I just came across a post on Reddit that perfectly captures the negativity about Fed Is Best (the Foundation and the philosophy). It’s entitled Sick of the negativity about breastfeeding.
The writer whines:
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Mothers should make feeding decisions based on infants’ need for food, not lactivists’ wish to be admired.[/pullquote]
This is a throwaway rant about how people who don’t breastfeed feel the need to constantly talk down about it, try to argue and minimize the health benefits …
I’m just sick of it. I worked HARD to EBF my 15 week old who wouldn’t latch. I pumped and tried a nipple shield in between. Met with LCs, had engorgement, nipple pain, etc…
I pushed through because BFing was something that was personally important to me…
I’m proud to say he’s been EBF for his entire life – a little over 15 weeks and I see no slowing down in sight. BFing is not for everyone and that’s totally fine but this is a personal achievement that mattered to me.
To understand just how obnoxious this is, consider a parent whining about other parents who send their children to community colleges:
This is a throwaway rant about how people whose children don’t attend prestigious colleges feel the need to constantly talk down about it, try to argue and minimize the benefits.
I’m just sick of it. I worked HARD so my children could get the best educations possible and sacrificed spending on myself to save for college.
I pushed through because my children getting prestigious degrees was something that was personally important to me.
I’m proud to say all of my children attended highly ranked colleges. The Ivy League is not for everyone and that’s totally fine for those who think community college is acceptable but this is a personal achievement that mattered to me.
Why is that so unattractive?
It reduces something that is supposedly a gift to your children to a personal triumph.
It negates the possibility that an Ivy League education is not right for every child.
It demeans the accomplishment of graduating from community college.
It is poorly disguised self-aggrandizement
The writer continues in the same peevish, small minded fashion:
Every time I go on /beyondthebump there’s post after post about the misery of BFing and god forbid you defend it. Same thing in real life with my friends who FF.
I am 100% in the camp of fed is best, IDGAF how you feed your baby but could you imagine if we crapped all over FFing like they do to BFing? We’d be accused of being sanctimommies who think they’re better than everyone else.
In short – yes I BF my baby, no I don’t care or judge how you feed yours but please don’t tell me I’m wasting my time and energy and share illegitimate blog articles trying to downplay BFing benefits.
That’s like:
I constantly meet friends who wail about being unable to afford high cost of prestigious college degrees for their children.
I am 100% in the camp of doing what you can afford and what you think your child needs; IDGAF where you send your child, but could you imagine if we all crapped over community colleges the way they disparage the Ivy League? We’d be accused of being sanctimommies who think they’re better than everyone else.
In short – yes I sent my children to prestigious colleges; no – I don’t care or judge settling for community colleges but please don’t share illegitimate blog articles trying to downplay the benefits of the Ivy League.
Ugly, right?
The hypocrisy of claiming that you are not disparaging formula while simultaneously implying it is inferior is totally lost on the author. The insistence that she doesn’t care how other women feed their babies when she is completely obsessed with how other women feed their babies is bizarre. And the way she turns the choices of other women into a referendum on HER choices is incredibly self-absorbed.
The author has what we might call in other circumstances a conflict of interest. She cannot look dispassionately at the risks of breastfeeding or the benefits of formula because her ego is involved. She wants to believe that her decision to breastfeed is heroic, even though it is basically irrelevant to the health and well being of her child. She needs other women to admire her for her heroism when they have as little interest in how she feeds her baby as in what car she drives.
Women who choose to formula feed have different priorities than those who insist on breastfeeding despite the fact that their child is starving and they are suffering. The Fed Is Best Foundation created a meme that brilliantly lays out their priorities.
Top Priorities of Newborn Feeding
1. Protecting a newborn’s life
2. Protecting a newborn’s brain and vital organs
3. Protecting a newborn from disability and lower academic achievement
4. Protecting a newborn from hospitalization for feeding complications
5. Protecting a newborn from hunger, thirst and suffering
6. Protecting the newborn patient and human rights
7. Protecting a mother’s right to choose and to feed her hungry babyLow Priority
Protecting the newborn from a single drop of formula
Protecting a newborn’s exclusive breastfeeding status at discharge.
