I have been arguing for years that breastfeeding promotion in general, and the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) in particular, are both paternalistic and deeply anti-feminist. A paper published last ...
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Modern Alternative Mama and the ugliest parenting post I’ve ever read
Kate Tietje, Modern Alternative Mama, continues to publicly plumb the depths of ...
Pro Publica learns maternal mortality is a fundamentally different problem than it thought
In May Pro Publica, in conjunction with NPR, released a report on ...
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A feminist critique of breastfeeding promotion
I have been arguing for years that breastfeeding promotion in general, and the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) in particular, are both paternalistic and deeply anti-feminist. A paper published last year in the journal Midwifery provides a similar feminist critique. The paper is Infant feeding and maternal guilt: The application of a feminist phenomenological framework […]
Breastfeeding and marijuana
Would you let your baby smoke pot? This mother does: That’s what she is doing when she smokes pot while breastfeeding. Indeed, the baby gets a GREATER concentration of active ingredients than the mother does. The mother wrote: Need a safe place to share this beautiful picture … Perhaps the fact that she was high […]
Dr. Jack Newman, professional breastfeeding scold, strikes out
Adam Conover of “Adam Ruins Everything” recently released a video debunking claims about the supposed superiority of breastmilk compared to formula. It hilarious! My favorite line is “Formula has autism in it.” In the video, Courtney Jung, author of the book Lactivism, pops out of a can of formula to point out that there is […]
Who believes in quackery?
We are arguably living in a golden age of medical science. The great infectious scourges of history — smallpox, diphtheria, polio — have been nearly vanquished by vaccines. Previously deadly infections like appendicitis can be cured with surgery. Cancer and heart disease are yielding their secrets and conditions once thought to be due to sorcery […]
Modern Alternative Mama and the ugliest parenting post I’ve ever read
Kate Tietje, Modern Alternative Mama, continues to publicly plumb the depths of parenting insensitivity. She recently posted this about her oldest child and only daughter: Everyone has made SOME choice in parenting that they wouldn’t do again. My oldest is 9 (girl) and knows that she was born in a hospital and we ate junk […]
Pro Publica learns maternal mortality is a fundamentally different problem than it thought
In May Pro Publica, in conjunction with NPR, released a report on US maternal mortality that garnered a lot of attention. I criticized the piece for misrepresenting the problem. Pro Publica framed its story with the tragedy of a well off, healthy white woman who died of malpractice when the reality is that maternal mortality […]
Infant mortality, what’s breastfeeding got to do with it? Absolutely nothing!
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, or in this case, two pictures. To hear lactivists tell it, breastfeeding is lifesaving for infants and therefore, formula is deadly. Indeed, there are a variety of scientific publications that purport to show how many lives and how much money could be saved if more women breastfed […]
Gwyneth and her medi-shills strike back
Quacktress Gwyneth Paltrow has take PT Barnum’s advice to heart. Barnum famously said that you can’t go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Paltrow is channeling Barnum with her website goop and is laughing all the way to the bank. But not everyone is laughing with Paltrow. Some are laughing at her. Indeed […]
Long term neurodevelopmental outcome after neonatal dehydration
Insufficient breastmilk is a relatively common condition affecting up to 15% of first time mothers attempting to initiate and maintain breastfeeding. Lactation professionals are notoriously poorly informed about this risk of exclusive breastfeeding, many insisting that it is only the “rare” mother who has insufficient supply. Furthermore, breastfeeding professionals insist or imply that the benefits […]
Breastfeeding and “the science”
That woman is not too bright, sorry to say. She has no credentials, her sources are limited and biased, and she is obviously just trying to reason away her own guilt for not breastfeeding … No, that lactivist is not talking about me. She’s talking about Charlotte Faircloth, another professional who pointed out that the […]
Amy Tuteur, MD
Dr. Amy Tuteur is an obstetrician gynecologist. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1979 and her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine in 1984. Dr. Tuteur is a former clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. She left the practice of medicine to raise her four children. Her book, Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting (HarperCollins) is available 4/5/16. She can be reached at DrAmy5 at aol dot com... More
