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Redbook Article!!!!!!

post #1 of 25
6/21/10 at 9:14pm
Thread Starter 
http://www.redbookmag.com/kids-famil...-breastfeeding


Get ready to get angry or at least very very sad!
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post #2 of 25
6/21/10 at 9:34pm
Fantastic article:
post #3 of 25
6/21/10 at 10:08pm
Wow, just wow.

Breastfeeding brainwashing? Really? Ummm, I think someone here has been brainwashed, but it's not the breastfeeders.
post #4 of 25
6/21/10 at 10:27pm
It's ironic how the first thing she did after her procedure to help her clogged ducts is to do exactly the thing that cause plugged ducts!

I feel bad for her experience in general, but worse for the mamas who read that and won't even try to breastfeed.
post #5 of 25
6/21/10 at 10:55pm
This is too much psychobabble, I'm sure, but it sounds just way too strident for me to believe she's not still trying to convince herself not to feel guilty.

And if she's not, why so strident? Is there any hole in the information available that breast is superior? So, OK, makes sense to have the public education campaigns.

Makes sense also that there be good options for people who simply cannot breastfeed, because they are definitely around. I am sorry that the public education campaigns bring up guilty feelings in those women. Wish I had suggestions what to do about that other than to try to remember to be personally sensitive about that.
post #6 of 25
6/21/10 at 10:59pm
Mamas, we need to turn this towards Lactivism, as per the forum guidelines. If it's meant to just be a vent, that's fine too (as long as we keep it within the UA) but I will have to move it out to the general forums. Please remember that the purpose of this thread isn't to attack or criticize individuals, but to look for ways to promote breastfeeding.
post #7 of 25
6/22/10 at 3:43pm
"For decades, formula-feeding — considered modern and convenient — was so commonplace that doctors gave new mothers hormone shots to prevent their breast milk from ever coming in. If you breast-fed in the 1950s, in fact, you were frowned upon for not being progressive."

These sentences trouble me greatly.
I absolutely understand if someone tries their hardest to nurse and it doesn't work out as planned. I get that they might feel judged or feel like they've failed. But to suggest that formula feeding is a more "progressive" choice...that's a dangerous mistruth to be spreading around.
post #8 of 25
6/22/10 at 3:53pm
is it true that redbook is owned by nestle?
post #9 of 25
6/22/10 at 4:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Letitia View Post
This is too much psychobabble, I'm sure, but it sounds just way too strident for me to believe she's not still trying to convince herself not to feel guilty.

And if she's not, why so strident? Is there any hole in the information available that breast is superior? So, OK, makes sense to have the public education campaigns.

Makes sense also that there be good options for people who simply cannot breastfeed, because they are definitely around. I am sorry that the public education campaigns bring up guilty feelings in those women. Wish I had suggestions what to do about that other than to try to remember to be personally sensitive about that.


I'm not a mom yet, but I guess I just don't feel the pressure the way so many women can. I had about the worst "role model" for a mother possible until I was nine and then the best I could imagine after that - I figure all I have to do is not forget the kid at the grocery store and I'm in the clear, mothering-wise.

My Mom (the good one - my maternal grandmother, as a matter of fact) didn't breastfeed (all three of her biological children were born in the sixties). She made formula because she couldn't afford store-bought and didn't know that breastfeeding was even an option because she'd never heard of it.
post #10 of 25
6/24/10 at 3:24pm
WOW!!! You know I really wish that REDBOOK would do an acticle that would be pro-b/f in the same issue.
post #11 of 25
6/24/10 at 4:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Letitia View Post
Makes sense also that there be good options for people who simply cannot breastfeed, because they are definitely around. I am sorry that the public education campaigns bring up guilty feelings in those women. Wish I had suggestions what to do about that other than to try to remember to be personally sensitive about that.
I mean, yeah. The woman who wrote the article had to stop bf'ing so she could go back on her *cancer drugs*. If that's not an acceptable reason not to bf I don't know what is. But apparently she still felt pretty bad about it - guilty enough to write that very defensively toned article - which is really sad.
post #12 of 25
6/25/10 at 10:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by frogautumn View Post
"For decades, formula-feeding — considered modern and convenient — was so commonplace that doctors gave new mothers hormone shots to prevent their breast milk from ever coming in. If you breast-fed in the 1950s, in fact, you were frowned upon for not being progressive."
Bolding mine: this was not true. They were given carcinogens, not "hormones". Just like they weren't given "twilight sleep" sleeping pills - they were given scopolamine, an amnesia drug (now known as the Colombian drug lords' kidnap drug of choice.)