Notice what’s not a priority at all:
Protecting a mother’s desire to feel superior to other mothers.
The negativity about Fed Is Best is clear evidence that breastfeeding advocates have failed to get their priorities straight. Infant feeding is not about them and their egos; it’s about babies and nourishment. Mothers should make their decisions based on infants’ need for food, not lactivists’ wish to be admired.
Whether breastfeeding advocates believe it or deny it, fed is truly best!
The only reason I’m upset about not breastfeeding is because of the loss of benefits to ME: I could eat ALL OF THE THINGS and I was under my pre-pregnancy weight! My son finally thrived and was full when given a bottle – whether it was of breastmilk or of formula. The LCs basically let him starve at the hospital while we F’ed around with nipple shields, syringes of milk, and spoons (Fing spoons!) because it’s “ok to lose up to 10% of birth weight.” I’m livid about that to this day.
Sounds like their only achievement in life is breastfeeding. Its kind of like white pride; that’s all they’ve got. they were born without melanin.
Thank you thank you THANK YOU Dr Tuteur for writing this post! I feel the same way and I really appreciate you putting it into words!
I think lactivists are convinced that Fed is Best is meant to disparage breastfeeding but in reality Fed is Best is meant to ensure all babies ARE GETTING ENOUGH FOOD, be it breastmilk or formula.
Look at it this way: we don’t let babies sit in poopy diapers, bc it is unsanitary, puts them at risk for UTIs, and it is uncomfortable for them. Put ourselves in their shoes: who wants to sit in poop????
Now look at EBF’ing but baby is not getting her fill: we give her a bottle, because she needs to eat, low blood sugar is deadly for babies, and it is uncomfortable&deadly to be starved! Put ourselves in their shoes: who wants to be starving????
Dr. Amy did you see this? https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Music/2018/06/07/Walker-Hayes-mourns-death-of-7th-child-She-is-safely-in-Heaven/3801528383239/
A country singer named Walker Hayes and his wife had planned a homebirth. They’re very careful to say that the baby died shortly after it was born in the hospital, but I suspect she labored at home first and it was a transfer. Poor kid, poor family.
The whole thread is about how they suffered and sacrificed to breastfeed. Better constructed studies are now showing that there’s no difference (except for premies) between children who were breastfed and those who weren’t. Yet women who can’t don’t want to breastfeed continue to be bullied, so that women like those in that Reddit thread can feel good about themselves. As John Kerry said about Vietnam, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
I don’t get the pride thing. I mean I’m very happy my son is healthy and thriving, I find breastfeeding super convenient (plus it is reassuring to know that even if civilization ends, I’ll be able to feed my baby for some time – I wish I was kidding but no, my anxiety is that high), and the look on his face when he’s nursing makes my heart melt. But it’s just the way I feed him, which is really the bare minimum when it comes to parenting, so nope, nothing to be proud about.
I’m with you. I breastfed because I’m super ADD and knew I’d struggle to keep an appropriate amount of formula and clean bottles with me on outings (I still forget to take tampons with me half the time!). Successfully formula feeding would have been a triumph for me, but it’s not something I think I’d be looking to other people to validate.
BTW, I’m all for lactivists breastfeeding through their kids’ school years. As it is, as uncertain (unblinded) as the results from the studies are, they do show some slight IQ increase. God knows that these kids need every ounce of a point they can get. They’re already disadvantaged enough, genetically, being saddled with mothers who can only see, think, and bleat, “Breastmilk, breastmilk, breeeeeaaaaaastmiiiiiiiiiiiiilk!” What can these milking cows teach their kids? Science? Heh! Empathy, consideration? Are you kidding me? All they have is boobs.
Which studies show an IQ increase? Also questions on written IQ tests are often found to be very skewed toward suburban, middle class children. Even non-verbal tests can show cultural bias, for instance having a child “draw a man” can get very different results depending on how a child’s culture feels about drawing/depicting people.. That’s not a measure of intelligence it’s a measure of culture and society. To a certain extent an “IQ” test is measuring how good one is at taking tests.
No legitimate studies, of course! I was being sarcastic.
Ha!
