Breastfeeding, Biomonitoring, and the Media

By Christine Gross-Loh
Issue 122, January/February 2004

How should breastfeeding advocates respond to media coverage that undermines breastfeeding? In our bottle-feeding culture, any negative news about breastmilk leads many women away from breastfeeding, comments Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC. "Each time something happens that hits the newspaper, we start getting these mothers calling in with these questions, and they're concerned about feeding their babies breastmilk. It is very difficult for them to sort through this information. We have to work through it until I know [the mother] understands what I'm talking about. I walk her through why [she should breastfeed]. This takes time, this is a clinician's time, and what happens is not all clinicians have the time or understand. Other women don't even call in, they just feed their babies formula and don't make changes in their own lifestyles to reduce their own body burden." The way in which the issue of breastmilk and chemical contaminants is portrayed is particularly crucial; many believe that it could have a huge impact on a woman's decision to breastfeed.

Biomonitoring Controversy
Environmentalists and breastfeeding advocates are passionately opinionated about chemical contaminants in breastmilk. While breastfeeding advocates fear that media misrepresentation leads many mothers to stop breastfeeding, environmentalists have wondered if breastfeeding advocates are not concerned enough about the very real problem of toxic body burden. Efforts have been made to reach common ground via meetings involving representatives of both interests. Some of these meetings have resulted in accord and renewed resolve to work together. A joint statement in January 2002 by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) and the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) declared that both groups "share a common concern: Toxic chemicals are contaminating our children. . . . We recognize the need to promote breastfeeding while we work towards ending the contamination of our communities"1

How exactly can this be achieved? Can the concerns of these two organizations coexist? New challenges will arise in the near future, making it especially vital that advocates be armed with information and avenues of action. Biomonitoring technology has improved in the last few years, making it easier and less costly to do, and there will be much more new research focusing attention on the purity of breastmilk. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grants are providing five laboratories across the US with the funding for lab enhancements to carry out biomonitoring, which would likely include the biomonitoring of breastmilk. In addition, the CDC's own ongoing biomonitoring program is raising interest among communities and states that want to do their own biomonitoring, and the United Nations will be setting up a global monitoring program to assess the progress of bans once the Stockholm Convention is implemented, says Sharyle Patton, director of the Health and Environmental Program at Commonweal, an environmental group based in northern California.

Several recent studies have specifically focused on flame retardants (PBDEs) in breastmilk. One of them, a study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), shows that American women have 10 to 100 times more PBDEs in their bodies than European women do. Sonya Lunder of the EWG says, "The alarming levels of fire retardants in American women's breastmilk make us realize that the US and Europe have two vastly different policies toward chemical safety. The EU chooses to monitor for pollution in people and takes precautionary action when they detect a problem. In the US, we are just starting to monitor for chemicals that accumulate in our bodies, and we are not yet using this information to protect our children's health." All of the women in this study received the results of their PBDE levels through individual counseling, and all chose to continue to breastfeed.

A bill in California sponsored by Senator Deborah Ortiz, the Breast Cancer Fund, and Commonweal proposes a multifold way for the biomonitoring of breastmilk to take place within a community support network. Subjects of the study would have immediate contact with educated health professionals, who could help them assess the information about their body burdens.

In other words, these groups are working to "develop some pilot project that does [biomonitoring] the right way so that it's fully integrated into the community, with the idea that they want to support and encourage breastfeeding," according to Sharyle Patton of Commonweal. If breastmilk monitoring is inevitable, this might provide one template for a way to do it "right."