1999 LLLI Conference Sessions:
Promoting Breastfeeding or Promoting Guilt?
By Robin Slaw
Franklin NJ USA
From: NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 16 No. 5, September-October 1999, p. 171
Guilt. It's a feeling most
mothers are familiar with. In the US, doctors are afraid to make mothers
feel guilty about choosing not to breastfeed. There is even a popular
book about avoiding guilt for choosing to bottle-feed either from birth
or after failing at breastfeeding. Katherine Dettwyler, PhD, offered
a thought-provoking look at guilt and the choices parents make. She
suggested that we need to help mothers make informed choices based on
full knowledge of the consequences of not breastfeeding.
Dettwyler pointed out that
health care providers and others aren't afraid to use guilt for other
parental choices. A pregnant woman who chooses to continue smoking during
pregnancy can expect to be reminded of the health risks to her unborn
child at every prenatal visit. Doctors have no hesitation whatsoever
about making parents feel guilty about not using a car seat. Public
advertising campaigns about auto safety often rely on creating guilt
in parents. Many hospitals won't even release newborns to parents without
a car seat in their car. Society views the choice to smoke or not use
a car seat as below the accepted standard of childcare, so parents who
make those choices are expected to feel guilty.
By contrast, breastfeeding
is often treated as a choice that is above the normal standard of childcare-like
buying expensive educational toys or sending a child to an exclusive
private school. Breastfeeding books and articles talk about improving
intelligence, improving health, or improving ways of life by breastfeeding.
But Dettwyler suggested that using artificial baby milk could, and maybe
should, be considered reckless endangerment because it increases risks
to a baby's life and health, just like parental smoking and failure
to use a car seat. What makes breastfeeding so different, that health
care providers are reluctant to cause feelings of guilt in parents?
For one, they don't know or don't accept the research documenting the
harm caused by artificial baby milk. The media plays a dramatic role
in portraying breastfeeding as painful or impossible for most modern
women.
And many health care providers
did not choose breastfeeding for their own children, so by denying that
their choice had significant consequences, they are protecting themselves
from guilt.
Dettwyler also talked about
the difference between guilt and regret. Guilt is what you feel when
you knowingly choose a lesser option for your baby. Regret is what you
feel when the choices, and the consequences of your choices, are not
explained to you. When many of us were growing up, we didn't use car
seats or seatbelts regularly; they weren't even available in many vehicles.
So should our parents feel guilty because they didn't require us to
wear seatbelts? No, of course not. The research wasn't available then
on how seatbelts save lives.
Dettwyler used her own life
to illustrate. She has a son with Down Syndrome and she regrets not
breastfeeding him longer. Uninformed health care providers did not consider
that a few extra IQ points might make a dramatic difference for her
son and encouraged her to switch to formula and bottles early. She said
she feels sad about what happened, but has no cause to feel guilt, because
she followed the medical advice she received.
Dettwyler had many suggestions
for changing the way the choice to breastfeed is perceived.
- Provide clear, accurate
and complete information about the very real risks associated with
not breastfeeding. The December 1997 statement on breastfeeding from
the American Academy of Pediatrics (available from LLLI, No. 288-17,
$2.50) is a good source for this information.
- Work for hospital policies
that promote breastfeeding such as the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative.
- Don't rely on information
sources that make money when breastfeeding fails or is not chosen,
such as pamphlets printed by manufacturers of infant formula.
- Once we have made sure
a woman has acquired complete information about the risks inherent
in choosing not to breastfeed, then we need to respect her feeding
decision.
I walked away from Kathy
Dettwyler's session energized about breastfeeding. She helped me realize
how important it is to share our stories, our knowledge, and our belief
in breastfeeding with everyone. We can make a difference in the lives
of mothers and babies, by helping mothers understand the very real differences
between breastfeeding and bottle-feeding. And we can do this without
worrying about causing guilty feelings in parents.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:29:36 UTC 2007.