I had a look at the thread over there and I was more annoyed by the “failed to breastfeed but please, let me be just as awesome” lapdogs swallowing lactivists’ bullshit and pretending it was legitimate “support”. It was very irritating to read, “I have to pump/I couldn’t breastfeed/whatever… but this was beautifully said!” No, girl, it wasn’t. It built up her self-esteem at your expense.
It’s shocking how in 21 century we watch women be mistress of their own humiliation and heartbreak over nothing.
O/t, but today Google is honoring the birthday of Dr. Virginia Apgar!
14 years after suffering PPD (due, in part, to guilt over not being able to breastfeed), I can almost laugh now at how much importance people place on such a small part of parenting. I just had baby #3, who was an early C-section due to preeclampsia. He spent 11 days in the NICU and even when the lactation consultant came to try and guilt me into breastfeeding, I felt zero guilt that the autoimmune meds I have to take exclude me from nursing (and vaguely satisfied to have a “valid reason” to shut her up). The benefits of age, time, and raising a teenager are remarkably eye-opening. I wish all new moms could realize how little formula vs. breastmilk matters in the long-run.
Perhaps they would if not so new moms weren’t realizing it too. Honestly, to me it seems (I also saw it in the reddit thread) that some of the mothers most engaged in breast is best are women who have basically given up on their lives to be their kid’s only food source and now realize that they didn’t get smarter, healthier, BETTER kids for it. They get all militant because they realize that they crapped all over their lives and suffered for nothing, which doesn’t jive with their perception of smart women making smart decisions. To them, new moms are fair game. Someone who’d listen to them, wide-eyed and awed. Someone who thinks them heroes and not fools… because they can see they acted like fools, when there was a perfectly good alternative and they don’t like it.
A freaking men. Mine are 6 and 8 now, and even to me the baby years seem like a distant memory. I look at pictures now and it’s all “Were they ever that tiny?” Yes I breastfed them, but…so what? It was easy for me, and I don’t need any congratulations because it really wasn’t under my conscious control.
I feel MUCH more pride when my kindergartener reads a book to me (!!!!!!so exciting!!!!!!) than I did when she was breastfeeding.
My 9 yo went off to 4H camp yesterday. On his own, with no communication with us for 48 hours. It’s tough. I miss him, but I know he’s having fun.
What does it have to do with breastfeeding?
NOTHING!
Nothing about him has had anything to do with breastfeeding since he was 9 mos old, when he quit.
Congrats!
Thank you!
The breastfeeding mafia has a lot in common with (and a huge amount of overlap with) the cloth diapering community. Cloth diapers are best, obs, but certain kinds are better than others. And you are a better mother when you use the BEST cloth diapers. Preferably sewed yourself or at least purchased from a WAHM. And washed with home-made laundry soap.
Now, we used cloth diapers. But we had a great washer and dryer. And a daycare that accepted them. And enough to only wash once a week. And the desire to do so. And it worked for us. And it was nice that we could use the same diapers for all three kids. But I have no illusions that my kids are somehow better because of what they wore on their butts. They didn’t potty train sooner. They didn’t have less diaper rash. Was it cheaper? Probably. But it doesn’t make us BETTER.
Feed the baby, diaper the baby, love the baby.
My mom cloth diapered my brother and me. I shudder at her tales of bleach-filled diaper pails. By the time my youngest 2 siblings came along, it was all disposable diapers, all the time. These were the days before expensive steam home washing machines; it was all by hand. If you have other children too…laundry will be your life.
We combo-diaper 🙂 Disposables at daycare and cloth at home. Honestly I just like the cloth better because they leak less for us (fitteds and prefolds). Taking them to daycare sounds like a pain though. I also just use dye free Tide.
We had a system. A stack of prefolds and some covers at the start of the week and a recepticle bag daily. Pockets started around 6mo and we’d bring a box of pockets on Monday and bring home the rest Friday. Washed them on the weekend (with whatever was cheapest at Costco) and begin again. Paper diapers have their place (travel!), but the cloth worked well for us. My mom (who used cloth for me and sis because we were allergic to dispos) and sis (who had twins and doesn’t deal well with poo) thought I was nuts. And it’s always funny when I have a patient with cloth diapers and I can close a prefold with a tight jelly roll fold with a snappi. Parents are always surprised.
