My opinion on babies...
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Every parent is an expert on raising his or her own child. Every child is above average.
That said... I'm entitled to my opinions -
There are reasons to not breast feed your child. You may be taking drugs or medications that you don't want to pass on to your child. You may be dead or in a coma. And that about covers it. Breast feeding is healthier for your child than bottle feeding. It provides immunities and nutrients that can not be replicated. It helps heal the mother from labor. It provides comfort to a child. It is always the right temperature and carries easily. Breast pumps are not very expensive and can be used to supply an artificial demand to keep supply high for the working mother. With a little effort you can store enough milk to keep your baby fed while you are at work. It may not be for everyone, but in my opinion it should be.
There are tons of old wives' tales that give indicators on what sex your baby is. Are you carrying high? Are you hairier than usual? On and on they go. But modern medicine has much more reliable determinations of sex in the ultrasound and to a lesser extent amniocentesis. But just because you Can do something doesn't mean that you Should do something. Let your baby have its privacy. There is no need to start gendering your child before they've even left the womb.
Pacifiers can be a great tool. Some babies need something to suck on to soothe them to sleep. Some babies are very collicky and having a pacifier keeps them from eating on a full stomach. But pacifiers are way over used by the majority of parents to the point of becoming a parenting crutch. If the baby's awake, stick the plug in before they start making noise. If I see one more five-year-old tooling around with a plug in its mouth, I'll scream.
That said... I'm entitled to my opinions -
There are reasons to not breast feed your child. You may be taking drugs or medications that you don't want to pass on to your child. You may be dead or in a coma. And that about covers it. Breast feeding is healthier for your child than bottle feeding. It provides immunities and nutrients that can not be replicated. It helps heal the mother from labor. It provides comfort to a child. It is always the right temperature and carries easily. Breast pumps are not very expensive and can be used to supply an artificial demand to keep supply high for the working mother. With a little effort you can store enough milk to keep your baby fed while you are at work. It may not be for everyone, but in my opinion it should be.
There are tons of old wives' tales that give indicators on what sex your baby is. Are you carrying high? Are you hairier than usual? On and on they go. But modern medicine has much more reliable determinations of sex in the ultrasound and to a lesser extent amniocentesis. But just because you Can do something doesn't mean that you Should do something. Let your baby have its privacy. There is no need to start gendering your child before they've even left the womb.
Pacifiers can be a great tool. Some babies need something to suck on to soothe them to sleep. Some babies are very collicky and having a pacifier keeps them from eating on a full stomach. But pacifiers are way over used by the majority of parents to the point of becoming a parenting crutch. If the baby's awake, stick the plug in before they start making noise. If I see one more five-year-old tooling around with a plug in its mouth, I'll scream.
posted by mypetrock at 8:56 AM
3 Comments:
I agree with a lot of what you said . . . but not so much on the breastfeeding. Don't get me wrong, as an extended breastfeeder myself, I well know the benefits of breastfeeding.
And I admit to feeling an ugly smudge of judgement when I hear of someone who chooses not to breastfeed for what I consider to be "superficial" reasons. (For example, a woman in a playgroup I used to go to stopped breastfeeding early because she wanted her breasts to go back to their former size so that she could fit into smaller spring shirts.)
But . . . it's not as easy as you make it sound. I can't express the feeling of knowing that you, you, and only you have to be there for your baby every few hours for weeks or months or longer. Knowing that no matter what, you won't be getting more than a few hours of sleep in a row for those aforementioned weeks or months or more. I love breastfeeding, but it's not for everybody.
That, and there's something about hearing such judgement from someone who's never done it (will never do it) that rubs me the wrong way . . .
I disagree with your premise. Am I judgemental? Yes. Can I ever breast feed? No. But am I entitled to my opinion on breastfeeding? Yes. In the same way that I can say that I'm for gay marriage, that I think that abortion should be a safe and legal option, that I think that professional athletes have an obligation to avoid performance enhancing drugs, and that the Senate should keep it rules on filibustering that it has had for two hundred years even though it is keeping the President from giving lifetime appointments to reactionary judges, I feel that breastfeeding is the best way to feed your baby. I'm extremely unlikely to do it (unless I took some serious hormone treatments), but I'm also unlikely to have an abortion, to marry another man, to be a professional athlete, or to be elected to a political office. I mean seriously, how many incriminating pictures of me are there?
And I'm not a disinterested party. Every other germ farm walking around with less than a full complement of antibodies is another possible source of infection for my child. Studies have shown that breastfed kids are healthier into their adult years. Studies have shown that breastfed kids grow up to be leaner adults. All of which means that I as a health care consumer am footing the bill for non-breastfed people who happen to be sick more often. That there is science to back up my opinions doesn't hurt either.
There's a difference between having an opinion on breastfeeding and having an opinion about whether or not a specific woman should breastfeed.
Is breastfeeding the healthiest option for feeding an infant? Yes.
Should that woman over there breastfeed her children unless she's dead or in a coma? Not my place to say, or yours.
Sure, kids who are not breastfed get more colds, etc. But moms who are depressed because breastfeeding is not a perfect solution for them (or their babies!) also cause burdens on the healthcare system.
And before we go too far down the garden path of evaluating decisions that might impact the cost of health care for all, we need to take a step back and consider some element of personal freedom and civil liberty. We have *all* engaged in behaviors that were less than perfectly healthy (ahem).
Most of our decisions carry some risk. There's a difference between acknowledging that and judging those who choose differently.
(And that's leaving aside my feeling about comments like how pumping requires "a little effort." Check out A Little Bit Pregnant and RiverRocks for example. You know this already, but Lisa's experience isn't everybody's.)
http://www.alittlepregnant.com/alittlepregnant/2005/01/index.html
http://www.alittlepregnant.com/alittlepregnant/2005/02/index.html
http://threerivers.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_threerivers_archive.html
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