On Breastfeeding

Breasts are for feeding babies and that’s why mammals are equipped with them. Breastfeeding babies accompany their mothers everywhere they go until they are weaned. However, the dairy industry and formula corporations may argue against it as these days there are many babies being bottle fed by caregivers while their parents work.

What complicates matters for mothers who choose to breast feed is the fact that at least two generations in their communities are the bottle fed babies of working moms. They were raised on cow’s milk, and sweetened formulas and the mindset that they and society as a whole seem to have adopted is: “if formula was good enough for us …”

Imagine a world that has no formula milk.

Once again, mothers would go back to doing what they to do best – and this is to ensure that their children from the first day that they are born have the best chance of surviving and growing up to becoming productive citizens of the world.

Bottle feeding babies and children with formula milk should not be a second-best option. In fact, it should be a last option, something to be relied on if really, really necessary.

Of course, those in the business of manufacturing baby milk would have to face the grim reality of reduced profits. Yet, in the face of a bigger glaring moral issue, I think it’s well worth it.

Breast Milk is the Best Food for Babies

Breast milk is the best food you can offer your new baby. The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life. At 6 months, your baby will be ready for other foods (see Feeding your baby in the first year). You can continue to breastfeed until your child is two years of age and beyond.

Since breast milk is naturally and uniquely produced—by each mother for her own baby—your baby is less easily exposed to foreign allergenic material. Breast milk also contains antibodies and other immune factors that help him prevent and fight off illness better.

Breast milk has the right amount and quality of nutrients to suit your baby’s first food needs. It is also the easiest on her digestive system, so there’s less chance of constipation or diarrhea.

Changing Times

We are witnessing a time when most babies are bottle fed by their mothers before them, who were also bottle fed. We are witnessing a time when some are raising a protest against woman breastfeeding in public.

Some have even likened breastfeeding in public to flashing, suggesting a woman feeding her child in a restaurant is no different than a man displaying his penis in public. What these ignorant people do not seem to realize is that breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world.

In most cases I find that people around the mothers in question do not even realize that a child is being breast fed. This is because most women are very discreet and more importantly, they are not feeding their child in public because they necessarily want to but because their child is hungry.

In a restaurant, I am much less likely to be offended by a woman feeding her child than am am to be offended by people with bad manners, who eat with their mouths open, talk with their mouths full, belch or talk so loudly at their own able that it seems as if they are addressing every diner in the whole establishment.

Not long ago, many people in western countries like Canada the UK and the US believed that bottle feeding was better than breastfeeding. Today, we know that breastfeeding offers your baby the best start.

Without doubt, it’s my belief that it is a right of all mothers to feed their infants in public. What do you think?

References: Myspace thinks breastfeeding is obscene.
I Like Women Who Breastfeed, But I Hate Lactivists