Breast is best message flawed
When I first saw the title of the article, ‘Breast is best’ message flawed, I was a bit concerned that I’d be reading something about how formula is just as good as breast milk, and that breastfeeding is somehow causing women to feel inadequate. There’s so much backlash against breastfeeding advocates these days that I’m prone to worry when I see such a curiously titled article. But a scientist out of the University of Wollongong says that the use of the phrase “Breast is best” to promote breastfeeding is misleading and fails to communicate the importance of breastfeeding, an opinion I can get behind.
“In fact, these messages may have obscured the importance of breastfeeding to infant and maternal health and the well-established risks associated with early weaning from breastfeeding,” Ms Berry said. “To say that ‘breast is best’ is to suggest that what breastfeeding offers is a handful of optional bonuses and that formula-fed infants are the normal standard for comparison. In fact, human babies were designed to be fed human milk.”
“Research has found that while most people accept that breastfed babies are healthier, they do not understand that this means that formula-fed babies are likely to be sicker. Because formula feeding is viewed as harmless, women are not getting the support they need to continue breastfeeding and to make informed choices about infant feeding. This misunderstanding demonstrates the failure of the ‘breast is best’ message and the need to rethink breastfeeding promotion”, she said.
The paper in Maternal and Child Nutrition also illuminates an important addition to the body of evidence pointing to the significance of using breastfed babies as the control group when conducting research.
The World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Multicenter Growth Reference study found that the growth of formula- fed babies deviated from that of breastfed babies and that using growth charts based on formula-fed babies could be contributing to the current obesity epidemic.
The use of formula-fed babies in control groups makes it difficult for readers to see that formula-fed babies are at increased risk of adverse health outcomes, Ms Berry said.
The WHO recommends that children are breastfed for up to two years or more and that they should not be given any food or drink other than breast milk for the first six months of their lives.
“It takes a great deal of support for mothers to reach these goals. However, mothers are not being provided with adequate support because the risks associated with early introduction of foods other than human milk are not well understood by health professionals. Furthermore, many health professionals are reluctant to talk to mothers about risks because they do not want to make mothers feel guilty. This is not about guilt. It is about a mother’s right to have all the information she needs to make an informed choice about how she should feed her baby – it is about ensuring that mothers have the support they need,” Ms Berry said.
The point about using breastfed babies as the control group, not the exception, when conducting research is especially important. Many of my friends who breastfed had children who were smaller than average according to the percentile charts. Some of these babies had to go to the doctor on a weekly basis for weight checks, causing their mothers to worry needlessly. The percentile charts used are based on formula fed babies, babies who are generally heavier than their breastfed counterparts. Using the WHO breastfed baby charts as a rule could eliminate some of this needless worry.
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February 27th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I never thought of it that way. My little guy (breast fed exclusively for 8 months) was always high on the height charts low on the weight charts. But it makes sense that a formula baby would weigh more.
So the question is, how do we advertise it?? I mean women need to be educated on the benefits of breastfeeding.