What happened to Freedom of Choice?
Tue, 2007-06-26 11:28
Many of the "anti" formula bloggers' comments are quite disturbing to me. It reminds me of Tom Cruise jumping up and down on a couch telling everyone to believe in the Church of Scientology because it is the only way! I would like to say to all of the anti formula users that you need to calm down and dedicate your time and energy on other things.
When we had our son, my wife wanted to breastfeed however she was unable to produce milk. Therefore we did our research and picked a formula that we thought was best. Our son just turned 3 in April and has always been very healthy. At this early age he is showing signs of great agility, incredible memory and he is very healthy, happy and if I do say so myself quite good looking young man. He already has a job appearing in print ads for a local department store.
What the anti formula bloggers do not say is that formulas are made with the child in mind and have all the nutrients (sometimes more depending upon the mother) and vitamins that a baby needs. While I am in favor of mothers who can breastfeed I also know there are mothers out there who either can not, or choose to use formula because it is their right to choose. I do not respect people who use unfounded fear to scare the public that formula is not good or you are not a good mother if you do not breast feed. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the same people that probably let little Johnny sit on his butt and play Nintendo all day long or they spoil their children any chance they get.
Tue, 2007-06-26 23:44
#2
What happened to Freedom of Choice?
Nobody here is anti-formula; no one thinks mothers who use formula are bad mothers! We are anti-formula-MARKETING in hospitals, where it has been proven to sabotage, undermine, and otherwise interfere with successful breastfeeding by mothers who have CHOSEN to breastfeed. No one opposed to this unethical and dishonest marketing is trying to force women to breastfeed against their will, nor to withhold formula from babies who need it.
We have the facts and expertise to back up our statements. You appear to have only irrational insults and one personal anecdote to back up yours -- not to mention the time-honored condescension of the male who lectures activist women to "calm down and dedicate [their] time and energy to other things." I am not impressed by your post.
I'm sorry your wife was unable to breastfeed; of course I am glad that formula was available and that your son thrived on it. Now please -- step back and think about this. Do you really believe that without a formula advertising bag handed to you by a nurse in the hospital, your son would have starved? I'm sure you and your wife would have still done careful research and been able to obtain food for your child, even if a particular formula company had not paid your hospital a large sum of money to distribute its advertising to you. Don't you agree?
What's more, if all hospitals were really on board with supporting breastfeeding, then they might be able to offer more mothers the help that they need to overcome early difficulties and breastfeed successfully. A hospital that is oriented towards cutting profitable advertising deals with a particular formula company is simply not doing its best to provide lactation training to all its postpartum nurses and skilled lactation help to all new mothers who want to breastfeed. Let me be very clear about this: our goal is not to get formula out of hospitals. Our goal is to get formula MARKETING out of hospitals.
Sun, 2009-06-14 23:07
#3
What happened to Freedom of Choice?
In my opinion,every mother knows what's good for their children.It's a matter of how they take care of their child and what is convenient for them.
Thu, 2010-05-06 08:09
#4
What happened to Freedom of Choice?
great article proud dad...........keep it up the great work
thankx.work at home on the internet
When we had our son, my wife wanted to breastfeed however she was unable to produce milk. Therefore we did our research and picked a formula that we thought was best. Our son just turned 3 in April and has always been very healthy. At this early age he is showing signs of great agility, incredible memory and he is very healthy, happy and if I do say so myself quite good looking young man. He already has a job appearing in print ads for a local department store.
What the anti formula bloggers do not say is that formulas are made with the child in mind and have all the nutrients (sometimes more depending upon the mother) and vitamins that a baby needs. While I am in favor of mothers who can breastfeed I also know there are mothers out there who either can not, or choose to use formula because it is their right to choose. I do not respect people who use unfounded fear to scare the public that formula is not good or you are not a good mother if you do not breast feed. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the same people that probably let little Johnny sit on his butt and play Nintendo all day long or they spoil their children any chance they get.
Why is the title of your post "What happened to freedom of choice?" Nothing happened to it... nobody is saying that people don't have the right to choose things. I don't think you have read all the "anti-formula" posts on this site, because hardly any of them say that mothers who don't breastfeed aren't good mothers. That's just the emotional "you're judging me" response that gets thrown back when somebody doesn't want to enter a discussion.
There is also no use of "unfounded fear" that I have seen. I have not seen anything posted here stating, "Your child will be obese, have allergies, not achieve his full potential IQ, go to the doctor all the time, and die if he is fed formula. But to deny that there are certain risk factors and to say that they are "unfounded" is untrue. There is much research to show that formula-fed infants are at higher risk for many things... it doesn't mean that they will all develop any problems, but that the risk is greater. And *that* is about information so people can really have the freedom to choose... to make a fully *informed* decision based not on fear, but on scientific facts. If a mother still cannot breastfeed - if she is one of the unfortunate rare cases where she cannot produce milk (about 95% or greater of the population can produce milk), then my heart goes out to her. Of *course* she is not a bad mother because she physically cannot produce milk - that would be a silly thing to say!
Oh, and the formulas do not contain everything the baby needs and more depending on mom's nutrition. It has been shown that babies of starving mothers in 3rd world countries still thrive on breastmilk. The baby takes what it needs from the mother. Even if you ate McDonald's three times a day every day, breastmilk would still contain things that formula will never contain for the baby's growth: breastmilk is a *living* food. The baby gets immunities to illnesses that his mother has come in contact with, and he gets a milk that changes each feeding according to his needs. Formula does not, nor will it ever, contain that.
And of course it is a good thing that formula exists as a choice... there are cases where the baby must have it due to maternal death, adoption, and the mothers who just cannot physically lactate.