We used cloth diapers only for the first month because my baby was below the 2 percentile line on the weight/length graph. The disposables just didn’t fit. Now that he has gone from starved baby to skinny baby size we can use disposables when out of the house. Still use cloth at home because we like them.
I only use the cloth kind for swimming. We passed them on to the grandma we go swimming with. Her granddaughter is just 2 months younger than my girl, but DGD is 1% and Girlbard is 90% (DGD was a preemie from a petitely-built family). Boy, they do fill out those swim diapers differently. Don’t piss of DGD, though. She is tiny and -fierce-.
If you don’t practice elimination communication, you’re doing it wrong.
“We’d be accused of being sanctimommies who think they’re better than everyone else.”
That ship done sailed a long time ago.
Jesus H. Christ. These people don’t understand what Fed Is Best is about, do they? Literally Fed. Is. Best. They often give advice about breastfeeding and support breastfeeding women. They just don’t do it on the backs of women who can’t/choose not to. What a concept.
I worked really hard to get my Master’s Degree. I was very proud of that achievement. But I didn’t go running around telling people about how much better I was for getting said degree. And a few years later, when I realized that the world didn’t give a fuck about my education, yea that kind of hurt. But ultimately I sucked it up and went on with life. I didn’t make “poor me” posts on Reddit.
And some people without post-graduate degrees have better jobs and are making more money than I am. So if I see someone struggling to get a graduate degree and really hating the process, and they are focused on outcome (money), I’d talk to them about whether they really wanted that degree for itself, because if it’s about the money and they’re struggling, there are other paths to that outcome. :p
I am so close to finishing my first degree (Bachelors – an articulated set, so I will hopefully have the Masters by the end of next year) and all it has done is make me realise how much more I want to learn!
Yeah, so she worked hard to breastfeed and overcame problems. Good for her. So what does she want, a cookie?
It seems that is what this is about. You know, if you acknowledge that FF is perfectly acceptable, then all her efforts to make it work were really for no reason. And that’s not acceptable. She really needs a cookie for her achievement.
I’ve made the analogy to mountain climbing. There are those who insist on climbing up Pikes Peak. It’s not something everyone can do, so we can say you accomplished something when you do it.
Then there are those who are happy to take the cable car to the top. I’m sure there are those who will scoff at those lazy bums, and proclaim how it’s so much better if you climb it on your own.
But you know what? However you get to the top of Pikes Peak, the view is exactly the same. So if you goal is to get the view from the top of Pikes Peak, then it doesn’t matter how you get there. That’s Fed is Best. It says that, ultimately, the goal is to get to the top of the mountain. And when you get there, don’t try to tell the people who rode the cable car that you have a better view than they do.
“Yeah, so she worked hard to breastfeed and overcame problems. Good for her. So what does she want, a cookie?”
She wants a baby who is better than yours. That’s the ugly truth.
Yep, and is anyone really all that worried if women are proud of breastfeeding, or overcoming obstacles to do it? Its totally fine to be proud of it – just don’t be an arsehole about it.
I think it’s more direct than that. She just wants you to know that SHE’S better than YOU. The baby is incidental.
So I guess if your goal is to make the climb (experience breastfeeding) and enjoy the view (have a healthy kid), then you can be proud of yourself about the effort you put into making the climb, while still acknowledging that there are people who can’t climb or don’t want to and that there’s nothing wrong with that.
What if she is so focused on “the climb” she fails to realize that insisting on ONLY BREASTMILK, NO FORMULA EVER, means her baby is going hungry sometimes. At that point hasn’t she lost the plot. Her “powering through” may mean the baby is suffering too…
I agree completely. If you go climb Pike’s Peak and you really care just about the climb, not the view, that’s your prerogative, but when it comes to feeding your infant you have to care about both goals!
My goal on the last few miles of that climb was to get to the doughnut shop.