Although, it is true that they considered these drugs modern and convenient. How ironic that the author didn't know that those drugs back then caused breast cancer - which is the real reason they were stopped (as late as the early 1990s in some places,) and not necessarily because of lactivism.
post #13 of 25
6/25/10 at 12:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by frogautumn View Post
"For decades, formula-feeding — considered modern and convenient — was so commonplace that doctors gave new mothers hormone shots to prevent their breast milk from ever coming in. If you breast-fed in the 1950s, in fact, you were frowned upon for not being progressive."

These sentences trouble me greatly.
I absolutely understand if someone tries their hardest to nurse and it doesn't work out as planned. I get that they might feel judged or feel like they've failed. But to suggest that formula feeding is a more "progressive" choice...that's a dangerous mistruth to be spreading around.
In all fairness, she was saying that this was the case 60 years ago, not today.

It just goes to show that our culture has always found a reason to make mothers feel bad about their choices.
post #14 of 25
6/25/10 at 12:44pm
First of all, she probably caught MRSA when she delivered in the hospital, where, second, her baby was probably given formula so it wasn't hungry enough to take the milk, which caused the first case of mastitis!!

What a trashy article.
post #15 of 25
6/25/10 at 3:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueLeaf View Post
In all fairness, she was saying that this was the case 60 years ago, not today.

It just goes to show that our culture has always found a reason to make mothers feel bad about their choices.
Yes, you're right. In trying to examine what it was that jumped out at me about that passage, I can see that. She's definitely not suggesting that formula feeding is the most progressive choice today.
But there is something tricky in that language, something loaded in the way she uses the word "progressive," would you agree? She does suggest that our "pro-bf" culture has gone too far (which is what I'm afraid readers will take away as the main point of the article).
I'm sure that most here would agree that we haven't come far enough in creating a culture that's truly pro-bf.
But we won't create that culture by women continuing to judge other women's choices. Which is sadly, as you pointed out, the common thread that's been present all along.
post #16 of 25
6/25/10 at 5:23pm
I think the article was a little off and I didn't like the tone of it at all. I think it's horrible that the author had to endure what she did. I think that she made the right descision for her. I think that trying to apply that descision to the rest of the lactating public at large is misguided.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ShwarmaQueen View Post
First of all, she probably caught MRSA when she delivered in the hospital, where, second, her baby was probably given formula so it wasn't hungry enough to take the milk, which caused the first case of mastitis!!

What a trashy article.

Respectfully, I think this is kind of unfair speculation. Some women, regardless of what they do or how they do it, get bout after bout of mastitis. I was lucky to almost never experience it (I had what I believe was the beginning of mastitis once and was able to head it off) but a dear friend had it 5 times in 6 months. I don't know if I could have made it through that.

I think the whole: if you had problems breastfeeding, it was probably your or your support system's (doctor, LC, midwife etc) fault aspect of breastfeeding advocacy is not helpful.
post #17 of 25
6/25/10 at 6:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by frogautumn View Post
Y
...
But there is something tricky in that language, something loaded in the way she uses the word "progressive," would you agree? She does suggest that our "pro-bf" culture has gone too far (which is what I'm afraid readers will take away as the main point of the article).
I'm sure that most here would agree that we haven't come far enough in creating a culture that's truly pro-bf.
But we won't create that culture by women continuing to judge other women's choices. Which is sadly, as you pointed out, the common thread that's been present all along.
I agree! I find it sad that I'm the "hippie mama weirdo" at work because I BF and pump at work. We all have to do what's we decide is right for our children, but we don't make those decisions in a vacuum.
post #18 of 25
6/26/10 at 4:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pumpkinhead View Post
Respectfully, I think this is kind of unfair speculation. Some women, regardless of what they do or how they do it, get bout after bout of mastitis. I was lucky to almost never experience it (I had what I believe was the beginning of mastitis once and was able to head it off) but a dear friend had it 5 times in 6 months. I don't know if I could have made it through that.
Oh i totally agree with you. I had it with DD and she was attached to my nipple nonstop from the time she was delivered and I ended up engorged and almost mastitis. But we all know those moms who 'just take the night off' after delivery at the hospital and then the cascade of events (formula, sleepy baby, etc.) happens...which leads to mastitis in some cases.

Sorry, my reply was a gut reaction. I still don't like the article though.
post #19 of 25
6/30/10 at 6:53pm
My biggest beef with the article is the claim that formula feeding mothers are ostracized by everyone in the US. Very much not so. I don't know, maybe where she lives that's the case, but certainly not where I live, and I imagine, not in most of the US. In my area, anyway, most try to breastfeed, but it doesn't last long. And if you breastfeed longer than the first birthday, you are looked at like a complete nutso!
post #20 of 25
7/2/10 at 3:00am
Yes, the article makes it sound like women are made to feel guilty for formula feeding, when in my experience women are made to feel like freaks for breastfeeding. There is another Redbook article that is pretty much anti-breastfeeding as well, so I think it really behooves them to provide at least one clearly pro-breastfeeding article. To whom do we write?
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