Unprofessional Parenting

Mostly everyone I knew was supportive when my son was born and I decided to breastfeed. Mostly everyone. There was one member of my husband’s family who was not pleased with my decision and who made her opinion very well know. I wondered about this. With all the news and information available that proves breastfeeding the best way to feed your baby (if you are willing and able) how could this person so vehemently argue that formula was better?

I did some thinking about this and some fact checking and the answer turned out to be historical. For a brief time in the United States from about 1946-1956, formula feeding became the symbol of technological progress and (supposedly) convenience. Of course, my doubter was a mother during exactly that time period and her protestations that breast feeding my baby would starve him were a product of the overwhelming influence of formula companies during that period.

Here’s a quick run down of the interesting facts:

• Baby formula was invented in 1867 (most say by Henri Nestle but there’s a little controversy about this. See the Baby Bottle Museum online for a great information source).
• During the baby boom of the mid 1940s to the mid 1950s formula was marketed in the United States as the epitome of modern mothering.
• After the baby boom was over, formula companies began to market to non-industrialized nations to increase sales.
• This led to a drastic increase in infant mortality rates in third world countries. The problems with the marketing plan were as follows:
  • Sanitation - Not only can clean water for mixing formula be a problem in poor countries, quite obviously mothers also lacked the tools to properly sanitize bottles, nipples, etc.
  • Mothers in these countries often used less formula than the instructions stated in order to make the can last longer. Not only did children miss out on the natural antibodies in breast milk, they were literally malnourished from improperly measured formula bottles.
• In 1977 a boycott began in the United States against Nestle for what many believed were socially irresponsible marketing practices to non-industrialized countries.
• Today, breastfeeding has seen tremendous resurgence because of the push to educate mothers about the benefits for both the mother and child.

While this is obviously a very brief look at the development of infant formula, it was quite interesting for me to note since I had to deal with this conflict the entire time I nursed my son. Literally every time this woman saw my son she said “He looks hungry. I just don’t think he’s getting enough to eat.” When he reached six months old it turned to “You can’t just feed him that way forever. Just by looking at him I can tell he’s not getting enough to eat.” After my son turned a year old and began drinking milk she asked me how I managed to get him off the bottle so quickly. I explained that he never had a bottle - he went from breast to cup so it was easy. “Oh, well I guess it would be because he probably was tired of getting fed that way anyway,” was the oh-so-supportive response.

I laughed my way through all of this. Obviously this was someone who had formed an opinion long ago and nothing I could say was going to change it. That’s not to say that I wasn’t occasionally frustrated by the repeated accusations that I was starving my son. In light of the history of development and use of infant formula in the U.S. though I think it’s a testament to the power of marketing. It’s a bit scary to think of what I’ll be harassing young pregnant women and mothers about fifty+ years from now!

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