I want a cookie
You can have all the cookies you want and you don’t have to share them. ;D
I think this actually explains why some people lose all sense of reason when it comes to breastfeeding. Some people go through hell and back and watch their babies suffer (even if they won’t admit the babies are really suffering), to “achieve” EBF. If there isn’t some massive amount of benefit to doing so, then all that pain is meaningless, and their babies suffered for no reason. The cognitive dissonance this creates is too much to bear, so they have to double down on how amazing breastmilk is in order to justify the pain they put their babies and themselves through in order to say they exclusively breastfed. If they admitted to themselves that formula was a perfectly wonderful substitute, then they’d have to admit they hurt their babies for no good reason, and that’s far too much to bear.
But I don’t think even that explains how mean they are! My first had an abnormal suck and I developed crush injury reynauds and pumped every 3 hours round the clock for an entire year. I did it only because I had learned in residency about breastmilk’s supposed benefits including a study that pointed to a supposed 7-11 point IQ boost, which is an amount that could make the difference between a kid struggling in a grade vs doing fine. I knew even then that the studies were crap and riddled with confounders, but at the time crappy observational studies were the only studies available.
So I for sure went to hell and back. And then finally a few years later high quality studies came out (PROBIT and discordant sib study.) And they showed no difference between outcomes. And you know what, I was happy. Happy for myself that if I had another baby with latch problems that I had an alternative that was 100% fine. Happy for my friends, happy for my patients, happy for women in general. I mean what sort of jerk would want their loved ones to have to go through what I went through? Getting firm proof that formula works awesome is a total win for women.
“ mean what sort of jerk would want their loved ones to have to go through what I went through?“
Reminds me of folks who want to “haze”’residents and not follow work hour rules, etc “because I had to do it and they should too.” It’s the “walked through the snow uphill both ways” crowd I suppose. Personally though, I’m with you. We should be making moms’ lives easier if we can!
I despise that attitude as well. As if there isn’t enough suffering and strife in the world without adding to it out of spite.
I think my mum had the same cognitive dissonance for years about the sacrifices she made to be a SAHM for two decades (staying in a shitty marriage, inflicting said shitty marriage on the kids, isolation, loss of what would quite possibly have been an excellent career, uncertain old age). For her sacrifices to be worthwhile, she had to believe that her children were superior products, which meant being in denial about the fact that my brother (who is stunningly talented in many fields) just isn’t remotely academic, and denying my severe depression and anxiety to the point where it actually became emotional cruelty.
And the parallel to those committed to “natural birth” despite suffering tremendously for it is shocking.
OT, but the obstetrician who attempted to vaginally deliver the 25 week premie with a prolapsed cord that ended with decapitation has not been struck off the register. The medical practitioner tribunal ruled that she had made a mistake but that it didn’t constitute serious professional misconduct.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/05/doctor-who-caused-decapitation-of-baby-free-to-return-to-work
Oh, JFC. That’s horrifying.
Thanks for the update and abbreviation. It’s about all I can take of that horror
Agree. I can’t bring myself to read it.
Oh great. So more people, most probably ones who don’t have an opportunity to check beforehand, will have the good fortune of being treated by this highly competent doctor with excellent judgement?
But hey, as long as she hasn’t done it on purpose… it’s just patients’ lives we’re talking about here.
The last paragraph was what truly angered me. They don’t own their decision. She either made a terrible decision, or she did not. Why blattering on about her “heavy” responsibility when they don’t intend to do anything about it? Better leave this rubbish unsaid.
I’m hoping that the reports in the media glossed over medical details, and that perhaps there were extenuating circumstances that meant that what happened was unavoidable, but it’s hard to see that. The alternative thought, which really doesn’t bear thinking about, is that the medical practitioners tribunal thought ‘she’s not working in the UK any more, so not really our problem.’
Typo Alert: “Protecting the newborn from a single priority” when you type out what’s on the Fed is Best infographic should be “Protecting the newborn from a single drop of formula”.
Thanks! Fixed it.
If she truly “DGAF” her Reddit post wouldn’t exist.
I don’t understand how not overblowing the benefits of breastfeeding or being supportive of those who choose to formula feed is degrading or offensive towards breastfeeding? I think it’s one of two appropriate ways to feed a child. Appropriately feeding your child should be legal and supported.
And that’s the real agenda. They need the benefits of BF to be overblown. They need FF to not be supported. Anything shy of that is ‘help, help, I’m being oppressed.’
