yellow dusters as his trousers had got covered with custard and he had to take them off! I can’t tell you how glad I am that Riverseafingal isn’t anywhere near me. So anyone else agree with me, or am I alone in my ‘Granny Murray is mad and annoying’ club?
