Barbara Katz Rothman: New Breast Milk in Old Bottles

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Keynote Address, Breastfeeding and Feminism Symposium:

Barbara Katz Rothman, PhD

Different ideologies through which one can look at a mother and baby breastfeeding:

Patriarchy. We are all children of men, the essence of everything is in the seed. It is now acknowledged that women are contributing half the seed. Who carries the child (the gestational carrier) is not important, or has no genetic relationship to the child. She can’t add anything, but she can screw things up.

Technological society. Efficiency is everything. The outcome is what counts, if you can get there more quickly, that’s better. Body as machine. Medicalization, efficient management of medicalized body is the goal.

Capitalism. There is a price tag on all things–everything is for sale, blood, semen, of course milk. We promote breastfeeding through the economic lens–it’s financially smarter. What if it wasn’t? Would we still breastfeed? The capitalist ideology makes us see the world as a global market of equal choices. More choices are always seen as good, there is no higher value than choice.

Race. The racialization of milk, history of wet nurses and slavery, the race politics of America has a huge impact on breastfeeding. Pumping: you pump and someone else will feed the white milk to the baby.

Feminism. Looking critically at the “public health recommendations,” which have a history of being wrong (hormone replacement therapy for example).

What are we really doing? What are we trying to achieve? The logic we use to promote breastfeeding needs to be critically examined. If we argue that breast milk is healthier, what happens when they create a formula that is just as healthy, or healthier? Why does it matter? If it’s about breast cancer prevention, what happens when we eradicate breast cancer?

It’s not gonna be about health, and it’s not going to be about choice, or bonding. Why is it we really value it and what are we doing here?

Blogger note: I think there are a lot of connections between Barbara’s argument about breastfeeding and other social and reproductive justice movements. This examination of our logic is huge, and what we need to make long term gains rather than short term wins based on what works today. (Think about the natural birth movement, the pro-choice movement, etc).

Breastfeeding Symposium: Feminism vs. Public Health

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Dr. Suzanne Haynes, US PHS Office of Women’s Health

Feminism vs. Public Health: Feminism in opposition to Lactivism

The word choice has been stolen from feminists by the formula representatives. “It is a woman’s choice to breastfeed, or not.” The formula ads are written to create doubt. The women who are choosing to formula feed are not informed about the risks about breastfeeding. No disclaimers on formula bottles about these risks (like cigarettes). The formula companies are afraid of litigation. National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign is about informing women about the risk of not breastfeeding.

The de-sexualization of breasts will help promote breastfeeding. Comment from audience: I don’t want to desexualize my breasts, I love that they are sexual and I get to share them with who I please.

Going back to work is the major barrier to exclusive breastfeeding. Fear of discrimination, ridicule, lack of promotion and lost wages. New toolkits being created to help make employment environments breastfeeding friendly, like lactation rooms.

Status symbol: Buying formula in the 1950s was seen as a status symbol. Formula ads make it seem like all working women use formula.

Formula usage is much higher among low-income women and women of color.  Asian Pacifica Islander women have the highest rates of breastfeeding, African American women have the lowest rates. 

Potential Risk Reduction for Women:
28% decrease in Breast cancer
21% decrease in cervical cancer
12% decrease in Type II diabetes

Pharmaceutical companies produce most of the baby formula, earning $4 billion dollars a year. Formula industries spent $80 million dollars in advertising over two years, the government only had $1.5 million for their breastfeeding promotion campaign.

For more about the Health and Human Services Breastfeeding Campaign, see this Washington Post article.

Opening Panel

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Dr. Bernadette Gray-Little, Provost UNC-CH

Similar to childbirth, breastfeeding is not a shared experience. Many people never see women breastfeeding, it is done as something hidden, in the safety of home or underneath clothing.

Ms. Alice Lenahan, Director, Nutrition Services Branch, NC Division of Public Health

Breastfeeding promotion and protection in North Carolina: Blueprint for action to improve breastfeeding rates in NC

Ms. Barbara Cameron, La Leche League

“Breastfeeding was absent from my personal experiences and any professional or academic discourse.”

College student: passion for reproductive rights, no thoughts about breastfeeding

“Breastfeeding was a way of mothering my children. Unique physical connection with my children and a powerful and healing connection to my own body and femininity.”

“Thinking that baby formula is superior to breast milk is thinking that 30 years of technology is superior to 3000 years of human evolution.” -Christine Northrup, OB-GYN

Liveblogging: Breastfeeding and Feminism Symposium

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Good Morning Everyone.  I’m here are the 3rd annual Breastfeeding and Feminism Symposium in Raleigh, NC. This is my first try at live blogging, so bear with me! It looks  like it’s going to be a great conference, lots of big name activists and academics (Barbara Katz Rothman for example) and some interesting topics on the agenda.

As I mentioned before, I’m most excited about the reproductive justice connection–and am interested to see how the framework is woven in.  Stay tuned for more!

Breastfeeding and Feminism Symposium

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Next week I am attending the Breastfeeding and Feminism Symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is the third year this event is happening, and to my delight this year’s topic is Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice. The Symposium is being sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Greensboro, specifically the Infant and Young Child Feeding and Care and the Center for Women’s Health and Wellness.

I’m looking forward to seeing how these advocates, educators and breastfeeding specialists bring in other reproductive justice issues into their work on breastfeeding. I will be live blogging from the Symposium, so stay tuned for more from the presentations next week.

Go here for more information about the Symposium. If you happen to be in the North Carolina area next week, think about attending!