It’s very interesting, the idea that because something was personally important to you and you went to a lot of effort to do it, other people are somehow being remiss if they don’t take that into consideration. I could more easily understand the argument if she were trying to justify pro bf claims with a bibliography salad or whatever. A belief that the scientific evidence says a particular thing, even if not actually correct, is a more logical reason than I tried really hard and it was important to me.
Building on that, “I tried really hard and it was important to me” doesn’t even absolve a person from being aware of actual benefits of an activity.
I have worked very hard at being able to swim a mile. I have worked equally hard at learning how to play FreeCell Solitaire.
Only one of those activities has benefits for heart health – regardless of how obsessed I get over solving a FreeCell game.
I got the no. 1 spot 3 games in a row in platinum level on WordHero a few months back. No achievement in my life has ever come that close to that, and it’s never going to happen again.
FreeCell may have benefits for brain health!
actual lol
I won 1000 Sudoku games in a row on the expert level.
That is impressive. I can’t even solve the children’s Sudoku.
I’m good with words, but anything relating to numbers is beyond me. On those online quizzes that estimate your IQ, I come out with an IQ of about 70 if there are questions about number sequences or maths problems. I have never managed to complete a sudoku puzzle for any age group, it’s really very pathetic!
You can turn all the numbers in Sudoku into emojis, or little pokemon or whatever, if that helps : )
Hear ya! When I did the GMAT, I got 99th percentile on the qualitative without even trying and, like, 16th percentile on the quantitative after weeks of intensive study : /
I think having a baby who faced some real health problems had made me jaded.
I pumped breastmilk for Spawn for about 4 months plus a lesser amount for the six weeks my breasts took to stop producing. He was in a higher risk group for NEC due to being male and having received prenatal steroids. I was gob-smacked to realize that I was actually producing breast milk after he was born. Most importantly, I was lucky enough that our little family didn’t need me to return to work unlike a lot of the moms in the NICU unit.
Pumping felt like a good deed I could do to maximize the use of donor milk for the other little snippets of babies whose moms were dealing with a different set of life variables than I have.
Totally worth it to reduce by half the risks of babies having a nasty, mean, only partially understood disease that really messes with their growth trajectory and can lead to needing surgery.
Going through that same amount of work to possibly reduce my son’s risk of eczema, allergies, asthma or obesity a smidge…..nope.
I saw this on Reddit yesterday and was bothered by it for many of the reasons that have been brought up. But, at only 15 weeks, its early to think all her troubles are past her. At 15 weeks, things were great for me and my baby too with breastfeeding/pumping. But at 5 months, baby started eating more, and I couldn’t pump enough to keep up. Now baby gets 1-2 bottles of formula a day to make up the difference. A baby with a full tummy is most important.
Things change, and her ego will be in for a big hurt if something changes her supply
I had oversupply, for which my first was duly appreciative, but he still required solids at 4 months because he was a hungry little lad! My younger child had similar opinions on food, although she was ff’d
Hungry is hungry. And I’m in the same boat, we’ve been adding solids in since 4.5 months for my hungry little girl. Baby doesn’t know or care what the ‘plan’ is.
boobs don’t know when the kid is having a growth spurt!
“I am 100% in the camp of fed is best, IDGAF how you feed your baby but could you imagine if we crapped all over FFing like they do to BFing? We’d be accused of being sanctimommies who think they’re better than everyone else.”
Well, there goes another irony meter.
“IDGAF how you feed your baby, but you damn well better care how I fed mine!”
Can you imagine if they crapped all over formula feeding? By saying they cared enough to give their baby the very best, by lying about the ‘risks’ of formula feeding, by comparing bottle-feeding to force-feeding your baby french fries, by requiring you to sign a waiver of Horrible Momness to even have access to formula?
(to whomever these people are)
It must suck that my generic tubs of infant formula, for which I spent ~$700 for the year, or $13.50 per week, or less than $2.00 per day, have given me a product totally indistinguishable form the one you suffered for.
It must really bother you that I came and went as I pleased without planning everything around engorgement; I was never in pain; I didn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night to feed or pump, I could make other people do it while I slept; I was never infected; my babies never lost weight; etc.; etc.; etc.
But the worst part of it all? The fact that I _genuinely_ don’t give a flying fuck and you do.