Reply to Prenatal Goody bag from Ob/gyn office

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Perhaps unsurprising, given I delivered at a "baby-friendly" hospital, I just got a lot of reading materials that shamed any woman for ever having a moment of doubt about exclusively breastfeeding.

This included a pamphlet on information about "feeding options" that went on at length about how to pump safely store breastmilk but didn't once mention anything about how to best/most safely use formula.

I'm sure that withholding of information will be of great help to the women without paid leave, workplace support to pump (lets face it, the ACA protections on that front as well as PUMP can only do so much), and at wits end to take care of their new baby. Or for women who cannot, or do not want to, breastfeed for whatever reason.

Anyways, I didn't get anything from my OB. [/quote]

This is so dumb. Breastfeeding is a universally unknown thing until you have a baby and every woman lactates, for how long and how much depends on the woman and how much support she has. The hospital was clearly trying to offer support for one of the toughest things *all women* find themselves suddenly figuring out.

You clearly have some unresolved issues you should work through if you feel attacked receiving generic pamphlets on lactation. [/quote]

I think you need to read my post closer. My point was that the brochures only contained information about breastfeeding, as opposed to also including any information about formula feeding. That biased information also had some pretty out-there rhetoric that read as shaming anyone who could not/did not want to breastfeed. I thought that approach and lack of balance in the information could have a lot of potentially harmful impacts (especially for someone struggling with all the shame that comes from not breastfeeding).

The focus on breastfeeding has gone to an extreme, I'm surprised anyone would argue against that. We need to make sure everyone has the option and support to breastfeed, no question. Past debate that the disparities in breastfeeding are the direct result of terrible policy decisions and must be addressed. At the same time, many recent studies show that the benefits are overstated or too strongly associated to other social determinants of health to stand on their own and, apart from that, it is clear that formula can be--at times, literally--lifesaving.

Regardless, we just need to focus on supporting new moms. [/quote]

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