Take a day off to procreate

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This one is almost too much to take seriously. Apparently, September 12 was Conception Day in one region of Russia–the fifth year that Governor Sergei Morozov has used a half day off from work and a series of cash and gift prizes to encourage procreation for his dwindling region of Russia.

During what some experts are deeming a population crisis caused by too much population growth in already overpopulated parts of the world, other countries, predominantly white countries like Italy, France and Russia are having trouble reproducing at a replacement rate.

But anyways, back to the ridiculous Conception Day in Russia. According to an article at MSNBC, in addition to getting time off from work (presumably to have sex), if a woman does give birth 9 months after Conception Day, she and her husband can win a multitude of prizes, including a car.

This isn’t the first time a Western European country has tried to use incentives to encourage procreation. In Romania they used to give women special titles for having multiple children (we’re talking upwards of 5). In response to a recent trend in European countries having negative population growth, I expect that these tactics will continue to evolve and develop.

What does it mean for a government to manipulate women’s bodies for political reasons? The fertility of marginalized populations (women of color, incarcerated women, disabled women) has been controlled in the past (and continues to be controlled). Sterilization practices, welfare family caps, two child policies all are ways the government uses to discourage certain populations from reproducing. Similarly, initiatives like this procreation day are one way the government has of encouraging other groups to reproduce. Both tactics smack of eugenics and racism, as well as nationalistic sentiment and the geopolitics of population.

These concerns around population growth and the environment are a great example of what is meant by the term reproductive justice–where reproductive rights intersect with another social justice issue–environmental activism.

Woman gives birth on US/Mexico Border

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This story from the Houston Chronicle online reports that a border patrol agent helped a woman give birth on the banks of the Rio Grande River, on the border between Texas and Mexico.

The story is brief, and simply reports that the agent does not know whether the woman and the man accompanying her were undocumented or not, but this is just one example of what immigration in this country has devolved into.

A few years ago I worked as an advocate for Latina immigrant women in Pennsylvania, most of whom were here without documents. I helped them find prenatal care, apply for emergency medical assistance and care for their newborn children. The stories that I would hear from these women were terrifying. The trials and tribulations of crossing the border, usually in unsafe conditions, quite of few of them pregnant while crossing.

One can only imagine the desperation that would lead a woman to attempt such a crossing at nine months pregnant. One woman I worked with had ridden for hours in the trunk of a car with a few other men to cross. Countless women are abused by the people they pay (huge sums) to bring them over (called coyotes), as well as their travelling partners and I’m sure some border patrol officials once they arrive in the United States. Death rates on the border are high, with people getting lost in the desert, and dying of starvation and dehydration.

The situation with immigration continues to deteriorate, and Bush’s calls to heighten border security and build million dollar fences will not alleviate the problem. We need humane and reasonable immigration policies, that don’t discriminate against the people we rely on for manual labor, who keep this country running by working in the factories, fields, restaurants and hotels.

BE BOLD: Birth on Labor Day

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I went to an impressive play last night, written by Karen Brody entitled Birth. It’s like a Vagina Monologues, but about childbirth. Eight women, sitting on stage, sharing their birth stories with the audience and each other. Karen wrote the play after talking to over a hundred women around the United States about their childbirth experiences.

The play is being staged internationally this month, in honor of labor day and as part of a “global movement to make maternity care child friendly.”

The production in New York City, directed by Helen Marshall, was really great–an amazing group of professional actresses made up the cast. I attended a rehearsal for the show the week prior (Karen recommends that they have doulas at every rehearsal, to serve as birth “experts”) and then participated in a panel after the show, with some other great NYC birth activists, including midwife Laura Zeidenstein, doula and nurse Patricia Rangeli and Erica Lyon, the founder of Real Birth.

You can check out this page to see if there is going to be a BOLD production in your area, and think about participating next year.

My favorite line of the play: <a conversation between midwife and laboring mom>

Laboring woman: It hurts like hell!
Midwife: Great! That’s exactly how it’s supposed to feel!

Washington Post reports that childbirth deaths are on the rise

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The Washington Post reported yesterday that maternal mortality rates are on the rise (based on statistics from 2003). The article throws out a couple of ideas as to why (rising c-section rates, obesity, maternal age increases). These statistics have been used by birth advocates as evidence of the failure of the US model of maternity care, which sometimes puts the mother at more risk. The US consistently ranks at the bottom of developing countries when it comes to infant mortality.

The hardest thing to understand is how in this day and age, in a modern hospital with doctors and nurses, that somebody can just die like that.

I think those of us working with birth in today’s hospital could think of a few reasons why. Interventions done in the name of safety can have more complications than the birth itself. More drugs and more surgeries mean more risk to the mother and child.  

Some researchers point to the rising C-section rate, now 29 percent of all births–far higher than what public health experts say is appropriate. Like other surgeries, Caesareans come with risks related to anesthesia, infections and blood clots.

In addition we have major health disparities which mean that some women get excellent and consistent reproductive health care, and others get almost none. We have to find low cost and reasonable solutions for our health care crisis, and some states, like Florida, have caught on to the bright idea that alternative models of maternity care can save money. Midwifery care, because it is based on a minimal intervention model works extremely well for the average woman, and seriously reduces costs.

It’s becoming increasing obvious that our model of maternity care isn’t working–malpractice rates are through the roof, obstetricians are not delivering babies and women and children are still dying at rates that are higher than in other countries. Maybe someday soon we can start listening to the World Health Organization, who has consistently recommended cesarean and induction rates much lower than we currently have.