{"id":1125,"date":"2013-07-21T16:27:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T20:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2014-08-07T10:01:04","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T14:01:04","slug":"normalizing-nursing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/21\/normalizing-nursing\/","title":{"rendered":"Normalizing Nursing"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was bagging up my pumped milk to freeze today, I noticed the reminder to never microwave breast milk explicitly stated on the bag.\u00a0 It reminded me of our babysitter in Dublin.\u00a0 When Sugarplum was 9 months old I started having a sitter come to the house twice a week so I could go take a dance class.\u00a0 Usually I was gone long enough that Sugarplum\u00a0required milk.<\/p>\n

I explained to the sitter (or \u201cchild minder\u201d as they are called in Ireland) that the breast milk could not go in the microwave.\u00a0 Because it was frozen I left out a tuperware and instructed her to fill the container with hot water and put the milk in it until it melted and warmed up then she could put it in the cup and give to Sugarplum.\u00a0 Every day for weeks I would come home and there would be 2 oz of milk left out of the 3 I\u2019d left.\u00a0 I started to get concerned that Sugarplum\u00a0would be one of \u201cthose\u201d babies that wouldn\u2019t ever take anything but me.\u00a0 I would usually try to give her the rest after the minder left as I hate to be wasteful (especially with things that come in limited supplies!) and she would refuse to take it.<\/p>\n

I finally realized the problem was that the minder was putting the milk itself in the water, not the bag.\u00a0 She was watering it down which 1) probably tasted bad to Sugarplum\u00a0which made her refuse it and 2) added more liquid which left me without any idea how much Sugarplum\u00a0had actually had.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t get mad at the minder, after all breastfeeding is far less common in Ireland than it is in the US and not having children herself, she probably didn\u2019t have much experience with breast milk.<\/p>\n

This memory made me wonder:\u00a0 I know the Irish rates are low, but the minder is Italian, are the rates there low as well?\u00a0 So I took to google (again!). Here\u2019s what I found:<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization\u2019s 2011 World Health Statistics Report shows the US as having a 13% exclusive breastfeeding rate at 6 months and Ireland was 15%.\u00a0 The highest rate, surprisingly was Rwanda at 88%.<\/p>\n

In 2005, Ireland had the lowest rates of children who were \u201cever breastfed\u201d out of 28 industrialized countries.\u00a0 Ireland was just over 40% whereas the US was about 75% (and 5th<\/sup> lowest) and Italy was just over 80%. The highest rates were in the Scandinavian countries (no surprise there!) with Norway, Denmark and Sweden all near 100%.\u00a0 The same source also shows rates of exclusive breastfeeding at 3, 4 and 6 months.\u00a0 Ireland is not even listed and surprisingly, Hungary had the best rate at 3, 4 and 6 months.\u00a0 The US is 4th<\/sup> lowest for 3 months, just ahead of Italy, Mexico and the UK and also 4th<\/sup> lowest for 6 months, ahead of Mexico, New Zealand and Norway.\u00a0 (see more at http:\/\/www.oecd.org\/els\/family\/43136964.pdf<\/a>)<\/p>\n

I find it real disappointing that the US rates are so low.\u00a0 Most people blame it on a lack of support for new mothers and specifically those that are nursing, and I can\u2019t disagree.\u00a0 Of course exclusive breastfeeding rates are going to drop off when breastfeeding is made more difficult by a lack of maternity leave and breastfeeding support and a cultural distaste for nursing mothers which can make mommies who do choose to breastfeed feel uncomfortable about nourishing their child.\u00a0 It also doesn\u2019t help that our culture sees bottles as the normal way to feed a baby and while they saying goes \u201cbreast is best\u201d, I think it should be followed up by \u201cbut formula is just as good\u201d because that is how our culture truly views infant feeding.<\/p>\n

\"wpid-IMG_20140330_120218.jpg\"<\/a>I don\u2019t think the misconception is intentional, I think it\u2019s due to a lack of truthful, quality information of breastfeeding and the continued portrayal of breastfeeding being unnatural, gross or even obscene.\u00a0 It is not seen in mainstream media as a normal, healthy thing.\u00a0 When you do see breastfeeding being portrayed in the media it\u2019s usually as a joke about how painful, awkward and \u201cweird\u201d it is.\u00a0 Well, I\u2019ve got almost 4 \u00bd years of breastfeeding experience and I can say, it\u2019s none of those things.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve luckily never had to defend my choice to anyone.\u00a0 Everyone in my family is super supportive of my choice and I\u2019ve never had a problem in public (aside from well-meaning family members occasionally letting me know I\u2019m \u201cshowing\u201d which truthfully I don\u2019t care about).\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m curious though, how have you experienced breastfeeding?\u00a0 If you\u2019re a mother who breastfeeds, have you ever experienced resistance or negativism to your choice?\u00a0 If you\u2019re not a breastfeeding mother, how do you feel about seeing women nursing in public?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was bagging up my pumped milk to freeze today, I noticed the reminder to never microwave breast milk explicitly stated on the bag.\u00a0 It reminded me of our babysitter in Dublin.\u00a0 When Sugarplum was 9 months old I started having a sitter come to the house twice a week so I could go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,16,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baby-business","category-breastfeeding","category-family-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5602,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions\/5602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}