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?

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

Linda Hirschman is (apparently) meant to be an important feminist, so how on earth can she answer a question like this???:

FARABEE: What about those who say raising children is the most important job a person can do?HIRSHMAN: I have no idea what they mean by that. If, in fact, it were the most important thing a human being could do, then why are no men doing it?

Wouldn’t a feminist argue against the idea that jobs are only important if men do them too?  Or have I got the wrong idea about feminism?  Read the whole article here.  I just don’t understand how people can think that society and, therefore, the world will continue if people don’t choose to spend their time parenting.  We can already see the disasterous consequences of so many children being farmed out way too young to day-care, and yet people still refuse to recognise that parents are the best people to bring up the next generation.  If we continue this way, society will collapse because it is parents who instill morals into their children, *not* nursery nurses (childminders/nannies etc.).  And anyway, as one commenter on the Hathor’s blog quite rightly says, women do most of the parenting because it’s women who have uteruses and breasts, not because men consider it beneath them!  (ok, I’m sure a lot of men do, but there are more and more men choosing to become stay-at-home-dads so it’s clearly not all men who think parenting is ‘womens’ work’!).

 HT: Hathor

What a lovely, refreshing article to read.  I have nothing to say, really, about it except that I hope it gets a positive response.

HT: Carlotta

Hathor’s reaction to the boredom article in cartoon format, although she’s got much more to say on the matter on her blog, here and here.

And a wonderful explanation of how we ought not to be answering the socialization question with ‘they go to five different groups a week, we go to friends houses…’ etc.  I’m really pleased I came across this - I just hope that I can manage to answer such questions in this way without sounding facetious!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=397672&in_page_id=1770

I don’t know what to say - poor her!  Her poor children!  I found this article insulting, but I’m not sure why - maybe because it implies that only dull, unintelligent women can find motherhood fulfilling?  I don’t have a problem with her not enjoying it (apart from the effect on her children, but you can’t make someone enjoy something - hopefully her children will not feel too rejected by her :-(), we can’t all enjoy everything!  I agree with her that training for years for a professional career spoils women for the joys of mothering to a certain extent - but it certainly doesn’t do that for everyone.  A huge number of my mother friends are highly intelligent women who have degrees and have had professional careers and they all genuinely find motherhood enjoyable and fulfilling.  Of course, mundane day-to-day housework is boring - no one denies that - but a lot of it can be made more fun if only one can let oneself enjoy it.  If you spend the whole time going ‘oh no!  this is so dull!  how can I continue doing this?’, there is no way you can enjoy it.  If, on the other hand, you are an optimistic person who tries to make the best of things who has a bit of an imagination, it’s easy to find enjoyment in mundane activities.  (or maybe I’m just dull and unintelligent!).  On top of that, it’s actually good for children to be bored - who doesn’t remember the best games they had as children being invented after a protracted period of ‘I’m bored, Mummy!’ whinging?  In my opinion, it’s fine to spend some parts of each day getting on with your own thing - reading, washing up, whatever - as children seem to get more enjoyment out of games they’ve made up themselves than from anything we can make up for them!  I’m not going to go on any further, as I’ve already written a lot about my thoughts on this subject in my post about Rachel Cusk.  I will just say one thing though - why do these women have children in the first place?  If it’s because they think they might enjoy it then find out they don’t, why do they have more????????