Often times, people are afraid of making women feel guilty so they soften the message. A first-time mother, for example, told me about the approach her doctor took. "My ob-gyn didn't push breast-feeding," she recalls, "but he didn't not push it. He gave me a free Enfamil diaper bag with formula inside."
It is this kind of "objectivity" that prevents us from making fully informed choices. Plain and simple, breast milk and formula are not equivalent substances.
To be sure, the media is full of stories from women who feel guilty for not being able to breast-feed. But anthropologist and breastfeeding advocate Katherine Dettwyler asserts that guilt and regret are two separate emotions. If we make the best decision with whatever information and resources we have at the time, we have no reason to feel guilty.
Psychologist Harriet Lerner, cautions against internalizing guilt. "Try to remember," she writes, "that our society encourages mothers to cultivate guilt like a little flower garden, because nothing blocks the awareness and expression of legitimate anger as this all consuming emotion."
And without accurate information, women have every right to be angry. What if you have a history of colitis in your family, you chose to feed your baby formula, and nobody told you that formula-fed babies are more likely to suffer from it than breast-fed babies? What if you have a history of allergies, you use formula, and nobody told you that breast-feeding could reduce the likelihood that your baby would have allergies? The list goes on. If it were me, I wouldn't feel guilty for my decision to use formula. I would feel angry that nobody had told me.
Not every woman is able to breast-feed (although most are) and not every woman wants to. But just like we have the right to know the benefits and risks of other substances we put into our bodies, we deserve the right to make fully informed decisions about how we feed our babies.
So as you read about breast-feeding, remember: breast is not best. It is simply normal.
Barbara L. Behrmann, Ph.D. is a writer, researcher, and author of The Breast-feeding Cafe: Mothers Share the Joys, Secrets & Challenges of Nursing, University of Michigan Press, 2005. She is a frequent speaker around the country and is available for talks, readings, and conducting birthing and breast-feeding writing circles. The mother of two formerly breast-fed children, Barbara lives in upstate New York. Visit her website at www.breastfeedingcafe.com.
